Middlesbrough venue defends ban on female-fronted bands

A report in The Northern Echo says that the venue has "vigorously defended its controversial ban", and that manager Paula Rees has denied that rule is sexist in any way. She says that the ban is in place because "regular customers do not believe women should sing rock songs".

"We had female singers on in the past and customers just didn’t like it - we’re a rock bar and they don’t think that women should sing male rock songs," Rees tells the paper. "It’s nothing to do with me, it’s the pub’s regulars who come in every week, they won’t come in if there’s a female singer."

Hannah Sowerby told the paper that she had gigs cancelled for her bands Revenant and Syndicate 66 after Doctor Brown's discovered that she was the singer.

"I haven’t been allowed to play because I’m female, despite the fact my band can draw a crowd," she says. "You wouldn’t get people saying they don’t like male bands, because not all male singers are the same - just like not all female singers are the same. It is a sexist attitude from the regulars and there’s no excuse for it in 2017, you’d think we’d be past this by now."