"Completely unacceptable"

The Women and Equalities Committee's Misogyny in Music report was never destined to be anything other than utterly damning - and so it's proven.

Not only are sexual harassment and objectification still endemic - #MeToo evidently yet to have any kind of impact here - but women also routinely experience discrimination in terms of opportunities, support and pay. The problems are, inevitably, only compounded by "intersectional barriers".

The report goes beyond merely identifying the various issues, however, and also proposes some potential ways in which the deplorable situation could be improved. These include granting freelancers the same protection from discrimination as employees and putting an end to the reprehensible practice of preventing women from voicing complaints with non-disclosure agreements.

Deborah Annetts of the Independent Society of Musicians was unequivocal in her response: "We hope the publication of the Misogyny in Music report is the moment of real and lasting change in the music industry. It's what women desperately need because, as the report correctly identifies, women in music have had their lives ruined and careers destroyed - this must stop."

For this to happen, the industry needs to start taking the situation much more seriously - but, as Annetts pointed out, the government should also take far more responsibility. It hardly helps matters when you have someone nominally filling the position of Minister for Women and Equalities, Kemi Badenoch, who has been made aware of the scale of the problem and yet who fails/refuses to act. That too is "completely unacceptable".