Where Art the Women?

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion statement

Where Art the Women? (WATW?) is committed to encouraging equality, diversity and inclusion among our workforce, volunteers, contributors and audience, eliminating unlawful discrimination.

The aim for our project is to be truly representative of all sections of society, ensuring every person feels respected and able to give their best. 

The organisation is also committed to challenge and appropriately deal with unlawful discrimination of customers or the public.

The statement’s purpose is to:

• provide equality, fairness, and respect for everybody working for, with and attending our project;

• not unlawfully discriminate because of the Equality Act 2010 protected characteristics of: 
  • Age 
  • Disability 
  • Gender reassignment
  • Marriage and civil partnership
  • Pregnancy and maternity
  • Race (including colour, nationality, and ethnic or national origin)
  • Religion or belief
  • Sex and sexual orientation
  • Oppose and avoid all forms of unlawful discrimination 

Where Art the Women? commits to: 

• encourage equality, diversity, and inclusion within all elements of the project;

• create an environment free of bullying, harassment, victimisation, and unlawful discrimination;

• promoting dignity and respect for all;

• value all contributions to the project;

• take seriously complaints of bullying, harassment, victimisation and unlawful discrimination by fellow employees, customers, suppliers, visitors, the public and any others during the organisation’s work activities.

Where Art the Women? is an inclusive, not-for-profit project that aims to highlight, challenge, and help address the gender inequality on stages in the UK independent music scene.  Collaborating with a mix of art, music, spoken word, film, workshops, discussion, and information. 

The project will tour to showcase acts that include female performers as part of our immersive multimedia experience, with an onus on making it accessible for all.

The long-term goal is to actively encourage and offer various support to:

• female musicians and spoken word performers of all ages, with a focus on young women and those at the beginning of their career;

• independent venues, festivals and promoters to apply better gender balance to their bookings;

• audiences who are used to male dominated shows to attend more gender balanced line-ups.
  

It is lawful under s.158 of the Equality Act 2010 for an employer to take action to compensate for disadvantages that it reasonably believes are faced by people who share a particular protected characteristic (ie age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation). Separate provisions allowing positive action in relation to recruitment and promotion in limited circumstances are contained in s.159 of the Act.

Positive action is lawful if it is taken to:

• enable or encourage people who share a protected characteristic to overcome a disadvantage connected to the characteristic;

• meet the needs of people who share a protected characteristic where those needs are different to those of people who do not have the characteristic;

• enable or encourage people who share a protected characteristic to participate in an activity in which their participation is disproportionately low.

As such, Where Art the Women? will take positive action to work with, book, commission and support performers and artists who are female.