Increasing media attention has been given to gender inequalities within the music industries, and across genres, in global Northern nations. Whilst noting that gender inequalities exist in different genres is not new, their persistence, as well as identifying successes in strategies to change them, require further exploration.In this respect, Sweden, a country with an international reputation for comparatively greater equality between binary genders, as well as popular music ‘folkbildning’ traditions, provides an important case study.This paper will address how notions of gender equality are constructed in activist and policy measures in Sweden. It notes how these influence and, in turn, are influenced by material resources which shape strategies in different ways. Drawing from 10 interviews with key-stakeholders in the UK and Sweden, as well as comparative policy analysis, the paper argues that both ‘cultural democratic’ and ‘gender mainstreaming’ traditions help to counter entrenched sexism and misogyny across genres. At the same time, it also advocates the need to extend and develop these in order to integrate more firmly intersectional understandings of equality as both an ethical and aesthetic concern.