Swedish women-only music festival found guilty of discrimination
Source: The Guardian
Swedish women-only music festival found guilty of discrimination
The Statement festival was found to be in breach of gender discrimination law but will not be penalised
Laura Snapes
Wed 19 Dec 2018 11.32 GMT
A Swedish event billed as the worlds first major music festival for women, non-binary and transgender only has been found in breach by Swedens discrimination ombudsman (DO).
The inaugural Statement festival was held in Gothenburg in August following a successful crowdfunding campaign that raised 533,120SEK (£46,555). The DO opened an investigation into the festival in July.
A new DO ruling said that although festival organisers did not enforce the man-free rule, since no differentiation based on sex was made between visitors at entry, the statements the company issued prior to the event discouraged a certain group from attending the event, breaching a law banning gender discrimination.
The DO found that nobody suffered damage from the festivals restrictions and no penalties will be imposed.
The organisers of Statement responded on Facebook: Its sad that what 5,000 women, non-binaries and transgender experienced as a life-changing festival made a few cis men lose it completely. The success of the Statement festival shows that is exactly what we need and the DOs verdict doesnt change this fact. Otherwise, we have no comments. We are busy changing the world.
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Read more:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/dec/19/statement-swedish-women-only-music-festival-guilty-gender-discrimination