Last week, I had three related unrelated experiences that I felt tell a bit of a story and I want to share them with you.
First, I was selling a pedal on Reverb and I'd contacted the seller to tell them that it had been shipped. He responded by saying that he was super excited and that already had and used this pedal, but his was broken, so he wanted a replacement. This was a somewhat rare pedal, so he said he snatched itnup when it was listed, which was great for me! He was also wondering if I had the original box or paperwork. I said I was very excited that the pedal was going to someone who would really appreciate it because I really liked it, even though it's not for me, and that I might have the original box somewhere deep in a pile in my garage or something. He then responded, “Thanks for being soo nice! If you find the box it is ok! Love this pedal! You seem like the coolest seller! You sound like an awesome person! And a beautiful woman!”
At this point, I was like, uhhhhhhhhhh…
For two reasons: 1) how does he even know what I look like? That was kind of creepy! and 2) it's deeply inappropriate to send that to someone via Reverb, whether he knows who I am or not.
To be fair, I have definitely looked up a seller on Craigslist because I am meeting them in person and I don't want to get killed. But there is really no reason to do that on Reverb and it felt particularly unnerving. I did not respond to him because I didn’t have the energy to get into it with a stranger on the internet.
ANYWAY...
The second thing that happened is that there is a local amp repair guy who has always been very nice to me, though he is very, very quiet and shy. He had been posting on Craigslist about his services and the posts featured a sort of “noir” horror Boris Karloff-looking photo that had a woman on a table looking very scared with a man right above her and it said “Hi Fi Fiend”. (Here’s the image, if you’d like to see it.) Very bad vibes. Of course, these types of posters are not uncommon and I don’t usually make a big deal about it, but he just KEPT posting it, so finally, I emailed him and explained why that might be a problem for some folks, and he was very nice and said he wouldn’t post it anymore.
Success!
Finally— in my research, I was looking at Instagram accounts of music stores. Most of them are pretty much what you might expect: pictures of gear, announcements of sales and store hours, sometimes pics of customers with their new gear or store staff doing a demo. This was not scientific, as I was simply scanning based on my experience, but I will report to you that of my searching probably 30 of the top profiting stores in the US, guess who had the best representation of women and BIPOC folks?
I am shocked to report that it was Guitar Center!
A screenshot from Guitar Center’s Instagram page
This is mostly shocking because, if you are a long-time listener to Mid-Riff, you know that with a few exceptions, almost every guest here has had a negative Guitar Center story to tell— totally unprompted on my end. I’m not asking them, “Hey, what terrible thing did Guitar Center do to you?” They bring it up!
I have definitely seen a change in Guitar Center’s marketing over the last 10 years or so. I know they had outreached and partnered with a number of Girls Rock Camps in that time, as well. And I’ll be honest, we didn’t work with them because we didn’t want to be associated with them. At the time, we felt they still had more work to do. But at least with regard to marketing, I do think they’ve made some serious strides. I haven’t seen any major changes in stores here, and clearly there is some training that folks still need to do, but it’s a step in the right direction for sure.
So, how do these three things relate to each other— other than the fact that they are all gender-related observations I had this week?
Well, there’s a direct line here from objectification happening in the Reverb scenario to the fear of violence in the amp guy. I’ve covered objectification a bit in the past, but I’ll address it again briefly.
Objectification theory was named by two psychologists, Fredrickson and Roberts in 1997. Basically, objectification is when a person is made to be viewed and/or treated as an object. At the individual level, women then internalize this experience, and it can lead to anxiety, habitual body monitoring (if you are someone who is annoyed because a woman you know is constantly fixing their hair or looking in the mirror or whatever, that’s body monitoring), depression, eating disorders, and much more. Is calling someone “beautiful” objectification? Well, in this space where someone is made to think about their appearance totally out of context for no reason at all, yes.
At the societal level or even organizational level, within the industry, when objectifying images are constantly present it supports a culture that leads to women’s overall dehumanization. Dehumanization is the first step in normalizing violence against someone because if they are seen as unhuman, it is okay to be violent towards them. And the image that my amp guy shared was that next step.
One way to fix this is through better representation, like that of Guitar Center, and a small handful of other companies. Of course, it’s best if these images are lived out through company values, training, and they like (and please reach out if you are interested in talking more about that), but improvements in representation can really make a big difference.
Okay! So my final connections—> in the music gear industry, objectification at the individual and societal level can be addressed through better marketing, training, and values that are lived out in companies. Now companies need to connect the dots and start making change!