Christian singer Carrie Underwood pushes for gender equality in country music

Carrie Underwood says women in the country music industry are always outnumbered by the boys.Courtesy of Carrie Underwood Official

Women do not often get the same recognition and opportunities that men have, but things may soon change in the country music industry with Christian singer Carrie Underwood trying to do something about it.

Underwood and her team are helping plan the annual ACM Party For A Cause festival. Whenever Underwood's input is sought, the singer would often push for more female singers to be included in the list of performers.

"Whenever we were approached to do it, they were like, 'Well, who do you want to have on the bill?' I was like, 'Can we just ask girls?' I just personally think that's a more interesting bill because everybody is unique," Underwood told CMT. "Everybody has their own sound, their own look, their own kind of music, their own voice."

This issue has been hounding Underwood since her "American Idol" days. She has noticed that the industry is more partial to males because females often do not get their time under the sun.

"I felt it from the beginning," she shared. "When we would start talking about potentially playing different shows, other people would talk about, 'Oh, well, we kind of already have a girl on our roster.' Or, 'We already have a girl at the show so we can't have another one.' We've always been outnumbered by the boys."

For Underwood, this is such a waste because women are equally talented as the men. "There are a lot (of women) right now just waiting for their chance," Underwood said, adding, "I refuse to believe that women don't want to hear women."

The ACM Party For A Cause will run for three days on April 1 to 3, 2016. Underwood would headline the first event, followed by Dierks Bentley and Kenney Chesney on the second and third events, respectively.