Charlotte Church on women in the music business, in this year’s BBC Radio 6 Music John Peel Lecture at the Radio Academy Radio Festival in Salford in October. (Salford! I’ve been to Salford. Kind of. I crossed a bridge into it, then crossed back.) She pulls no punches.
– I’d like you to imagine a world in which male musicians are routinely expected to act as submissive sex objects.
Picture Beyonce’s husband Jay Z stripped down to a T-back bikini thong, sex-kittening his way through a boulevard of suited and booted women for their pleasure.
Or Britney Spears’s Ex Justin Timberlake, in buttock-clenching denim hot pants, writhing on the bonnet of a pink chevy, explaining to his audience how he’d like to be their teenage dream.
Before we all get a little too hot beneath the gusset, of course, these scenarios are not likely to become reality, unless for comedy’s sake.
– The reason for this is that these are roles that the music industry has carved out specifically for women.
It is a male dominated industry, with a juvenile perspective on gender and sexuality.
Like so many other industries…TV and movies for example. Oh look, that’s all of pop culture accounted for.
When I was 19 or 20, I found myself in this position, being pressured into wearing more and more revealing outfits and the lines that I had spun at me again and again (generally by middle aged men) were
“you look great you’ve got a great body why not show it off?”
or
“Don’t worry it’ll look classy. It’ll look artistic.”
I felt deeply uncomfortable about the whole thing, but was often reminded by record label executives just whose money was being spent.
Whilst I can’t defer all blame away from myself, I was barely out of my teenage years, and the consequence of this portrayal of me is that now I am frequently abused on social media, being called ‘slut’, ‘whore’ and a catalogue of other indignities that I’m sure you’re also sadly very familiar with.
I am, though for the opposite reasons; but both “reasons” are fundamentally the same despite the opposition.
H/t Jen Phillips
Good for her! MInd you, I’m surprised she’s even as old as 19 or 20, since she was about 12 when she was on all those PBS specials. How time flies.
(Goes away to check Wikipedia…)
Holy cow! She’s 27! And I’m…ancient.
Oh dear, yes. We are, sadly, VERY familiar.
… that’s all of pop culture accounted for.
Well, ‘xcept for something called phideogamming, or something like that, and I’ve overheard talk of oddities called mango and triter, give or take a vowel or so.
Surely taste and gentility prevail in such sophisticated and technologically advanced vanguards of our world!
On top of pop culture’s messed up ideas about gender, there’s also the following: Why are “whore” and “slut” still considered viable insults (*)? Two sides of the same coin I guess, one kicking you from behind while the other spits in your face to balance it out..
(*) To avoid misunderstanding, I’m not saying that Ms Church should stop complaining about these just because I think they aren’t sensible insults. There’s after all the spirit in which they are used, and the fact that they can still be effectively used to shame people.
Nah, the reason for this is that not enough teenage women (the main consumers of pop music) want to see men in those guises. It does happen, of course, but usually only when trying to appeal to the G.A.Y set for cachet on the way up (see Take That). If there was a market for it, you would see more of it. Just as women who choose not to needn’t, they just won’t sell as many records (see Gillian Welch).
@Minnow,
I wouldn’t be so quick to declare cause and effect here. The gender roles which the music industry promotes, and those which the target audience apparently wants to see, are maybe very interrelated. So your alleged target audience, teenage girls, want to see scantily clad women parading their skin all the time? 1) is that really so? 2) why?
It’s funny how adult women are so frequently referred to as girls, but suddenly teenagers are women. I guess if you’re 18 or 19. Whatever.
I was just watching a concert DVD of the Rolling Stones that was originally made in 1968. Mick Jagger shakes his well-toned butt and then strips off his shirt at one point. I found him very sexy. I’m sure none of the teenage girls and adult women in the audience were complaining. Men can be sexy on stage, but they aren’t dehumanized for it.
