David Mills: Cult of gender neutrality will harm women
Singer Sam Smith’s choice to go gender neutral and be known as “they” has triggered a rush from award ceremonies to reconsider their male and female categories. No prizes for how this will turn out, writes David Mills.
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Sam Smith has always annoyed the hell out of me.
Ever since I first heard those whiny vocals on radio back in 2014, I’ve been irritated by everything that’s tumbled out of that mouth.
I recognise I’m in a minority here. A lot of people seem to love Sam Smith.
But I couldn’t stand those singles and his constant yabbering about sexuality in interviews. And when he claimed to be the first openly gay Oscar winner (when The Writing’s On The Wall won the award for best original song in 2016), I hated his ignorance of history. Dustin Lance Black won the Oscar for Best Screenplay for Milk in 2008, and our own Adam Elliot thanked his “beautiful boyfriend Dan” when he won the Oscar for Best Animated Short for Harvie Krumpet in 2004.
So everything that Sam Smith does is pretty much guaranteed to prompt a massive eye roll from me.
The news that the Brit awards is reviewing gender-specific categories has prompted some eye rolling too, and also some deeper concern about where the shift away from gender in artistic awards categories will lead us.
Brit awards are considering dropping the “best male artist” and “best female artist” award categories from 2021 onwards.
(Stay with me on this.)
According to reports, the Brits could feature just one top award, “best artist,” which will be open to everybody — part of a trend sweeping through award shows.
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The MTV Video Music Awards dispensed with its gender-specific awards back in 2017, and there have been calls for the Oscars to follow suit. (But can you really imagine the Academy choosing between Meryl Streep and Dustin Hoffman, or Cate Blanchett and Leonardo Di Caprio?)
The Brit award announcement came not long after singer Sam Smith revealed on social media that he was non-binary gendered.
“After a lifetime of being at war with my gender I’ve decided to embrace myself for who I am, inside and out,” the 27-year-old singer posted on Instagram on September 13. “I’m scared shitless, but feeling super free right now. Be kind x.”
“My pronouns are they/them,” Smith advised in the post.
The singer’s Wikipedia page shows how this works in practice.
“They were an alumnus of Youth Music Theatre UK,” the site states. “For a number of years they studied singing and songwriting under jazz pianist Joanna Eden … They were a member of the Bishop’s Stortford Junior Operatics and the Cantate Youth Choir.”
And so it continues, those clunky pronouns sticking out like speedhumps on a freeway.
Outspoken commentator Piers Morgan slammed the idea, warning that such a move would ultimately prove detrimental to female artists, as men would end up winning the bulk of the gongs and trophies.
Three years into the new genderless award regime at the MTV Video Awards, it should be noted that such fears have not yet been realised.
In 2017, four men and two women were shortlisted for the award, which was ultimately taken out by a man (Ed Sheeran); in 2018 there were equal numbers of male and female nominees, and the winner was a woman (Camilla Cabello); and this year, four women and two men were in the running for the award, which was taken out by a woman (Ariana Grande).
But even so — and I don’t often say it — I agree with Piers Morgan here. Unisex awards favour men.
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Need proof? Look at the Gold Logie, which has always been non-gender-specific. It’s been won by 49 men and just 23 women in its history. Even since the turn of the century, men have dominated with 12 wins, compared to eight for women.
I find it hard to imagine what it must feel like to endure a state of “being at war with my gender”, like Sam Smith, let alone a lifetime of that state, but I’m sure it hurts like hell.
And it seems more and more people are finding non-standard concepts of gender resonate with their own experience.
It’s both futile and actively harmful to pretend that that’s not happening, or that we can go back to the way things used to be. Institutions around the world — from the law to the Olympic Games to award shows — are simply going to have to find ways to adapt to the fact that for some people, gender ain’t a neat little box they can tick.
But those adaptations shouldn’t hurt more people than they help.
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A simpler, more inclusive modernisation for award programs would be to maintain the current gendered categories, but enable artists to enter the category of their choosing — or even both at the same time, if they prefer.
It’s not a perfect solution, but the hard truth is that we recognise men’s achievements so much more readily than women’s.
That’s a simple but sucky fact of life.
David Mills is a journalist with News Corp. @DavidMills1972