brashspeak-blog

[brashspeak-blog]

The intersectionality of the hoodwinking of women; or, scones and tea won’t fix this and I’m raging.

*trigger warning: I use the word rape a lot in this, and directly reference a few of its associated brutalities. Please be kind to yourself, and don’t read this if you’re not up to it. You are more important than my rant.

 Also, just as a caveat, you need to put the jam on before the cream, you animals. 

 Women. We are 3D sacks of awe. Our laughter is the thing men fear the most, so...apparently we are that powerful. I mean, we’re most afraid that men will hurt us, but then, (spoiler alert) that’s kind of what I’m leading up to. It is the working knowledge of this stark difference in fear of the other, that has put me in a stroppy mood today. 

I love the idea of International Women’s day. I’ve been a nice thing to sit here in my knickers, drink tea and scroll through all the things people are posting on the socials about how inspiring the women in their lives are. I love the articles detailing women’s role in history, our progress to date and what may be on the near horizon. There is so much cause for celebration, and I am immensely proud that I get to be amongst the fold of a group of humans who do not seek revenge, but rather equality. I mean, feminism actually makes things better for men. We seek to redress toxic masculinity, we care deeply about men and how the current state of things that make “being a man” near untenable. As feminists, we simply want everyone to be happy. I mean, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

It is troubling, however, that even after packaging feminism as being good for men, and despite all the whistles, self-defence classes, opting to get an Uber home even when “home” is only one suburb away, there are some things that just wont stop. Men keep hurting us. 

I’m going to dive straight into the deep end and get to the point. Women are not doing bad things to themselves, nor are rapes accidents. We don’t trip and fall into a rape. Sexual violence is intentional, and in every single case, someone/s is doing it to us. Here in Australia, a place largely considered to be one of the safer corners of the world, we have a shocking epidemic of rape. SBS reported that “Australia has one of the highest rates of reported sexual assault in the world, at almost 92 people per 100,000 of the population, according to the United Nations”. SBS states in no uncertain terms that we are at more than double the global average for reported sexual assault. The key word there, in case you missed it, was the word reported. These are the numbers we can, hand on heart, say we actually know about. 

Based on numbers collected by the ABS in 2016, “one in five women (18% or 1.7 million) have now experienced sexual violence” in Australia. If you have not been sexually assaulted, don’t worry, it might still happen. If you have, you don’t need to worry either… it might happen again, because let’s face it, it’s not exactly the chicken pox.

How many women do you know? Is it five or more? Have any of them been sexually assaulted? If you’re shaking your head or if you’re unsure, either you have never had an honest conversation with a woman, or, none of them trust you. 

 Sit with that for a moment. 

At this point in things, it is important to note that I did not write that last bit just for men. If you are a woman and you don’t know of another woman who has been sexually assaulted, then maybe…. you’re not a safe woman. Make sure you consider that as a possibility. 

Now young lady, you seem a bit fixated in the violence? what’s up with that? Cool, you there in the back raise a very strong point, and I thank you for your candour. Let’s move swiftly over to a more palatable topic, let’s have a chat about….art.

Let’s start with music. Below is an excerpt from my master’s thesis on women in the music industry, steel yourself for some dry academic writing, but it is relevant: 

 …female songwriters are far less visible than performing artists, and the numbers show it. Within APRAs member base of 85, 000 Australian musicians, “20% of songwriters in this category are women”. What this tells us, is that out of just one sub-category, that is contemporary popular music, while 20% are of songwriters are women, within the larger music industry women are still less likely to be booked or included in a festival line-up than their male peers. When drilling the numbers down further, out of the entire APRA membership, “the gender divide between registered APRA members was on the most drastic across (an) entire analysis- only about one in five APRAH members are women” (McCormack, 2018). While this may “seem low, it was a 3.8% increase” (McCormack, 2018) from 2017. 

The statistics of most interest are the numbers associated with sub-categories within the music industry. Continuing with songwriters as an example, “APRA outlines the genres where women are under-represented and over-represented” (McCormack, 2018), with their numbers showing “only 7% of jingle writers in the industry are women” and within that 7%, “53% of children’s music writers are women”. From this statistic alone, it shows women are under-represented song writing as whole, but for roles culturally associated with women’s roles within society, that being child orientated content, women are over-represented.

Commenting on the Australian music industry, and the Skipping a Beat report, The Workplace Gender Equality Agency concluded that “women are not only confronted with a glass ceiling, but also glass walls, where women congregate in occupations and sectors where the majority of employees are women”. Meaning, that women are more likely to find employment as song writers if they write for children rather than for their own peers. 

