Sexism on the Dancefloor – How Can We (Men) Do Better? (2017)

“Hey, aren’t you that guy that did that weird review of an album you found in Poundland? Why are you writing about this? And aren’t you male?”. Well, to answer all of those – yes, because it’s been bugging me for ages, and yes. Now before someone tweets me saying I’m a ‘Woke Misogynist’ (see Nona Aronowitz’s excellent article explaining this phenomenon), I want to put a little bit of a disclaimer on this. This article doesn’t intend to take the emphasis away from women and the struggles they face in this industry, it merely aims to provide a reactionary perspective and hopefully open a dialogue about the actions we take and their impact on our female and non-binary counterparts.

The situation at large lies as follows. One of the biggest stories in DJ news, and music news, last year was Giegling founder Konstantin’s comments in his Groove profile, saying that women “are often worse than men” at DJing, and then responded to the controversy by saying the reporter, a woman, “did not appreciate my bad sense of humour and my habit of taking opposite positions to challenge people”. Huh. Throwing Shade went viral last year with a video she posted after performing at a festival in France, detailing how the sound at the festival was very poor, and the sound technicians “weren’t doing anything about that”. But, lo behold when Jamie 3:26 (really bad name I think) came on, the technicians were “all hands on deck, sorted out all the problems straight away”. Both stories focus on very different areas on the industry, and their impact can have large-scale effects that are felt by all. Bjork, last year famously spoke out, in true Bjork style, about how “if we (women) don’t cut our chest open and bleed about the men and children in our lives we are cheating our audience. Eat your Bechdel test heart out”. A report this year put that “while both female and black, Asian, and minority ethnic representation was progressive at entry level, the higher up the executive ladder, the worse the representation got”. To top this, there’s the mainstream but horrifying wonder of the 2015 Reading & Leeds line up, or rather the edited version of the line up, which removed all the male performers and left only nine female acts performing. Nine. You had a greater chance of * than running into a female act.

So, that’s a lot of listing of a lot of famous examples, but how does relate to the average Smiths reader? Well the local scene has its problems, and I think that’s where the roots of the problem lie. For example, the nearest venue for putting on a gig outside Goldsmiths is everyone’s favourite dive, The Amersham Arms. Now, granted, I’m not sure anyone expects much from a pub that’s sponsored by Red Stripe (I mean come on, what good ever comes from Red Stripe), but the pub itself has a lot of famous links, regularly hosts gigs with both students and with bigger acts, and even has regulars such as Professor Green and Slaves. However, the stories and reputation that spills out from Amersham indicate just a serious problem, and these are the sexist values that are being displayed by artists, promoters, festivals and more in national and international examples and being learnt, ignored and worst, encouraged in grass roots music venues. The classic troupe, at least in my experience and in talking to friends and female artists, is the ‘boys club’ mentality created in this industry and university. Local nights are often male dominated, with little effort made to encourage female artists to join, with those who are included to have their own artform and degree mansplained back to them in an ill-conceived, unwelcome effort to ‘educate and include’. There are movements resisting this though, such as the #NormalNotNovelty workshops run by Red Bull Studios, which aims to remove the potentially “shocking novelty of the mere sight of a female producer”. Female and non-binary collectives such as BBZ and Siren help to further this effort as well as establishing a platform and community for other female and non-binary producers and DJs. Local station Balamii even collaborated with BBZ for pride putting on a night which presented “ten women at the forefront of DIY music culture to perform”.

Now I get to the crux of this article. A few months ago, I shared a post from Soundcloud and The Tab, detailing the upcoming DJs in universities across the country, and I pointed out that out of the 25 DJs selected, 3 were female and none were BAME or non-binary. The comments then exploded with ignorant male DJs, producers and musicians criticising my observation, and the responses posted by many. Hattie Wynter-Bridges, ex-manager of Wired Radio, did an amazing article for Smiths in reaction to this, but there were some arguments in these comments that I hear perpetrated often among my male counterparts, views that I too have held in the past. This is the male perspective that I want to confront, and in some way offer my advice as to correct and incorrect responses. Because education amongst men is important, not just waiting for a woman to tell us how to change, especially in these university days, where many begin and develop their skills and careers, and often face the first serious career-affecting impacts of sexism within the music industry. So, here is a number of the responses that were posted by real Goldmsiths’ students…

“The majority of DJs tend to be male”

I just don’t think this is true. Sure, currently the industry is a male-dominated industry but it doesn’t mean that all DJs are male. The issue lies that the female DJs often are overlooked by their male counter-parts, have a tiny amount of role models to follow, are often paid less and often just overly-criticised. The replies to this comment listed 34 amazing female and non-binary DJs and collectives, as well as dozens more in another thread that were deleted sadly, due to an individual clearing realising he was in the wrong with his opinion.

“I guess that's probably the fault of the promoters who put on gigs”

I really hate this one. We all have a voice, we can all protest. It doesn’t matter if you’re an artist, promoter, venue, manager or just a fan, you have a voice. Promoters are responsible for booking female artists, yes, but outspoken protest and criticism can impact even the biggest artists. I say this as a man at fault, who hasn’t protested enough in the past out of fear.

“I have a regular show and it'd be sick to have a female *insert role here* feature I just know none except for *artist* lol if any of u know any feel free to hit me up”

Literally couldn’t believe this one was written. Do not hijack a debate which literally affects the careers and prospects of millions of people and use it as a platform to promote your career. Further, if you want to feature more female or non-binary artists then go out there and educate yourself finding some. Don’t be lazy and just put up a status asking for contacts, go out and learn about the local scene and I guarantee you you’ll come across plenty of female and non-binary artists.

I think there needs to be more talk between guys about what we can do to help in this and making sure we call out sexism when we hear it. Although sadly, through conducting this article I asked multiple male musicians in different areas for comments, but some didn’t respond, and others didn’t want their comments published. It’s easy to fall into the mentalities displayed above, since they’ve become ingrained into many levels of the industry. But making a stand now and being outspoken in this issue is key now more than ever.