I write and talk about how to take action against sexism in the music industry pretty regularly, so when I noticed The Stranger wrote about Angel Olsen being harassed at her Neumos show I jumped at the opportunity to read, process, and commiserate. It pained me to think of her being attacked. Her album Burn Your Fire For No Witness was sent from the heavens to rip my insides apart in the best way. She is an actual angel.
The piece is a narrative written by a dude about how he confronted another dude for yelling “show us some titties” to Angel onstage the other night at her Seattle show. While always refreshing to read about an actually decent person confronting sexual harassment, ultimately I became more angry the more I sat with the piece. Like, why don’t more men do this? I am glad the writer did this at this one show (possibly others, idk), but why don’t dudes do this all the time?
“The following thoughts occurred to me (though they are not news to anyone):
1) This must happen to her all the time.
2) This happens to every woman who ever gets on a stage, anywhere, any time.
3) This happens to every woman who ever leaves the house.”
Yes, guy, you are correct. It got me thinking about all the times I’ve had conversations with well-meaning men in my community, both acquaintances and strangers. The conversation usually starts the same way: I’m sitting at the bar where my friend Jess bar-tends, next to a man probably, because more men are alone at bars I guess? The three of us talk about a fucked up sexual harassment thing that happened to me or Jess earlier that day or the night prior, and the guy always says something like “I feel so bad for women I don’t know what to do to help prevent this kind of stuff.”
I launch into the nuances of confronting seemingly harmless instances of sexism. I suggest they call out their friends when misogynistic language is casually thrown around. It doesn’t need to be a fight, just a simple “hey that’s not cool and here’s why.” I explain that these smaller instances of misogyny are like gateway drugs to more horrible actions, like abuse, or feeling entitled to yell at women at shows or follow them on the street. I provide tangible examples of these instances and they always say the same thing: “oh, my friends aren’t like that.”
But yes, they are like that. Sometimes your friends are like that!
Harassment is happening around you all the time and when casual sexism goes unchecked it continues. Men: the best way for you to help women is to NEVER let this kind of behavior slide. Confrontation, much like casual sexism, can be subtle, it doesn’t need to be violent. It can be like what this guy at Neumos for Angel Olsen’s show did. I promise that it helps because “those kinds of men” will listen to other men - much more then they’d listen to someone like me (uh, a woman).
A little goes a long way.
kianamaiart
stormborns
turnnoffyourmind
annaxmalina
romaincrisis
izzy806
