From the start of Lauren Mayberry’s band Chvrches, the Scottish vocalist has been open and condemning about the harassment she’s encountered. In 2013, she wrote an essay for The Guardian whose headline and thesis was “I will not accept online misogyny”; she detailed the rape threats she receives on a regular basis as a public figure in music, and connected the internet to the day-to-day IRL:
I read them every morning when I get up. I read them after soundcheck. I read them, as we all do with our emails and notifications, on my phone on the bus or when I have a break in the day. And, after a while, despite the positive messages in the majority, the aggressive, intrusive nature of the other kind becomes overwhelming. During this past tour, I am embarrassed to admit that I have had more than one prolonged toilet cry and a “Come on, get a hold of yourself, you got this” conversation with myself in a bathroom mirror when particularly exasperated and tired out. But then, after all the sniffling had ceased, I asked myself: why should I cry about this? Why should I feel violated, uncomfortable and demeaned? Why should we all keep quiet?
It was an important piece, one that materialized and validated the fact that online harassment translates to real-world exhaustion, something we all know but that cannot be over-articulated. She also opened up a conversation, as was her wish, and shed light on the music industry’s perpetual, seemingly unbreakable male-centricism to the exclusion of women—whether from club bills and sound booths to the utter erasure of their existence (which, to be honest, as a working music critic since ‘99, historical erasure is one of my greatest career-fears).