Here’s the thing. This trend of “more men than women” is representative of a greater problem: of inequality, of an inherent imbalance in society, of preferential treatment based on your gender. It’s a problem that women often have to argue and fight and lay out example after example of, just to give credence to the idea that it is a problem. It’s a problem because, according to the status quo, there’s no problem – everything’s running just fine. So many people blame inequality (in any industry) on the idea that “that’s just how it is.” “Well, there are just more talented bands with men in them than women.” That’s just the landscape, right? And since you’ve come to accept such a landscape as the status quo, of course that means that there is nothing is wrong with it. It must be that way for a reason, right? And what isn’t broken doesn’t need to be fixed – so what’s the problem?* Here is one of the most important things you need to realize if you want to be involved in this conversation: The status quo is not okay. The problem to acknowledge here is that the status quo is not okay. The status quo is based on a favored treatment of men in all facets of society. And that favored treatment is something that’s reinforced on a thousand different levels. It’s reinforced by the media’s projection of the idea that women are objects, and must be perfect human specimens in order to be valued. It’s reinforced by the hopeless double standard that makes it far less acceptable for women to express themselves sexually outside of a committed relationship than men, who are both encouraged to do so and praised for it. It’s reinforced in unequal pay for equal work. It’s reinforced when male bands and musicians are offered and/or win the majority of slots on a festival. It’s reinforced when a man sitting in Congress has more say over what a woman can do with her body than she does. It’s reinforced when the Internet explodes with angry and besmirching cries of “slut” when a man is sexually assaulted on stage, yet virtually ignores the countless ways in which sexual harassment is a day-to-day concern for women. That preferential treatment is called sexism, and it’s how society has taught us to behave, how to construct our value systems. It is systemic and almost impossible to free yourself entirely from it. Women, generally speaking, are not granted the autonomy to do as they please in the same way that men are, not without facing a specific set of consequences, all sorts of criticism, and plenty of people questioning their behavior. It’s a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t reality that women have to deal with every single day, whether they realize it or not. Specifically, in our scene, there are plenty of women who will openly tell you about the discrimination they face, whether it’s the condescending and denigrating tone that comes as someone lobs the term “fangirl” at you, having venue staff question your presence backstage before you pick up your guitar to play the show, or being groped by a stranger somewhere in the thick of a crowd. The thing about the word “sexism” is that it’s a scary word. We all agree, nearly universally, that sexism is bad. And that’s a great thing! That stance is leagues ahead of where human civilization was hundreds of years ago, when women couldn’t show their ankles or vote or hold jobs of value or pray to their god in the same physical space as men (still looking at you, Orthodox Judaism). But the connotations of the term “sexist” – the stereotype of a perpetrator whose agenda is to assert man’s dominance in society – paint a scathing portrait. This person must actively hate women. This person must not want women to succeed. This person is prone to misogynistic behavior and is probably a wife-beater. I am a woman – I identify as one, I was assigned that gender at birth – so I can’t speak to what goes through a man’s head when he is accused of acting sexist. But I imagine he might feel, if he has not committed any physically damaging or emotionally detrimental acts against the women in his life, that he doesn’t actually qualify. The thing is: even if one’s behavior isn’t violently or outrageously misogynistic, sexism is baked into all of us (women included) in tiny, almost microscopic ways. That subtlety is what makes it so difficult to eradicate. It’s manifested when an unfamiliar man touches a woman by her waist and disrupts her personal space (and possibly her sense of safety) in order to scoot by her in a crowd, rather than using his voice and a universally accepted “excuse me.” It shows itself every time a man laughs off a woman’s behavior or reduces her emotional state to “she’s just on the rag,” that subtle assertion that his state of being is somehow of higher quality than hers, even though we’re all subject to the tethers of our own bullshit human biology. It rears its head when people dismiss the interests of teen girls as silly and inconsequential, as if a rabid affinity for professional sports is somehow a superior hobby to a die-hard love for One Direction or Fall Out Boy. Hell, it arises any time we use the term “girl” as a synonym for “weak” or “emotional,” and you know we all grew up doing this. And, it will definitely become apparent when someone inevitably reads this article, waves a hand, declines to consider any of my words, and says, “there’s no problem here” despite every single example I’ve laid out above. After all, society has taught us to disassociate ourselves from sexism. But what society doesn’t teach us, unfortunately, is just how pervasive the small actions and attitudes that make up the consummate whole of sexism actually are. These things are not overt, and recognizing them is a learning process. But, I digress. By continuing to create unbalanced gender environments and leaning on the status quo as an excuse, we, as a society, are communicating to women that these spaces are not for them. We are telling the marginalized that it’s the job of men to run things and to run them to their liking. And if women don’t like it, the fault is laid at the feet of women for not showing up more, for not trying harder – all without realizing that, by maintaining the status quo, these male dominated spaces discourage anyone who identifies as anything else from even becoming involved, much less thriving. The “answer” to this problem of imbalance in the music scene which keeps getting hurled around is “more people who aren’t men need to start bands.” But just saying that does not magically create a solution, because the space still isn’t accepting enough for more non-men to feel like they can start bands. Decreeing “more women need to start bands” isn’t a solution, it’s a deflection. It’s an excuse to avoid examining the problem so that you don’t have to admit that there is one. It’s yet another bullshit justification for refraining from facing what’s going on. It’s a way around having to consider that your truth, and your status quo, may not be as comfortable or okay for other people as it is for you. No one likes to be told what they’re doing is wrong – but it’s damn well time that we start thinking about ways that we can do better.