What’s your fantasy festival lineup? Bob Dylan? The Smiths? bba? Bowie? If your dream headliner is more current, you have more of a chance if they’re male. Earlier this year, Wireless festival was criticised after announcing only three women – Mabel, Cardi B and Lisa Mercedez – in a lineup of 37 acts.

Lily Allen tweeted a poster for the festival, removing all the male artists. With only three artists remaining, there was an awful lot of white space.

Several months later, and Wireless has finally responded to the criticism, by announcing a women-only stage at the July event. The stage, hosted by Smirnoff’s Equalising Music campaign, will host more than 25 female artists, including Lady Leshurr, Bad Gyal, and British MC Paigey Cakey.

LILY ALLEN (@lilyallen) The struggle is real pic.twitter.com/R58zKuCaK2

Rinse FM DJ Emerald, one of the stage’s two hosts, acknowledged that the move could be seen as papering over some rather significant cracks. “But what are we going to do?” she said. “Not have that stage there and have no women performing at the festival? I don’t think that’s the right thing to do.”

It’s not the only issue for festivals. Earlier this year, girl band Haim said that they had sacked their agent after finding out a male artist had been paid 10 times more than them for a similar slot. “It’s scary out there … it’s fucked up not even to be paid half the same amount. But to be paid a 10th of that amount of money? It was insane,” said guitarist and vocalist Alana Haim.

One in five at UK festivals sexually assaulted or harassed – survey Read more

Recent figures also indicate that about one in five attendees of festivals in the UK have been sexually assaulted or harassed. It’s clear that festivals, whether for performers or attendees, are not always welcoming places for women. Sexual assault and harassment is obviously a fraught and complex issue to tackle; ensuring that headlining acts are diverse should be much simpler.

Some good work is being done in this area – more than 100 European music festivals have signed a pledge organised by the PRS Foundation’s Keychange initiative, promising to reach a 50/50 gender balance across live lineups, conferences and commissions. But the fact we’re even having a conversation about the issue in 2018 is shocking. Emerald’s comments on the stage underline the issue at the heart of the whole scandal – that, at present, this is all women artists are being offered. There are two options for women artists: tokenism, or nothing. It’s barely a choice at all.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘To be paid a 10th of that amount of money? It was insane.” Haim play in Sweden Photograph: IBL/Rex/Shutterstock

Wireless is not the only culprit: in 2017, a BBC study found that 80% of the year’s festival headliners were male. It’s clear that something desperately needs to change. But shunting women on to their own stage is not the way to do it. Festivals should be mindful of the issue when they select their lineups, making sure that female artists are being given the same headline spots as men. This isn’t difficult – if anything, with the wealth of amazing women currently on the music scene, it seems like more of a challenge to leave them out. And increasing the visibility of strong, talented women on stage will not mitigate any of the issues women experience at festivals. But it could have a small impact on how represented and welcome they feel.

It’s obvious to the rest of the world that female artists are just as bold, brilliant and headline-worthy as their male counterparts. Now it’s time for festivals to put them front and centre.

• Emily Reynolds is a freelance journalist