Resources
Get educated. Although reasonable people would agree that sexual assault or harassment is never acceptable, connecting those behaviors to a larger patterns of exclusion and unequal treatment is necessary to stopping these problems at the root. Reading books by women, listening to music by women, exploring media by women are all vital ways to combat the invisible, pervasive societal issues that enable abusers to flourish.
The following are just a few of the resources that the authors of this site found educational and thought-provoking.
- The Donne Project highlights gender and racial inequities in music through an annual survey of orchestral programming.
- Jon Silpayamanant curates many different catalogs of global music and challenges assumptions long-held by Western music curriculums.
- Katherine Needleman’s mailing list is an invaluable resource on women in classical music.
Speak up. Having conversations about harassment, assault, and inequality can be uncomfortable. Bystander Training is a way to avoid freezing in the moment and creating a safer space for everyone.
Challenge the status quo. Normalize questioning all-male panels, all-male programs, all-male headliners, and all-male leadership.
For directors and administrators
Hiring rapists is expensive. Arts organizations are notoriously underfunded. Paying settlements, hiring lawyers and crisis consultants is expensive and takes away resources from the actual mission of your organization. It simply makes more financial sense to avoid hiring sexual predators, and to deal with them by enacting zero-tolerance policies and clear codes of conduct instead. Preventing assault and harassment is not only a moral imperative, but a cost-saving measure. The inaction of Horace Mann and University of North Carolina School of the Arts threaten their own legacies even decades later.
For more, please read comments by Zeneba Bowers on costs the New York Philharmonic incurred to keep Matthew Muckey and Liang Wang on the payroll.
For students, alums, and parents
Title IX is a federal civil rights law that protects you from sex-based discrimination at any school that receives federal funding. Know your IX is a survivor- and youth-led project that aims to empower students to end sexual and dating violence in their schools.
Do your research. Do you attend or plan to attend any of the schools on that currently employ people who have already been investigated for sexual abuse? Do you admire an artist who burnishes the reputation of alleged abusers by working with them? Let them know what you think and why.