A member of Canberra's answer to Russia's Pussy Riot, punk band Glitoris, who perform naked in glitter, is calling for more women to perform live music, saying numbers are "alarmingly" low.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Glitoris bassist and Canberran Sophie Chapman said her new survey revealed that just 16 per cent of Canberra musos are women.
"I spent a couple of days compiling a list of Canberra's bands and solo acts and then I looked into the different band members, and got lots more recommendations," she said.
She counted 203 bands, finding 632 men and 126 women.
"Only 27 per cent of the bands that I looked at are a mix of both female and male musicians, that's 54 bands. It gets worse ... 44 per cent of those 54 bands have only one woman in them," she said
"The results are alarming. I knew that male musicians were in the majority, but not by quite this much ... not only are women in the minority, they are in the vast minority," she said.
As well as performing in the band, Ms Chapman is a long-standing member of the scene, after making her debut in the Isabella Plains Primary School band and attending the ANU Music School.
Ms Chapman said her experiences made her curious as to why she was often the odd girl out.
"I've been playing music throughout the years and often people say 'oh it's so good to see a girl playing' and for me I'm a trombonist so a lot of people come up to me at the end of gigs and saying 'oh it's so good to see a girl playing the trombone" and it got a little bit old," she said.
"I wanted to quantify the actual situation, and make it official to know exactly what is going on," Ms Chapman said.
In order to make the list, the bands and acts had to play predominantly original music and played live in the last 12 months.
And she stands by the gist of her results. "There might be a few double-ups but as far as the sample goes I think it's fairly good," she said.
Ms Chapman and three other women founded Glitoris as both a musical outlet and a feminist statement. They dose themselves in glitter on stage, their nudity a stark contrast to a culture that fetishises fake bodies.
"It's reclaiming the images of women in society and making it a real one that's not Photoshopped, that's not weirdly skinny, that's not waxed to the nth degree. It's putting real bodies out there," she said.
"We get all funky and glittery and play music. We're naked on stage but once you've seen that, it doesn't really matter does it?"
While she does not expect other performers to be so bold, when it comes to solutions Ms Chapman is still befuddled.
"I've got a bunch of theories.
