We are launching the #NoAbusersOnStage campaign

Festival season is upon us, which is why we are launching our #NoAbusersOnStage campaign today.

WHY WE ARE RUNNING #NoAbusersOnStage

Axl Rose headlines Glastonbury 2023 with Guns N’ Roses. He and Slash were charged with statutory rape. He also settled with his ex-wife regarding emotional & physical abuse and sexual battery. (Swift, 2020)

Anthony Kiedis headlines the 2023 Pinkpop & Rock Werchter festivals with the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He has been convicted of sexual battery & indecent exposure and admitted statutory rape. Bandmates Flea & Chad Smith have been arrested for battery. (Golsen, 2021)

Kodak Black is on an extensive US tour as well as playing Openair Frauenfeld & Rolling Loud Portugal. He pled guilty and was sentenced for sexual assault & battery of a teenage girl. (BBC, 2021)

Playboi Carti is headlining Wireless, Rolling Loud Portugal & other festivals in 2023. He was arrested in December 2022 for strangling his pregnant girlfriend. (Wilkes, 2023)

AIMS OF THE #NoAbusersOnStage CAMPAIGN

The aim of our #NoAbusersOnStage campaign is to increase awareness of and to make people think about what these men have been accused of, so we continue to challenge them and other abusers. There are wider implications to the acceptance of these men’s abuse and their continued unchallenged platforming at events across the globe. It sends the message that men do and will get away with abusing women and that men abusing women is normal and can’t be prevented.

We want the government, the police and the music industry to take more incisive action when male musicians are abusive to women. We call for complaints being investigated fully and for abusers’ actions having both legal consequences as well as consequences on their career.

SUPPORT #NoAbusersOnStage

• Please follow our hashtag #NoAbusersOnStage on social media (Twitter, Instagram and Facebook).
• Share our tweets with your networks.
• Contact venues, festivals & event promoters to let them know your feelings.
• Talk to people about this important issue.
• Lastly, if you are aware of any male musicians who have abused women or girls and are touring in 2023, please let us know by tagging us or emailing allies@menchallengingsexism.org.uk. 

DAILY ACTIONS FOR MEN:

• Educate ourselves about the scale of the problem.
• Speak to our male friends and family about it.
• Reconsider our choice of artists: think about whether you are listening to men who are abusive
• Stop supporting abusive men directly and indirectly: don’t buy their music, listen to them on streaming services or attend their gigs.
• Contact and question the venues and festivals who give abusive men platforms via social media and email.

WHAT MEN SHOULD DO AT FESTIVALS & EVENTS:

• If you see abusive behaviour, report it to security or staff
• Learn bystander skills: check out the Breaking the Silence website and That Guy.
• Take responsible action when you witness another man or boy assaulting or harassing a woman or girl.
• If one of your male friends harasses or assaults a woman or girl, say something.
• DO NOT HARASS OR ASSAULT WOMEN OR GIRLS!

ABUSE CULTURE

The wider aim of the campaign is to highlight the societal pandemic of male abuse of women and girls, which is obviously also finding its way to festivals and gigs. The platforming of abusers and embracing of ‘abuse culture’ within the music industry by festival organisers, promoters and venues is one of the contributing factors to men’s general abuse of women and girls and the abuse happening at music events specifically.

Recent research has shown that festivals have become hotbeds for ‘drive-by’ assaults by men, with more than 1 in 3 women being assaulted or harassed (Hymas, 2022). The lacking safety of women is a huge concern and festivals need to do more to tackle the problem. Men and boys are getting away with being abusive and women and girls are suffering. 

WHAT FESTIVALS NEED TO DO

It is not enough for festivals like Glastonbury to deal with the endemic abuse just by providing a SARSAS (Somerset and Avon Rape and Sexual Abuse Support) stall, as they did in 2022 (SARSAS, 2022). Encouraging women and girls to report abuse when it happens is also not enough. Women and girls who experience abuse or harassment will be shocked and traumatised and we cannot expect them to be the ones having to take responsibility for bringing the perpetrator(s) to justice. Festivals have a duty to take up their responsibility when it comes to this. There need to be groups of specially trained visible staff present all around the festival who can support women and girls and prevent perpetrators from getting away. There also needs to be more police visible, who can step in and take action.

Festivals also need to publicly communicate that any male harassing or assaulting females will be removed from the festival, barred for life and that the police will be informed. Festivals need to work together to ensure abusers are barred from festivals across the UK and indeed the world. There needs to be a ‘Festival Watch’.

