More wrong equality in the Swedish industry!

After yesterdays post a friend contacted me and told me that it's even worse with the gender thing inside the Swedish industry.

He had been working on a music company for eight years. Suddenly everyone was taken off their positions. The whole company should be replaced. Since he was only hired as a contractor he had just to accept to quit his job.

When his job came on the market the job description said that they wanted a woman. He knew he couldn't complete so he even didn't bother to apply.

A couple of months later the company was still on hiring and through some old office colleagues, he heard they hadn't found a woman that hold the qualifications for the job. This job is very specific you really need special knowledge to get it done. He then just wrote that he could think to have his old job back to the company.

The company was relieved that he volunteered. And they went into negotiation. They still needed a woman just for the look so they suggested that he could split his job to 50% with a woman that was not really qualified. In reality, they wanted him to teach the new woman so she could do his job.

Money was tight and he really liked this but what could he do, he needed the job so he took it. Already from the start, it was trouble. First, the woman was not informed that her job had been split with someone else and was quite pissed about that. Second, she scheduled a personal vacation the two first very crucial months when they had to start up the work again.

My friend just had to do 100% with just 50% payment. Working for two people and get the whole thing running again. Then when she finally arrived it showed quickly that she was very under qualified for the job. In practical, my friend did 90% of the work. She did only smaller easy tasks.

After half a year there were complaints that they couldn't get out the salary since to company was low on cash. During the paperwork, he got a hold of a salary list and found out that the woman actually got 100% paid. In practice, she got more paid, did very little and still was underqualified and now he wasn't even paid because the company was losing so much. And of course, they did they paid 150% in salary for one person to do all the job.

He went to the boss and just asked how this could be. The money situation would be easily solved if they just took the woman off her 100% salary. She was also still in test mode (a Swedish thing) so they could just let her go if they did it directly. She didn't really contribute with anything that important either and the boss knew it. No, was the answer. They needed a woman on the spot so the company looked equal. Instead, they got several providers to wait for their payment.

Then the woman took some time off to do other projects. Now my friend though since he was already doing 90% he could easily take the rest and raise his salary to 100%. No, he should just get 50% and they were seeking another person to take over the task and it needed to be a woman. Since last time he knew they wouldn't find anyone suitable. Also, witch part of his job should he hand over to the new woman that only would be there for a couple of months?

It was quite a horror story. This is not equality. This is just a show for the gallery. The sad part is this, not the only story I got knowledge of. The past year I have counted three to four equal bad situation in the Swedish music industry. They mainly just use women to protect themselves, not letting them in.

Get these blogs updates straight to your mail.
Enter your email address:

Equality in the wrong way!

I was talking to a Swedish festival of booking an artist. They showed very much interest in a band that is very successful right now. Suddenly the called me up and asked after a much smaller and not as ready artist.

The new artist was already booked on these dates so I asked if the artist they where first interested of could do it. No, they are men they answered.

Suddenly their gender was against them. The festival even agreed that the male artist was a better choice. Still, they were not booked because of their gender. We need women on the festival the organizer excused. I was checking the schedule and it was more women than men already booked to the festival. Yes, they answered but the headliner is male so we need even more women they told me. Who was the headliner? It is a male artist convicted of sexual harassment. I guess to smooth things over they want a female artist in front of that mistake. I'm not so sure the female artist would like that argument.

They stop an artist career of their gender. This never happened before. Sure it was more men on the stages but if there was a popular female band we never stopped them because of their gender. And I stumble on this behavior quite often. I was not even surprised to hear the conversation. It was after I though over how bizarre this new system is.

I was talking to the artist label about the problem. Their new single is playing on major radio stations around Europe but not in Sweden.

They have the wrong gender was the answer from the label. Swedish radio only plays female artists, especially if they have a foreign background. This is men from a midsized city, impossible to place in so we won't even bother to send it in.

I'm angry but in the way you probably think. Yes, this discrimination is going on all the time. But I have another approach to it. This discrimination doesn't work well works in favor of the female people working in the industry. The artist we can always go to territories where the music that is best is counting not what you between your legs.

No, the error comes in another step. I bump into several women that working professionally and feel ashamed of what is going on. Also, they become limited to work with less good acts that are female. And that stops them when they get out on the international market. Their products are not good enough in the competition. But they get the opportunities. In the end, it will be the best music that wins when you are in the big market.

I'm very before equality, but this is not equality this is even worse at it has been. It's not counted what you produce, it's your gender, skin color, and sexual orientation that determined what is heard in Sweden.

This is not helping anyone. Especially not women in music, this just makes things harder to get the industry equal.

Get these blogs updates straight to your mail.
Enter your email address: