An Inclusive Metal Scene

originally written for Epic Metal Blog march 2023
contributions by Holly Francess Royle, Aud Jektvik and Anna Loppacher
edited by Igor Jakobsen
preface by Igor Jakobsen

What do you need to be a metalhead, to go to metal concerts or start a metal band?
Not much, the interest in heavy music should be enough. And yet, the metal scene seems to be dominated by white, 
heterosexual, able bodied young men. I’ve already written about how this seems to be the case both on and off stage
in my previous article “Sausagefest Rising”, and discussed several structural reasons. However, it makes little
sense to have a majority person define what are good ways to overcome the barriers to participation and inclusion
in the scene, be it on stage, in the audience, in fan groups or online.

Therefore, I sought out people with more knowledge than me to participate in a discussion panel that addresses
this topic.

The recruitment seemed to reproduce some of the issues in the scene. Minority persons seemed reluctant to
participate, while some majority persons volunteered, even though I stated explicitly that the discussion should
be a minority space.

It could be out of fear of not being heard, fear of the discussion not leading to anything, and fear of repercussions
for participating. In the end, only those knowing the discussion moderator personally, knowing his opinions and
thus having expectations to be seen and heard, were willing to participate.

 

video caption: Leather Leone, a 52 year old white woman 
performing The Voice Of The Cult at Keep it True 2011

The discussion panel 

Holly Frances Royle, 26 years old. A musician composing and playing in the bands Disconnected Souls and
Sensory Enigma who also works in in PR: Deviate PR and C-Squared PR, writes reviews for a few metal focused
sites. Currently studying for a PhD looking at intersectional inequality across the metal scene (from fans to industry),
with a focus on hegemonic masculinities in white, Western metal.

Aud Jektvik, 42 years old. Metal fan, active in the scene for many years in her 20's and still part of the scene,
although less active now. Sexologist and social worker who has a lot of experience with volunteer work in different
organisations. Particular areas of interest in this discussion are fatphobia, racism, homophobia, transphobia and
feminism.

Anna Loppacher, 33 years old. Plays in the metal band Dreamslain, loves attending concerts and festivals, writes
the occasional review within the metal or prog genre, and studies for a PhD in social sciences, on a topic that is
not metal-related. Particular areas of interest are marginalisation, sexism, racism and all the problems affecting
people who are defined out of the white, heteronormative, cisnormative and ableist status quo.

discussion moderator:
Igor Jakobsen, white heterosexual cis male, 36 years old, who doesn’t have to worry when going to metal shows.

 

Barriers to participation

The first task of the discussion group was to define the problem: What are the barriers to participation? Many
minority persons are already painfully aware of these barriers, and yet many majority metalheads often seem
surprised when someone brings up harassment in the metal scene.

Gatekeeping was the first barrier the panel brought up. It seems that minority persons are only accepted if they
are able to demonstrate exceptionality, or usefulness. Minority persons are questioned and expected to prove
they’re metal enough to a much greater extent than majority persons.

For women, there is additional gatekeeping by being cast only as sex objects and denied actual participation.
Women attractive in a non-conventional way are either invisibilized, fetishized or seen as “last resort sex objects”,
with an expectation for them to be grateful to gain access to the metal scene by this cost, or grateful for
(sexual) harassment as an acknowledgement of their existence.
Size discrimination is a barrier that affects more women than men, due to the sex object issue.

Threats to safety are another important barrier. Persons minoritized by visible markers like skin colour, gender,
displayed sexual orientation etc. face more harassment and physical violence than majority persons. Most men
perceive themselves not to be at risk for harassment or physical violence in the metal scene.

This barrier becomes more severe because victims of harassment or violence often expect to not get aid from
police or security personnel, and have to resort to needing someone from the majority group to accompany them
to try and avoid harassment. A side note here is a cis-man’s comment that he would not help a person that is
harassed because it would be a risk to him. The fact that a fellow metal fan was under attack, was apparently not
important for him.

 

video caption: Skinflint, a metal trio from Botswana with one female 
and one black bandmember

Regarding barriers to participating on stage, there is again the issue of having to be grateful to be allowed on
stage at all. Thus, minority persons that are skeptical due to legitimate concerns or tokenism might be seen as
“difficult to work with” and not get spots on stage. This can be practical issues such as sleeping arrangements,
or chauvinistic ideas that women should not play stereotypically “male” instruments like guitars and drums.

The lack of accommodation for function varied persons and larger sized persons with respect to mobility,
accessibility, properly sized furniture, and enough seating is another barrier in many venues.
These barriers seem to be sustained by ideological issues.

  

A harassment-permissive ideology?

The discussion panel theorised that metal’s image as “music of the underdogs” might contribute to less willingness
to address problematic sides within the scene.

