Vulnerability became strength in some of Kesha’s biggest hits, which reached out directly to the underdog and told them they were worth something. She told Rolling Stone in 2010 that her huge single “We R Who We R,” which declares you know we’re superstars, we are who we are!, was written explicitly with the aim of reaching out to and empowering depressed teenagers. It may not be world-changing, but it’s a political slant that’s decidedly missing from the singles Dr Luke has produced for the charts this year (including those for Nicki Minaj, Ciara, and his latest teenage protégé Becky G) without her writing involvement. Kesha herself was the voice of the outcast and the downtrodden in pop music; which makes it all the more tragically ironic that the very industry that profited from her songs is now attempting to silence her for speaking up about her own victimhood.

The legitimacy of Kesha’s claims against Dr Luke aside, Sony claiming that her accusations are false reeks of gaslighting. Gaslighting is a technique used by abusers and those who support them to distort and omit information in order to make a victim doubt their own sanity and memory of events. In this case, Sony are saying that since Kesha didn’t report the abuse at the time, it can’t possibly have happened. They dismiss out of hand her own memory of her own experience, and completely skim over the possibility that Kesha could have been too scared or otherwise pressurized to speak out against Gottwald earlier—a very real possibility given his control of her career, and in light of the fact that most cases of abuse and rape are never reported at all. Put another way: the case of Kesha versus Dr Luke isn’t only exposing the alleged predatory nature of one man; it has damning implications for the industry at large. Regardless of the judge's verdict, this indicates young stars are not safe in the hands of a company like Sony that will happily profit from their talent and image, but use the classic tactics of abuse to silence them when they speak out against their mistreatment.

There’s nothing an abuser wants more than the silence of their victim. But “Kesha is focused on reclaiming her voice and her freedom,” as her attorney Mark Geragos told TMZ last year. Why wouldn’t we want to hear the voice of a popstar who, as she once told Seventeen magazine, named her second album Warrior because: "I remember every person who told me I couldn't do something or that I was ugly or too fat...You can be a victim and let that eat your soul, or you can say, 'You're going on my list and I'm going to prove you wrong!'" The industry was happy to profit from Kesha’s empowering voice—until they were ones on her list. Now, as long as she’s unable to release music and Dr Luke continues to be prolific, pop is missing one of its strongest fighters.

