Keychange is a Europe-wide movement led by Reeperbahn Festival, PRS Foundation and Musikcentrum Öst, which aims to support underrepresented artists and encourage organisations to take a pledge for gender equality. Through Keychange, organisations in the music industry can be supported in creating a pledge for gender equality.

Why didn’t they fight back?

There are three possible survival responses to a traumatic event like rape: fight, flight, or the one that often does not occur to people: freeze. Freezing is probably the survival response with which people are least familiar, and when we think about a scenario involving rape, thoughts of running away (‘flight’) or of fighting back can spring much more readily to mind than the idea of being unable to move or do anything at all. However, in our experience at rape crisis, freezing can be one of the most common reactions during a rape. (https://www.rapecrisisscotland.org.uk/i-just-froze/)

12 Ways to Spot a Misogynist, Sexual Harassment in the Trad World, #AskMoreOfHim & more…

We are compiling a list of useful resources and organisations which promote equality and inclusion for disabled musicians and performers.

Here are some resources on the history and current inclusion of women and gender non-conforming people in bagpiping.

Fair Plé’s ‘Festival Line-Up Challenge’, which explored the (lack of) gender diversity among performers at folk and traditional music festivals in Ireland, found that across 40 festivals analysed, women made up only 36.2% of performers. We thought it would be useful to do some digging into the situation in Scotland.

We value our multigenerational folk festivals and we believe that everyone has a right to feel safe when attending them. We are calling on festivals across the UK to display and implement proper safeguarding and anti-harassment policies and measures.