By now most of you have heard something, maybe a made passing comment or read an article about the ruling in Kesha's lawsuit against Dr. Luke. The hashtag #FreeKesha is all over my Facebook news feed and the homepage of nearly every news outlet, making it nearly impossible to avoid the disheartening story.
To make a long story short, Kesha filed a lawsuit against her producer, Dr. Luke, for allegedly abusing her sexually, physically, and mentally, including incidents in which he drugged her with GHB before raping her while she remained unconscious. Kesha is under contract by Sony and not able to make music with any other label, essentially forcing her to work with her abuser. On Friday, the New York Supreme Court ruled in favor of Sony and Dr. Luke, condemning Kesha to work with Dr. Luke.
"How has this happened?" isn't the question. The question to ask is how is this still happening? Nearly everybody knows the age-old legend of male industry execs in business suits abusing and extorting young female singers and actresses; however, when I imagine it in my mind it's set in maybe the 70s or the 80s, definitely not in 2016. The story is the same, it's still being ignored, and women are the only ones hurt by it.
Look at Chris Brown, for example. Brown physically abused Rihanna, a very well respected and revered woman in the music industry in 2009, and now less than a decade later has a thriving career. Kesha is abused by her producer in multiple ways and not only has to jump through hoops and go through a very public and personal trial to escape her tormenter, but has had to put her career at a stand still. This paints a sad, yet disgustingly accurate picture of our society.
The bottom line is that Kesha is not being looked at as a human being in our justice system. She is a product, a bargaining chip, and a cash source. The judge who made the ruling, who ironically is a woman, stated that "[Her] instinct is to do the commercially reasonable thing." Not the humane thing, or the ethical thing. At the end of the day, this feeds into the rape culture we all live in. Because Kesha doesn't have enough material, physical evidence to support her claims, her mental harm isn't enough to free her from her abuser. How is that just?
