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How are women and non-binary people treated in the Australian music industry?

How are women and non-binary people treated in the Australian music industry?

Pocket Change Episode 3 with Dr Breanna Wright

Working with Big Sound Festival back in 2018, we hosted workshops and facilitated conversations to better understand how we can remove discriminatory behaviours towards women and non-binary people in the music industry.

The #MeToo movement sparked reflections in many industries across the world. In the Australian music industry, this manifested into the #MeNoMore movement where women and non-binary people came out with their experiences of problematic behaviours they have faced within the industry, such as assaults and discriminatory behaviours. Addressing this, the Big Sound Festival invited BehaviourWorks Australia to host workshops and facilitate conversations about problems men, women, and non-binary people were facing in the industry as well as help them better understand how they can achieve change within this space.

Pocket Change is a series of pocket-size videos about a key aspect of behaviour change.  Each episode features a BehaviourWorks Australia Researcher explaining their area of expertise in a clear and simple manner.  

Grab a coffee, press play, and enjoy Pocket Change.

Transcript:

Geoff

Hi, I'm here again talking to Dr. Breanna Wright about the big science festival and your work, looking at the way women have been treated in the Australian music industry, which I guess was a kind of a result of the #MeToo movement?

Breanna

Well, the #MeToo movement really sparked a global reflection in many industries and in the Australian music industry that manifested as #menomore hashtag with a lot of women and non-binary people coming forward about their experiences of problematic behaviours, of assaults, of discriminatory behaviours, etc. And there was also a documentary called ‘Her Sound, Her Story’, which really unearthed a lot of the problems that people were facing in the Australian music industry.

Geoff

And you and I attended the Big Sound Music Festival in Brisbane where women and men were invited to discuss these issues. What were the sort of findings that that you found in that workshop?

 Breanna

Yeah, so essentially we were invited to Big Sound to help them have a conversation about a lot of the problems that they were facing and they were really interested in how to achieve change in that space. And so we had a conversation with a lot of people from the music industry, from the performers themselves to the managers to the roadies, everybody involved.

And what we actually did was we presented them with four common problems that people were experiencing in the music industry at the time and let them choose which one they wanted to unpack.

Geoff

Okay, so tell us about the four problems that we gave them the choice of.

Breanna

Women and non-binary people are underrepresented in festival line-ups. The second one was that there are some men in the music industry who exhibit toxic behaviours and don't appear to suffer any professional consequences as a result. The third was that the life of a musician can be quite kind of precarious and the stress associated with that can lead to some mental health issues. And the fourth one was that there was there's an expectation in the music industry that you should always be on, always be available and that people should be able to contact you on your phone any time and you should be really responsive.

Geoff

So let's talk about the behaviours that we identified as a result of this workshop.

Breanna

So essentially we let the audience pick one of the problems - they picked the one around ‘men behaving badly’, as we called it, for shorthand. So we heard a lot about women not being recognised for their role in the music industry. People assuming that they were somebody’s girlfriend rather than that music professional.

We heard about them being interrupted a lot, their voices and their opinions being dismissed. We also heard about questions always being directed to men in a group, in a group setting, women not being introduced, and a lot of mansplaining and interrupting behaviours were common as well. And then, of course, there were some far more serious behaviours around experience, harassment and assault.

Geoff

Many of the men in the room would still be very careful how to explain these behaviours, how they took the microphone and how they spoke and when they spoke, because mansplaining something like a lot of biases and behaviours that people might not be aware of.

Breanna

Yes, exactly. And if I recall correctly, there was one very funny situation where a woman was trying to articulate a mansplaining situation and the man behind her was trying to explain that the word she was looking for was mansplaining.  But he was very aware of what he was doing and was trying to do it in a very supportive way.

But the people who were there were very mindful about their behaviours and how they were communicating about the problem. And it was a very respectful conversation. We set up the ground rules, the ground rules at the start to ensure that people were kind of all on the same page about the type of conversation we wanted to have.

Geoff

Talk a little bit about the drivers and barriers that you have identified in your research in this area.

Breanna

So we know that a lot of the things that drive these problematic behaviours are around problematic attitudes towards women and towards gender equality. The social norms in these industries. We spoke a lot about, I guess, the history of sex, drugs and rock and roll and this kind of no rules environment which the music industry was known for, and how that was helping to perpetuate an environment where these things could keep happening.

Geoff

It's hard to behave in an equitable way if you're a Rock God. In many ways, that's the trope.

Breanna

Yeah, exactly. And these hierarchies where there are some people put up on pedestals and their behaviour doesn't get questioned, they are approachable. And so we talked a lot about how all of those factors were creating this environment.

Geoff

Tell us about how we were able to switch up to some of the positive behaviours to be exhibited or models.

Breanna

So after we've broken down the problem into its behaviours, we started to talk about what better behaviours look like, what is it that we want to see people do in the music industry that would help contribute to a solution to the problems? And so we got to the audience again to generate this positive list of behaviours. And a lot of the things that they were talking about was things around how to elevate female and non-binary musicians, seeking out their voices, increasing workers mentation in venues and at festivals.

Another one was around making sure that females in a group are introduced and making sure that we show genuine interest in their role in the music industry and trying to avoid those assumptions about being someone's girlfriend and kind of create this environment where they're seen as equals.

So two more of the positive behaviours that people would really like to see in the music industry is; more attention to talent over appearance, and the second one was around respecting personal space. You know, a lot of the inappropriate touching and putting a hand on the back of somebody’s waist, etc. is mostly directed at female members.

Geoff

So what about concrete solutions to these behaviours? Have any been suggested?

Breanna

One of the ones that we discussed and is quite topical in the music industry at the moment is around quotas to increase female and non-binary representation at music festivals.  And so this is where you would set aside a certain number of spots at a festival to be filled by female musicians.

 They're very contentious in the music industry at the moment. They think it takes the focus away from talent and so we had a bit of a conversation around this and how, you know, somebody's attitudes towards gender equality might be really positive on the whole, but their attitudes towards a specific initiative such as quotas, might be less supportive.

 Quotas have shown to be quite effective, but they can also be associated with backlash. And so it's about managing the attitudes towards the solutions and managing any backlash that might happen.

Geoff

How do we bring about behaviour change when they are surrounded by such entrenched behaviours in this sector?

Breanna

We talked around what are the drivers and barriers to these positive behaviours that we'd like to achieve in the music industry and throughout the session we used smoking as a bit of an example, and we reflected on how over a couple of decades we had seen really dramatic change in people's smoking behaviour. It was no longer something that was common or accepted in the music industry anymore. We used that as a little bit of a comparative point and talked about how with consistent attention, dedicated interventions and solutions, that we could hopefully see a similar trajectory with these really complex, wicked behaviours in the music industry.

A lot of the drivers of these problematic behaviours are around attitudes, not valuing and respecting women, and also the social norms that are driving this, like ‘This is just how we behave in the music industry. It's what we've always done.’  And so we spend a little bit of time talking around how to achieve that attitude change and how to establish more positive social norms in the music industry.

Geoff

What next?

Breanna

There are lots of positive, small initiatives that are happening around promoting and respecting females in the music industry more. And we're seeing problematic behaviours being called out a lot more, which is really important.

Geoff

Hopefully when it comes to the music industry, a bunch of new norms about the way women are treated are being established.

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