Op-Ed: Asbury’s Summer Stage Symptomatic of Music’s Gender Imbalance
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Summer in Asbury Park, New Jersey means the return of the Summer Stage, a parking lot extension of the famous Stone Pony venue. The walled off section allows the Stone Pony to build a massive festival-style stage to host crowds up to 4500 right next to the boardwalk. When the breeze hits just right you can inhale that sea salt air while singing along to your favorite song. To say it’s a treat is an understatement.
When this year’s Summer Stage lineup was announced, I was looking forward to getting tickets to shows for bands I’ve listened to over the years: Jack’s Mannequin, Bleachers, Prince Daddy, Joyce Manor, and so many more. But at my second glance through this year’s roster, I was left wondering why there weren’t many women, or almost any at all. Where was Beach Bunny? Japanese Breakfast? Chappell Roan? Sabrina Carpenter? Hayley Williams? Wednesday? Any or all of boygenius? Halsey? Samia? Were they and almost every other non-male band somehow all unavailable?
I’m a huge fan of the Stone Pony and the community that they foster in Asbury Park, it is no understatement to say that the Stone Pony is what saved Asbury Park in it’s darkest years. Past Summer Stage lineups have resulted in so many incredible shows and a number of positive memories for me in my 5 years living here. But there’s an opportunity to do better. The launch of this year’s lineup came with 28 headliners, and there might be fewer than 5 non-male members between them all.
It’s hard to believe that the team booking these shows haven’t realized the issue with this year’s lineup, or last year’s lineup, or the one before that… Sure, some years have been slightly better than others, but every year it gets harder to argue that they aren’t missing out on a wealth of non-male stars that could sell tickets. I’m certain that there were some artists who declined to play this year, or picked different venues instead, but these numbers are hard to hide. I witnessed Carly Rae Jepsen rocking that stage in front of a sellout crowd in swirling winds in 2023, I know there are plenty of artists who would love the opportunity to do the same.
The lack of representation in headliners isn’t isolated to the Summer Stage lineup. Another Asbury institution, the annual Sea Hear Now music festival, has made the same mistake with their lineup, with only one female headliner across their seven years (1 out of 14). This problem spans beyond our little beach town. Over the last decade it’s become a well-established issue that festival lineups are male-dominated, no matter the location or the size of the stage. In 2016, Huffington Post published Music Festivals’ Glaring Woman Problem about this exact issue, and in the past 9 years it doesn’t seem to have improved much, if at all.
There may be some who still wonder why this matters. Shouldn’t the lineups reflect the best of the best, regardless of gender? After all, non-male listeners can enjoy male performers, as I do. While the artists on the current lineup are undoubtedly talented, they aren’t representative of the music scene, the audience, or humanity as a whole. Everyone, including women, non-binary people, and trans people all deserve to see themselves represented on stage. Beyond representation across bands on the lineup, bands that encompass more than one gender provide an important example of cooperation and shared experience in a creative project, improving the artistic variety of the lyrics and sound of the band.
I don’t claim to know the gender identity of every artist on the lineup, and perhaps there’s more diversity than meets the eye. Gender representation is only one piece of the puzzle, and racial, age, sexual orientation, and genre diversity, and the intersection of these identities, are also aspects that can be improved. With the world feeling like it is literally crumbling around us, shows should be a place where everyone can feel seen, and there’s an opportunity for music venues and festivals to help make this a reality. There’s been a growth of diversity in gender, race, and perspective in other places throughout Asbury and beyond, an encouraging sign that the world is changing for the better. Let’s use one of New Jersey’s most famous stages to shape the modern era of rock and roll for the better. If any booking agents or venues are in search of up and coming artists, we happen to know this independent music website they might check out.
Written By Jessica Cole
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