Carnival is a party of everyone, but in the music lists it doesn’t seem like that. Of the 33 nominated songs for choose your squatter, only three are sung by a woman or women’s group. That raises the question: why are there so few successful female carnival singers? And is that actually a problem?
Professor Felienne Hermans investigated in 2024 about the female artists on the radio. Sad, it turned out. Only twenty percent of the music that is played comes from a woman. “The wrong hour scored the worst,” says Hermans on the phone. “Apparently party music is a genre in which women don’t really participate.”
“The world is not included, so carnival is not.”
Carnival music is not doing better, Dorien knows Van de Dorinis, former winner of Kies Kraker. “I’ve been calling this for years!” She says. “I have been performing for twenty years, and many radio stations and festivals have opted for the big names, often men. Give women a chance! But the carnival world is a male world,” she agrees reluctantly.
According to Dorien, as a woman it is difficult to get a foothold in carnival music. “It’s a real men’s culture,” she says. And the working hours don’t make it any easier. “Many women drop out at some point. For example, my singing buddy stopped when she had children.”
That turns out to be a wider trend: “Even at Carnival, the man is therefore the breadwinner, the one who does the performances. Women choose to absorb family life more often.”
“The woman is always behind the stove in carnival songs.”
Why do women sing less in the carnival world? Professor Hermans thinks it’s deep. “The entire carnival culture is not necessarily female -friendly. Female princes were taboo for a long time and that is still a discussion in many places.”
In Limburg, carnival music is more about politics and society, while in Brabant it is often about ‘sex and tits’. Lotte and Maartje from Tilburg noticed that too. “We like to celebrate Carnival, but we always sang along with songs that we are not really behind,” they say. “Women are in the songs or behind the stove, or they are angry, or they are an object that men want to go to bed with.”
That could be done differently, no, had to be different. That is why they wrote a carnival cracker: ‘Carnival is ours’. “We want to show that carnival is also our party. We not only have to be the subject of songs, we can also make them ourselves.”
“Women can take more room in carnival music.”
Breaking a stuck pattern is not easy, says Hermans. “What are you going to sing about as a woman? In traditional carnival music there are few characters for women. You are either the sexy singer, or the farmer’s wife. There is – part of it – the problem.”
Lotte and Maartje think it’s time for a fresh wind. “Many people think that carnival must ‘have to’ about sex and shunic jokes. But the classics are about a horse in the hallway and a flower blind. It can also be done differently.”
More female carnival singers would not only be fairer, but also more fun, they think. “Diversity makes the music better. And we have to help each other a bit,” says Dorien. “As a woman, another woman inquires at a festival or a radio station: that helps.”
With their number, Lotte and Maartje hope to contribute to a new movement. “In the past, Carnival revolved around smart word jokes, then a period came with flat and female -unfriendly texts. Maybe it’s time for a Renaissance.”