Survey on Micro Aggressions in the Studio

AES News — Survey on Micro Aggressions in the Studio — Invitation to Participate -- University of Lethbridge

Dear audio colleagues,

We are inviting you to participate in an anonymous online survey that aims to capture important demographic information about the audio industry, and recording producers and engineers’ experiences of discrimination and micro aggressions (defined as indirect, subtle, or unintentional discrimination against members of a marginalized group) within the studio. The survey is aimed towards individuals who during the last ten years have worked in music production as a recording producer, an engineer, a mastering engineer, or a studio assistant on other people’s music. The results from the study will be used for academic, educational and industry purposes. The survey should take about 20-30 minutes to complete and is divided into two parts.

Survey link: Bit.ly/microaggressions_in_audio

The survey will be available until December 20th and has been translated into nineteen languages. It can be accessed on your smartphone, tablet, or PC. Your responses to this survey will remain anonymous. Individual responses will not be able to be traced back to individual respondents. The anonymous data will be accessible only by our research team, select AES members who will assist in translation, and the survey administrators of the University of Lethbridge (Canada) who will all have signed a confidentiality agreement. There are minimal anticipated psychological and or emotional risks from taking part in this survey. You can stop answering questions at any time. You may withdraw your participation at any time by closing your browser. You are also free to answer or not answer any questions (other than the demographic data questions). Your data will be stored only once you submit your responses.

This study is being conducted by recording producer Dr. Amandine Pras and cultural sociologist Dr. Athena Elafros, both from the University of Lethbridge, in partnership with the AES Diversity and Inclusion Committee, and with the support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). The micro aggressions portions of the survey (including micro aggressions statements) are based upon previous peer-reviewed publications on micro aggressions in the workplace.

Even if you do not feel that you personally have experienced micro aggressions or discrimination, we still encourage you to respond. We also encourage you to share the survey link with your colleagues.

If you have questions about the study, you may contact [email protected] or +1 (403) 332-5261. You may also contact the Office of Research Ethics at the University of Lethbridge at [email protected] or +1 (403) 329-2747 if you have questions about your rights as a participant. This research has been reviewed for ethical acceptability and approved by the University of Lethbridge Human Subject Research Committee.

Dr. Amandine Pras & Dr. Athena Elafros
Assistant Professors at the University of Lethbridge
Grace Brooks, PhD Candidate, McGill University

Reading that feels like a micro aggression...  :

I didn't know the AES had a diversity and inclusion committee... 

Maybe that's why they never had time to properly define a standard for Q wrt boost/cut EQ sections like I asked them several times before I gave up asking.

I must be getting old, "Hey you kids get off my grass, I don't care if it's Halloween".

JR

Fucking tired of "woke"...what the hell is a "micro aggression"????

Anything you have to do a survey to determine is probably not as much an issue as it is an issue-wannabe...

I've recently taken to watching Sylvia Massy videos...and she probably represents a minority segment of studio engineers (gender female) but does not communicate that the environment has been "hostile" even though she came up through the ranks and time when sexual harassment of women (especially in rock and roll) was the norm..."micro aggressions" in her history is probably laughable...

Take the idea of micro aggressions into ANY artistic field and you're gonna get positive hits...because artists are passionate, hell scientist are passionate...passionate people can be misunderstood as "aggressive"...Van Gogh comes to mind...as does Marlon Brando and Joe Meek...(not the best examples)...Brain Wilson would probably be off the scale here...

I'm not suggesting if you want to make an omelette you gotta break some eggs, but maybe some ego's get broken...

Micro...

Aggression...

Whatever.

OK I hope everybody is sitting down. I am going to say something nice about President Obama.  ;D He recently came out against "woke" shaming on social media.  I agree with his sentiment (albeit coming a little late, I have been critical of this hyperbolic social justice warfare for some time).

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/10/31/obama-woke-shaming-bipartisan-support-yang-coulter-gabbard/?outputType=amp

Unfortunately it will probably take more than that.... The mainstream media pretty much ignored his comments as it did not fit their agenda.