Yeah, ’cause teenage girls and women never get erotically fixated on male pop stars *cough* Sinatra Elvis the Beatles Bobby Sherman Justin whatsisname *cough*
It’s still taboo to market males to females–especially young girls–in an overtly erotic way. And girls and women still have to deal with a culture that portrays them as sex objects rather than the subjects or agents of their own sexual desires. Girls and women who are unabashedly sexual agents are demeaned as “sluts” and “whores” (even more so than those who, like Church, act out the somewhat more acceptable role of men’s fantasy girls.)
Your libertarian “free market” worldview may work in the abstract, but here in the real world it leaves way too much unaccounted for.
You know, anything can work “in the abstract” if one uses an abstract model which is vastly different and simpler than reality 🙂
Justin Timberlake’s a pretty poor example since there are about 6,000,000 pictures of him bare chested – and Jay-Z isn’t far behind.
There have been male singers stripping to their waists at least as far back as Mick Jagger and Jim Morrison. It’s pretty much compulsary for current boy bands and even established stars like Robbie Williams, Eminem, etc. and no, it’s it all directed at gay men since many of these performers – especially in heavy metal and hip hop – are deeply homophobic.
Shatterface –
I think her examples are perfectly fine. She isn’t arguing that males aren’t marketed as sex symbols (notably, a term primarily applied to male artists), but rather that they tend not to be marketed as sex objects. Male pop stars are allowed to dominantly sexual (I could have You ) whereas females are portrayed as submissive objects of desire ( You could have Me ).
A bare, muscular chest is a symbol of macho power in pur society; as much a signal from the alpha male to other males, as a signal to females of sexual availability. The visual language and sensibilities around the marketing of females are literally pornographic.
How come it’s always breasts that “look classy and artistic” and not testicles? Oh wait, I know the answer…
Minnow @5:
“The public wants what the public gets.”
— Paul Weller, British musician and singer-songwriter (1980)
Nice to encounter another Jam fan (in a not-Underground place), Scr…Archivist. 🙂
This issue is endemic to all corners of the music industry, beyond just the pop star machine. It is very much an old-boy’s-club, women-have-their-predetermined-roles kinda of thing deeply beyond the public side of recording arts and sciences.
Just yesterday I was busy facepalming over an ad for high-end audio connection and jack hardware – the kind of thing that is generally used by the sort of people who keep soldering irons handy and like to spend time discussing microphone impedance at great length – and the ad was a scantily clad, “alternative” model draped over a couch wearing a bracelet made of these high-end jack plugs. (look for “Neutrik” on FB, you’ll find it fast).
All I could think was “all those female audio engineers and sound techs and AV professionals who put in the hours and got the training; and all those girls that maybe are interested in doing that sort of thing someday – in one image you just said that at best they’re just not worth marketing to, at worst that they don’t even exist.”
It’s insulting on so many levels (aside from just lazy juvenile marketing), to so many people, for so many reasons. But it seems to get a pass because it’s so ludicrously pervasive. This particular example flies under the radar because despite it all, it’s one of the least egregious examples (it was artier than the standard “bikini chick holding a microphone” example that graces the ad pages of even the dryest tech mags and specialty catalogs).
@Scr… Archivist
Funny that you mention Paul Weller…HE was my dream man/heartthrob/sex symbol when I was a little girl. Had pictures of him on my wall and everything. Would write “Mrs. ____ Weller” on my school books and Jam/Style Council lyrics in my notebook a the time. 🙂
I had a twitter argument with Ms Benson a few days ago (not a very good one, given the 140 character limit) and I promised I would go to the web to elaborate why I find Ms Church to be slut-shaming. I have sort of had the same argument with some friends of mine back when this was first published (I read the BBC article, which annoyed me, then heard the audio, which annoyed me more) and i knew I had to set aside several hours to get this done.
It’s been months, but I will try to remember my initial reactions to the audio. I apologise for the length of the post.
