Oops! Pop Awards Rethinking ‘Gender-Neutral’ Commitments After Only Men Nominated

A British music awards show, the Brit Awards, has announced they will be reviewing their gender-neutral policy after all of the nominees for the top award at the show were men.

The Brit Awards, which the British Phonographic Industry hands out, did away with gendered award categories in 2022, but now the organisers are looking at reviewing the policy over a lack of female representation. In the previous year, female singer Adele won the first gender-neutral artist of the year, but controversially no women were nominated for the category this year.

A spokesperson for the awards stated they were disappointed there were no female artists included in the artist of the year category but claimed the issue was more to do with the music industry not releasing music from high-profile female artists, The Times newspaper reports.

Overall, just 12 of the 71 artists who were eligible for being nominated artist of the year were female. It is unclear, however, if the organisers of the awards show will reinstate gendered categories over concerns that it would preclude self-described non-binary artists from the running.

Artist Sam Smith, who uses gender-neutral pronouns and who will be eligible for nomination next year, told The Times, “It is a shame. Things are moving forward, but it’s obvious it’s not there yet. From seeing that [best artist] list, there is still a long way to go,” when asked about the all-male nominee list.

The use of gender-neutral policies and language has become more and more common across parts of the UK, with the police forces and the UK House of Lords being told last year to avoid using gendered language in order to be more “inclusive.”

The speech manual for the police stated, “When greeting others avoid: ladies, gentlemen, ma’am, sir, girls, guys,” and called on police not to make “assumptions about a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.”

The National Education Union has also promoted gender-neutral language in British schools, hosting a training session last February telling teachers to abandon terms such as Mr and Mrs in reference to themselves and to avoid saying boys and girls, replacing the terms with pupil and student instead.

Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com.