Pitchfork senior editor Jessica Hopper highlighted this with her Twitter call for female and marginalized colleagues to recount their "1st brush (in music industry, journalism, scene) w/ idea that you didn't 'count'," prompting tales of blatant sexism and misogyny. There has been a longstanding tradition of taking advantage of women in the business—sometimes even to a physical degree. Casual sexism has morphed into a bigger, more insidious unspoken problem: The sexual harassment, abuse, and assault of women in the music industry.A year and a half after my first job in music, I was attacked in a taxi after a work concert by the owner of a well-known PR company based in London. He had been buying me and a colleague drinks all night on his company card, and when the night was dwindling to its end, he suggested we split a taxi home because we lived fairly close to each other. As soon as we started to drive through Hackney, he inched closer and closer to me, all whilst telling me how much he liked that I was a "bitch," and how much "better" I was than my colleague.Read More: There's a Rape Problem at Festivals and Nobody Seems to Care
Men take up 67.8 percent of all jobs in the UK music industry. Photo by Victor Torres via Stocksy
A week later, Sarah's boyfriend broke up with her after an argument. The booker invited her to Shoreditch House because she "should get her mind off of everything," which, up until this point, seems like rational advice. "I started crying over my boyfriend and he started buying me double shots," she said. "I don't remember anything else, and next thing I knew, I woke up naked in his bed and just started crying. I was wondering where the fuck my clothes were because I didn't remember anything. He said he had to go to work and we simply left his house in silence."Following this, she got back together with her boyfriend. A few days later, Sarah approached the booker to talk about what happened that night. "I asked him if he fucked me and he said yes. He said nothing else at the time. I was in denial and horrified and blocked it out—I wanted to forget the fact I'd been taken advantage of. He hasn't said anything since."Sarah told her boyfriend what happened, and that's when things took an even more poisonous turn—her boyfriend accused her of lying and "trying to ruin a man's career." In fact, a 2013 Ministry of Justice report from the UK stated that only 15 percent of victims of the most serious sexual offences (which covers rape, attempted rape and sexual assault) report it to the police, suggesting that there are far more women living with assault in secret than lying about it.I don't remember anything else, and next thing I knew, I woke up naked in his bed and just started crying.
One day after a particularly stressful week, he suggested they go for lunch together. The pair were spending at least 12 hours a day working on a proposal to host an artist showcase at SXSW. Their project had just been approved, and Jake was planning to fly her out to Austin with him. "As he ordered the bill, he asked me if he could ask me a question—and for some reason, I just fucking knew what was coming. He asked me, 'If we didn't work together and I asked you on a date, would you?' I was mortified. I pointed out that he was my boss and I was a student, but he was quick to dismiss it and said our unrealistic 10-year age gap doesn't matter."During the investigation, the school discovered that he had lied about booking separate rooms for SXSW. He had, in fact, only booked one double room for both of them.
"While the attack in a cab was my worst experience, there have been countless, less extreme others." Photo by Boris Jovanovic via Stocksy
One night he fucked me whilst I laid there silent and crying. After he came, he took the condom off and slapped me in the face with it.
