'GIRLS TALK'
'Girls Talk' is a project exploring the treatment of women in the music industry and the rise of sexual assault and sexual harassment in these environments. This body of work looks at the personal experiences and opinions of individuals and reflects the fear that the night instils on women regarding their safety.
View the full project here:
MARGED
“I was raped five years ago at a music venue. I was really lost for a long period of my life and I didn’t write any music for about two years. But then I wrote my first E.P, Radial Softness, which is about finding the sexual liberation again within being a woman. It was just to do with growing and understanding my body again but in a different way, so writing songs about demanding that I’m getting pleasure because my body isn’t a commodity for anyone else to just bang. Within the process of dealing with it, I got into drink and drugs and that’s what my second E.P, You Are Not a God, is about but it all stems from this one experience, where someone had taken a part of my freedom."
EADYTH
"I’ve had experiences of mistreatment being a female producer, as you don’t see that many around. People say ‘oh you make music do you?’ and things like that so it can be hard you know. My opinion on the issue is that it needs to grow more, everything that’s going on at the moment needs to carry on growing and continue being recognised as men and women being equal, as well as non-binary and gender neutral people – everything needs to be neutral."
GEMMA
"Every time I go out and I come off stage I always get at least one or two guys coming onto me thinking they can put their hands round me and its not good. Just because I’m female, it doesn't mean you can do that. When the men come off stage you don’t see them getting hugged and kissed like we do - it’s really unfair. A few weeks ago a guy in Bristol put his hands in between my legs. I went nuts and the door staff were amazing, they listened to me and quickly removed the guy from the venue. There’s just no respect for anything in the scene, it’s really really hard. I definitely think you need really thick skin to be in the music industry."
FFION
"The touching had always been present. I remember by about 16, being somewhat resigned to these moments and understanding that if I go into the mosh pit, or if I want to be anywhere down the front to see my idols, I'd be touched or groped inappropriately. There's an onus on venues to take responsibility for what people do in their premises, if they don't take it seriously, then women have a lesser chance of the authorities taking it seriously. Secondly, don't allow acts who have a history of misogyny or blatant sexism in their music or personas perform - they bring with them an audience that may reflect that behaviour."
REBA
“I think men need to be educated on how to treat women fairly, there’s always going to be attraction but its knowing your boundaries. My body is my body it’s not for you. Just cause I’m up there on a pedestal to look at and yeah I might dance and show a bit of flesh but it’s not for you to touch or grab hold of. I’m not doing it to be alluring or provocative to you. There needs to be some kind of culture shift in attitudes towards women in music and women themselves. But some men may not see it as a big thing, because it is so conditioned into our society that this is how men treat women or men adore a woman and look at them like we are their objects of desire.”
ALCIE
“Sometimes you know you are getting attention for the wrong reason, but sometimes I feel like if they don’t mention your physique but they mention your voice or the overall experience, you’ve kind of gained points somehow. I often feel like I can’t dress exactly the way I want to, as I like to dress up and change character depending on the gig. I get worried people think I’m dressing for the sexual attraction.”
YASMINE
“I’ve had experiences when a guy has literally grabbed the mic out of my hand when I’m spitting, it’s so disrespectful. I feel like it comes down to men being jealous and intimidated when seeing a woman do ‘a man’s thing.’ All my bars now are about empowering women. I feel like my lyrics help me get through these experiences by writing about it, making tracks about it and videos about it. It’s me expressing it and forgetting about it but at the same time then also hopefully giving an insight into situations that can happen so girls don’t feel alone.”
FAITH
"For ladies there has always been this issue of not really knowing if you have been sexually harassed because everything is always positioned and played as 'a joke.' Sexual assault and harassment is a difficult one, the issue has been going on for centuries and I think this is because women have not been appreciated properly. I think the only way we can help the situation is by teaching children how to respect women and how to understand the worth of a woman."
AZZANNE
"I’ve been a representative for Girls Against for 3 years now. When I was younger, I literally felt like these instances were just normal behaviour, so that’s why Girls Against is so important to me because its taught me that its not okay. We’re working on a partnership at the moment which will see security guards at venues being trained specifically in sexual harassment. I think that security guards are so focused on drugs and drinking that the issue is pushed aside. I feel sexual harassment at gigs is a reflection of a bigger problem in society, where men are brought up to think it’s okay to act a certain way but that’s also sexism within the music industry. A gig is like a microcosm of the bigger issue in the music industry which is then a microcosm of the world or society."
HANNAH
“I think one of the roots of the issues with sexual assault is that women from a really young age are told to be polite and conditioned to put other people before themselves, which obviously goes hand in hand with rape culture, where coming forward about an assault may “ruin the abusers career.” Men are branded with the ‘boy wonder’ stamp pretty easily, and as soon as someone brands them a genius, people stop questioning their actions, and they get away with it. By putting someone on a pedestal, they’re in the position to abuse their power and if you instil that much confidence into people for doing so little, that’s when things go wrong.”
TRISHNA
"I work at the student union as stage crew. I mentioned I was a DJ to one of the guys I work with and he looked really shocked, but he was shocked before knowing that I was doing a 'mans job'. When I’m there I don’t want people to think I’m there because I’m a groupie, or I wanna meet the band. I don’t wanna be perceived that I’m there to be sexual. And it's not like I want to prove that I can do what you can do, either. I’m here just like you, because I want a job, I want to progress in this industry. I still feel like within myself, I feel very strongly about gender conventions and things like that and I don’t want to have to live by conventions. I want the young women I know to challenge it and do what you want to do."
KATIE
"From my personal experience outside of gigs and from being young and things have happened I didn’t necessarily want it to happen, I felt forced into situations and it's something that you carry with you for a long time. Particularly when it comes to relationships then which are normal, as I’ve found I’ve been scared of a lot of things. But it’s something that you battle with a lot and it makes you a stronger person but at the end of the day, that person is unknowingly taking away an innocence or something that I should be really secure with but I’m not anymore."
ASHA
“I’ve had abuse in my general life outside the music industry but the guy was a musician and my partner at the time. He used to brag about his accomplishments in music and say ‘you’re good but you’ll never be my level’. Part of it was making me feel smaller than what I was. So anything I was doing in music he would be fake supportive and that is the only man in the music industry that has ever dragged me down. He’s someone who thought he’d do way better than me and yet I’ve surpassed many of his expectations already. It was a small part of what was a really abusive situation. I got some good songs out of it though – it’s what took me on my empowering journey. I do think that I get over things a lot faster if I write about them. I just have a way of coping with my emotions and it happens to be by doing something I absolutely love.”