Written evidence submitted by Lady of the House (MiM0035)

 

 

1) Summery:  I, Laila McKenzie, Founder of Lady of the House an initiative Celebrating, Championing and Honouring Women in Music through a multi function platform will submit evidence collected from our community to the Women and Equalities Commission's Misogny in Music. This is built from my experience both as a woman in the industry for 20 years and being a leader in representing women in the industry through Lady of the House and through asking our community to submit evidence to us so we can include it in this piece.

 

2) Who We Are:  Lady Of The House evolved from a best selling book authored by myself and Ian Snowy, including 150 interviews with women DJs, Producers, Artists, Promoters, Management, Label Owners, Venue Owners, Legals, Dancers, Journalists and many more roles who work in the music industry from across the world. With interviews inc Joyclen Brown, Barbara Tucker, Amy Wheatley, Charlotte de Witte, Jo Cox-Brown, Arielle Free, Rowetta, Roisin Murphy, Ultra Naté with a foreword from Carl Cox. Backed by a number of key industry orgs who we brought together to work towards leveling the playing field inc: Defected Records, Focusrite, Insanity, RA + more. The concept quickly grew into a worldwide recognised movement endorsed by press inc Billboard, BBC, Pitchfork, DJMag, Mixmag, Beatport, NME, and many key outlets. The initiative's mission is executed through a multifunction platform of education, networking, mentoring, campaigning, music events, a record label and conferences. Lady of the House took a lead role in driving and creating a report highlighting women's Inclusion and Safety in the Night Time Sector from the results of a nationwide survey co-conducted by Lady of the House in partnership with other industry leaders. This formed the basis of structuring a Women at Night Taskforce which Lady of the House co-leads to help create change and for women to feel undiscriminated, safe and have a voice in their workplace. The work keeps growing from strength to strength. Last month we announced our advisory board made up of Maria May (CAA) Lynn Cosgrave (Safehouse Management) Ed Jenkins (Real Management) and Bentleigh Burgess (Lakota). We invest working days funds and resources into doing all we can to make sure that the next generation of women in music have a fairer chance of thriving in an environment that nurtures their growth.

 

3)What We Do: 

Some impacts Lady of the House has had over the past 2 years

- Demo comp -350+ demos received from women/ female identifying/ non binary people in 6 weeks.  A&Rs Becky Hill, Jaguar, Sam Divine and Charlie Tee will pick one winning demo each to be released on label, winning artists receive a support package to kickstart career.

- Held Cultural Exhibition 3 day event reaching 1K+ people /engaging 35+ women/trans/non binary/ allies as participants

- Built online audience 30k+ platforming 100s of women artists

- Honouree Alt Power100 List

- Consulted for Jaguar Foundation and Sony Social Justice Fund

- Delivered talks at IMS, ADE, She said.so (Virtual) BMC, Night Time Economy Conference, Ministry Of Sound +more platforming 25 speakers to over 35k

- Shortlisted BBCRadio1 Dance Impact Award

- Consulted for Focusrite & dBs

- Promoted anti-spiking campaign ganvanlising evidence from audience leading to Government inquiry

- Mentored 10 young people through workplace training

- Reached 1300+ respondents with nationwide survey into women's safety and inclusion in the night time industry drawn into report which was a study into women in the music entertainment and leisure industries at Night

- Engaged 300+ u18's in educational workshops about women's contributions to music

- Created, published sold almost 700 copies of book worldwide (all within 1 year)

- Hosted 5 live music events giving 30+ women artists a platform on the line up, secured 2 festival main stage showcases to elevate grassroots artists

 

4) Who am I: A seasoned music events manager, promoter and culture/music consultant who has delivered and assisted in delivery of successful profitable live music events since 2002. I have an extensive background & knowledge of the electronic music industry, its history and evolution. I am an active social justice advocate, and passionate about gender, racial and socio-economic equality. I stand for all things diverse and inclusive and am a known specialist in DEI within the music sector. I publicly speak and work with industry bodies to progress a fairer more representative landscape.

