The Atlantic: Dealing with sexual harassment by Russell Simmons “was a full-time job,” Drew Dixon, a former executive at the record company Def Jam, told The New York Times recently. Simmons, the label boss, would so frequently expose himself to Dixon, she alleged, that she gave a spare key to her office to another coworker so that they could intervene whenever Simmons entered her workspace and unzipped. “It was exhausting,” she said. “It was like making a record while swimming in rough seas.” Still, she scored a huge hit by co-producing the 1995 soundtrack for The Show. Shortly afterwards, she said, Simmons raped her.
3 comments:
I am incredibly disappointed in every single entertainment industry right now. The fact that every single person of power across all industries is male is simply not okay. Males hire males, men think that men can do the job better than women and Portnow’s comment that women need to “step up,” is quite clearly what he actually thinks. Coming back and claiming you weren’t articulating clearly doesn’t change that fact that what you originally said is what you actually think. Women create amazing music every single day and to get to the same level as someone like Bruno Mars, is in no way the same playing field. Sexual harassment from bosses is real and it’s at the forefront of the #metoo movement and still the men in the industries think they’re not doing anything wrong. There is an unconscious bias that men have that they need to be aware of otherwise women are simply fighting a battle against the most oblivious species.
This article truly highlights how real sexual harassment and sexual assault is within the music industry, and it is truly disgusting. I think the most powerful point made in this article is at the very end, “…it becomes clear that the big problem isn’t a lack of trying. It’s a lack of respect.” This bias is so prevalent and it is ingrained into the very being of our society. Men are seen as superior because we were taught to believe they are. Men are seen as being more powerful because we were taught to believe they are. Women are constantly having to try to prove themselves within the music industry as being something more than a man’s hyper sexualized object or just a pretty face. The hashtags that have been circulating have started to raise public awareness to what has already been seen as a huge issue by the industry. Hopefully with light shedding on the issue, women will be able to gain footing in an industry (or more so a world) with an obvious gender bias.
The statistics in this article detailing the lack of female artists in chart-topping music was incredibly surprising to me. Looking through my recently played music I realized that I tend to listen to female solo artists more frequently than male solo artists, perhaps because I connect to them or relate to the lyrics more, and why I found it so unbelievable that a mere 22.4% were chart-topping artists in 2012. However I think this lack of representation of women in music is directly related to the harassment and discrimination they experiences in spaces of work. If we made more of a concerted effort to uplift girls from a young age and teach them that they are able to be in positions of power and give them sufficient representation, this would be one way to help the disparity of female bosses and overseers in every field of work, not only music.
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