Tag Archives: sexual harassment

kultura

Institutional, nervous, and other breakdowns

The first time a young writer came out with a Facebook status (dated August 2) about having been taken “sexual advantage” of in a writing workshop, I shared it with a very clear statement about silence. Fresh from the CNN Life panel for the Readers and Writers Fest where we were asked what is the biggest realization we’ve had about the cultural sector, I said that it is about how much of it operates on silence. We don’t know what’s going on, how things are decided, how the systems work, and all that we ever discuss is what we see on the surface: the finished art work, the published piece, the film, the TV show, the dress. But the work that goes into that, the institutions that come into play, the oppressions that are intrinsic to that system — we are kept in the dark about these things. After all, we can be so aware of power relations and capital, and still deny what that truly means. (more…)

kultura

Pinay call-out culture: the good, bad, ugly

Without a doubt, there is power to be had in having social media, through which we can articulate our grievances, question our leaders, call out oppressors, demand accountability. Here is a medium that cradles our voice, and depending on what it is we’re talking about, we find allies in other voices, named and anonymous, supporting what we say, adding onto our narratives. It’s a sense of community, sure. It’s a sense of belonging, absolutely. It is power, undeniably.

This is at the heart of the Twitter thread of Adrienne Onday that wanted to talk about “misogyny, sexism, and predatory / manipulative behavior in the local independent music scene in my experience.” I myself had read the first set of tweets, which was her speaking in broad strokes — nothing specific, no names, and heavily contextualized when she was doing the gig scene regularly enough to become friends with the bands she idolized.

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