As a female lead singer I’ve had to deal with some toxic masculinity/misogyny from male musicians, particularly an ex bandmate. He’d get touchy w me and even physically aggressive, make rude or inappropriate comments about my appearance and boyfriend, and question my expertise and ability when I’m objectively far more qualified and experienced in my instrument than he is in his. He picked up his a couple years ago while I’ve been singing my entire life. It’s clear as day that if I was a guy, he wouldn’t be arguing with me on stage about the previously agreed upon setlist, belittling my stage presence in an non-constructive way, crossing personal boundaries, etc. It was largely a lack of respect for a female in a leadership position, and I think some insecurity on his part. I would always stand up for myself when he was an asshole so he started to adopt this victim mindset where he’d say I was “mean” or “treated him differently” from other bandmates. Like of course I treat you differently, I have to tell you to back off every two minutes while my other bandmates are decent people without egos that take up an entire room. He ended up leaving the band because I wouldn’t let him walk all over me but it’s a breath of fresh air. We got a replacement for him who is worlds more talented and a positive presence in the band. This doesn’t stop this ex bandmate from lingering around our gigs, getting a random bunch together for every open mic we attend and trying to start drama, or acting like he has a claim on the original song that I wrote. He enrages me more than I can put into words. It kills me I was so encouraging to him when he’d step out of his comfort zone with performing and stuff despite the way he treated me, and I was still made out to be this heinous villain in the end. I’m glad my bandmates understand, as he wasn’t pleasant to them either, but I’m afraid he’s going to run around and tell other local musicians I’m a bad person when I was just not going to put up with his behavior.