Annie Mac says the music business is “rigged against women”
Former BBC Radio 1 DJ Annie Mac spoke at a House of Commons committee about the “tidal wave” of sexual abuse stories in the music industry that are yet to be revealed. The broadcaster also said the business is “rigged against women” because it’s a “boys’ club”.
During the Women and Equalities Committee meeting, Macmanus claimed there was an “unbelievable” number of stories regarding sexual abuse that were yet to be reported. “There needs to be some sort of a shift in women feeling like they’re able to speak out without their careers being compromised,” she explained.
“I don’t know how that can happen. I feel like there are a lot of revelations that have not been exposed, even just from the conversations that happened for [the hearing] today,” Mac told the hearing.
She continued: “It’s infuriating, the amount of women who have stories of sexual assault that just kind of buried them and carried them. It’s just unbelievable. So I do think if something were to happen, like if one person was to speak that had enough profile where it got media attention, I think there could be a kind of tidal wave of it. Definitely.”
While Macmanus said she hasn’t experienced or witnessed acts of sexual misconduct, the DJ has spoken to a “real range” of women across the music industry who are victims.
“There are common threads that run through everything I’ve heard,” she told the committee. “That is that women, especially young women in the music industry, are consistently underestimated and undermined, and freelance women are consistently put in situations where they are unsafe.”
Macmanus then provided an example of a female who went to the pub with a record label, who relentlessly told her to stay out before sexually assaulting her on the street.
She stated: “The music industry is a boys’ club. Everybody knows everyone in the top levels. All the people at the very top levels have the money. They also have the power. The system is kind of rigged against women.”
Former X Factor runner-up Rebecca Ferguson also spoke at the committee. She admitted: “There are plenty of times when you’re placed in situations where you are being compromised and where people are abusing their level of power. But as well as that, the thing that worries me the most is the rapes that are going unreported. That’s what concerns me the most – the fact that women feel like they can’t speak up.”
“One lady contacted me and said, ‘I’ve wanted to do this [speak out] my entire life. If I speak up against him, he’s so powerful, I will never work in this industry ever again’,” Ferguson added.
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