LONG READ: PopGirlz

Rachel Johnson and Josephine Sillars have made a name for themselves not only as musicians (Rachel sings under the stage name of Kohla, and Josephine has been described as writing 'protest pop'), but also as founders of feminist activist support group, PopGirlz.

PopGirlz aims to encourages a space for musicians who identify as female to offer support, advice and, above all, friendship to other members. With collaborative Facebook and Instagram pages where members can motivate each other, PopGirlz also form social events for members to get together. I had a chat with them about their venture and their experiences in the music industry...

Rachel: “I started it back in November 2019 as I found it quite hard to meet other women in music. I was going to gigs but there are always lots of boys at gigs and it was quite rare for me to find other female musicians to meet and be friends with. We’ve grown to 150 members and we’re doing a lot of cool things. Now that the restrictions are easing with Coronavirus, we can plan more in-person socials so that will be fun for members to actually meet each other in-person and form friendships there.”

One of PopGirlz most successful campaigns involves the ‘Scotify’ playlist on Spotify. ‘Scotify’ features new releases from musicians around Scotland. However, PopGirlz noticed the lack of diversity within the playlist.

Rachel: “I had seen that playlist for a couple of years and I just noticed that it wasn’t very diverse at all. I kept waiting for it to change and it never did. I decided to post it on Twitter and it went viral from there. It was actually a very successful campaign because they actually did modify the stats and they put more women in it, and I think they put it more people of colour, but still not very many”

Josephine: “It went from no people of colour, to like five,” she says “Sarya was the first person of colour to be featured on the cover as well, who’s one of our PopGirlz which was nice! They changed the playlist four days after the tweet and it hadn’t been updated prior to that in six months. So, either it’s a reaction to us or it’s one hell of a coincidence!”

As someone who spends a lot of their free time scrolling through the depths of Spotify in a hope to find a new favourite song or artist, I had noticed the lack of female, ethnic, and LGBTQ+ artists featured. A lot of the time, it is mainly male bands and artists who have multiple songs featured on the same playlist.

Rachel: “That’s quite an issue with it as well. It just showcases that they have the space to make it more diverse but they're just giving the same slots to the same musicians.

Rachel Johnson (Kohla) - musician and founder of PopGirlz Scotland

As well as spending a lot of their time developing PopGirlz, Rachel and Josephine also give lectures at universities across the UK where they discuss sexism in the music industry. Josephine told me that a lecturer at Aberdeen University was blown away at the findings they had talked about in a Digital Culture and Ethical Musicology class, specifically the fact that studies have shown it takes the Spotify algorithm on average seven or eight random plays before it will play a female artist.

Josephine: “Things like this are inherently within the algorithm. It is a sexist algorithm. And the fact this is something that’s not been widely talked about is crazy to me. It’s insane that it was a Twitter post from Rachel that led to all this research happening. It’s been such a joy to do this lecture series to bring that information to young musicians because hopefully that means the new scene of people coming up through the universities are going to be more switched on, and hopefully won’t be as exploited as we were.”

Then I asked the all-important question, what more can be done to tackle the inequality women in the music industry face?

Rachel: “A starting point is having conversations about it. I think it is a really big issue as well that people are scared of speaking out about it because they think it’s going to impact their own career. I think as women we’re always told that there’s not enough space for all of us, which is a lie, there’s space for all of us at the top. We’ve just been told that for such a long time that it’s taught us to see each other as competition but we’re stronger together.”

Josephine: “I think being a member of PopGirlz has shown me how much you can get out of a friendship in a scene and cultivate a healthy scene versus having negative energy and people in competition and people ‘networking’ to step over each other ra

Josephine Sillars - 'protest pop' artist and co-founder of PopGirlz Scotland

ther than building everybody else up along with you. People need to be a lot less secretive and less afraid because we’re all stronger as a collective together and if everybody stands up and says ‘we’re not going to take this’, the industry will have to change.”

Recently, a lot more festival organisations have included more women fronted bands and female identifying musicians on their bills. I can’t help but wonder if they’re doing this because they have been receiving complaints about it and women’s equality is something that’s become more and more talked about, almost being ‘trendy’, or if they’ve included these women because they themselves have noticed the problem. Notably, the Queen Tut’s stage at Trnsmt Festival, a separate stage for women performers to play, received a lot of backlash after the event. Obviously, I brought this up with Rachel and Josephine.

Josephine: “I think there are some people out there fighting a good fight, who recognise that these issues run really, really deep throughout this scene and that they need to be addressed. But at the same time, you do have festivals who are just paying lip service to it. [With the Queen Tut’s stage] it’s still not exactly an inclusive situation because where do non-binary performers fall? And what’s the situation for mixed-gendered bands on the Queen Tut’s stage? At the end of the day, as well -intentioned as something is, it didn’t actually do anything to fight any of these issues in a way that can bring sustainable change. We need to be integrated into spaces, not alienated.”

To wrap up our empowering conversation, I asked if Rachel and Josephine had any advice for an aspiring female musicians.

Rachel: “I think we need to make young musicians coming up feel a lot more comfortable in their space. It’s really hard when you’re starting out because you’re so naïve to everything and I feel like you’re not aware of just how easily you can be taken advantage of. You just really have to trust your gut and to know your worth. So, obviously any woman or non-binary or trans people are able to join PopGirlz and we can look out for them and give them advice and stuff there.”

Josephine: “I think as well to try and focus on the music, which I know will sound silly, but it’s so easy especially when you’re young to be swept up in the industry side of things. The industry is exciting, it’s very glamourous, or has its moments of glamour anyway. But as Rachel said, trust your gut, don’t get yourself exploited and focus on the music. The industry will always be there. It’s not going anywhere. It will come to you when the music is at the level you want it to be at. It’s not worth hurting yourself over and over and over to try to get the industry noticing you until your music is in its best position. I think that’s a mistake I made when I was younger, I kept reaching for the starts a little bit soon!”

Understandably, Josephine and Rachel are extremely passionate about the sexism women in the music industry face. The duo will continue their ventures giving lectures in universities across the UK and continue to be strong advocates for female musicians with PopGirlz.

Instagram - @popgirlzscotland

Twitter - @kohlamusic @JosephineHere

Spotify - Kohla Josephine Sillars