Many seek to metal because of being marginalised in some way. But the metal scene, instead of welcoming diversity,
ends up with policing itself even harder, casting out minorities in the minority, as some kind of trauma response.
As a consequence, the majority in the minority, i.e. thin white straight males with aggression issues, get to define
who is welcome and who will be marginalized.

According to a colleague of one of the panel members, who is a black woman, metal is perceived as “white” and
thus not welcoming for minorities by persons belonging to ethnic minorities. Being white as a scene in this context 
means among others being tolerant towards racism, because it doesn’t affect those who are white, and belittling and
invisibilizing experiences by black people and people of colour, thus effectively shunning them from the scene.
This might be the reason for there being far less people of colour on stages and at metal shows than there are people
of colour in the given area.

video caption: epic metal band from Germany founded
by female singer Jutta Weinhold in the mid-80s

In many ways metal culture reproduces, rather than challenges majority culture and thus bigotry towards women,
black people and people of colour, people that show signs of age, against minority religions and minority culture,
against larger sized people and lgbtq+ - persons.

The sizeism might be further increased by ideals of control in black metal, where there’s a focus on control over
one’s body, even though being large is in no way caused by lack of control.

While some band members step up to protect harassed audience members, and are praised for it, there seems to be
little general shift in attitude towards harassment in their audiences. They are instead reproducing the majority myth
of a “fair maiden being rescued”, which is “positive” sexism. Research shows that positive sexism still leads to
higher assault and harassment proclivity, which might explain why the band members’ actions are not reducing
harassment incidences.

The insistence on making metal an apolitical space is thus only making it more welcoming to majority beliefs, and
reproduces the majority status quo by telling those who have to put up with all the -isms and -phobias in the majority
spaces that they also in the metal scene have to put up with it, be quiet about it, not be difficult about it, not make a
big deal etc. In other words, by no means rebel against the system and those benefiting from it.

For a subculture that praises being the underdog, there seems to be a lack of solidarity with marginalised groups in
the metal scene. The widespread reproduction of the negative attitudes of the majority towards marginalised groups
makes it unsafe for them to join, and they are unable to have space to be themselves. Thus, the metal scene becomes
the boys’ club that many majority metalheads are just fine with. After all, they’re not the ones denied participation.

 

 video caption: Black Death, an all afro-american 
heavy metal band from the first half of the 80s

Possible solutions

While any group that is large enough will have some shitty people, discrimination and harassment is prevalent and
has become a systemic issue for the metal scene. Change needs therefore to occur on several levels, it can’t just be
the responsibility of the individual metalhead.

An important first step is for venues and organisers to be clear that they care about these issues and advertise their
values and willingness to protect minorities and marginalized groups.

This might divide the local scenes, and some might complain that one mixes metal and politics, but should one
accept the majority dominance in the metal scene? It’s also likely that some organisers have “good values” but are
scared to declare them in fear of losing revenue. Other organisers say that they would love to have all genders on
stage, but have given up on getting anything but all-male bands booked. If they remain silent in these situations, and
don’t try to affect the issue, do they really stand for those values to begin with, and is it relevant as long as they don’t
act on them?

While one risks 2 subscenes – one anti-harassment and one “free for all”, it would still be a success if an
anti-harassment space could be created. Responsibility to create this falls heavily on venue owners or promoters,
however the individual metalhead has a responsibility to support such an endeavour and participate in those spaces.

In the UK, “Ask Angela” is a good example of a campaign by venues to prevent sexual harassment and assault.
Having venues writing short statements making their values clear would be great. We have already seen examples
of venues (not in the metal scene) writing about bad customers.This could be used to demonstrate the venue’s
actions on making them a safe space.

Another way to increase diversity would be to have minority quotas for performers until minorities have adequate
representation on stage and in the community. It’s not ideal, but a pragmatic solution to help the situation in the
short term. The panel finds that minorities are being squeezed out when metal goes from a youth to adult interest
and that quotas might help keeping them in the scene.

 

video caption: Crystal Viper a Polish metal band led by
Marta Gabriel who sings and plays guitar (sometimes bass)

When it comes to accessibility, there is already some work being done by various organisations to make venues
truly accessible for people with mobility disadvantages. Similar modifications, with adequately sized seating
should be made for larger people.

For a harassment-free space to exist, there would have to be consequences for harassment. Here the problem is that
mostly majority organisers and venue owners define what is problematic and what is acceptable. There seems
especially to be an unwillingness to address problems with major acts that behave in an unacceptable way. It will
be very hard to create a harassment-free space if the venue or promoter defines it as unimportant by booking or
working with bands that are sexist, racist, ableist, homophobic, transphobic, fatphobic or chauvinist in other ways.

When someone is harassed or discriminated, it is important that venues actively investigate and prove with their
actions that they want the venue to be a safe space. Some are already doing well with this, and at least in
Manchester, messages both online and in venues about reporting any incidents and offering support are increasing.

