Unmaking inequality in the age of anti-wokeism: Power abuse, sexualised violence and the struggle for safeguarding in media and cultural industries

This study examines why sexualised discrimination and violence persist in the cultural and media industries despite the momentum of the #MeToo movement. Drawing on 58 expert interviews across five regulatory levels in Germany’s performing arts and music sectors, the study analyses stakeholder assessments of safeguarding measures and priorities for reform. Although policy development has accelerated, findings show that implementation remains fragmented, largely voluntary, and weakly institutionalised. Structural vulnerabilities—project-based employment, informal gatekeeping, and limited independent reporting pathways—continue to undermine accountability and protection. Interviewees emphasise the need for binding standards, independent complaint mechanisms, anti-retaliation safeguards, professional training and funding conditionality. Positioning these findings within an increasingly polarised political climate marked by anti-feminist and anti-‘woke’ backlash, we argue that institutionalising safeguarding in cultural labour is not only an organisational task but a struggle over normative legitimacy and democratic cultural governance.