Many have documented how gendered discrimination impacts on inequalities across music scenes and genres (eg. Davies 2001; Donze 2010; Farrugia 2012; McClary 1991; Rustin and Tucker 2008). These studies have shown that gender influences access to, participation in and engagement with music, in a variety of different ways, providing important critiques of objective notions of musical ‘excellence’ and utopian views of music subcultures.Studies on gender inequalities in music have often focused on Anglophone countries. Yet research on Sweden (eg. Bergman 2014; Björck 2013; Gavanas and Reitsammer 2013) – a supposedly much more gender-equal nation - has demonstrated that many of the same issues are present. This indicates the prevalence of transnational discourses around popular music and a need to recognise the work of activists, networks and musicians in challenging such practices.This paper draws on research with 10 representatives from networks, in the UK and Sweden, involved in fighting gender inequalities in music. It outlines what benefits can be gained from a cross-national, comparative perspective before exploring how gender inequalities and equality are understood by networks working across and within particular genres. It links organizational strategies to structural differences between the two nations, before noting how these networks articulate their limitations.