When the nominees for the 2019 Academy of Country Music awards were announced, there was a glaring issue with the award show's biggest category. For the second year in a row, not a single female artist was nominated for Entertainer of the Year.
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ACM host Reba McEntire, who appeared on CBS This Morning to help announce the nominations, didn't hide her disappointment in the lack of women nominated for the award.
"It doesn't make me very happy, because we've got some very talented women out there who are working their butts off," she stated. "I'm missing my girlfriends on this."
There hasn't been a woman nominated in the ACM Entertainer of the Year category since Carrie Underwood was nominated in 2016. There hasn't been a female winner in the category since Taylor Swift's win in 2011.
Academy of Country Music CEO Pete Fisher announced that the organization is creating a diversity task force to address barriers and biases against women and underrepresented groups in country music.
"We want our organization to represent all of the great music and talent that is in country music," Fisher told Billboard.
The ACM's task force follows the task force put forth by the Recording Academy last year. The Recording Academy Diversity And Inclusion Task Force, which included country singer Cam, Sheryl Crow, Common and Andra Day, studied challenges facing underrepresented musicians such as women and people of color in the music industry.
Read More: 5 Terrible Excuses for Why Women Aren't Getting Country Radio Airplay -- And Why They're Wrong
McEntire isn't the only artist to speak out on the lack of female nominees. In an interview with Buzzfeed News, Luke Bryan echoed McEntire's statement.
"I think it's always disappointing when women are left out of the Entertainer of the Year category," Bryan said. "It's something the country music community has taken note of -- that women aren't truly getting represented like they need to. It's something on everybody's radar and it's so good that it's on everybody's radar. And I think Reba has earned the right to voice her opinion on matters like that."
In the past year, artists such as Sara Evans, Shania Twain, Miranda Lambert and Kacey Musgraves have spoken out about gender inequality in the country music industry.
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