My reaction here was mostly the same as several of the other commenters: Male musicians are already routinely expected to act as sex objects, with the difference being that some of them are presented not as submissive, but as non-threatening ones (eg The Jonas Brothers). I was uncomfortable with her using as examples men in relationships (even exes). Surely there are single singers she could have used as examples.
Again, my reaction was similar to those of previous commenters, specifically Pierce R. Butler’s, maybe more in the lines of “it’s a sexist society, why should the music industry be any different?” It’s not what sells it’s what the audience buys and, well, everyone here knows just how far we have to go to achieve true equality.
…part of a male dominated world, with a juvenile perspective on gender and sexuality.
The audience is restricted?!? I see this as an attempt to absolve the buying public from their responsibility in making successes out of blatantly sexualised female pop icons. The fact that nowhere in the following transcript does she call out the sexism in society only served in making me believe that this is slut-shaming.
Where else? Music videos are a staple of the music industry since televisions became part of every household.
Wait, what? Ignoring the fact that anything that lasts approximately three minutes is going to have any ideology painfully reduced, my friends have helped me if not in waving away, certainly recover more quickly from the evils that men do. And how does this denigrate men? That they cannot harm enough someone?
I distinctly remember my reaction being “aw hell no! she didn’t just hate on Adele!”
My objections in order: Natalie Imbruglia was bloody tomboyish in “Torn”, Adele is damn sexy with her 60s femme fatale look and sad love songs sung by EITHER gender resonate more because while successful first love stories *do* happen, they are a rarity and the norm is everyone in the world has had their heart broken at some point in their lives. I got through ends of relationships with “Needles and Pins”, “Someone else not me” and “Goodbye Kiss”. All by male singers.
Maybe when Adele (or the songwriter she was working with) was making that record had her heart broken and wanted to go through the stages of grief by singing about it, well, if Ms Church allows it apparently. Maybe she found a niche with sad love songs about broken hearts (like, say, Placebo). What’s wrong about that?
This was the first time I got angry through this. Sadly, it would not be the last.
And this is different from the gender attitudes of the entire society how?
I would like to direct your attention to this 2010 paper on the attitudes of adolescents in the Netherlands, which studied exposure to all sorts of media, not just music videos. Girls watching soap operas correlated positively with endorsing gender stereotypes.
This situation completely sucked and I am honestly and unreservedly sorry that Ms Church had to go through with this.
I say she *can* defer blame from herself, she was under pressure and, because we live in a sexist society women are actively taught NOT to be assertive and confident.
As for the second part, if she thinks that women who were NOT sexualised in music videos are NOT called sluts and whores, she is woefully mistaken.
I object to this.
If she means opera, the history of the genre has been rife with scandal. Consider some of the most famous operatic roles. Carmer, La Traviata. Manon Lescau. Salome. Nedda from I Pagliacci. Pretty much everyone from Cosi Fan Tutti. Not blushing violets by any stretch of the imagination. Maria Callas had an adulterous affair. Geraldine Farrar led an even more scandalous life but still had a career until her voice broke. And modern opera is not without controversy.
Seeing videos of Ms Church while she was still an opera performer and as adult, I find it more likely the problem to be that she hasn’t kept up with her belcanto exercises than prancing about in a corset ages ago.
Moving on.
I am beginning to suspect she lives under a rock.
I object to sexualised=demeaning. I, in contrast to Ms Church, was alive when Madonna started out and the last thing that can be said about her is that she was demeaned at any point of her career.
Cher predates her.
…which statement is in direct contrast with what she said three sentences ago. And I would also like to point out that this statement can be made of Mae West as well.
I am officially feeling old. Am I the only one who knows of the euphemism for sex being “now you’re a man/woman”? Or of the sexual revolution and the hippie movement?
I find this statement to be slut shaming. What is she insinuating anyway, that Rihanna is so slutty in that video that even her fans are now turning against her?
Here I would like to point out that the lyrics feature heavily the statement “I still got my money” and the title of the album is “Unapologetic”.
