The renowned Belgian DJ Amelie Lens has published a forceful letter on Instagram in which she denounces male complicity in the situations of machismo that women suffer, especially in the context of the club culture in which she develops her career.
Amelie begins by recalling that, for too long, security has been treated as a “women’s problem”, and denounces that they have been forced to become their own “security”, both on stage and backstage, watching over their drinks, outings and looking out for each other. In addition, he criticizes the fact that many men “stand by and laugh” while an attack happens, instead of intervening or pointing out the behavior of their friends.
Lens clarifies that his reflection is not an “attack on men as a whole”, and affirms that the focus must be placed on the culture of “bros” that allows attacks to continue to occur: “Some men cross limits, but what sustains the problem is silence, minimization and protecting reputations rather than protecting people.” The artist points out that “The question is not whether all men are responsible,” but rather who decides to intervene when an attack occurs: “Who raises their voice? Who interrupts the joke? “Who rebukes his friend?”
Lens assures that many men avoid intervening because they have bought into the myth that the man who abuses is a “sinister man in a dark alley”, when in reality he can be the “colleague in the booth”, and the woman who is attacked can be his friend or any girl next to him. “The reality is much more uncomfortable, because very often the aggressor is the boy with whom you just shared a drink, with whom you laughed while he ‘misbehaved,'” he points out.
Lens recounts an episode in which a man wrote to her privately detailing how he would “kidnap and rape” her, and she says that this man took a plane to Antwerp and approached her after meeting her at the airport. When he went to the police station to report, he claims that the police told him that “he couldn’t do anything” and that he returned home “crying, with the evidence in his hands.”
“If the law didn’t help me, how can we feel safe in the nightclub when abuse is silenced and made invisible?” reflects the artist. Lens points out that “scene predators” go after those they “can silence” and calls on “bros” to help women “break the cycle”: “I shouldn’t have to relive my trauma for you to tell your friend to stop. Just tell him to stop. Stop automatically protecting your friend and ask yourself why the accusations exist in the first place.”
