Faye Treacy is a comedian and a musician who was crowned Best Newcomer at the Musical Comedy Awards in 2015. She currently presents a show on Scala Radio on Saturdays from 6pm to 8pm. Below she writes about a recent incident which shows that there is still some way to go before men start treating women properly in the music world, and also, suggests Treacy, some of it runs parallel in the comedy world, although, she adds, luckily comedy isn’t as institutionalised as music.  

So on Friday night I received a rather vile video on FB from a trumpet player I don’t really know or work with. He was aggressively exposing himself to me and his reasoning was ‘I’m drunk.’

Now this isn’t the first time I have received unsolicited photos/videos/messages. I could have guessed his age at being middle aged by the fact that he stupidly used the platform of Facebook messenger instead of snap chat so I’m sorry ‘mate’ but that video is now on the internet forever. You were drunk yes but you were also making a power move, like when other colleagues have shown me porn for fun on their phones over dinner or in WhatsApp groups. I also am aware this is a grey area and comes down to context. Sarah Silverman just thought Louis CK was being an idiot when he ‘asked’ (important word there) to wank in front of her, other comedians found him more intimidating. A dickhead mate of mine sending me bad porn when we were younger for example, I don’t suddenly want him to lose all his teaching work if I chose to report him now but we need to look at it. We all do dumb shit. I grew up Catholic and used to call all bad things ‘gay’ even before I realised I liked girls as well as boys, which was a hard realisation and then insight into why I hated myself so much when I was younger.

I’ve been doing music most of my life. It’s opened many doors and satisfied my creativity, opened a world of better education my parents wouldn’t have been able to afford without a bursary and as a geeky kid in band I thought I’d found my tribe..but as I got older, when puberty hit I noticed a trend... with geeky men, there come’s a lot of pent up resentment towards women.

Having a metre-long dick drawn on your locker at music college after your first stint of TV work, notes left in your case calling you a ‘slag.’ This wasn’t from children, this was from well educated middle class early twenty year olds. When are we going to stop making excuses for such behaviour?

I had a chat a few years ago with my favourite academic professor at the Royal Academy of Music and I giggled that I’ve probably grown a way thicker skin now.. he cut me off, he wasn’t laughing along and he said ‘no, since you’ve left we’ve got better at having girls in the brass department.’ I really hope that’s true as I can no longer giggle. It’s a disservice to my feelings and quite frankly my intelligence.

There has been a few sneers against the Royal Northern College of music for setting up a better pastoral care system, but honestly when I was at my lowest and I mean low, I could have really done with some support not just being told ‘oh he’s Scottish’ or ‘you can’t stop a pig grunting.’ I was aware by going to study I was putting myself in crippling debt for life and I was wondering how much then I was willing to put up with till I broke.

I then went onto study in America where I got fed up of the professor there massaging young female accompanists shoulders in his ‘weekly’ yes weekly masterclasses. I got tired so I returned to London and I went in search of other art forms to express myself cos I actually found the music world I’d experienced up till then quite toxic and it had left me with quite crippling stage fright.

And it worked, I’ve now continued to play with great bands and musicians and I’m proud to say have an up and coming comedy career. What ever people can call me from my college days, doesn’t hurt me anymore. Call me a slag, say I only get my gigs cos I’m a girl all you like but at least as far as I’m aware no one ever said I wasn’t nice...And I am nice but I just can’t be fucked any longer to be agreeable.

So Friday night after a 17 hour teaching week, 7 gigs and 2 radio shows recorded I get into bed feeling proud with myself for once (and I’m so hard on myself) having had some lovely gigs at Top Secret Comedy Club I’m subjected to a video that was just disgusting.

Earlier this week I had a tweet asking how do we get more girls playing brass. I don’t think it’s a gender issue with who wants to learn a brass instrument, all little boys and girls love making fart noises, as the hilarious comedian Iliza Shlesinger recently put it in an interview little girls and boys find poop and farting hilarious as it’s funny BUT girls we’re just trained out of it, it’s for the boys to make jokes about.

I think we have a cultural problem that leads to many female brass students not sticking at it. I also think we have a massive class issue. When you can’t afford a car or a hotel when you’re building up your freelance work, as a woman you have to put so much trust in men. 

You have to share lifts with strangers, rooms and trust that you don’t wake up with some pervy function leaders hand in your knickers. You have to make sure you don’t get drunk and put yourself in vulnerable situations, (why did you agree to share a room in the first place?!) walking home late alone cos you don’t want to spend half of your gig fee on a cab because you know already your rents going to be a week late.

I’m tired of being subjected to this.

Yes I’m a comedian, I take the piss out of myself and my failings on stage, I’m sex positive, I speak freely and I’m not easily offended but I’m tired. The world is moving forward but why does it appear the music world is still dragging its feet?

I’ve asked some male colleagues if they know this dude and their response has been, ‘he’s normally so sweet,’ or ‘have you slept with him before?’ Ffs!!!! Some of my female older brass mates have been like ‘oh ignore it,’ cos I’m sure they’ve seen it all before. You become desensitised when your a gigging musician to this type of crap. Some people have told me to share the video, however, I don’t want to subject it to people who really don’t want to see it. Some people have been like don’t share it, ‘HE might be having a bad time in life.’

Now, I’ve put shout outs before begging my male colleagues to communicate more, speak about their feelings. I think it’s devastating that suicide is the biggest killer of young men. But did you know the group that commits suicide the most isn’t actually young men it’s actually lesbians... yes women. My sister works with sex workers in Norway and shared that shocking stat with me. Another fact about women that isn’t shouted about.

So to my lovely men in the world of music if one of your mates being a dick, have a word! Through hard work I’ve created a platform for myself where I will continue to speak up. The next hundred years isn’t going to be just written by men in the history books.

I’m done being quiet.