Really? The male perspective is the dominant one? You don’t say!
Someone needs to tell her of “Mad Men”.
And this is why we need feminism! I would like to change my previous statement to Ms Church is living under a rock.
And if we weren’t living in such a sexist society maybe they would had been more successful.
True of every industry.
This statement can hold completely true by changing “music industry” to “physics”, “computer sciences”, “biology”, “game design”, “surgical specialties” and eighty years ago with “primary education”
Because, once again, we live in a sexist society.
Here would be a great opportunity to talk about the ingrained sexism. Also, myths about women are also perpetuated by other women and dispelled by other men. I find the problem to be the patriarchy, not the male gender.
Oh goody, she will talk about slut shaming and consent.
No such luck. Instead, more slut shaming. Apparently, making someone called “Mother” sad makes you infamous.
As for Sinead O’Connor, writing an open letter to an adult on her behaviour, instead of contacting privately, stinks of riding the bruhaha coattails. I’d tell her to mind her own fucking business and I am wearing jeans and sneakers and comfortable long sleeves 90% of the time outside my house. Although I wouldn’t touch on medical problems.
No objections to any of this, in fact, in the aforementioned Netherlands study the lack of correlation between heavy metal and gender stereotyping has been attributed to the increase of the number of women both in the audience and on the stage in the past 20 years.
I find it so precious that she cited O’Connor as someone on the side of non-controversial.
Also, I am still waiting for a reference to consent and agency. Or, at least, to other women who used their sexuality on their own free will. But I guess that women such as Mae West, Rachel Welch, Brigitte Bardot, Cher, Sophie Dahl, Lady Gaga and Dita Von Teese, to name but a few, do not exist.
This bit had me fuming. Not only for the slut shaming (suuuuuure Ms Church, blame, name and shame the singers who are scantily dressed. Blame the professionals who are being quote often reminded by record label executives just whose money was being spent unquote). Not only for forgetting Bjork’s All Is Love and the controversy THAT sparked. But for siding with Annie Lennox on censoring.
Are they bloody serious? After SOPA and PIPA? After David Cameron wanting an in on all the computers in the UK? With net neutrality still under threat in courts and in secret meetings? How is this anywhere near acceptable?
And, by the way, I am still waiting to hear about the sexism of the audience and the importance of agency and consent.
So do I. I could start with “Women in pop culture are photoshopped within an inch of their lives” and continuing with this. The Onion is only half taking the piss with this article. Society places a completely different amount of pressure on women regarding the way they dress, to the point it removes their agency. Well, if it means modesty trolls are off my back, arse-wiggling is something I can live with.
And without threatening net neutrality to boot.
YouTube and Vimeo are channels?
HELL NO! If they did, would ANYONE have heard of Billie Holiday, The Beatles, Elvis Presley, The Rolling Stones, and Lady Gaga?
All of a sudden, I feel young again.
I would like to explain to the avatar of Waldorf and Stattler that the reason why some songs are in high rotation in radio stations is because the record companies charge so much for the copyright the radio stations are trying to get their money’s worth by playing them ad nauseam and this is why “channels” like YouTube and Vimeo are such a revolution. By making songs like “Gangam Style” and “Thrift Shop” such runaway hits outside the machinations of the music industry. But that would mean having the neutrality of the internet seep over to the more traditional media instead of censorship going the other way around, and that’s not something Ms Church and Ms Lennox want to endorse.
You can probably tell I am angry all over again.
Because all other times The Daily Mail is such a bastion of journalistic integrity. For those who don’t know what The Daily Mail is, let me put it this way: if you set it on fire, it’s an insult to the oxygen consumed.
Yes! Finally! A man as a sex symbol! Even though it’s in a complaint that there’s not enough cencorship
Slippery slope much? At least she now gives artists *some* agency.
Cthulu help me, I may defend “Blurred Lines”.
