Last most Korean music awards, MAMA is heavily slanted towards male acts because they are thought to be selling more tickets.
The Artist of the Year is considered to be the greatest of the grand prizes. It was won by Jang Nara in 2002 and Lee Hyori in 2003. (Back then it had a different name)
And, in 2011, SNSD won the Artist of the Award from MAMA.
These were the only Artist Awards won by females in MAMA's 28 years of history.
The closest a female figure came to the MAMA Artist Award, the certification that the act is the top act of Korea, was in 2014 when Lee Jieun showed up in MAMA for the first time and sang 4 songs.
However, since Lee Jieun was not that relevant to the global Kpop fans, giving her the Artist Award would make MAMA a fool over the entire world.
So MAMA gave Lee Jieun the Most Popular Vocalist Award, AKA the Lifetime Achievement Award, when she was thought to be 21 (her actual age was not revealed until 2019).
Since Lee Jieun won the Lifetime Achievement Award, she is considered to be retired by MAMA and is no longer eligible for the Grand Prizes to the day she dies.
So NewJeans' Artist of the Year Award is very remarkable, but because Min Heejin has some beef with MNet, NJ did not bother to show up.
It seems the power of Grand Prizes has fallen over the years and singers don't consider Grand Prizes as a great honor any more.
