The co-founder of Oztix has apologised for saying women’s clothing at work can be a “distraction” to “pent-up” male colleagues who are away from their wives, while speaking at a conference for women in the music industry.
Brian “Smash” Chladil made the comments as part of the all-male “Brothers for the Sisterhood” panel at the Australian Women in Music Awards (AWMA) conference in Brisbane held on Tuesday of this week.
In response to questions about improving workplace safety for women in the music industry, Chladil told the audience that women’s clothing choices affected “pent-up” male colleagues who “have been working hard” and “don’t need the distraction”.
Guardian Australia was not present at the event, but has obtained footage of members of the audience gasping.
When asked by an audience member to explain his “completely wrong” comment “about how women need to cover up”, Chladil responds with a story about sending a female festival worker home to change because he claimed she wore a bikini at work.
“You can talk about 20-odd years ago, things were different to now, whatever – I am not making excuses. But the reality for me was … it is not appropriate to wear a bikini when you are working on a work site. From an occupational health and safety point of view, it was wrong anyway,” he said.
“I’ll go out on a limb here, and I’ll probably get assassinated when I leave. But a woman shouldn’t … look at [her] image when she is at work, she should be concerned about work, not her image. And if everyone else is wearing heavy-duty work clothes, and she isn’t, it is inappropriate for the workplace.
“I am not suggesting I have ever told anyone what they should wear. If the girls come into the office, I don’t ever say ‘you shouldn’t wear that’.”
While he said his concerns were “purely” about safety, he added that it was also “a vibe thing. These guys have been working hard, they don’t need the distraction. I’m sorry.”
When audience members groaned, he replied: “I know that is terrible, that is how it used to be.”
Chladil co-founded Oztix, which is the most successful independent ticketing agent in Australia.
Musician Jamie Lee Dimes, who was present and pushed back on Chladil’s comments in the room, described the event in a written account as a “downward train wreck” and called it a “sobering example, post-Me Too, of where we are at, what hasn’t changed, how bad it is, and how there are no safety measures when it comes to confronting toxic masculinity and misogyny head-on.”
In response to Dimes’s account, Chladil wrote an apology and said the aftermath had been “humbling.”
“I’ve reflected on my words and how my insensitive attempt at telling old stories – which was intended to express how far I thought we’d come – did not at all mirror my values or respect those in the room,” Chladil wrote. “I truly apologise to you, I apologise to the AWMAs and everyone involved, and I apologise to the Oztix team for not representing where we want to be as an industry. I commit to doing better.”
A spokesperson for Chladil confirmed the nature of his remarks at the event and his apology, but declined to comment further.
In a written statement, Australian Women in Music described Chladil’s remarks as “triggering for a number of people in the room, and otherwise offensive to many others who were present.”
“At the outset, we want to applaud the dignity and grace of those who spoke up both in the session and after, raising their concerns and comments respectfully,” the statement read. “We also want to sincerely apologise for any harm or distress caused to anyone in the room (including those on the panel) … Australian Women in Music does not condone misogyny, sexism, homophobia or racism in any way.”
