Note: This rant originally appeared on my personal Facebook and Instagram account on 27/9/2021.
My Saturday was filled with my friends pinging me that Rice Media had exposed the abuse that Kenny of BooksActually committed. I knew about the financial abuse and how the workplace was in general, but I didn’t imagine that it would be written about so soon. I thought that abusers did what they did and got away with it, as it seems to be the way with the world–any celebrity/person in power who turns out to be an abuser somehow gets a slap on the wrist and ends up being able to continue his/her career.
A friend of mine told me that reading the article would be triggering and that I would need to have spoons. She was right. I was shaking as I read the article. My heart was palpitating and my palms were beginning to sweat. All of these atrocities were happening while I patronised the store. I’d already known about some extent of the abuse from Renée’s Facebook post she made some years back, and a friend of mine who used to work there remarked of the stifling, passive-aggressive atmosphere. Among other complaints were Kenny’s mismanagement of his business, and cash flow problems were the norm.
Even then, perhaps I wasn’t working directly for the company, I didn’t know the extent of how horrible things were at BooksActually. But while reading the article, a revelation hit me. I could’ve been one of the victims. I was around their age when the abuse happened to them, and I’d experienced something very similar in my previous workplaces. While working in publishing, a superior had felt the need to say sexually charged things to me– “Can you clean the cleavage [looking mark] on the windows?” was one example. I was hardly ever taken seriously–if I corrected anyone’s grammar, I was seen as an insubordinate cocky youngster trying to tell off their superiors, and I was fired for actually correcting a script in front of my manager’s boss even though the circumstances merited that. My boss sensationalised an article about sexual harassment to say that a pick-up artist pushed a woman to his crotch, negating my voice and what I had to say in favour of more hits.
Creative industries are cesspools of people with poor emotional regulation and narcissistic tendencies. They use their toxic personalities to justify that “the industry is like that”.
The women in these articles could have been me. Like them, I was enamoured of the cute, indie space that Kenny had created, and how it seemed to be a haven for book lovers alike. I, too, bought into the cause to promote local literature and thought that one day, when I was a real writer, I would have a launch at BooksActually. (I did, but only one person showed up. Kenny said he emailed everyone in his mailing list but only my JC friend showed up to the launch.) It was partly because of BooksActually that I thought I could be a writer, with its myriad book talks, launches, and the opportunity to meet other writers who could show me the way. It doesn’t help that the women at BooksActually were around the same age as me back then, so that meant if I had applied for a job there and gotten it, I may have been subject to the same bullying and harassment.
And that is what horrifies me.
So I chose to speak up. Because of my previous experience, I didn’t think that my words had any power, and that no one would want to listen to this young, upstart of a xiao mei mei because she was just someone who didn’t know anything. But I chose to speak up on Saturday, commenting on Rice Media’s Instagram, because I felt for these women, because they were around the same age as me at that point in time and they could’ve been me, and honestly, I’m fucking fed up of reading another article in the creative industries where people, especially women, are treated like trash.
The Straits Times asked me to give a comment and I felt anxious again. My heart started to pound and everything suddenly seemed loud. I didn’t know what to do. I thought of backing out, but since I had already lent my voice to this, I thought that I had to do the right thing. Never mind the fact that there was a risk that other people wouldn’t publish my future work (if any). I don’t have many contacts and no one takes a fantasy writer seriously anyway. I thought of standing up for what’s right, so that we can change the industry. And this is the change I want to see in all creative industries.
Hold abusers accountable for their actions. Establish boundaries and let victims have an avenue to seek justice. Believe them and what they say. Mete out justice to these abusers. Pay your workers fairly. Give them enough sick days and leave days. Let them take time off for their families, chosen or otherwise. Nurture new voices, and listen to what people have to say. Make sure that everyone can feed themselves and work in a healthy environment. That is all I’m asking for.
And maybe I am naive, because I may be taken to task for asking for change. Every time a hydra’s head is slain, another grows back. It is thankless and tiring to try and work in the creative industry to change it, only for your superiors to abuse you, to harass you, to tell you that you don’t matter enough to be paid, or insinuate that your work doesn’t matter. I am done with this shit, and I expect better.
Come on. We can and we should do better.