Festivals, event spaces and promoters should also encourage bystander intervention and actively make it easier for women to seek support and make concerns heard. Festival goers, crew, bar staff, litter pickers, stewards and anyone else attending any festival need to educate themselves about the prevalence of the problem and learn the skills to be able to contribute actively to a safe festival for women and girls. They need to know how to be an active bystander, and to whom they can report an incident. We need to speak to our friends and colleagues about this. It is everybody’s responsibility to make festivals and other music events safe for women!

‘A FEW BAD APPLES’

Within our societies (patriarchies), you will often hear the narrative that abusive men are just ‘a few bad apples’, that women ‘lie’ about being abused by men and that men’s lives are ruined by women’s supposedly ‘false’ allegations of abuse (rape, sexual assault, domestic violence, emotional abuse & financial abuse etc), resulting in an outpour of sympathy for the accused men.

This narrative is often especially strong when male celebrities are involved, with women and girls routinely accused of fabricating abuse or of being after money. The music industry is no exception to that. There are a huge number of male musicians who have abused women and girls, but there is often a sense that these are exceptions. There is also a tendency to remember the few men that have been ‘disgraced’ or ‘cancelled’, like Gary Glitter or Rolf Harris, and forget about the swathes of other men who have been accused, charged or sentenced for abusing women and girls and those who have reached settlements.

SOME STATISTICS ABOUT ABUSE

It is also important to keep in mind those cases we do not hear about as much. To put abuse into context, let’s remind ourselves that 5 in 6 women who are raped don’t report (Rape Crisis, 2023), that 53% of domestic abuse victims report an instance of domestic abuse at least twice before they felt appropriate action was taken by the police (Victim Support, 2022), that we have a failing justice system where only 1 in 100 rapes recorded by the police in 2021 resulted in a charge that same year and that with 70,633 reported rapes in the year ending September 2022, that same time period saw charges being brought in only 2,616 cases (Rape Crisis, 2023). 

NO CASE ≠ NO ABUSE

We also need to remind ourselves that if an accused man cannot legally be prosecuted, this in no way means he did not commit the abuse. What it simply means is that there is no viable case (evidence) that will hold up in a court of law or that the victim retracted, which can happen for various reasons. In domestic violence cases, for instance, retraction is often due to the woman wanting to stay in the relationship, leaving the relationship, wanting to maintain the family unit, preferring other solutions such as restraining or non-molestation orders (Hopkins, 2023) as well as “fear of reprisals; safety of their children; increased family pressures or serious financial repercussions; fear of being ‘outed’; fear of a lack of support by the criminal justice system, or specialist support organisations or emotional attachment or loyalty towards the offender”. (Crown Prosecution Service, 2022).

THE REALITY

Let’s be clear, these are not a few bad apples; instead, there are hordes of abusive male musicians with record deals and celebrity status, many of them touring the world’s stages in 2023. The reason they’re able to abuse and continue to be relatively unaffected in their careers is power. The power of being a man in a misogynistic world that is forgiving to men and punitive to women, where men hold the majority of the media and financial power and where men’s abusive behaviour is often dismissed as if it was inconsequential or a joke.

Yes, all these men may be powerful in terms of the money behind them, but it wasn’t always like that. Axl Rose and Slash for instance were charged with statutory rape in 1985, when barely anyone had even heard of Guns N’ Roses. It’s not just financial power that enables these men to abuse women and girls and get away with it. The fact that violence against women and girls isn’t taken seriously also gives these men the power to take advantage of these societal attitudes. Take this example where Red Hot Chili Peppers’ singer Anthony Kiedis admits statutory rape in his 2005 autobiography ‘Scar Tissue‘ (Far Out Magazine, 2021):

Kiedis’ excuse for this crime was knowing he would get away with it in his “deluded mind” – simple as. We call this patriarchy and misogyny. Nikki Sixx, who admitted raping a woman with bandmate Tommy Lee in his 2001 autobiography The Dirt, later suggested he made it up (Independent, 2019):

GETTING AWAY WITH IT

These quotes are what these men seem to think is them taking responsibility for their actions and apologising, and we have collectively let them get away with it. What’s even worse, we unapologetically continue to listen to their music, give them awards, laud them and induct them into our halls of fame rather than our halls of shame.

What’s also truly baffling about the admissions by these two and many other men is that lawmakers do not investigate or take action. Surely, had Sixx or Kiedis admitted to murdering someone and burying them in their backyard, a team of police would have turned up to investigate. There would have been an outcry from the media and they would have lost the support of much of their fanbase. But this is ‘just’ sexual abuse and rape of women and girls, so we can forget about it and continue heralding these men as legends and heroes. Why is that?