The baseball catcher who bravely (foolishly) wore a MAGA hat to the white house ceremony celebrating their world series win, had to lock down his social media accounts because of all the hatred that triggered.  We have a long way to go to realize civility on social media, if that is even possible.

JR

I took the survey. Asking me my assigned gender at birth, what Identify with as now? WTH... Best is they are asking my income, how much do I make on the daily from the business? is this really necessary? I cut my bones working under some great female engineers and male engineers, We all treated each other with the respect we deserved. Things went well and we never looked at it as anything other then  can they handle the gig as required. That has not changed.  I can't say the same for how artists behave. Inmates running the asylum comes to mind.  But what are you going to do, that is why they are artists. It is what it is. In all my years at big and small studios, I never saw a person treated differently for anything other then their work.  if it's been for anything else, then it hasn't been while I was around.  The way they make  the survey out, it's as if we won't hire you because you are a female, gay, or anything other than a white male,  hardly the norm in audio.  Reality is there are less females in the business. and that has always been the case but not because they are female. That number is changing too. 

I was momentarily tempted to find out what the term "woke" means in the currently discussed context, but I overcame that temptation. I can add this to my list of achievements alongside others such as never having heard Greta's voice.

woke is how you start a blues tune...

"woke up this morning" ;D

pucho812 said:

The way they make  the survey out, it's as if we won't hire you because you are a female, gay, or anything other than a white male,  hardly the norm in audio.  Reality is there are less females in the business. and that has always been the case but not because they are female. That number is changing too.

Click to expand...

I'll start by saying the music business is the most egalitarian business I know from an educational standpoint. No one cares what degree you have. It's all about the work.

The statement above illustrates the problem. The "we" in the we won't hire you is assumed to be a white male. That it's assumed a white male will be doing the hiring is the problem. Most people around here are nice and respectful to all members and yet there is hardly a female member here. I know female techs who are not here. The discrimination doesn't have to be on purpose for it to exist.

Gold said:

Most people around here are nice and respectful to all members and yet there is hardly a female member here. I know female techs who are not here. The discrimination doesn't have to be on purpose for it to exist.

Click to expand...

I would have to agree with this.  And being a white male myself, I always feel I'm simply not qualified to make any kind of judgement on discrimination. 

Gold said:

I'll start by saying the music business is the most egalitarian business I know from an educational standpoint. No one cares what degree you have. It's all about the work.

The statement above illustrates the problem. The "we" in the we won't hire you is assumed to be a white male. That it's assumed a white male will be doing the hiring is the problem. Most people around here are nice and respectful to all members and yet there is hardly a female member here. I know female techs who are not here. The discrimination doesn't have to be on purpose for it to exist.

Click to expand...

Very good point.

I suppose in any field there is going to be a lopsided gender reveal...doesn't mean it's intentional...

I am 100% supportive of equality all across the board,  gender, race, religious affiliation, age...but many times we act like this moment we are in now has always been the case, hell audio technology as an EMPLOYABLE field of work is only milla-seconds old in terms of historical human evolution not that many Shofar makers remembered in history....and frankly the patriarchy has been around a whole hell of a lot longer than we care to measure but here we are in spite of it...

The free market is an evolutionary development of our social economic systems...we haven't really given it enough time to see whether it can address some of the new "woke" issues that are the most popular...

Just because autotune is available and popular does not mean you have to use it.

> hardly the norm in audio.

Which is a reason to fill out the survey. There may be much less bias in this field than in the other fields they study. That may even mean something.

OTOH, we ARE (almost all) males and may not be seeing how small ("micro") slights to other kinds of people may be turning them off on a job in audio. (Which means this survey of people working in the field misses folks who turned to other fields.)

I didn't mean to start a fire-war. Just spread the invitation to collect more data. Yes, I know a skilled survey analyzer can grind any side of the axe s/he wants sharpened, and I do not know these folks.

I'm 'excluded' because I left the field 10 years 1 month(!) ago, or I would fill it out.

pucho812 said:

woke is how you start a blues tune...

"woke up this morning" ;D

Click to expand...