 

5) My Experience: As a woman of marglinsied background (low-socioeconomic and ethnically diverse) of protected my experience in the music industry for 20 years has been a hard one.I started glass collecting in a nightclub and worked my way through many roles. I have been a venue manager, door staff, club promoter, events organiser, artist manager/agent and now an industry consultant and co-author of a book and now become a leader for women's representation within the sector. I have done all this whilst bringing up two children on my own. One thing that has been prevalent throughout all of my career roles has been the harassment, abuse, discrimination, exclusion, assault, control and unfairness that I and every woman around me at some point in their working life has faced. I have been groped, bullied, underpaid, mistreated, unfairly dismissed, cheated in business, had my ideas stolen and passed off as other peoples, I have had my work sabotaged, been financially abused in business deals, sexually proposed, gossiped about, name called, cat called, disregarded. Much like many of the incredible women in our book, I have not been credited for much of my work in the industry. I’ve been forced to move mountains against all odds, when others may have only had to move a stone. Men wanted to compete with me not realising that they already had a head start. I’ve had to go the longest way around to get to where I am and its not only drained my energy but disabled me from reaching the truest potential I could. This makes me sad and frustrated but has motivated me to lead in paving the way to a fairer industry for women. I have had to go the hardest way to get to where I am today, that’s why I will ensure I do all I can to make sure future women don’t have to go through the same. There are some parts of the business that have been worse than others, some stages of my career where I have suffered more than others or in different ways. For example when starting out at lower level roles the mysoginy took place more in an open direct way - groping, name calling, been sworn or shouted at etc. As I have moved through the ranks from the industry the mysoginy has manifested itself in different ways. Having work sabotaged has been a prime example when I have worked in promotion positions in venues - male team members ripping promotion posters down, throwing flyers in the bin etc to cause me to loose the material in a bid to make me not be able to promote the night as they have not wanted to do well. I suspect a lot of this was out of fear of me doing better than them and wanting to put a stop to it. Despite years of experience, at times I have been made to feel I can’t do the job as well as a white man. This has even been prevalent when I have moved up into the upper echelons of the industry onto strategic positions working with campaigners and industry bodies. This has manifested in ways like putting men forward to speak in the media about women's' safety issues, downplaying that certain safety issues affect women more than men (for example spiking) One body trying to push me/Lady of the House out of initiatives we have jointly set up in partnership - giving reasons like I am "difficult" when I have been vocal about the police forces  treatment of Black and Brown women and girls and that we can not trust them with our safety after the incident with the strip search of the school girl. One thing I have seen a lot of in circles of change makers is the picking up of credit when the hard work has been done jointly but then the pushing out of recognising that when it's time to go public with the work, this is always done to women and I have rarely seen it done to men. I have been extremely domestically abused whilst in an releationship with an artist I worked with, he beat me up many times and has done so to other women and also had injunctions against him for physically abusing and stalking other ex partners. This is a wide and known fact in the Drum and Bass world yet he is still working in the music scene. Drum and Bass is one of the most misogynistic parts of the music industry  I have come across. The male performers regularly vocalise derogatory lyrics about women - for example using the words slut/ references to rape/fat slag etc There are a number of artists that perform these lyrics on stage in front of 1000s. Managers and agents do nothing about this and dont see it as their issue. The Drum and Bass scene is very behind in terms of fixing its issues. I spent some of my carrer working in this scene and it was very very difficult to navigate. I also worked with an extremely innaproritate artist whom I had to cut ties with due to his consistent bad behaviours when conducting himself A) Around women and B) On the road touring - even the process of me cutting ties with him was made harder for me due to the disrespect that particular part of the music industry treats women with. The constant bravado and status males get in music for sleeping with as many women as they can in comparasion to the way women are treated if they so much as glance at a man is another example of the unequal terms we have to work under. For them its part of the job for a woman its how they got the job.

 

