For female artists in many areas of the music world, dealing with gender inequality is a regular part of the job. In their own words, here's what that's like.
For many women in music, sexism in their professional lives is commonplace.
Via: Julien M. Hekimian / Getty Images
Experimental pop musician Grimes outlined what this means for her in a Tumblr entry about the behavior she finds most disturbing and offensive. Here's just a small piece of her post:
i dont want to be molested at shows or on the street by people who perceive me as an object that exists for their personal satisfaction
i dont want to live in a world where im gonna have to start employing body guards because this kind of behavior is so commonplace and accepted and I'm pissed that when I express concern over my own safety it's often ignored until people see firsthand what happens and then they apologize for not taking me seriously after the fact…
I'm tired of men who aren't professional or even accomplished musicians continually offering to 'help me out' (without being asked), as if i did this by accident and i'm gonna flounder without them. or as if the fact that I'm a woman makes me incapable of using technology. I have never seen this kind of thing happen to any of my male peers
Via: edohaus.com
It's not just Grimes who feels this way. Female musicians spanning many genres and levels of fame have been open about their experiences in ways that speak to gender inequality. In an email to BuzzFeed, Heather D'Angelo of electro-pop band Au Revoir Simone referenced the last paragraph, quoted above, of Grimes's post and how it relates to the ways she's felt condescended to by men:
Au Revoir Simone has been on the receiving end of completely unsolicited advice from the most random dudes since our first show in 2003. And it's also true that as an all-female, all-synth band, we seem to be susceptible to a very special brand of "advice": "You know, you ladies would be so much better if you had [insert any instrument here]." As if we never before thought of having a live drummer or guitars until it was suggested by some guy whose musical prowess most likely doesn't extend much farther than a Saturday night playing Guitar Hero.
These "helpful hints" undermine D'Angelo as an established, professional artist, but at least they acknowledge that she's in the band at all. D'Angelo's bandmate, Erika Forster, recounted the many times she's been mistaken for a hanger-on as opposed to an actual musician:
Since the early days of our band we experienced a lot of, "Are you the merch girls?" and being sternly told that we were't allowed access somewhere by men, or sometimes women, who assumed we were the girlfriends or groupies.
