32 Bands We Wish Were Playing at Sonic Temple Festival

For those rooted in the Midwest, Sonic Temple Festival in Columbus, Ohio is right around the corner, spanning three days between May 17th-19th and bringing in some of the biggest names in rock, metal, and hardcore. Aside from acts like System of a Down, Foo Fighters, and Disturbed, the festival will also showcase smaller bands like Boston Manor, Bring Me The Horizon, and Beartooth— all of which are incredible live and worth one weekend of your life. Time to dust off your Dr. Martens and pack the car full of road snacks.

As we enthusiastically card through each festival day and take note of our own must-see lineups, we can’t help but notice the apparent lack of female and mixed gender bands on the bill. Halestorm, Joan Jett, The Interrupters, In This Moment, The Distillers, and Pussy Riot are the main female acts holding the torch, six out of the total sixty artists. In a time of #MeToo, the outcry for gender equality in public and private spaces rages on. And with ever changing fan expectations, it seems a bit old-fashioned to book almost entirely male bands— 90% to be exact— in 2019. Aren’t we past this offensive, sexist practice yet?

The misrepresentation of women in music-centered spaces sends a clear message that female creativity is not valuable or respected, and hinders talented young women from pursuing music as a career. Why work day and night to climb the ladder in the music industry if eventually no one will book you for major gigs? However, it’s not just a problem at Sonic Temple Festival. Warped Tour founder Kevin Lyman has been previously challenged over the consistent lack of female artists on the historic festival’s lineup, to which Lyman blamed women, saying there aren’t enough female bands out there to book on the tour.

This year, Ariana Grande will make history as the fourth female artist to ever headline the popular west coast festival, Coachella, joining three previous female performers, Björk, Lady Gaga, and Beyoncé, two of which performed within the last two years. Counting the musicians slated for 2019, there will have been 55 headliners since the festival’s inception almost 20 years ago. A small victory among an ocean of systemic flaws.

Pitchfork put together a comprehensive breakdown by gender for 20 festivals in 2017 and 2018, which is worth a read, here. Further validation that female visibility is a serious problem, in graph and word form. We will never look at Chicago’s Lollapalooza in quite the same way.

Nearly every genre and platform overtly excludes women from performances, and those in positions of power make excuses over and over again for why the status quo exists. There will never be an adequate explanation, and by attempting to create one, they shift the blame from themselves onto the victim. Misogyny manifests in numerous ways, from social exclusion to male privilege to androcentrism— or in other words, placing a masculine point of view at the center of one’s culture, world view, and ultimately history. Each marginalizes femininity and stifles the fight against institutional sexism.

It’s critical that festival organizers, promoters, artists, and label executives acknowledge the need for equal representation and contribute to conversations surrounding females in the industry. In 2017, Julie Greenwald— the Atlantic Records COO named Executive of the Year at the Billboard Women in Music Awards— explained, “Now more than ever, it’s incumbent on every one of us to raise up the next generation of female leaders, so at the future Women in Music events, the executive of the year will stand up here and thank a woman for being her mentor. Now it’s time to change the industry for the better. It’s all right here, in how we support each other, in how we’re committed to providing young women with a safer environment free from harassment and discrimination.”

To bring light to the glaring gender gap, and help open the eyes for those saying “there are no female artists!", we’ve put together a list of 32 female and mixed gender bands— along with our favorite tracks— that Sonic Temple Festival could have willingly chosen to secure in their hardcore lineup. We wish these ladies and gents the best of luck and hope to see more of them in the coming years.

Be sure to check out each band and help push the conversation forward by speaking up on social channels about the need for more female and mixed gender acts. Comment daily on festival, label, and media Facebook pages if you have to, and enlist 15-20 friends to do the same. Stalking Instagram pages and Twitter feeds is highly encouraged. Godspeed.