The BRITs go gender neutral

[insight 2,435]

Battle of the sexes is ON

[StrawberryBlond 14,865]

Even thought the Grammys have had gender netural categories for quite some time now, hearing that the BRITS are doing it isn't a good idea for their format. The Grammys have loads of awards across multiple genres, the BRITS have always had a small selection of awards and they have already dwindled over time. Remember in 2010 when Gaga won Best New International Artist, Best International Female and Best International Album? That could never happen today because they removed best new international artist and best international album. Basically, international acts only have one possible award to win at the BRITS after they're no longer new. So, for it to be dwindled further still by introducing gender neutral categories is overkill. Yes, they've introduced 4 new awards but that's clearly because they realised that without them, there would only be 8 awards to give out, which isn't much of a show. If anything, the BRITS need more categories, not less. More categories equals more inclusivity. By further expanding upon all the different ways art can be awarded, it means we get a much bigger range of artists being nominated across categories. And with everyone competing in one category, it's going to be a tight battle to see who can claim one of the top 5 nomination spots, which will probably just got to the 5 most popular artists. With male/female division, 5 big names would get noticed, respectively. Now only 5 names overall will get represented, which literally isn't inclusive, more like a really strict nightclub bouncer only letting in the most profitable names The fact females were dominating at the BRITS this year, you know that's just an occasional blip. It'll be back to business as usual with men winning majority awards next year, now even moreso. I think it'll only be in that moment that the organisers will realise what they've done. I really hope the Oscars don't follow suit. Best Actor and Actress is iconic, it's a loss to the culture by taking that away.

Let's be real, most people take male artists over female, thinking they're of higher talent, generally speaking. Put into one category, males are likely to dominate. By everyone competing together, you get less chances of winning, obviously, you stand even lesser chance of nomination. There's also a chance it'll only be the biggest names year after year with no chance for a smaller name to be noticed like they would have if there had been gender categories. And non-binary people, considering that they're rare and even rarer for them to be in the music industry, will have less chance of nomination/win because they'll be up against the most popular names. Is the solution to give them their own category? Sounds ideal but there are so few artists who are non binary and to have this small amount compete in their own section isn't fair on those who only have a 1 in 5 chance of winning. If there's only, say, 2 other nominees, you winning an award won't mean as much because you had less people to beat. So, I predict this action will be detrimental to non binary people too. It is possible to have gendered categories but still be all about the music. It's because you're into music that lots of categories are a plus. And just because a female may win the first ever gender neutral award doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to be 50/50 wins from here out. Historically, making men and women compete together resulted in women losing. Seperationism, is, in this case, the best way to let everyone, regardless of gender identity, be noticed, stand out and just have their moment to shine. Separating to bring about more awards, instead of reducing categories, is the way to go.

[Bleachella 2,932]

12 minutes ago, StrawberryBlond said:

Even thought the Grammys have had gender netural categories for quite some time now, hearing that the BRITS are doing it isn't a good idea for their format. The Grammys have loads of awards across multiple genres, the BRITS have always had a small selection of awards and they have already dwindled over time. Remember in 2010 when Gaga won Best New International Artist, Best International Female and Best International Album? That could never happen today because they removed best new international artist and best international album. Basically, international acts only have one possible award to win at the BRITS after they're no longer new. So, for it to be dwindled further still by introducing gender neutral categories is overkill. Yes, they've introduced 4 new awards but that's clearly because they realised that without them, there would only be 8 awards to give out, which isn't much of a show. If anything, the BRITS need more categories, not less. More categories equals more inclusivity. By further expanding upon all the different ways art can be awarded, it means we get a much bigger range of artists being nominated across categories. And with everyone competing in one category, it's going to be a tight battle to see who can claim one of the top 5 nomination spots, which will probably just got to the 5 most popular artists. With male/female division, 5 big names would get noticed, respectively. Now only 5 names overall will get represented, which literally isn't inclusive, more like a really strict nightclub bouncer only letting in the most profitable names The fact females were dominating at the BRITS this year, you know that's just an occasional blip. It'll be back to business as usual with men winning majority awards next year, now even moreso. I think it'll only be in that moment that the organisers will realise what they've done. I really hope the Oscars don't follow suit. Best Actor and Actress is iconic, it's a loss to the culture by taking that away.

