This article references sexual assault.

RuthAnne is the singer-songwriter behind hits including ‘Work Bitch’ by Britney Spears, ‘Slow Hands’ by Niall Horan, and perhaps most iconic of all, ‘Too Little Too Late’ by JoJo. Here she reflects on navigating the music industry’s “boy’s club”, surviving sexual assault, and the importance of women supporting women.

At the start of my career, I was often the only female songwriter in rooms full of men. It felt as though there was only one spot in the room for a woman – and we were all competing for it.

It was very rare to write with other female songwriters unless the artist in the room was also a female. It felt like there was an unspoken role I had to play to get into certain writing rooms: the ‘cool girl’, able to ‘bro down’. Being overemotional, oversensitive, or perceived as ‘difficult’ often led to not being asked back. Taylor Swift described it perfectly when she said, “A man reacts, a woman only ever overreacts.” It felt as if I needed to stay where the men were comfortable, and I needed to know my place. You could never be more successful than a man.

Courtesy of RuthAnne

As a woman in the music industry, I was put in traumatic situations that have had a lasting impact on me. I had my first global hit song – ‘Too Little, Too Late’ by JoJo at 19 years old. I was travelling the world, often alone, entering brand-new writing rooms with people I didn’t know every day, and thankfully, most were professional, amazing writers, producers, and artists. Still, unfortunately, some were completely the opposite in the worst way. The music business is truly the Wild West with no union, no HR department, so there were no rules and a huge lack of boundaries. Too much money, power, mixed with a misogynistic culture, was bound to be a recipe for disaster.

I also was a very sheltered young teen when I landed in LA for the first time, and I was thrust into an adult world with no foundation of how to navigate it. I stuck to making the best music I could and putting my talent first always, but earlier in my career, I was advised by an executive that I wasn’t ‘using my sexuality enough’. They said I needed to be more flirty and use my sexuality more and ‘make label executives feel like they could sleep with me if they wanted to’….awful advice, which, thankfully, I ignored.