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DJ Mag Have Forgotten That Women Can DJ Again

The magazine's 25th anniversary edition features an all male lineup of "pioneering DJs."

Today DJ Mag revealed the front cover for their silver anniversary edition. To mark their 25th year of publishing they are running a special edition that acknowledges 25 dance music pioneers. While it's great to see some major names on their—David Guetta, Vanilla Ice and James May to name a few—there is also a distinct, but perhaps unsurprising absence of women. We're sure DJ Mag have a good reason, but in light of the magazine's dubious top 100 DJs last year, it does provoke questions about their seeming unwillingness to fully represent female selectors.

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The argument may be made by some that this edition is representing "pioneering" DJs, and therefore by virtue of dance music being male dominated, the pioneers are naturally male figures. However this doesn't fully account for present day figures like Jamie Jones presence over his female contemporaries, while also neglecting the countless female DJs who have been pioneers—whether as label heads like Kemistry and Storm at Metalheadz, or as curators like Mary-Anne Hobbs.

We reached out to Madam X among others for a comment on the subject and she felt pretty similarly, adding that "Coming from a magazine whose annual top 100 DJ list is practically an EDM chart, I'm not gonna take it too seriously. There's tons of women they could've mentioned who've influenced and shaped the landscape of Dance music. Look at Maya Jane Coles, Nina Kraviz, Mary Anne Hobbs, Annie Mac, Heidi, Storm etc, the list goes on…"

DJ Mag's only comment on the absence of women so far reads: "The final list of 25 was the result of much debate in the office, and you may notice just from glancing at the cover that there are no women in the 25 — a fact we're all too aware of at DJ Mag. Is there anyone we should have included? And if so in place of who?"

Well, at least they're aware right?

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