The misogyny, chauvinism and intimidation of women at music venues needs to stop

YOUNG women can’t walk through a nightclub or a music festival without being grabbed and harassed. This partygoer says it’s disgusting and it has to stop.

“HE roughly shoved his hand down my pants”. “He ejaculated on my back”. “I was bitten and scratched on the face because I didn’t want to go home with a guy”.

These are the terrifying accounts of physical and sexual assault from women courageous enough to speak out against a culture of misogyny, chauvinism and intimidation in nightclubs and at music festivals around Australia.

Sadly, their stories are accepted as a normal part of the music scene by a public whose outrage appears limited to lockout laws and one-punch attacks, says Izzy Combs, who is speaking out after years of witnessing such behaviour on the job.

Ms Combs has worked in nightclubs since she was 18 and was herself assaulted while working at a Kings Cross venue. She said a fire was lit in her belly after watching men get away with grabbing, grinding and abusing women powerless to do anything about it.

She was finally pushed over the edge after a man at the Coachella music festival in California wore a T-shirt reading “EAT SLEEP RAPE REPEAT” this week.

This awful fashion statement was worn openly at Coachella.

Her own attack, she says, is surprisingly common.

“On a busy Friday night, I was out picking up glasses on the club floor when a male patron roughly shoved his hand down my pants,” Ms Combs wrote in an article for Stoney Roads, a website that labels itself the “quintessential stop for everything dance music”.

“As I dropped the glasses, he let me know that he’d ‘get’ me if I ever told anyone. He ‘knew people in the Cross’.”

She is not alone. A friend of hers was scratched and bitten at a nightclub after refusing to leave with a male patron. In February, a woman at St Kilda Festival told police a man “ejaculated on her back” in a mosh pit, and just days ago footage emerged of a 19-year-old woman being gang-raped at a spring break beach party as hundreds of revellers stood idly by.

Ms Combs says there is a “black hole when it comes to talking about sexual harassment in the music scene”.

Izzy Combs has worked at a nightclub since she was 18.

“We’re big on fuming over ‘king-hit’ crimes, we’re relatively outraged when we talk about a threat to our drug culture and we’re f***ing furious if someone tries to shut down our clubs and bottle shops after a certain time. Our right to party is aggressively defended, yet anger about our right to be safe from sexual assault when we do? The noise stops.”

She was particularly incensed by the way community leaders rallied around Luke Lazarus after he raped an 18-year-old woman behind his father Andrew’s SoHo nightclub in Kings Cross in 2013. Lazarus was given three years in jail. During his sentencing hearing, high profile Sydney identities including Waverley Mayor Sally Betts and the chairman of the South Sydney Rabbitohs football club, Nick Pappas, gave the 23-year-old glowing character references.

Nightclub rapist Luke Lazarus was given glowing character references from the top end of town.

“We have a lucky country, but with this issue we’re thinking in the dark,” Ms Combs said.

The 21-year-old told news.com.au she was harassed again as recently as last week.

“I was walking home from my job in the Cross the other night about 11pm on my way to a dance party when a guy ran down the street and slapped me on the arse,” she said.

“I ran after him and I was really annoyed. I told him he didn’t have the right to do that. He threatened me. He told me to chill out and he swore at me and unfortunately that response is all too common.”

Why are we not talking about this?

She said men who behave this way don’t think they’re in the wrong because “nobody is talking about it”.

“For me, personally, I’ve recently tried to talk back and react. We all need to start doing that. Sometimes it goes really well. I can have a chat and say ‘you’re intimidating me but you’re not allowed to harass me’. Sometimes it goes really badly.”

Ms Combs has worked in nightclubs since she was 18. She has also toured the country writing about music festivals in most major cities.

She said the same problems exist everywhere and women are not exclusively the victims.

“That has been something upsetting and surprising (after writing the article),” she said.

Not just in Australia ... Mobile phone footage from a spring break beach party in the US in March showed a young woman being gang raped as hundreds of partygoers stood by.

“So many people have contacted me including a few guys who have been intimidated. It is a neutral gender issue. I’m distressed to hear that so many people won’t go out and be a part of an amazing and enriching culture.”

She said she is “very pro-music industry and party scene”.

“I don’t support the lock outs and I don’t support stopping the party scene,” she said.

“We should be so proud of what’s going on in our music culture right now but this is overshadowing it”.

Ms Combs is hoping partygoers, venue owners and police come together around the concept of “Free to Move”. The hashtag #Freetomove is gaining traction online.

#FREETOMOVE

— Stoney Roads (@StoneyRoads) April 16, 2015

For all the times I've been sexually intimidated in the club. It's time to up our game everyone. #freetomove http://t.co/5TqLwKSAF8

— Isabelle Faye Comber (@Izzy_Combs) April 16, 2015

#freetomove is such an important movement. Would love to see #perth #music scene and bars get behind it

— Emma Watton (@EMMAWATTON) April 16, 2015

All women should be #freetomove

— James Ogg (@James_Ogg) April 16, 2015

She said people are starting to see the issue for what it is.

“It’s blown up,” she told news.com.au. “I have not yet received any hurtful comments, any backlash. That’s been really warming for me to realise this is an issue so many people care about getting behind.”