On quoting Laura Snapes: put women in your headlines

On Wednesday the 20th of February, when Matty Healy of 1975 got on stage with the rest of the band to accept a Brit award, he took the chance to point his finger at the undiscussed misogyny in the contemporary music industry through a quote from Laura Snapes’ article about the recent Ryan Adams allegations. The room fell quiet, and the internet exploded: The Guardian, Huffington Post, Pitchfork, The Fader, NME, Rolling Stone, Metro, The Independent, to name a few, reported the greatness of his speech. Matty Healy hits out at male misogynist acts; The 1975 Call Out Male Misogynist Acts; Matty Healy addresses male misogynist acts.

Now, this is good news: we need more people to write about sexism in the music industry; more people to listen, more people to speak up and call out. No one is upset Matty Healy decided to join the chorus of voices at the forefront of the struggle for change; in fact, I am glad Healy chose to use the public platform afforded him to raise awareness and increase the visibility of the issue. What I wish to problematize is, rather, the reaction of the media: why do most outlets rally up to spread the news only when it’s a male voice uttering the revolutionary words? Why are we talking about Healy’s intervention at the Brits, and not about the Laura Snapes’ article Healy attempted to bring into the spotlight? Why are womxn, even in situations when they are the subjects of the conversation, always just references and quotes in men’s second-hand testimonies? Are media outlets incapable of shifting the focus directly to the issue rather than addressing it diagonally, or do they simply believe – consciously or not – that readers are more likely to dedicate time to their content if the subject of the headline is a man?

Grimes, Ariana Grande, Dua Lipa, Little Mix, Lady Gaga, to name a few, have opened up about their experiences with sexism in the music industry, so why is it then that only when Matt Healy calls attention to the issue, the headlines read: Will Matty Healy’s Brits moment spark change?* While constructing an opinion piece made of rhetorical questions isn’t the most productive writing format, I struggle not to question: why do we have to wait for a man to speak up for something to change? Shouldn’t the dozens of reports, interviews and articles by womxn in the industry have already fuelled the engines of societal change? 

What we are witnessing through the Matty Healy case is but an example of the gaslighting of women by the media. With every article whose headline places men at the forefront of the feminist movement and only uses womxn’s contribution as a subheading, we take two steps forward and one step back. Media outlets giving visibility to women’s issues through men’s voices perpetuate gendered power dynamics according to which men’s voices within any discourse – even when it comes to women’s issues – are those of truth and trust, to be accepted at face value; women’s need evidence, proof, a man’s supportive word to be first listened to, and then, maybe, believed. In the modern public sphere, women’s voices are pushed to the margins, confined to a hyperlink, reduced to a footnote or a subordinate clause. Even when quoted, referenced, or mentioned, women only make up 16% of sources used in articles. Hell, even when writing about gendered issues such as abortion, contraception and women’s rights, men are still quoted more than women and relevant organizations.

It is worth mentioning that the commonness of gaslighting in the music industry towards women might have something to do with the content of most contemporary popular and alternative music. As Jessica Hopper brilliantly pointed out in her book The First Collection of Criticism by a Female Rock Critic (2015; yes, first, because sometimes we need an explicit reminder that over 70% of the journalism industry is composed of men), many of the most frequent lyrical conventions rely on shallow descriptions of bidimensional women: women who can’t be trusted, who have betrayed, or who seem to be playing hard to catch with the male performer. The gaslighting, mansplaining and institutionalized marginalization of women in the music industry operate, therefore, on a feedback system: music and media work to reinforce each other’s respective, ingrained, misogynistic attitudes. So much of contemporary pop, hip-hop and rap talks about women as sexual objects and never as uttering subjects, reducing them to purely carnal beings devoid of agency, with lyrics at times even encouraging emotional abuse and sexual harassment – even in women’s own musical work (why is, for example, Cardi B’s internalised misogyny so popular?). If the media continues to praise and award these songs, artists and albums, then how could the industry even begin to change?

As cliché as it might be, it remains true that for change to occur, it has to start somewhere. Nowadays, the opportunity to ensure that progressive movements make it to the surface of the collective consciousness and are, that way, exposed to the bright daylight, is in journalists’ hands. While we can’t quite influence the music itself, we can shape and determine the way we talk about it. There is one flame that can ignite the change long overdue in the music industry, and it’s in the media’s power to produce the first spark. Put women in your headlines, put women in your front page. It’s all it takes.

Article by Marta Meazza

Image by Amanda Lanzone 

*It is here necessary to acknowledge that this article was also written by Laura Snapes; while I respect her decision to report Healy’s quoting of her work herself, I can’t but question her choice of words for her own headline.