In 2017, in the wake of allegations of sexual assault against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, women, trans-and gender diverse persons1 across the creative industries (and beyond) have come forward to shed light on the prevalence of sexual assault and violence in these areas. The #MeToo hashtag, which was used extensively on social media from late 2017 when stories were being shared online as a way of demonstrating the widespread nature of sexual assault and abuse, has become emblematic of this moment. As part of this, women have been taking collective action to draw attention to the pervasiveness of this type of abuse in the music industries. For example, over 2,000 people in Sweden (Dagens Nyheter 2017) and over 1,000 in Australia (The Industry Observer n.d.) have signed open letters detailing the types of abuse they have been subjected to, and calling for change and an end to such behaviour. The Swedish letter stated that:

Reading the stories shared in these open letters gives powerful insight into how the culture of the industry encourages mistreatment of women and minimizes their experiences. For example, one contributor noted:

The stories in these letters, and others that emerged during this time through social media and other forums, have made it clear that abuse is often normalized in the music industries. This new –but not new –knowledge raises questions about the extent to which such behaviours have always been part of popular music, and how histories of this music are often written so as to ignore, excuse or even valorize such misdeeds.