Some years ago, Humphrey Littleton chaired a BBC radio musical comedy programme called "Sorry, I haven't a clue" There were four personalities who had to play various musical games and were awarded arbitrary points by Hump. My favourite was the one where the contestants were asked to compose and sing the "I didn't wake up this morning" blues.

Much more entertaining than this thread.

Cheers

Ian

Gold said:

I'll start by saying the music business is the most egalitarian business I know from an educational standpoint. No one cares what degree you have. It's all about the work.

The statement above illustrates the problem. The "we" in the we won't hire you is assumed to be a white male. That it's assumed a white male will be doing the hiring is the problem. Most people around here are nice and respectful to all members and yet there is hardly a female member here. I know female techs who are not here. The discrimination doesn't have to be on purpose for it to exist.

Click to expand...

there was no assumption in who the hiring person would be  but that is the general gist of such surveys.

To my layman ears, the term 'microaggression' sounds like something out of a book on NLP.

Where are all the studies on micro-compassions?

Where are all the studies on micro-compassions?

Click to expand...

Priceless  8)

Much more fruitful.  The other is a troll’s topic.

JohnRoberts said:

OK I hope everybody is sitting down. I am going to say something nice about President Obama.  ;D He recently came out against "woke" shaming on social media.  I agree with his sentiment (albeit coming a little late, I have been critical of this hyperbolic social justice warfare for some time).

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/10/31/obama-woke-shaming-bipartisan-support-yang-coulter-gabbard/?outputType=amp

Unfortunately it will probably take more than that.... The mainstream media pretty much ignored his comments as it did not fit their agenda.

The baseball catcher who bravely (foolishly) wore a MAGA hat to the white house ceremony celebrating their world series win, had to lock down his social media accounts because of all the hatred that triggered.  We have a long way to go to realize civility on social media, if that is even possible.

JR

Click to expand...

Well, the current president is certainly not helping at all when it comes to "civility"...

Anyways, of course Obama said that. He was always a voice of and on the side of reason. The "woke" folks are a small but very vocal minority on the left, especially on certain sections of certain campuses.

I consider my self very much a liberal, but I too am fed up with the absurd obsessions with minutiae of "power dynamics" and disciminating language etc. Especially since this misplaced focus on these immaterial issues allows the right wing to use their classic playbook and get away with robbing the bank.

Rather than working towards uniting most of society against the cleptocratic oligarchs these misguided activists aid those very people in their divide and conquer plot.

I'm not talking about the study, of which I know nothing. Scientific inquiry is always welcome, as long as it meets the rigorous standards of - well - science.

living sounds said:

Well, the current president is certainly not helping at all when it comes to "civility"...

Click to expand...

No he is in the middle of street fight with mass media and more...  He is responding in kind. Past republican presidents turned the other cheek (like Bush) and the opposition doubled down with the attacks. President Trump is a counter puncher and it appears to work for him.

Anyways, of course Obama said that. He was always a voice of and on the side of reason. The "woke" folks are a small but very vocal minority on the left, especially on certain sections of certain campuses.

Click to expand...

huh??  He wrung every vote he could out of identity politics (Rev Wright, et al), but I really do not want to re-litigate past elections, even tho that is currently in fashion.  :

I consider my self very much a liberal, but I too am fed up with the absurd obsessions with minutiae of "power dynamics" and disciminating language etc. Especially since this misplaced focus on these immaterial issues allows the right wing to use their classic playbook and get away with robbing the bank.

Click to expand...

Rather than working towards uniting most of society against the cleptocratic oligarchs these misguided activists aid those very people in their divide and conquer plot.

I'm not talking about the study, of which I know nothing. Scientific inquiry is always welcome, as long as it meets the rigorous standards of - well - science.

Click to expand...

I think I know what you are talking about because we've heard it before.

+1 for Obama finally saying something sensible about social media warfare even if too little and too late.  8)

JR

PS: As I've said before President Obama was a good speech maker... less good for his actual policy actions.

My vote is for nano aggressions as the next "big" thing..

Good old life size aggression abound, better deal with those first?

JohnRoberts said:

No he is in the middle of street fight with mass media and more...  He is responding in kind.

Click to expand...

He starts at least one fight every day himself. You most have a very soft spot for him to see him as only "responding"...