Depending on what offence was committed, it can be appropriate for the venue to ban the offender. We know that
being excluded is in itself a risk factor for becoming radicalized, therefore the ban should be temporal and focus
both on keeping the other venue goers safe and on a restorative justice perspective where the offender should learn
and be able to make amends.

In areas where the government, either local, regional, national or on EU level is involved in culture, one needs to
work for them to include minority focus in their grants. The government cultural grants should have lifting
marginalized voices and having quotas for minority participation as a condition when they claim to support diversity.

 

Part 3: What actions contribute to make the change to an inclusive metal scene?

In general, metalheads are great at signalling a stance. What bands they like and support, what genre and so on.
So it’s only natural that metalheads, artists, promoters and venues committed to this work could use patches,
stickers and merch to show their commitment. A good example here is Metalheads Against Bullying who have a
lot of anti-bullying merch.

Venues could announce their commitment with statements about inclusivity both online and on physical posters
or stickers at the venue.

An example of such a statement could be “We strive to be inclusive and want to protect our audience members
against racism, sexism, harassment, bullying and discrimination. Please let us know if you have experienced any
of these, and we will investigate and ban the offender from the venue”.

Mentioning the rules at the start of an event could also be effective to make everyone aware that anti-harassment
policies will be enforced. It is highly likely that if a venue shows that they stand by their commitment to enforce
such policies, word will spread and more minority persons will attend the venue.

On the opposite end of this spectrum, one should shun and be vocal about venues that are non-inclusive.

It would be great if one could make both a boycott list and a support list, and some symbol or stamp of approval
if they meet certain standards. These standards would have to include training security in conflict de-escalation,
training on their biases and training in what actions should be considered harassment.

Defining, and communicating the definitions of what is considered a "security threat" to the venue, is very
important as often only overt violence is enough to draw the attention of venue security. A start here could be
meetings with venues where one reaches an understanding of what should be considered a problem, and what
would be the appropriate reaction of staff.

Here it was proposed to have a member of staff tasked with actively looking out for instances of harassment and
bullying. When it occurs, this person should not only act by removing the offender, but make a short public
statement to show that harassment and bullying is not tolerated in the venue.

Another way for the venue to become aware of problems would be anonymous suggestion boxes where people
can suggest everything from protocols to bands they want to see.

 

video caption: Tanith, a traditional heavy metal band with 
members from England and USA, with female bass guitarist

 who does half of the vocals

Proposed definition of harassment, bullying and discrimination

Discrimination in the metal scene can take the form of physically attacking, taunting and bullying, exclusion,
starring or turning away, laughing, questions one would not ask a majority person (you would not quiz a person
about metal trivia that you already consider part of the metal community), being made to feel unwanted or as an
'inconvenience', and touching without explicit and enthusiastic consent.

When you see someone being harassed or being made to feel unsafe: isolate the perpetrator from them!
If possible: work together so that someone goes to alarm security, several others stand between harassed person
and the perpetrator, someone asks the victim what they need/want to do in this situation.

To combat discrimination and make the metal scene truly including, we encourage and expect our scene to commit
to the following principles:

We visit venues with inclusive seating for everyone, that are accessible to people with any level of mobility and
that accommodate the needs for safety and security of different types of visitors. We encourage venues to have
gender neutral bathrooms as well as bathrooms accommodating different mobility needs.

This includes the avoidance of strobe lights and similar epilepsy triggers. While metal is a loud music form, we
expect the venue to keep it to reasonable levels based on venue size and health recommendations.

We ensure that everyone feels safe and included in the metal scene by actively inviting newcomers and people of
marginalised groups into our group. There will be no minimum of metal-ness or demands to prove oneself to be
part of the community. We use the pronouns people want us to use about them and treat persons of every gender
equally.

We welcome flirting and other interactions when, and only when enthusiastic consent has been given. There
should be enough space to not feel one’s personal space invaded and for venue security to see and prevent any
attempts to violate people’s bodily autonomy.

We expect venues to have staff trained to recognize and intervene when harassment takes place and to take
appropriate actions against harassers.

We will not stare, laugh at or shun people because of their size, skin colour or ethnicity, religion or religious
expression, age, abilities, gender or gender expression or any other way they can be seen as different.

We urge venues that have staff uniforms to provide gender neutral uniforms and bands to provide gender
neutral merch. We encourage metalheads to buy merch from bands that show a support for diversity and avoid
sexist, phobic or racist merch.

We welcome venues that accommodate for attendance by people not of legal drinking age through separation
of audience rooms, possibility to attend with special wristbands and accompanying adults free of charge.

 

 video caption: Judas Priest, one of the most famous metalband 
with the most famous queer frontman in metal Rob Halford