Conversely, within a study by Dr Smith of the Annenberg Institute of Inclusion found that “nine male songwriters… have been responsible for almost one-fifth of the top songs in the last six years” (Sisario, 2018), that being from 2012-2018 in the Billboard Hot 100 in North America. In addition, figures pulled from APRA are important, not only because “APRAH AMCOS help artists get paid for their work” (McCormack, 2018), but also because of their “member base is a huge sample (over 85,000 registered members)” (McCormack, 2018). From that alone “we can reasonably assume that it’s a fairly accurate reflection of the large gender gap between songwriters in Australia” (McCormack, 2018). However, it’s not just the numbers pulled from APRA membership base that provide evidence of the continuing severe gender gaps within the Australian, and international, music industry. Going further afield, when looking at the nominees selected for both Australian and international awards ceremonies, top 100 count downs and radio playlists, a clear gender gap emerges across the broad field of music industry related occupations. 

Skipping a Beat found that “female artists received significantly fewer industry awards than their male peers, with only 20 female artists out of 367 musicians featured in the Triple J’s Hottest 100” (Workplace Gender Equality Agency, 2018), further to that “only 11 out of 75 inductees into the ARIA Hall of Fame” (Workplace Gender Equality Agency, 2018) have been women to date. Internationally speaking, the figures are no better for women. When looking to the most prestigious accolades within the international music industry, “of the 899 individuals who have been nominated for the last six Grammy ceremonies, 90.7 % were men, and 9.3% were women” (Sisario, 2018). From these numbers and studies conducted on gender disparities within the Australian and international music industries, a trickle-down effect is becoming all the clearer.

For Australian top radio playlists, women’s representation does not appear to be any better off when compared to those played globally. In 2018’s Tripe J Hottest 100, which happens to be the world biggest democratic song count down, of the 100 songs voted in, “37 song…were from artists with at least one woman” (McCormack, 2018). Further to that, only “twenty-four of those were by acts where at least half of its members are women” (McCormack, 2018). Interestingly, “none of those songs scored enough to make it to the top 10” (McCormack, 2018). What this tells us is that women consistently represent 20-30% of the Australian and International radio play lists, despite seeing an increase in artist royalty registrations and some festival line-ups. Data available from Spotify Australia solidifies this, by revealing that of the top 100 songs played from Australian IP addresses, “21 female artists” (McCormack, 2018) make the cut, and “none of them are in the top 10” (McCormack, 2018). What is not clear is if these female artists are Australian or internationally based, however, what is clear is that it is entirely irrelevant where a female artist is from or based, her visibility within the music industry appears to be capped at 20-30%. 

 Do you know what I’m thinking? I’m reckoning that perhaps there is a wedge that exists in this world. Imagine this wedge is a door stopper (if you will), and at one end there sits a small inequality, starting with small transgressions that grows fatter and bigger until it carried such weight it can stop the full force of a swinging door. 

Call this wedge a tap on the bum at a pub. Call it an uncomfortable vibe from the guy who is walking just a tad too close to you in the dark. Call it the stranger who puts his hand on the inside of your leg while you’re drunk and asks if you want another. Call it the moment you realise that in this instance it’s safest to play dead and wait for it to stop. Call it Ryan Adams, call it Bowie, call it John Lennon, call it Picasso, call it the local sleaze everyone just rolls their eyes at. Call it a lack of representation in film, art, music, politics, writing. Call it the silencing of women. 

Call it a wedge where we excuse shitty behaviour, because “no harm no foul”, and watch as we all spin in confusion when an 11-year-old girl is forced to deliver a baby conceived by rape, or when another girl gets murdered 100 metres from her fucking tram stop, or another on her way home from her own god damn comedy show. 

We must be seen. We must be heard. Our rage must be contended with. Our time and what we do with it must be acknowledge and treated equally. We are 52% of the population, how is it we have to fight so damn hard to just.fucking.see.ourselves. 

There is a link between what some may excuse as a small annoyance and an overall systematic silencing of women. The silencing of our music, our voices, our contributions to history and culture, and the total erasure of our lives must end. Once you’re on that wedge, it doesn’t take long to move from end to the other. We all must acknowledge this link; our lives depend on it. 

But you know, it’s not all doom and gloom, and on a more personal note, I’m not always raging. So now that I’ve gotten this shit off my chest, I’m going to pour a fresh cold beer down my gob, because beer was invented by us females and by fuck, I’m going to celebrate women today. See you at the show.