'Man-free' music festival found guilty of discrimination

The Gothenburg event was held in response to a spate of sexual offences at Swedish music festivals

Organisers of the festival will not face penalties (AFP/Getty)

A Swedish music festival that generated headlines due to its ban on male attendees has been found guilty of discrimination.

Statement Festival, which was held in Gothenburg in August, was billed as “the world’s first major music festival for women, non-binary and transgender only".

Sweden’s Discrimination Ombudsman (DO) ruled that describing an event as “male-free” violated anti-discrimination laws.

There was nothing in place to stop men from buying tickets to the festival, but messaging made clear they were not welcome at it, and any male members of band’s crews were reportedly contained in a so-called “man pen” in the backstage area.

Swedish artist Jenny Wilson performs at Statement Festival (Getty)

“It is important to point out what an infringement is. These are the statements made before the festival, what they wrote on their website,” DO Class Lundstedt said in a statement.

“Still, we haven’t been able to prove that someone would have been discriminated against in connection with the implementation or that someone would have been rejected.”

The DO found that nobody suffered damage from the festival’s restriction, and no penalties will be imposed on organisers.

In a Facebook post, Statement Festival responded: “It’s 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 DO’s verdict doesn’t change this fact. Otherwise, we have no comments. We are busy changing the world.”

The festival was a response to an alarming number of sexual assault offences the previous year at Sweden’s biggest festival, Bravalla. Organisers said at the time that Statement would remain male-free ”until men learn how to behave themselves”.

Lundstedt said: “Clearly, we believe that sexual abuse, especially at festivals, is a serious problem. So we are looking forward to trying to correct this.

“However, it shouldn’t happen in a way that violates the law, which their statements in the media and their website do.”