CONTENT WARNING: The following article discusses sexual harassment.
The Preatures frontwoman Isabella Manfredi has spoken at length about the #MeToo movement and her experiences of sexual harassment in the music industry on the ABC‘s Q&A program.
Speaking on the panel last night, Manfredi was asked by an audience member about how her career in music has been affected after she first spoke out about sexual harassment in a #MeToo post last year.
“I think the biggest thing for me about the #MeToo movement was it gave me a chance, and my post gave me a chance to not only have conversations with other women, but to have conservations with the men in my life that I’d never been able to have. Real, honest conversations,” Manfredi said.
“I think for me the best thing was just being able to talk to my band honestly about what it is like to be a woman in the music industry, and with my management and with people at my label.”
Manfredi said most of her experiences of sexual harassment have taken place in America.
“Mostly it’s the hands up the skirt or unwanted attention… from people that are in big companies,” she said.
“They’re really the gatekeepers. It’s really hard in those situations to go, ‘Hey!’”
Manfred said she believes the #MeToo movement has been “a really positive thing for women to share their stories as a collective”, but also called on men to help take responsibility so that victims don’t feel they are responsible for what has happened to them.
Watch her speak on Q&A, below.
If you need assistance, 1800 RESPECT – the National Sexual Assault, Domestic and Family Violence Counselling Service — can be reached on 1800 737 732, while Lifeline can be reached on 13 11 14.
Isabella Manfredi thinks it's a huge step and no one wants to be known as 'the sexual harassment girl' #QandA pic.twitter.com/RzWLz6FpGn
— ABC Q&A (@QandA) February 15, 2018
