Musicians’ Union (MU) Assistant General Secretary Naomi Pohl discussed music and the #MeToo movement one year on with BBC Radio 4’s Front Row.
On why the music industry hasn’t had its #MeToo moment
“I think we’ve only scratched the surface to be honest. We’ve had about a hundred reports to our Safe Space service at the Musicians’ Union (MU).
“Reports have ranged from sexism to sexual assault. What’s been shocking to me personally has been how many different workplaces where there are problems; orchestras, West End pits, the gig circuit, touring.
“I feel freelancers are in a really vulnerable position. For example, if you’re assaulted in a different territory when you’re on tour, even if you’re engaged by someone in the UK, you’ve got to take it up with the police in the local territory where it happened. It’s the old saying ‘what goes on, on tour stays on tour’ and unfortunately, that is still the culture.
“There’s a lot of very positive initiatives in the music industry. Keychange for example, which is led by the PRS Foundation, setting up a pledge that festivals sign up to so there’ll be 50-50 representation on festival line-ups. It’s easy to criticise festivals because they publish their annual line-up in one poster so it’s really visible when it’s a lot of male acts. It’s not so easy to analyse the gig circuit across the whole of the UK”
What would a creative response to #MeToo look like in music?
“Kesha wrote a song which has obviously been very popular that was part of the #MeToo moment, so I think there will be works that come out of this. But it’s difficult because so few people in music have actually been named and shamed.
“We try and discourage people from actively advertising, which they do, for young, female, blonde violinists under the age of 30. You still get that kind of stuff unfortunately.
“I just think we’ve got such a long way to go. But I think you can’t stop listening to music. The fact is there’ll be so many musical works that have been created and there has been some sort of sexual harassment going on behind the scenes and we just don’t know about it.”
On the need for more women at every level in the music industry
“It’s still a very male dominated industry and its not just about the featured artists. It’s actually at every level. Music writers are still something like 20% female. Some of the statistics are really shocking. Nine out of ten musicians performing in the West End every night are men.”
Listen to the discussion in full on BBC Radio 4.
Also on the panel were Jude Kelly (founder and director of the Women Of the World Foundation), Larushka Ivan Zadeh (film critic), and Helen Lewis (Associate Editor of the New Statesman). The episode of Front Row was hosted by Kirsty Lang.
No-one should experience or fear sexual harassment, abuse, bullying or discrimination on campus or at work. If you have, whatever your role in the music industry, you can report it in confidence to safespace@theMU.org.