It’s no secret that women are killing it right now – from speaking up about sexual harassment, demanding equal pay, to sharing their stories on sexism & beyond all while inspiring others to open up about their own experiences in the process.
One voice we have always appreciated is For Esmé’s Martha Meredith. After their 2015 release, Sugar, the band is ready to release their new LP, Righteous Woman, on May 25, featuring the female-empowerment anthem, “Doubtmouth” where Meredith opens up about the misogyny & doubt she has faced in the workplace.
The list of offenses and stories go on, and as much as we need to hear these stories, it often feels like a weight to bear to hear so many levels of injustice placed upon us. But we can overcome, and that is our main mission with our Women’s History Month coverage.
We asked Martha Meredith to share the hardest thing she has ever faced in the music industry and how she overcame it all in this exclusive guest blog. The ending inspired us to make some history of our own. 😉
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Hello Daily Listeners! Mar here from For Esmé. I’ve been asked to do a lil guest blogging about my experience navigating the music industry so here we go!
With the release of my new single “Doubtmouth,” I talked a lot about female anger—a tricky subject. It’s tricky for a number of reasons but the one I was most interested in was how when I expressed blunt disagreement around certain men I worked with in the past, I felt that I lost credibility and then was isolated for being too outspoken. I didn’t feel that men experienced the same consequences for the same behavior. Now it turns out this isn’t a phenomenon unique to me and certainly not to the music industry either (my experiences aren’t specific to the music scene).
In 2015, psychologists Jessica Salerno & Liana Peter-Hagene did a study to see if women and men are perceived differently for expressing anger. The results? Pretty eye-opening. In a mock jury, participants were more likely to doubt their own judgement after hearing what an angry male had to say. In stark contrast, the participants were more confident in their own judgements after reading the exact same thing but coming from a woman. Everything was identical! The only hold out was gender. But when the man said the thing it swayed their opinion and when the woman said the same thing — they stuck to their guns. Isn’t that wild? On the one hand , I was sort of comforted by the realization that my experience wasn’t in my head, but on the other it was pretty disheartening. We as a society don’t trust angry women – and women have a lot of reasons to be angry. If the bias is that deep in both men and women, how do we overcome it? Women hate on angry women too.
So I was asked about what the hardest thing I’ve faced in the music industry is and I want to give the most honest answer: myself.
Sexism is a problem in this industry like in every industry, but what I have taken a big interest in, in the making of my new record Righteous Woman is my own internalized misogyny. Even though I’m a proud and outspoken feminist, I still have all these internalized notions of womxnhood that are not healthy. Like, this fear of being labeled a bitch that relates to the above anger stuff. I know I waste too much time and energy trying to be nice and “chill” as I try to navigate being the boss of my project – and sometimes that has held me back from making decisions I need to make, or doing what is right for my art. I am working really hard to learn not to silence myself (and of equal importance to never silence voices with less privilege than I am fortunate to have). But I still need to work all the time to keep myself from doing too much tip-toeing.
I also feel this discord between trying to be my authentic self and simultaneously projecting this glossy and professional vision for For Esmé. There is a lot of pressure to look a certain way and to be seen doing certain things. There is so much pressure to self-promote in a way that I don’t feel super comfortable with and doesn’t really feel like me. What makes this record so strong, to me, is all the time I spent alone thinking and writing and saying no a lot — to friends and to invitations and to events that might have looked cool on Instagram. And there is pressure, that I mostly put on myself, to be this perfect friend, daughter, partner, industry person and peer, because I somehow got this notion that that’s what women are supposed be like. They nurture, they show up, they always say yes. That’s fucked up right? It’s totally not sustainable or healthy, and I don’t think it makes great art either. If you’re always subverting your own needs so that you can be this endless fountain of nurture and accommodation for other people, I think it inhibits your ability to be authentic and honest both with yourself and others – things that I think are absolutely crucial to making art that really speaks to the human condition.
I guess, to put it more simply, the biggest hurdle I’ve faced in the music industry is that of my own self-worth and how to nurture that. How to separate myself from a cultural notion of the ideal woman.
In the words of one of my most favorite essays by the incomparable Joan Didion:
“To have that sense of one’s intrinsic worth which, for better or for worse, constitutes self-respect, is potentially to have everything: the ability to discriminate, to love and to remain indifferent.”
More on dream woman and my muse Joan in the singles to come. Stay tuned! <3
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