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Music industry misogyny “as bad, if not worse” than Hollywood

By | Published on Tuesday 17 October 2017

Business

With increased attention on the sexual harassment and assault faced by women working in the movie industry, following the wave of accusations against film producer Harvey Weinstein, UK-based artist manager Sarah Bowden has said that matters in the music industry are “as bad, if not worse” than in Hollywood.

Speaking to the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire, Bowden said that exploitation happens “all the way down through the industry” and is “as common as being wolf-whistled at in the street”.

“I’ve been in situations with men more senior to me, who have tried to use that position of power in order to garner some sort of sexual favour with me”, she said. “The most obvious one I can think of is, I was at a festival and somebody who is a promoter came up to me and took me back to a caravan and basically exposed himself to me”.

Although she “laughed it off” at the time, she went on, “I know that he did the same thing to other women on that same day and he’s still working in the industry today”.

Speaking about other personal experiences, Bowden said that early in her career she was fired from a job for refusing to have sex with her manager in order to get a promotion.

Asked why women don’t speak out about such misconduct by certain men in the music industry, she said that women generally don’t believe anything will be done, and that the acts of some senior male figures are “brazen” because they also believe the same.



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