#GrammysSoMale: Backlash After Only One Woman Awarded During Broadcast
The 60th Annual Grammy Awards were a night of triumph and emotional celebration—but there was one detail that had viewers upset: Only one woman was presented an award during the three-plus hour live broadcast.
Alessia Cara was the only female nominee to win on-camera, taking home the Grammy for Best New Artist. Rihanna did join Kendrick Lamar on-stage when he won for Best Rap/Sung Performance on “LOYALTY,” but only because of her guest appearance on the song.
There was also outrage over the Best Pop Solo Performance, which went to the only male nominee in the category, Ed Sheeran. Social media was quick to respond to this with the trending #GrammysSoMale. See what some people had to say below:
Congratulations to all the men who won #Grammys during tonight’s telecast. Oh, and they also gave 1 woman an award during the broadcast show too!!!!!!
— Perez (@ThePerezHilton) January 29, 2018
this says it all –@nytimes January 26, 2018 pic.twitter.com/R3YdHwieXf
— Sonja Yelich (@sonjayelich1) January 26, 2018
2017 was a 6-year low for female artists, only 16.8% of popular artists were women. #TimesUp #Grammys2018
— Janelle Monáe, Cindi (@JanelleMonae) January 28, 2018
Real Feel™ surrounding all the #grammys snubs for all the women who created art this year, bared their souls and still didn’t get proper recognition pic.twitter.com/Bc2Yi3fm7Z
— Meredith Renee (@merewilsh) January 29, 2018
When asked about the #GrammysSoMale trend, Recording Academy President, Neil Portnow had this to say:
“It has to begin with… women who have the creativity in their hearts and souls, who want to be musicians, who want to be engineers, producers, and want to be part of the industry on the executive level… [They need] to step up because I think they would be welcome.
He continued, “I don’t have personal experience of those kinds of brick walls that you face but I think it’s upon us—us as an industry—to make the welcome mat very obvious, breeding opportunities for all people who want to be creative and paying it forward and creating that next generation of artists.”
Time will tell if there will be any changes made to the show’s format to make it more inclusive. But with all the change taking place in other corners of Hollywood, a Grammy shakeup would not be surprising.
Do you think the Grammys were unfair? Sound off in the poll and comments below:
