Women Need to Step Up?

According to Neil Portnow, The Grammy’s President, the reason women don’t win many awards is because they fail to “step up” in the music industry. Equality for women is something that’s been rising up in the media for a while now, so you’d expect that he’d have some super motivational or pump up quotes prepared for the Grammys, well he didn’t. Instead of pumping up women in the industry, he highlighted the reason(s) they don’t get as many awards as men, “Women who have the creativity in their hearts and souls, who want to be musicians… [They need] to step up.”

Portnow also went on to state that he doesn’t have any experience with the brick walls that women face and that, as an industry, they need to make it clear that the welcome mat is very obvious. Obviously this statement made many people angry and upset. He is practically stating that even though women face obstacles that men don’t, they still don’t make it to the top.. but oh you’re still welcome in the industry anyways.

Many female artists expressed their opinions on Twitter after his speech, “Female artists came HARD in 2017.” said Halsey and “Women have been stepping up since the beginning of time. Stepping up, and also stepping aside…” said Pink. There are so many powerful female artists throughout the industry and they have definitely claimed their spots on the pedestal of popularity, so the fact they are getting cut down is absurd.

After receiving all the backlash from his comment, Portnow made an apology statement, “I regret that I wasn’t as articulate as I should have been.” He continued his statement by saying that ‘step up’ was incorrect and was taken out of context, “Our industry must recognize that women who dream of careers in music face barriers that men have never faced. We must actively work to eliminate these barriers and encourage women to live their dreams and express their passion and creativity through music.” Women are powerful and will not be shut down, women in the music industry and incredibly talented and put forth hard work to get where they are today.