Annie Mac tells MPs music industry is boys' club that's 'rigged against women'
Former BBC DJ Annie Mac has told MPs that the music industry is a "boys' club" which is "rigged against women".
The star said she was often "the only girl" on festival line-ups, and sound engineers would get into her personal space in a way they wouldn't for men. The 45-year-old, whose full name is Annie Macmanus, said she finds the lack of female artists at big events "very depressing".
Giving evidence at an inquiry into misogyny in the music industry, she said: "The music industry is a boys club ... all the people at the very top levels have the money, therefore the power, the system is kind of rigged against women."
Outlining her own experience, Ms Macmanus said: "My personal experience was I was always the only girl in the line-up, a lot of the time in the dressing room or backstage, the only artist that is a female, and that was just the way it was.
"It wasn't until a few years in, life was crazy, that I started thinking 'this isn't okay'. I remember the first time I emailed a promoter back because I got asked to DJ and they sent me the festival line-up, and the first female name was 11 rows down.
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"This was at the point where I felt I could say that... and they got quite defensive."
She also told the House of Commons' Women and Equalities Committee: "Time and time again... sound engineers would lean over you and take up your personal space and start fiddling with the volume, (they) don't even ask, they just lean in and start fiddling as if you don't know what you're doing, that has happened to me countless times.
"I know they don't do that to men because I've watched."
She said that labels and festivals are mostly run by men, stating: "The bottom tiers of festival line-ups is chock-full of women. The fact of the matter is, for all the major festivals in the UK, the only female booker is (Glastonbury's) Emily Eavis, every other festival is booked by a man.
"Yes, he may have female assistants, but it is the same as (record) labels, you have all these female executives, but all their top bosses are men. We need a woman to run a live promotion company the size of Festival Republic or Live Nation, you need women at that level, and in order to get them to that level they need to be able to feel it is an industry they can stay in and that they can be safe in, and have the menopause in, and have kids in and have maternity leave in - and still progress."
Urging the industry to "invest in young women at the start of their career", Ms Macmanus said: "Billie Eilish is managed by her parents, she is very protected and she is very precociously clever and smart, she's in a unique position to be allowed to be herself. That, to me, is an example that it can be done.
"The more Billie Eilishs, and Lizzos, and Taylor Swifts and Adeles that happen, the more people will be forced to admit that women can sell tickets."
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