6)What we have seen through our work:  Around 80% of  the interviews/stories in Lady of the House book tell similar stories of lack of credit/recognition, cheating out of business deals, harassment, bullying, having to work harder then male counter parts, having ideas stolen, been silenced, bad contracts, unfair dismissals etc. In the report we jointly collaboration to call for evidence for Women’s Inclusion and Safety in the music, entertainment and leisure industries at night there was many findings which again echo the experiences of the 100s of women we have worked with throughout the past 2 years. In the published survey (referenced below) 60.5% of respondents experinced an incident of sexual discrimination, harassment, or assault in the workplace — with 71.3% of these instances being inappropriate touching and/or groping. 39.3% of workers who experienced sexual discrimination or harassment didn’t tell anyone, with 73% of those who did report feeling unsatisfied with how the incident was resolved.Over half of respondents (56.5%) had witnessed someone else being teased and/or harassed at work, with 72.7% of those who didn’t intervene scared of the consequences of doing so. Some form of discrimination at work was experienced by 78.2% of respondents, and 74.8% of respondents feel theyhave to adapt their working behaviours in a role to overcompensate for their gender. 73.5% of respondents feel dismissed or overlooked at work on the basis of their gender, and almost one third of respondents (31.3%) are unable to name any well known women in leadership positions in the music industry. This perceived discrimination was perhaps best exemplified in 79.2% of respondents ranking preconceived attitudes because of their gender as the biggest challenge for women progressing in their working life. We have spoke to and worked with girls from school age right through to the peak of their carrer who all report the same experiences backing up the survey results.

 

 

5) Samples From Our Community: Comment's and examples we had when we asked our community when collecting evidence

- Unfortunately yet I have experienced that during my career like in some occasions labels not having my credits given properly and being treated as a 'vocalist only' when I have made the whole production for some projects

- That and racism how does an 'older" British born Chinese women do this

- Like lowering the music when a female DJ is playing

-Does that mean like been treated less or unequally? Yes I see it

- I have been told by a woman who knew her boyfriend was flirting with me, your to smart for your good you don't need to sleep with them just make them think you will - it will help you get your foot in the door

- I was an international student at a high level music performance school, I worked in established music businesses  before coming to the country to study. One of the teachers at the university said that I am not allowed to release music in the UK because I can be banned if I release, if they think I am working even for free for work experience they can ban you. So we did a small event one of the teachers there got really drunk and he kept saying he wanted to "bang me" (have sex with me) in front of his girlfriend. We don't have many options as international students, so I didn't report him but tried to discuss it with him but he would not. He was fired in the end because another student complained about him. Another teacher at another school used to leave emojis on my pictures that were inappropriate

- Simultaneously been sexualised and deemed at the same time.

- I have been told that I only get DJ sets because promoters think I am fit

- Iv lost count the amount of times I've been stood in the DJ booth with a male friend and despite me been stood in front of the decks with my headphones on people asking me who's the DJ or asking my male friend for requests - who is not the DJ and doesn't have the headphones on

- I was in a small band that recently came to an end. It’s hard because I look at these band members as my friends but the behaviour in the band over time began to change. I was held to higher standards, they wanted me to sing every note perfectly, every time. They would cut bits out of songs to expose my singing flaws, even film me and play it back and watch it while I was in the room. They would comment on my vocal warm ups and quiz me as if to see if I had done them. To me vocal warm ups are a very personal thing. They would make us run and run the songs until my voice was strained. They would smirk and laugh in practice silently to each other and I knew it wasn’t up to the standard. I would be compared to other successful females in bands and told how I should dance around with my newly learned bass guitar.

 

7 )Resources and examples of ways that can help shift Myisgony in the music industry

Supporters of women who can play a vital role in assisting to stamp out this behaviour not only by calling and kicking it out of the business but also by simply becoming allies. I have been lucky to have allies on a personal level but also with Lady of the House. This allyship goes to keep elevating the mindset and break the societal conditioning that has birthed mysoginy in our industry as well as making women feel suppoutred and empowered in their never ending battle against it. Peer to peer mentoring from men to women and women to men helps to aid the breakdown of lack of understanding, knowledge and understanding about how misogyny rears its head in the music industry. Likewise there are many supportive forums for women to join like She Said.so, Cactus City, Women in Music Production, Women in CTRL and many more which provide women to women mentoring and support. The fact we have so many initiatives, communities, programs etc is amazing but on the other hand shows the desperate need to straighten the music industry out so it can protect and give women an equal opportunity in regards to equity. Giving women a platform and spotlighting their work placing highlights on their achievements crediting and recgnosing they do all goes to positively reinfirncing women are of value to our industry and makes businesses and organastions realise they must fight against misogyny. Attached are links to examples of how we stand up for women and we know have made impact. We firmly believe that education is one of the most effective ways to achieve the goal of putting an end to misogyny in music

 

[links redacted]

 

July 2022