What exactly has the music industry done to help its female employees? Let's take a look back.
2004 to 2007
Britney Spears had a public breakdown. Her mental health was turned into media circus and she lost any privacy she ever had. She was constantly being followed and attacked by the tabloids, which (most likely) lead to her being hospitalized. A restraining order was later filed against her manager for allegedly herding and assisting the paparazzi. There was an attempt to pass a law that would protect people and their privacy from the paparazzi, but it failed. The industry did nothing to help.
2009
Rihanna had to cancel her performance at the Grammys after being beaten by her boyfriend, Chris Brown. A photo of her bruises from the LAPD was leaked. There was an attempt to create "Rihanna's Law," which would protect crime victims from released photos, but it failed. During this time, Rihanna received none of the protection that most victims of domestic abuse receive. Even though Chris Brown was the one who abused her, it was the future of HER career that was called into question while his continued to thrive. The industry did nothing help.
2005 to 2016
After eight years of being emotionally and sexually abused by her producer Dr. Luke, Kesha checked herself into rehab for an eating disorder. The doctors at the center concluded that "continued contact with Dr. Luke would be life-threatening to Kesha." Kesha went on to file a lawsuit against Dr. Luke and Sony, claiming they knew about his abuse and simply ignored it. Kesha pushed for a preliminary injunction so that she could record music without her producer and abuser, but it was rejected. For Kesha to be able to record music and earn a living, she will have to continue working with the company that forced her and her career to suffer for so long. The industry did nothing to help.
So, I guess the answer is that the industry has done nothing to help or protect its female employees. There is an absolute disregard for women's mental and physical health in the music industry. There are so many more cases like these where no one has done anything to help. Amy Winehouse, Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, Jojo. We buy their music, we wear their faces, we tattoo their lyrics to our bodies. We invade their privacy, yet we don't do anything to help them or protect them. People joke about how Amy Winehouse openly said that they "tried" to make her go to rehab. Why did no one force her to? What were her label and her bosses doing? She was still someone's employee. No one helped her, and she lost her life.
I am a 20-year-old musical theatre major. Most of my friend are females who also want to be in the industry, and I hate the fact that I'm scared for them. It's not that my friends aren't tough, because they are. Any one of them could kick my ass and they are all 100 percent smarter than me. But every day, we see how the industry destroys and harms women without a second thought, and that's what scares me.
We forget that artists are humans and not products, because we strip them of their humanity. Because they share personal information and expose themselves to us in their music, we feel entitled to any information about them that we want. The reality is that they don't owe us any more than what they choose to share. Why doesn't Beyoncé do many interviews or things of that nature anymore? Maybe because the general public attempted to ruin her marriage. We don't think about protecting artists, because we forget that at the end of they day, they're just people with very public jobs. This doesn't just apply to women or the music industry—it applies to anyone in all job sectors. How many more people have to be harmed before someone actually does something?
