As you may know, the Brit Awards have gone gender-neutral in order to be more ‘inclusive’ of musicians who identity as non-binary. When this decision was first made last year, people warned that scrapping the Best Male and Best Female categories would actually lead to the exclusion of women.

Sure enough, that’s exactly what’s happened this year. The Best Artist award, which is the top award of the night, features 5 male artists in the running – Harry Styles, Stormzy, Fred Again, Central Cee and George Ezra. Not a single woman in sight. Or non-binary person, for that matter.

Here’s some of the reaction online (spoiler = women aren’t happy):

Wouldn’t it be great if just ONE of the all male nominees for Artist of the Year at the #britawards actually stood up and said, no, this isn’t fair…this isn’t inclusivity. But men don’t have a very good track record on standing up for women’s rights to be included, do they?

— Milli Hill (@millihill) January 12, 2023

“Gender neutral” = male default. Every bloody time. You have a women’s category because otherwise everyone conveniently forgets that women exist https://t.co/635suAt7Oy

— Sarah Ditum (@sarahditum) January 12, 2023

“Gender-neutral Brit awards nominate all men for 2023’s best artist”

That is what gender-neutral actually means. Knock your immensely dull ,fluid selves out ,you radicals.

— suzanne moore (@suzanne_moore) January 12, 2023

Quite amusing that the Brit Awards’ decision to go gender-neutral has spectacularly backfired with all male finalists.Rather than backtrack, presumably now they’ll have to go one step further and introduce quotas or something rather than admit it was always a foolish idea.

— Emily Carver (@CarverEmily) January 12, 2023

BBC News tonight on The Brit Awards: “A year after the Brits got rid of gender prize categories women are entirely missing from the best artist prize with men taking all the slots”

I’m shocked I tell ya! Shocked! Who’d have guessed this’d be the result of this stupid decision?

— Jane, Empress of the Known Universe (but not a GP) (@blablafishcakes) January 12, 2023

Now there’s every chance Harry Styles will transition into a woman by the time the Brits roll around next month, so we don’t want to jump the gun too much. But the point is – so many people predicted that this would prove to be a bad idea, despite being well-intentioned.

Since the first Brits in 1977, there had always been separate awards for male and female solo artists. It made all the sense in the world. Why change it to essentially accommodate one person – Sam Smith. Who isn’t even in the running for Best Artist himself themselves!

Why not just rename the male and female categories the XX and XY categories if the words ‘male’ and ‘female’ wind people up so much. That way you can identify as anything you want, even non-binary, and still fit comfortably into a category that reflects biological reality.

Last year, Adele won big at The Brits and asserted that she “loves being a woman and a female artist”, which prompted outrage from the usual suspects calling her a transphobe and a TERF. Good grief.