Brits get rid of separate male & female awards

[Theeyeballsinthesky]

From next year it will be an award for best artist.

Be interesting to see how the winners go…..

Ah so the male dominated industry will now have a male dominated award show too.

This is quite old but it shows that women are under represented at the Grammys:

news.usc.edu/135288/in-music-industry-female-songwriters-and-producesr-are-outnumbered-by-men/

I think the problem is that incredibly successful individual performers like Beyoncé, Adele and Taylor Swift hide the fact that it's harder for women to find jobs and get recognition as songwriters, producers etc.

A lot of issues in a lot of places could be solved by having a women's prize/race/game/place for women, and a 'freestyle' where men, NB people, people with sex differences, anyone could place.

Men would still win 99.9% of the freestyle events but it would be inclusive. And women wouldn't be invisible.

Female artist get about 20% airplay across radio stations, on some it’s minuscule (Absolute Radio). This has made an uneven playing field even worse.

Another example of women not being allowed anything for ourselves. Destroyed by an egotistical male. Nothing much changes.

Slow Clap Sam Smith. Well done for screwing over women.

I just saw on the news the news reader refer to the non-binary man as ‘they’. The news reader could have just used the persons’ name.

So there it is in the mainstream going out as an accepted way of speaking to the whole of our society.

Think of all the years, decades, where men who wore skirts or make up won music awards.

No one bothered to ask them if they were non-binary and wanted to be nominated

Of all the career roles surely being a musician has always been the one where men could be feminine in presentation with zero negative reaction, in fact frequently with positive ones, excessively positive ones in some cases.

SS clearly needs a music history lesson.

@SinisterBumFacedCat that is interesting - is that data readily available?

Would it be churlish of me to say I hope Sam Smith doesn't win?

I was thinking about the sports personality of a year as a similar process which has never been sex segregated. Women and men's sport has quite different levels of visibility so that's perhaps unfair that there hasn't been a women's award. The last female winner was Zara Phillips in 2006.

@OldCrone

This is from the BBC article about this:

Artists like Sam Smith and Will Young had previously called for the change, saying the current system excludes non-binary artists.

Smith, who is non-binary, missed out on a nomination at this year's awards.

Their album, Love Goes, reached number two in the UK chart, but they felt unable to enter the gender-based categories.

Do people really believe that if someone identifies as non-binary it means that they no longer have a sex?

Sam Smith likes wearing a slight block heel, wearing eyeliner and watching rom-coms.

He couldn't possibly enter a 'mens' category....

I will definitely be boycotting The Brits now. Bloody ridiculous thing to do. What next? Gender neutral Olympics? Football? Tennis??? Where do we draw the line?

MajesticWine www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/music/2021/sep/16/gender-disparity-in-uk-radio-report-shows-minor-improvements-on-2020

It’s quite shocking how little airplay female artists get. It’s very imbalanced.

I almost wondered if Sam Smith was secretly gender critical and doing this to make a statement about how ridiculous it is that a person can use their white, male privilege to wipe out opportunities for large numbers of women.

"The Brits Academy have been under pressure from musicians including Sam Smith, a former winner, who'd argued the current categories excluded non binary artists like him, those who identify as neither male nor female."

So has Sam retrospectively publicly renounced and dissociated themselves from their earlier award - as they presumably believe that they never had any right or entitlement to be given it in the first place?

Or is it yet another case of pulling up the 'principles' rope ladder behind you when you're safely at the top?

@Todayissunny

I heard this on the bbc. They said it was to include non-binary and not to base it on the gender artists 'identify' with. They then said Grammys have done this for 12 years and so far awards have been 50-50. 50% for male 50% for female. That means zero awards in 12 years for people identifying as non-binary. Woke but not woke to justify woke. Confused? I am!

They just tie themselves up in knots with all this!

So funny!

And the nominees for 2027 best artist are:

• The Spice Cervix-havers
• Boyz II transwomen
• Backstreet Nonbinaries

They've just had some guy on GMB all for this, and India Willoughby (a trans woman) against.

This sounds like 'white privilege' from CRT. (white) Women are privileged and therefore their oppression isn't really oppression at all and if black women also object, then their privileged too.

@HipTightOnions

BBC news also reported that this was done at Sam Smith's behest.

What influence Sam has!

Has he come out of his mansion now? Last I knew he was busy staring out the window.

Here's an up-to-date analysis on the Grammys,
annenberg.usc.edu/news/research-and-impact/annenberg-inclusion-initiatives-annual-report-popular-music-reveals-little

It goes into some detail to explain why women are underrepresented both in the music industry as a whole and in nominations. Unless there are dedicated categories for female musicians, this is just going to keep on happening.

Thank you for the link, I saw someone mention the Grammys and was searching for something about it.

A lot of issues in a lot of places could be solved by having a women's prize/race/game/place for women, and a 'freestyle' where men, NB people, people with sex differences, anyone could place.

Men would still win 99.9% of the freestyle events but it would be inclusive. And women wouldn't be invisible.

I was thinking about this method, I was wondering how it would go down with people.

It's a sex based category, Sam, not gender based. Poor Sam, so hard done by but somehow has enough clout to influence far reaching decisions

We used to have a phrase for that. The second word is 'privilege'.

In a way I'm quite glad this has happened. If we see the majority of awards going to men it might be a good way to illustrate just how misogynist this gender ideology is.

@fernfarm

In a way I'm quite glad this has happened. If we see the majority of awards going to men it might be a good way to illustrate just how misogynist this gender ideology is.

Your more optimistic than me, I just see this as another way for women to loose out and for no one to give a shit. (Current status quo really)

Wait, what? The patriarchy has been smashed? Awesome!

Thanks Sam Smith and Will Young for using your white male privilege to ensure women have equality before stomping your feet on us to show how speshul you are. It's great that women no longer need our own categories for anything to counter the male bias in these things. Hurrah.

Oscars Best Director category has been gender neutral since forever and women just keep winning! Oh, wait....

It's been suggested before, for things like sports, refuges, prisons etc, where resources really are limited to two distinct categories, and obviously females need their own category for safety, fairness and dignity etc.

Keep women/female category.

Make the men's category more inclusive for non binary, gender non conforming, genderqueer folk. Educate men better to be more accepting and inclusive.

People like Sam Smith who don't identify as men but still need a category without destroying the women's category would fit neatly into the men's plus.

So we ditch the idea of women's and men's, we move to women's and men's plus. Or Menz+.