Let's be real, most people take male artists over female, thinking they're of higher talent, generally speaking. Put into one category, males are likely to dominate. By everyone competing together, you get less chances of winning, obviously, you stand even lesser chance of nomination. There's also a chance it'll only be the biggest names year after year with no chance for a smaller name to be noticed like they would have if there had been gender categories. And non-binary people, considering that they're rare and even rarer for them to be in the music industry, will have less chance of nomination/win because they'll be up against the most popular names. Is the solution to give them their own category? Sounds ideal but there are so few artists who are non binary and to have this small amount compete in their own section isn't fair on those who only have a 1 in 5 chance of winning. If there's only, say, 2 other nominees, you winning an award won't mean as much because you had less people to beat. So, I predict this action will be detrimental to non binary people too. It is possible to have gendered categories but still be all about the music. It's because you're into music that lots of categories are a plus. And just because a female may win the first ever gender neutral award doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to be 50/50 wins from here out. Historically, making men and women compete together resulted in women losing. Seperationism, is, in this case, the best way to let everyone, regardless of gender identity, be noticed, stand out and just have their moment to shine. Separating to bring about more awards, instead of reducing categories, is the way to go.

Let’s look at the last few years of the Brits: 

Since 2012, 4 times the award of Best British Album (a non-gendered category) has gone to a woman, twice being to Adele. For Best British Single, the award has gone to a woman 5 times since 2012, 4 times if you don’t count Ella Eyre’s win with Rudimental since she was just a feature (and technically so was Dua Lipa but Calvin Harris was just the producer so). Again, these are non-gendered categories that have gone to women 4-5 times in the last decade each. 

Let’s look at the Grammys, but only at the genera categories. In the last decade, the award for Album of the Year has gone to a woman 6 times. In Record of the Year, 5 times, 4 without counting Kimbra’s win with Gotye. In Song of the Year, 7 of the last 10 winners have been women, 6 without counting Janelle Monae for We Are Young. In Best New Artist, half of the 10 winners have been women. 

I think the mindset of “Well there’s not enough non-binary people to make a non-binary category so they just have to go into gendered categories” is a really problematic one to hold but one that makes sense coming from a cis woman. You are asking people to resign themselves to a category that literally does not match up with their gender. It’s problematic at best and transphobic at worst. I saw someone here earlier say that non-binary artists should just pick what gender they fit best in. Like huh? Sure, there are masc presenting and femme presenting non binary people just as much as there are androgynous non binary people, but they aren’t men or women. They are non-binary. To ask them to “choose which gender they fit best with” is incredibly offensive and ignorant… I know that wasn’t something you wrote (explicitly anyways) but I felt the need to bring it up. 

At the end of the day, looking at the non-gendered categories from these two major awards bodies (the Brits and the Grammys), it’s pretty clear that the split leans toward 50/50 over the last decade. So that does the whole “women won’t win as much” argument in. Separating categories by gender is not the best way for everyone to win - because it inherently erases every artist who does not identify within the gender binary. Unless you’re not counting them within your “everyone”, which is a different problem altogether. 

[moonsago 7,285]

I fear this is the blind spot of the whole gender conversation, as much as I understand the movement and agree with aspects of it, we can’t forget that this world is still a male dominated one, we haven’t reached the level of equality to break down all these gender roles and rules everywhere... I think this movement and it’s evolution should be gradual and not happen all at once because there are multiple aspect at play, like the sex quality topic. This is going to present itself as a disadvantage for the female contenders. As much as I love the idea of inclusivity, I wish grammy’s would of stayed the same too for another reason which is that awards shows are a losing game anyway. There are multiple artists that do great during the running year and this way we could of had at least 2 of them per category win. It’s unfair and foolish anyway to choose 1 or even 2 people and say ‘yes this one or these to represent the best of the year’ but at least 2 is still better than one. I know this is a side discussion to the topic and it’s not as much gender related or even sex as it is more related to how I view these award shows. But yeah, this seems like a good idea but as I said, I think it’s happening at a moment in society when we haven’t progressed enough in terms of equality in general to break down gender everywhere. I hope this makes sense. 

[RAMROD 109,604]

Isn't this undercutting the Actressses thi? Cos we know for sure most straight men will win 99% of the time 

[Born This Way 1,789]

Isn't this just like the Grammys then?