My Open Response to "They Exist In Your Spaces Too" by Anonymous
I'm speaking to musicians. This is a response to "They Exist in Your Spaces Too" by Anonymous published on Weird Canada today which you should read first.
https://weirdcanada.com/2016/07/they-exist-in-your-spaces-too/
We already talk. We share our experiences of dealing with problematic mediocre white men in music community.
We know there is a connection between treating women disrespectfully- finding ways to underpay us, gaslighting us when we try to push back, stopping show offers when we push back harder than your egos can handle, getting butt hurt when we don't want to cut you into our work- and violence against women.
We know this. We tell each other about our experiences. We create spaces where we are safer, like Not Enough Fest, and our allies show up for us.
I am grateful to be a member of a music community that I genuinely feel is a safer space for folks who are women/gender diverse/of colour than other spaces I've experienced anywhere in Canada.
But we also know that access to higher levels of professional music, more funding, more publicity, better shows, eventually involves ingratiating mediocre problematic middle-aging white men.
Our access to bigger shows, farther shows that will take us further as musicians who happen to be women always comes with an understanding that we will need to protect white male fragility. We will tell you who is garbage, but we won't say it too loud.
Women talk. Some men who play music with us know what happens to us but do they turn down shows offered by problematic men?
How many of you will share this writing by anonymous about an abusive man in Canadian music?
We tell you who is garbage and still the music community makes space for men like Jian Ghomeshi. It makes space for the men in this anonymous piece. It allows all the power imbalances of wider society to play out over something as potentially revolutionary but actually trivial as music and it results in violence against women-
Women who make music and women who love music
I don't know what to do. This isn't a women's problem. All I know to tell you is to make it safer for us to tell you who is garbage and then fucking do something about it.
Ask us. We will tell you. Spread the word. Stop supporting them. Get rid of them.
Anonymous: 'I invested myself into fragile music community – one that unknowingly and knowingly upholds predators. I tried to use this community as my safety net, but my experiences were too heavy.
"Why aren’t you supporting your community?”
Many people knew most of the details of our “relationship”, but the known rumours weren’t enough to deter people from supporting him.'
https://weirdcanada.com/2016/07/they-exist-in-your-spaces-too/
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