Many women are subject to online harassment—and classical musicians are no exception. One professional violinist is sharing some of the profoundly offensive messages she's received over the course of her career.
Mia Matsumiya has played with numerous rock and crossover music groups, and for all the professional satisfaction her extensive career has brought, it's also brought a number of unwanted sexual messages from men. Matsumiya has been collecting those messages for the past decade, thinking that someday she'd share them as a way of demonstrating the harassment women face on a daily basis.
She's now shared dozens of those messages via a specially-created Instagram account, and her story has been picked up around the world. The offensive messages she's shared range from casual harassment to full-on stalking. Here's a typical example.
A number of the messages are racially-charged, referring to the fact that Matsumiya is Asian. Her height has also been a factor. "Being 4'9″, Asian American and a musical performer has sort of been a nightmare combination when it comes to harassment," Matsumiya said in an interview with the Huffington Post.
In sharing the messages, Matsumiya is joining a growing movement of women in the music industry who are standing up against sexual harassment by opening up about discriminatory, often predatory behavior and communication they've experienced.
"I didn't deserve to be treated this way and neither did other women," Matsumiya told BuzzFeed. "I decided I needed to do something about it."
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