For starters, this is a prime example of the accountability of audiences. This song became famous because the audience chose it. As for Robin Thicke’s GQ interview, considering he has been with the same woman for two decades when others in the industry can’t seem to manage two months, make me suspect he was being a troll. And, in any case, one of the rules that served me well in the intertubes is “do not feed the troll”.
Treasure this sentence, this is going to be the only time Ms Church goes anywhere close to accountability. Still waiting for the importance of consent and agency.
Am I to come to the conclusion that it’s okay to be a woman in the industry, unless you do something that Ms Church doesn’t approve of?
And before starting to hate on the twerking, I would like to point to this article
Criticising Miley Cyrus for appropriating twerking while African-American women are still objectified is one thing. Demonising a dancing style with a long history behind it is quite another.
And he was proven right because everyone is still talking about this VMA performance because this is this decade’s Janet Jackson’s nipple slip.
How about we make a sign saying “Do Not Feed The Agents Provocateurs”?
The kids have got it right (start from 1:55). Singers have to have a gimmick and stand out. And since the audience rewards sexiness, that’s what is mostly used.
I have to admit I am surprised Lady Gaga hasn’t been mentioned (and won’t be). Her image is as far removed from Ms Church’s artistic “ideal” as it can possibly be without changing solar systems.
Good on her, although I suspect the key word here is “Canadian”.
Where *is* that rock that Ms Church has been living under anyway? Bloody Narnia?
Yes. And you know what children don’t have? AGENCY! And you know what they also don’t have? ABILITY TO CONSENT! Do you know what the rape culture strips women of? AGENCY AND ABILITY TO CONSENT! You ask us to think of the children? I AM THINKING OF THE CHILDREN! And censoring while ignoring agency and consent IS NOT HELPING!
Then, as now, I am starting to beg for the sweet release of death.
Just when I thought I had become numb, here’s some more slut shaming to reawaken my pain receptors.
Gee, thanks for saying that being sexy can be artistic. I would never had come to that conclusion of my own. Now, pretty please, with sugar on top, can I decide for myself what is artistic and tasteful? If it isn’t too much trouble.
And you probably voted for David Cameron as well.
Even the researchers in the “Shake It Baby, Shake It”: Media Preferences, Sexual Attitudes and Gender Stereotypes Among Adolescents” who found positive correlations don’t support censorship. Why? BECAUSE IT DOESN’T BLOODY WORK!
At least the end is near. I am finding this as excruciating to go through like the first time I did.
Another disgusting “think of the children” plea, combined with slut shaming Rihanna and wishing to remove her agency in one go. It’s her ass! Her sexuality! As long as she is not forced to act like this, what’s the bloody problem? This makes as much sense as blaming school mass shootings on video games.
And I dare Ms Church to produce something half as hair-raising as “Love the way you lie”.
No, no and HELL NO! Hasn’t she heard of the “forbidden fruit” effect? Dan Savage shoplifted porn from truck stops as a teenager. Or, to give a different example, the kitchen drawers I was most obsessed with as a kid were the ones with the kitchen knives. And how the Mordor would she expect the focus to shift if the attitudes in society don’t shift.
Well ladies and gentlemen, here you have a great example on the dangers of being a teen star. You grow up having absolutely no idea what your run-of-the-mill teenager thinks and acts like.
As long as it’s not with twerking, apparently.
To quote Mistress Matisse’s twitter feed :
To quote Heina Dadabhoy (2:11):
Dictating what a woman wears is as infantilising as dictating what not to wear. And there is no “right” sexual expression. There is agency and consent. And I would rather err on the side of those.
To paraphrase “The People Vs Larry Flint”, “If the First Amendment will protect a scumbag like me, then it will protect all of you. Because I’m the worst.”
If singers can wear whatever they like and not get judged for what they do or not do with their naughty parts and their talent determines their success, then I can wear whatever I like (within reason, of course) and regulate my own naughty parts without suffering harassment and discrimination in my workplace and be judged on my own work and results.
Thanks to (hah) YouTube, I can get my feminism from better places.