A meme shared by a local production company

Ever since I was little I had a huge passion for music and sounds. I worked hard and earned the opportunity to attend a fantastic arts middle-high school as a violin major.

But when I became a classical guitar major my sophomore year everything changed.

My guitar program had a total of thirty students but only two of students were girls. I was teased and bullied constantly but I was lucky to have a guitar teacher who told me to ignore the rude boys and follow my passion. He kept emphasizing that they were just rowdy teenagers and things would get better as I grew older.

Things ended up getting worse.

In college I continued to pursue guitar but I had to face sexist professors and TAs that thought calling me “madam guitarist” and pressuring me to sleep with them was acceptable behavior. I became frustrated that no one would take me seriously but I kept telling myself things would get better once I entered the professional world.

I slowly became angry at myself because maybe I was doing something wrong. I wanted professors and even students to stop looking at me like some sort of circus animal because I was the first female classical guitarist they’ve seen. If I were a man they wouldn’t have doubted that I knew how to use my amp and that I could properly operate a mixing console.

After becoming burned out from all the sexism in the guitar world, I decided to take a break and pursue composing and sound design for visual media.

I began to notice that almost all of my self study books only contained men and were riddled with sexist humor about objectifying women and pornography. I tried to brush it off as a dated cultural phenomenon.

But once I started going to meetups and entering Facebook groups, I realized that this terrifying boy’s club mentality still heavily shrouds the audio community.

A microphone ad from TwitchCon 2015

Almost at every meetup I attended I was either mistaken as someone’s girlfriend or treated like a child. Being the only woman in the room at most of those events made me feel like an alien that didn’t belong. I spent day after day reading job ads and articles that made me start to think I can’t be apart of this creative world because I will never be a “sound guy”.

All I ever wanted was to create music and art to share with the world. The reason why I love art so much is that it defies boundaries and sends a universal message.

But having this community consistently put me down and treat me like an object breaks my spirit which makes it difficult for me to share my voice and continue pursuing my craft.

I want to belong to a group of people that respects each other so we can continue to innovate and evolve music and audio.

I don’t want a handout or special treatment, I just want to be respected and taken seriously like any other person in the audio community.

Women have to work just as hard as men, and the last thing they need is to be shut down by men who are afraid of change and don’t want to grow up.

I’m tired of getting rejected from gigs because “they don’t want a bitch on their team” or I would “ruin their demographic” aka call them out on their childish ways. Those guys think they can scare me by being gross and inappropriate but they’re wrong.

Those microphones don’t belong to my boyfriend. Yes I am strong enough to hold a boom mic. Just because this networking event has free alcohol and I’m the only woman here doesn’t mean that you can get wasted and try to sleep with me.

Being in this industry is exhausting. Not because of the work, but because of having to deal with profane men that think I’m incompetent based on my gender.

My response to the sexist meme

I am not going to give up but I will not stay silent because I’m outnumbered.

I don’t want to feel alone and scared to pursue a career because of problematic people.

I want aspiring composers, sound designers, audio engineers, and audio folk from all walks of life to enter a safe industry and community that will support them and not break them down to keep them out.