Let’s be clear, Guns N’ Roses, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Mötley Crüe are not insignificant bands. They were both inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012. Guns N’ Roses’ ‘Not in This Lifetime…’ tour in 2016–2019 was one of the top 5 highest grossing tours of all time (Wikipedia, 2023). Mötley Crüe are on a world tour, as is Guns N’ Roses, one of Glastonbury Festival’s headliners, whilst Red Hot Chili Peppers headline two massive European festivals Rock Werchter and Pinkpop this year on their world tour.

Successful rapper Playboi Carti was arrested in December 2022 for strangling his pregnant girlfriend and is headlining Wireless, Rolling Loud Portugal and many other festivals this year, whilst fellow rapper Kodak Black, who pled guilty to and was sentenced for sexual assault & battery of a teenage girl in 2016, is on an extensive US tour and is playing Openair Frauenfeld & Rolling Loud Portugal festivals in Europe. 

Despite the abuse and long-term pain these men have inflicted, they remain celebrated performers on tour across the globe in 2023, enjoying fame, celebrity and the adoration of millions of people, and earning big money at the same time.

The allegations against these men should not be forgotten by us, the public, or by festivals, venues and event promoters. We should boycott their music and concerts and contact event promoters, festivals and venues asking them not to book them.

THIS IS WHERE YOU COME IN!!!

Please follow our hashtag #NoAbusersOnStage on social media (Twitter, Instagram and Facebook). We will be tweeting about the above-mentioned and many other men in the next months and would like to ask you to share our tweets, and to contact venues and festivals as well as event promoters to let them know your feelings. If you’re at a music festival in the UK this year, do look out for our postcards and tag us if you find one! 🙂 And talk to people about this important issue.

Lastly, if you are aware of any male musicians who have abused women or girls and are touring in 2023, please let us know by tagging us or emailing allies@menchallengingsexism.org.uk. 

PRESS ENQUIRIES: chris@menchallengingsexism.org.uk

Sources:

BBC (2021). Newsbeat. Rapper Kodak Black pleads guilty to assault and battery. Accessed online on 31 May 2023. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-56927638.

Crown Prosecution Service (2022). Domestic Abuse. Accessed online on 31 May 2023. Available at: https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/domestic-abuse.

Golsen, T (2021). Far Out Magazine. Inside the details of Anthony Kiedis’ troubling sexual assault history. Accessed online on 31 May 2023. Available at: https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/anthony-kiedis-sexual-assault-history-details/.

Hopkins, A. (2023). Examining reasons for victim retraction in domestic violence and abuse: A qualitative analysis of police retraction statements in the United Kingdom. The Police Journal: Theory, Practice and Principles (Early Access). Accessed online on 31 May 2023. Available at: https://oro.open.ac.uk/87820/1/87820VOR.pdf.

Hymas, C. (2022). The Telegraph. One in three women at music festivals sexually assaulted or harassed. Accessed online on 31 May 2023. Available at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/08/30/one-three-women-music-festivals-sexually-assaulted-harassed/.

O’Connor, R. (2019). Independent. Nikki Sixx apologises for bizarre rape story in Motley Crue memoir: ‘It’s possibly greatly embellished or I made it up’. Accessed online on 31 May 2023. Available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/nikki-sixx-rape-motley-crue-book-the-dirt-sexual-assault-a8809526.html.

Rape Crisis (2023). Sources for statistics. Accessed online on 31 May 2023. Available at: https://rcew.fra1.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media/documents/Stats_webpage_-_sources__further_info.pdf.

SARSAS (2022). SARSAS at Glastonbury festival. Accessed online on 31 May 2023. Available at: https://www.sarsas.org.uk/sarsas-at-glastonbury-festival/.

Swift, N. (2020). The Shady Side Of Axl Rose You Didn’t Know About. Accessed online on 31 May 2023. Available at: https://www.nickiswift.com/257042/the-shady-side-of-axl-rose-you-didnt-know-about/.

University of Cambridge (2012). Be an active bystander. Accessed online on 31 May 2023. Available at: https://www.breakingthesilence.cam.ac.uk/prevention-support/be-active-bystander.

Victim Support (2022). New research shows police failing to act on domestic abuse reports – ethnic minority victims worst affected. Accessed online on 31 May 2023. Available at: https://www.victimsupport.org.uk/new-research-shows-police-failing-to-act-on-domestic-abuse-reports-ethnic-minority-victims-worst-affected/.

Wikipedia (2023). List of highest-grossing concert tours (Last updated 24 May 2023). Accessed online on 31 May 2023: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_concert_tours.

Wilkes, E. (2023) NME. Playboi Carti arrested for allegedly choking and beating pregnant girlfriend. Accessed online on 31 May 2023: https://www.nme.com/news/music/playboi-carti-arrested-for-allegedly-choking-and-beating-pregnant-girlfriend-3398475.