In this op-ed, entertainment news editor Claire Dodson unpacks the news that Ariana Grande is only Coachella's fourth female headliner in the festival's nearly 20-year history.

Ariana Grande is officially headlining Coachella 2019, which is exciting news for Arianators and the hundreds of millions of people who have streamed "Thank u, next" since it came out in November. In addition to being the youngest artist ever to headline the music festival, she's also only the fourth female artist to nab the much-coveted slot. And that number should stick out not necessarily as great progress, but as a sign of a continued, systemic failure on the part of Coachella, as well as major music festivals around the country, to spotlight women artists with major careers worthy of a headlining spot.

Prior to Ariana, just three other solo women have headlined the Indio, California, music festival: Björk (who headlined twice), Lady Gaga, and Beyoncé. That's three in the festival's nearly 20-year history. (English band Portishead, which was given headline status on some 2008 posters, features female singer Beth Gibbons along with other male members of the band.)

For context, here's a list of headliners since 1999: Beck, Tool, Rage Against the Machine, Jane’s Addiction, Björk, Oasis, Beastie Boys, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Radiohead, the Cure, Coldplay, Nine Inch Nails, Depeche Mode, Tool again, Björk again, Red Hot Chili Peppers again, Rage Against the Machine again, Prince, Roger Waters, Jack Johnson, Portishead, Paul McCartney, the Killers, the Cure again, Jay-Z, Muse, Gorillaz, Kings of Leon, Arcade Fire, Kanye West, the Strokes, the Black Keys, Radiohead again, Dr. Dre & Snoop Dogg, Blur, the Stone Roses, Phoenix, Red Hot Chili Peppers again, OutKast, Muse again, Arcade Fire again, AC/DC, Jack White, Drake, LCD Soundsystem, Guns N’ Roses, Calvin Harris, Radiohead again, Beyoncé, and Kendrick Lamar.

Wow, that is a lot of men (and a lot of them white men).

Ariana's now-headliner status throws into relief the ridiculously low numbers of women headliners, but people have been pointing out this problem with Coachella specifically, as well as other festivals, for years. In 2013, BuzzFeed found that since Coachella's inception, female-led acts have made up, on average, 16% of a given lineup. As Refinery29 pointed out in 2015, the hashtag "#brochella" exists for a reason.

In 2018, Pitchfork tracked the lineups of major music festivals that year in the U.S. and charted the genders of the top 10 acts billed for each one. Seven out of 10 were marked as male for Coachella; for Bonnaroo and Boston Calling, the number was nine out of 10; for Lollapalooza and Sasquatch, it was 10 out of 10 for male acts. Pitchfork's own festival that year was more equal, with six male acts, one mixed group, and three female acts.

The numbers are largely bad all around, even considering that last year 45 festivals around the world pledged gender parity in their lineups by 2022. That's only three years away, but clearly, there's still monumental work to be done. Notably, Coachella is not one of the 45.

The reason why this happens is, well, sexism. But the "why" permeates a historically male-dominated music industry, in which men are still wield a lot of power all the way down the chain, including festival organizers, bookers, label reps, producers, sound engineers, and so forth. Take three of the biggest music festivals in the U.S., for example: Coachella, Bonnaroo, and Lollapalooza. All three were founded by men — Paul Tollett and Rick Van Santen (Coachella), Ashley Capps and the male-led team of Superfly Productions (Bonnaroo), and Jane's Addiction singer Perry Farrell (Lollapalooza).