“I’ve never once heard a female singer improve a metal song […] How privileged she is, while men over 18 are forced by their government to fight and die for a proxy war”.
These are just a couple of the comments Ukrainian band 0%Mercury received when a video of their performance at Wacken Metal Battle 2023 was published on Instagram. Despite many positive comments, and the assumption that many of the negative ones were placed by russian bots or sympathisers, the misogyny here is obvious.
Frontwoman Lena Elfi later stated that one man near the stage openly laughed at the cute image she had constructed for the performance. Despite this, Elfi flaunted her wild charisma and 0%Mercury earned third place in the international final at Wacken Open Air.
Comments like ‘I’ve never once heard a female singer improve a metal song’ suggest that there’s a real lack of representation for women in music in Ukraine. To raise this issue now feels weird – according to our President the war in Ukraine has already taken the lives of nearly 30,000 soldiers, and nearly 100,000 are assumed to be injured. We still are not sure about the exact number or gender proportions in those statistics, but right now, men are the first in line for the mobilisation officers.
A recent example of this tragic fate is Volodymyr Antonenko, who played in janpalach, Dughouse, Superflat, Yotsuya Kaidan, Hellenic Blue, Shorestyle and other local punk bands. Last year he was served his call-up papers by mobilisation officers while taking a taxi from work. Volodymyr was a good soldier, but died in January 2024 while performing a combat mission. His band members are devastated at his loss.
Meanwhile, society and politicians don’t seem to be keen on compulsory mobilisation for women.
This makes arguing about the problems in the Ukrainian music scene sound weird. But Ukrainians in general tend to underestimate the contribution of underground music to the development of our culture, both at home and how it boosts the image of our country abroad. Metal music barely exists at the official level, which instead looks towards the Ministry of Culture, or Еurovision. With casual listeners, Ukrainian metal only became visible since the war and is still a “niche” music here. The Ukrainian metal scene is traditionally dominated by men, and achieving success as a woman requires additional motivation and support from institutions. Fan loyalty is truly hard to achieve as well. But I strongly feel it would be good for metal and underground scenes to have more women on stage, as they can represent our culture abroad, alongside the few men who can get the same privilege now, during the war. We need to highlight the Ukrainian women already setting the example, and see how they do things.
Time, Experience, and Trusted Comrades
IGNEA frontwoman Helle Bogdanova generally doesn’t like talking about feminism, but she is the best example of a hard-working and successful woman in Ukrainian music. She has experienced plenty of sexism. “As a frontwoman in a metal band, a question like, ‘How do you feel as a woman in a metal band?’, is one of the most sexist things to ask; it’s even a meme among my female colleagues.” But Bogdanova has years of experience to see that time will change things. “Nowadays, I see more [women] sound engineers, light designers, merch girls on tour, and it’s wonderful. I think that just treating women with respect and equality is everything we need: not forcing women to undress or lose weight for music videos, like it was back in the day, and not putting ‘male’ labels on certain types of jobs, especially technical jobs in music.”
IGNEA were originally called Parallax, but after a rebrand in 2015 Bogdanova’s band slowly found recognition. The single ‘Alga’ was a great breakthrough point with a big symphonic orchestra in tow. To date the track has had nearly 10 million views.
In 2019 using her experience as a metal zine manager and her professional skills as IT marketing manager and freelance copywriter, Bogdanova concentrated on her band’s management and promotion. The work paid off in 2021 when Ignea was signed by Napalm Records. “The fact that I could leave my day job and fully concentrate on IGNEA, is proof that I was doing things the right way. However, being Ukrainian, we didn’t have much knowledge about how the industry worked in general: the roles of labels, media, booking agencies, or publishers. I had to learn everything on my own and through the experience of my band.”
In 2023 with their brand-new album Dreams Of Lands Unseen, IGNEA went on a European and British tour with Fear Factory and Butcher Babies, where they actively communicated with audiences about the current experiences of Ukrainians on the ground and raised thousands for the needs of Ukrainian soldiers. This is really important for our future as in March 2023 the Ukrainian Ministry Of Culture practically stopped cultural diplomacy for underground musicians by changing the travel rules for male artists. IGNEA, a band of “five people, four of whom are guys,” are one of a few large Ukrainian metal bands able to perform abroad after the March ban. Bogdanova says it was “extremely complicated to make it happen, but I definitely couldn’t tour on my own.”
IGNEA is also the only Ukrainian band announced to perform at big metal festival Wacken Open Air 2024 and also at Britain’s Bloodstock. Bogdanova is the first to acknowledge the contribution of her bandmates, including “mastermind Yevhenii” and understands their current difficulties. But “something improved for women in the industry [here]. For instance I learned about risk and crisis management over the past two years, like filming music videos during shelling and blackouts, or handling paperwork for the male members of the band to leave for tours.”
Adapt Your Efforts
While Bogdanova is a manager who had to deal with getting her band abroad, Music Export Ukraine is an organisation that specialises in – literally – getting all of Ukrainian’s musicians abroad. The last few years have turned their normal activities into a big challenge.
Alyona Dmukhovska, MEU co-founder and Head of the organisation, states that they felt the inequality of music industry and situation in Ukraine already in 2022. After the russian invasion, MEU was getting hundreds of requests from foreign colleagues, promoters and institutions who wanted to support our country and provide slots for Ukrainian artists. Back then we already had martial law, so male artists were not able to leave the country freely. Dmukhovska and her colleagues ended up recommending the same female acts over and over again, because they were among the very few ready to go and play abroad.
In 2024 the situation isn’t much better. Even though now there are procedures and chosen male artists can go abroad, if they go via strict bureaucratic procedure and agree to leave the country for a particular number of days, we still lack female representation in every sector of music industry. Very few women perform, and even fewer take care of business relations or technical services. Dmukhovska states that the reasons are not only a lack of role models, or the inequalities of an education system where girls are not engaged in technical work, “but also the wartime conditions in our country. Very often women are left alone to take care of whole families, when the men join the Armed Forces. They have very few opportunities, freedom or resources to devote time to music and their career.”
Dmukhovska agrees with my initial idea for this article, that Ukrainian women should take charge of the music industry’s development under the current circumstances, or at least take more responsibility. And Music Export Ukraine proves that thought through actions, as a female-led organisation with a special focus on female representation in every project. Their Eastern European Music Academy is over 50 per cent non-male, and the majority of MEU interns are women mentored in numerous business and management oriented projects. Dmukhovska says, “We need to adapt and do what we can. It’s crucial to keep Ukrainian artists on the international stages. At MEU we try to nurture the competencies and self-confidence of our female participants, and expand their network.”
Dmukhovska also points out the additional pressure and expectations on women in general. “Recently we had a talk with foreign colleagues from Sweden about the fact that it’s nearly impossible to do touring projects with women artists after they start having children. We want to do a project for women-only participants, and apply for additional funding to have ‘nanny-money’ to support those who would still like to tour.”
But Helle Bogdanova isn’t too keen on what could be forced, or artificial changes. “It may be not a popular thought but I believe that we shouldn’t be forcing more women into the scene, as people should choose their genre and instrument from their heart. I mean, both men and women deserve equal conditions. The Ukrainian scene is a part of ‘the world scene’ and I see a lot of women in great music: as PR, booking managers, or band members. I feel an extra responsibility to keep our local scene alive and also represent Ukraine abroad. Not as myself, but as part of IGNEA.”
Next time, we examine three other acts, and think about the future.
New Voices Ukraine is a series supported by the British Council and Ukrainian Institute
