Buenos Aires techno mainstay Under Club has cut ties with a resident DJ and sound engineer Gabi Shock after multiple women accused him of sexual assault. The outcry is part of a bigger push in Argentina to hold men accountable for committing sexual and violent misdeeds towards women.
On August 2nd, a woman posted her account of an alleged 2019 incident involving Gabi Shock (real name Gabriel Ojeda) in a social media post retrieved by the Instagram account say.enough. She wrote that Ojeda propositioned her to have sex with him and his girlfriend, and put his hands up her skirt in plain view at the club. She recounted feeling unwell and going to the bathroom, where he followed her against her will.
“Taking advantage of my condition, he got behind me, cornered me, and began to tell me that he wanted to fuck me, that he was going to call his girlfriend to come and have a threesome,” the woman wrote. “I told him no, I always said no, I told him to let me out. And he put his hands inside my skirt and inside my top. I was able to escape and run away.”
In her original post, the woman shared apparent screen shots of her conversation with Ojeda the next day via Instagram. Ojeda apologized and said that he knew what he did was very wrong, promising to never do it again.
The same day the woman spoke out, a second alleged victim shared her own story involving Gabriel Ojeda. She said that she invited a couple over to her house and Ojeda accompanied them. At the end of the night she invited them all to sleep over, and offered Ojeda the other half of her own bed – where he began to molest her.
“He went to bed and after a while of trying to grope me, and [me] having said no, he took off his pants, that is, he was left in his underwear, in my bed, with the excuse of being more comfortable bringing his body closer and … his disgusting erect penis on my back and ass,” reads a passage of the second woman’s post retrieved by say.enough. “I went to the bathroom and I remember being a long time, until finally, we changed places with the couple and I ended up sleeping on the couch with my female friend.”
Under Club owner Joel Silva confirmed in an August 3rd Facebook post that separate misconduct allegations involving Ojeda had previously come to light. He said that after speaking to both women he had terminated the establishment’s business relationship with the DJ and audio engineer.
“A post from his ex found its way to me, two or three years ago if I’m not mistaken, and I told him it could never happen again and that I would help him through it,” Silva wrote. “Many people probably think it’s wrong that I gave him a second chance, but it’s what I’ve always done. When the person repeats the offense, though, they haven’t learned anything, and that’s unacceptable.”
Gender Equality in Argentina
Argentinian women suffer disproportionately high rates of domestic violence and femicide than their counterparts in developed countries. In 2015 AJ+ reported that a woman was killed in gender violence every 30 hours, and it rose to one per day for much of 2019 according to PRI. Building on the genre’s long legacy as protest music, techno has recently become part of the conversation.
Aligning themselves with the broader #SayEnough campaign, members of the Argentinian electronic music community aim to empower women to speak out and hold their accusers accountable. “Techno in Argentina is having a difficult time. Many DJs and producers have turned out to be violent and rapists,” reads say.enough’s first post. “Many victims are beginning to speak out because although they are afraid, the women in the scene are uniting. We need to be known. We need our voices not to be silenced and for that we need our message to reach the whole world.”
All social media pages for Gabi Shock appear to have been taken offline. Joel Silva did not immediately respond to Selector‘s request for comment.
