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Christine & The Queens has shared a lengthy pair of new Instagram posts, sharing her experiences of sexism in the music industry.
The posts came in support of the #MusicToo movement in France, who describe themselves as an “anonymous collective against gender-based and sexual violence in the music industry”.
- Read more: Christine & The Queens: “My last EP was the result of emotional short punches in my face”
“I am not surprised to learn that, in the musical world, as in all other circles, the liberation of speech generates an upheaval that it is then difficult to master,” she wrote in the posts, which you can see, in both French and translated to English, below. “Each of us has experienced a more or less tenuous form of harassment, sexist remarks, like all our sisters who walk in offices, who come home late at night, who are from professions radically different from ours.”
She added: “Being a woman in a record company office is being a woman like any other. A body in a photoshoot; the photographer holds the lens at the level of his crotch. A body in a studio, when a hand goes up the back, ‘it’s time for the hug break.’ A body facing a journalist, who grabs his hand to lick her fingertips, ‘So you’re bisexual, do you like it in the ass?'”
. . . #christineandthequeens“I am a singer. I recognize in the eyes of my sisters what I have known, they have known it too; we all have that little glow. I hardly know of any exception to the brutality of this reality: this is our body. All women, all women. All my sisters, starry, glorious, liquid gold. My sister who is a victim of transphobia. My sister who is a victim of homophobia. My sister who is alone with her memory.”
Helöise Letissier then added that she believes now is the time “to loosen the jaw, to exchange our different experiences. It is time that the places of power also become places of just power.
“Let there be respect, let there be a horizontality of speech. Let the voice become again a tool of liberation. I would even say that it is time for all of us sit at the same table,; it’s time to start this unpleasant, terrifying discussion of patriarchal violence in earnest. It’s time to deconstruct it, to dissect it.”
Saying that “women don’t have to pay for men’s mistakes,” the singer added: “I would like us to think differently about power. young female artists. Let them not steal their works, let them sexualize themselves as they wish.
“I am the ally of all my sisters, wherever they are in their own commitments or their own convictions. I stand in solidarity with those who speak and those who decide to clench their fists. When violence is systemic, it also creates a family. In silence, without even seeing each other, at a distance, alive or dead, we know each other.”
Christine & The Queens also recently gave advice to those struggling during the coronavirus-enforced lockdown. “I think the thing I can do myself to be helpful, instead of singing, is to stay in and this is what I’m saying to myself if I feel a bit low,” she said.
“I know it’s hard and don’t hesitate to reach out to people if you feel down, virtually. Let’s try to stay in right now intensely so itâs over quicker.”
The post Christine & The Queens discusses sexism in music industry: “Women don’t have to pay for men’s mistakes” appeared first on NME Music News, Reviews, Videos, Galleries, Tickets and Blogs | NME.COM.
