We’re trying hard to get more women on the bill, but there are still more male bands. So, it’s got to start from lower down. Girls have got to be encouraged to learn instruments in school. Women and girls do have a huge amount of talent, but we’ve got to start from a young age to make an equal number of women and men in music.
– Bella Gaffney, The Magpies
A few months ago, we announced our exciting new partnership with The Magpies Festival, which is led by an all-female team of acclaimed folk musicians. Each member of the festival’s namesake band, The Magpies, is a woman-role model in her own right.
We’re sending a group of 20 GFS girls to the festival to try new things – including meeting Bella and Holly for a behind the scenes experience.
So, we had a chat with Magpies’ singer-songwriter, guitar and banjo player, Bella Gaffney, to share more about being a woman in music.
Bella shared how she struggled to find modern women in folk music to inspire her, having to look farther back to women like, Janis Ian and Joni Mitchell, whose careers both started in the 1960s, and Tracy Chapman, whose career started in the 1980s.
Bella said:
I think being a role model is really important. I can’t remember seeing many women perform when I was younger. And so, I think just doing it, getting up there and doing it, letting people see that it can be done. And obviously with the festival, Holly’s trying to make it as inclusive as possible and give opportunities for women on the stage and in in the backstage environment, as well.
The Magpies Festival is for inspiring gender equality at all levels.
Of course, we can all feel inspired by legendary women in music. But it can be easier for girls and young women to see their ability to play music when they see young women doing it now.
As young women in folk music today, The Magpies as a band and festival organisers, have such power to positively influence girls and young women. And it gives everyone an opportunity to see the positive impact of equal gender representation too.
Bella said:
The biggest thing that Holly and I absolutely love, is if you play a gig and a mum comes rushing up to us and they’re like, ‘my daughters’ taking up guitar because she’s she saw you playing.’
Representation on and off-stage teaches that women can do anything in music. The equal representation at all levels of the Magpies Festival helps set a tone that feels safe, welcoming and inspiring for all who attend.
Bella said:
The more people are included the more included everybody feels. And I think for me, that the most important thing. Everything’s better when things are more equal.
Because when there’s gender parity in every part of the festival, it creates a space that re-enforces that girls and women really do belong everywhere and can do anything.
And as far as setting the right tone goes, Bella’s been told the Magpies Festival is the friendliest festival!
Bella uses her voice to help set the tone for the festival
In folk music bands are always introduced by MCs. And while this isn’t the case of all male MCs, often bands of female musicians like the Magpies are introduced by simply their gender or as ‘pretty’ and ‘lovely – all things that have little to do with what their music sounds like.
So, at the Magpies Festival, Bella’s the MC!
Bella said:
I’m the only the only woman MC I’ve ever met. And that gives me the opportunity to introduce people the way that I think that they should be introduced. In a really positive way that sets them up feeling happy for a good gig, rather than, ‘oh, he just said something sexist, and now I’ve gotta play 40 minutes of music.’
When you’re young, it can feel difficult or overwhelming to challenge gender inequality and demand inclusion. We work hard at GFS to support our girls to have the confidence and self-belief to use their voices, but it’s just as important for them to have women role models to pave the way for them in the world outside of our groups.
The work Bella and the Magpies are doing as musicians and with their festival is a fantastic example of women making space for girls and young women.
At GFS, we’re now absolutely buzzing for the festival to start. We’d love you to join us. Information about the festival can be found at www.themagpiesfestival.co.uk