10 things you can do to make dance music less sexist

Repeat after me: "The woman behind the decks is not there because she fucked someone... The woman behind the decks is not there because she fucked someone."

Last year on International Women’s Day, Dr Rubinstein shared on Facebook comments she’d overheard while DJing at Berghain: “She fucked someone to get this gig.”

Clearly this means Berghain’s famous door policy isn’t working, because they’re letting sexist idiots in.

“I’ve played sets where guys have been staring at me,” Parallel Berlin label owner Daniela La Luz tells me. “Afterwards, they’ve come up to me and said, ‘I could do that as well as you’, or asked if I’ve just been playing on Traktor. They didn’t seem to understand I was playing all my own productions, mixing them live in the club.”

You may not agree with all of the stuff in this list. You may feel like it goes too far. You may feel it doesn’t go far enough (some people feel that boycotts are the way, but why not change things from within?)

The main thing is that we’re engaging with the dance music industry as fans as well as influencers and proactively shaping it into a better, more inclusive space, which means we can’t be inactive. Do something: throw a night, buy tickets for a party you wouldn’t normally to support up-and-coming-female talent, use your platform to help other artists.

But as Jackmaster’s comments show, it’s high time that men stood up and took responsibility for fixing this broken industry that we’re all a part of. And in a male-dominated scene, it’s up to men to look in the mirror and be honest about what they see.

Sirin Kale is Staff Writer at Broadly and a regular contributor to Mixmag. She'd like guys to quit taking their tops off in clubs – it doesn't matter how good your body is, it's just gross

Eliot Wyatt is a freelance illustrator and regular contributor to Mixmag. He definitely doesn't take his top off in the club