Northern Vermont University Alum Takes On Offensive Company Name in Pro Audio Industry, and Wins!
Lyndonville, Vt. ~ The music and entertainment industry has taken some steps toward inclusivity in the past few years. But when a pro audio forum website still goes by the name Gearslutz, a Northern Vermont University alum knew there were still great strides to make.
NVU-Lyndon Music Business and Industry alum, Cameran Davis ’19, stepped in to encourage that company to pick up the pace toward change — an effort that produced a big win for women in an industry that has long been male-dominated.
Davis is currently a production assistant for two guitar pedal companies — Klon and Electronic Audio Experiments — in the Boston area. She was on the Gearslutz.com website in early January and wrote on Instagram, “I really hate this website’s name.” Her post received a lot of response, including encouragement to create a petition to get the name changed. On January 6, Davis posted a petition to Change.org. It didn’t take long to go viral in the audio production community, receiving nearly 5,000 responses in a few short days.
Davis’s petition read: “This petition was created with the hopes of encouraging Gearslutz to change their name to something that more appropriately represents the gear community. Gearslutz is widely regarded and refers to themselves as ‘The No.1 Website for Pro Audio.’ Every engineer I know has used/uses it, and most of the engineers I know feel uncomfortable with the name. I have been one of two women sitting in an engineering class and a professor has uncomfortably mentioned the website, apologizing for the name, but bringing it up because it has been an important resource to use when learning about gear.”
Read more: https://www.newportvermontdailyexpress.com/entertainment/northern-vermont-university-alum-takes-on-offensive-company-name-in-pro-audio-industry-and-wins/article_1f1aa552-6720-11eb-a9a4-7f22ba17a7ed.html