Clubs / News
Inside the fight against electronic music’s ‘boys’ club’
The electronic music scene is commonly called a boy’s club for good reason.
From male-dominated lineups, promoters and audiences to gendered pay disparities, safety issues for women on stage and off, and dance music made by women accounting for less than one per cent of that played on Radio 1, it’s clear the scene is failing women and non-binary artists
Some say the talent just isn’t there, but the founders of No More All Male Lineups (NMAML), Dasha Anderson and Izzy Russell, say those people aren’t looking hard enough.
“We turned up to do an event at Motion and a DJ assumed we were dancers.
He told us there are no house music DJs that are women,” fumes Dasha, a neuroscientist by day who DJs as Aerial.
“That’s just fundamentally untrue, you’ve clearly made zero effort to find any.”
“It’s something we hear so often: ‘There’s no women in d’n’b!’” affirms Izzy, a promoter and Green councillor for Ashley.
“Why do you think that? I see it as a huge responsibility on the promoter to be actively looking for diverse talent.
“So many white men particularly just book their mates and think that’s all promoting is.”
The pair say their clubnights differ in that the audiences they attract are positive, accepting and supportive – photo: @lola.hurford
Frustrated by the scene’s baked-in misogyny, they decided to turn it on its head.
Their events platform female and non-binary DJs, with non-males providing the rig, taking photos, running workshops and designing posters.
In response to a drum n bass event lineup of 30 male acts, their first clubnight featured 24 non-male DJs.
“After that, it snowballed,” says Dasha. “We had so many people excited about what we were doing.”
Less than a year later, as well as sell-out events and bookings at Boardmasters and Nowadaze, they’ve had interest from people around the country crying out for change.
“A really positive thing has come out of something so negative,” says Izzy.
Izzy Russel and Dasha Anderson from No More All Male Lineups – photo: No More All Male Lineups
It hasn’t been an easy journey to get here. An exhausted Dasha took a year off from DJing after some confronting formative experiences.
Promoters talked through her, assumed her male partner was the DJ and paid her less when they went back-to-back: “Such blatant misogyny was something I’d never experienced before.”
She assumed Bristol would be more progressive but found the drum n bass scene in particular to be very male-dominated.
“I’ve never felt comfortable,” she says.
“Bristol DJ society was all men, and you have to fight your way to the front. I was being offered a lot of opening slots.
“Men are often over-surprised by your talent, saying they didn’t expect you to actually be good.
“I have decks but men will try to take over when there’s an issue – assuming that because it’s technical there’s no way I could fix it myself… Trying to fight this battle on your own is demoralising.”
She has been reenergised by the response to NMAML: “Everyone is so positive, so welcoming, the artists gas each other up all the time, everyone’s always willing to help.”
Izzy agrees: “At female-only lessons or open decks, it’s so much more inclusive, everybody’s asking if you’re okay, if you want help.
“The NMAML audience always seems lovely. Everyone is super accepting and supportive, which is definitely not always the case in the dance music scene.”
The response from men has been mixed.
Commenting on all male lineups they spot on social media, they’ll ask, “politely”, if promoters need femme recommendations.
“Some say ‘sounds great, we’ll get you on board’ – the guys that do that are amazing,” says Izzy, “but more commonly it’s defensive: ‘why are you attacking us?’, ‘we’re not sexist’ or ‘we don’t need your help’ without recognising that in itself is pretty misogynistic.”
View this post on Instagram
Positive conversations with venues and festivals have spurred them on.
Loco Klub has a ‘no more all-male lineups’ policy in place, Club395 has recently implemented one, and the pair are considering an open letter to encourage more to sign up.
They’d like male DJs to adopt an inclusivity rider, meaning they refuse to play at all-male, all-white events.
“A big uptake in women in production would be exciting,” says Dasha.
“And we want to see more women and non-binary headliners.”
“There are non-male people across every sub-genre you can think of – tech and donk, disco, house or d’n’b and jungle, downtempo, dubstep…” says Izzy.
“There is so much female/non-binary talent out there – check us out and get us involved!”
The next No More All Male Lineups clubnight is at the Crown on April 5
This article originally appeared in Bristol24/7’s March/ April 2026 magazine
Main photo: @lola.hurford
Read next:
Our newsletters emailed directly to you
