The BRIT awards (the U.K.'s version of the Grammy's) introduced an Artist Of The Year category this year as a gender neutral replacement for Best Male and Best Female Artist categories. But you guessed it-- all five nominees this year turned out to be male. Oops!
Total and utter backlash has ensued in every London newspaper. The BBC, Telegraph, NME and many more are very angry. When the male- and female-specific categories were eliminated, industry commentators had warned that going gender-neutral in a male-dominated industry would lead to women being sidelined. And it looks like they might be right.
The BRIT awards organization had previously stated that they chose a non-gender specific award to make them "even more inclusive, recognizing exceptional work rather than how artists identify.” Unfortunately, female artists lost out and whatever the intention, the result doesn’t look “more inclusive.”
In reaction, there are some journalists doubling down on the gender-neutral categories and actually saying that there should be a mandatory rule that 50% of the nominees should be women. Guardian columnist Owen Jones said, "My view is gender neutral awards should reserve 50% of nominations for women. Women represent a majority of the music industry workforce, so the Academy making the nominations should also be weighted to be at least 50% women, too.”
If you're going to switch to a gender neutral award category, but allocate 50% of the slots to men and 50% to women-- isn't that the same as having separate nominees for men and women? If the whole point of having industry awards is to promote an industry, then shouldn't the goal be to give out more awards rather than less? It looks like the idea of gender neutral categories is now gaining traction over on this side of the pond. I'm not sure what the right approach is, but it looks like we're still struggling with this issue.
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