OFF BOOK.

The following contains mention of: 

Sexism and misogyny within conservatoire education

Male-led discrimination and violence

Sexual harassment and violence, including mentions of spiking

This is a follow-on article to ‘This isn’t a learning environment, it’s a toxic one’: The Undercurrent of Sexism in UK Conservatoires.

Over a year ago now, I proposed this project as my final major project, a large chunk of my degree. It’s original form was a dissertation, born to discuss the number of women in the theatre industry. The topic soon developed and changed to be a dissertation about misogyny in production arts courses in drama schools. It took one planning document for me to realise that for the ‘right’ people to see it, it had to not only be written in a format that was more accessible than traditional academia, but be entirely public facing. 

The first article, now published eight months ago, was never intended to be a centrepiece. All articles I had decided to publish under the academic phase of Off Book were meant to be equal in weight. There were originally meant to be more articles, on a much smaller research scale, on a variety of topics. The influx of responses I got when people found out I was doing it made it clear to me that that had to change. There were a massive number of people who wanted to get involved. I couldn’t honour that engagement with 1000 words and a basic exploration of institutionalised flaws, it wasn’t enough. 

The three years of a degree at a conservatoire are, for many, an experience in rampant misogyny, abuse, and sexual predation. At its core, that’s why this website began. It exists because of a group of people who have had enough of a misogynistic and abusive culture, led by an overwhelming collective of young men who, from day one, have been problematic towards women.

There are stories of them mistreating the women they were involved with and of them allowing their friends to make degrading comments about their various situations. These aren’t stories of harassment or assault, but of emotional mistreatment and Trump-esque locker room misogyny. It’s just boys being boys; they’re just a bit immature; he’s a young man who can’t process his emotions; it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things; the excuses used are what you would hear anywhere else.

Conservatoires are small spaces. The student numbers are low. The number of predators in comparison, is extremely high. By the tail end of a three year degree, they are the people you’ve worked with. Often they were another person on your favourite project of your time training. You might have grabbed lunch together once because your breaks lined up. You might have had an awkward pint with them when it was early and nobody really knew each other. You might have dated them, you might have hooked up with them, and you may have loved them.

The people in these spaces are deeply intertwined. Sometimes they’re your friends, but at the very least, they’re somebody you have to work with in a professional capacity.  In a space that’s so intimate, that’s often the most challenging thing. How do you continue working to a professional standard with a man you know has the capacity for malice? It’s not that you have a suspicion, it’s that he’s proven it and shown obvious signs of an issue with women. 

There is a prevalent culture of whisper networks in these spaces, and it exists because of systemic inaction. First, a woman says that a man is making her uncomfortable; she feels that he has a poor attitude towards women. Somebody else says the same thing, and there’s a promise that they’ll ‘keep an eye on it’. The same man then makes a sexualized comment to a woman in a work space, and the same is said. She still has to continue working with him.

There are people who, for 3 years, have been the central cause of a collection of minor incidents that have been reported with no solution. Time and time again, they push boundaries on nights out. People are made uncomfortable, manipulated, and mistreated. Countless people are assaulted.

There are nights out that are open to all conservatories. Everybody knows they are hotspots for harassment, spiking, and subsequent assault. 

Newer students get warned and watched over while certain individuals interact with them, just in case something happens or is said that’s over the line. They’re rescued from uncomfortable conversations in a tiny student union by somebody pretending they want to dance. In my experience, there were multiple occasions where a collective of us slightly sobered up when we realised there was a conversation happening in a corner, between a man we knew and a woman we didn’t; we all knew we’d have to keep an eye on it. It was instinctive; we didn’t have to talk about it.

None of the examples written here are isolated incidents in any of these spaces. They happen time and time again over the course of three years. There are things much more severe than what’s been detailed here that can’t be shared. Ultimately, that all falls to the fact that the men in these spaces have each other to support the mistreatment and sometimes the fallout. Everyone else has each other to support them when they get caught in the crossfire of an enabled predator. 

This is shorter than the last article, because it no longer needs to be crowded with academic research and references, but it has been compiled after a series of informal conversations with recent graduates and current students across the country. This project, despite being something that started academically, has come to mean a great deal to me. It means a lot to me that people found something in it. I feel very lucky that I’ve been able to support and advocate, even in a small way. It’s a massive privilege to be trusted to hold and take care of people’s words.

It’s deeply flawed, however, that the overwhelming lack of action within these institutions means young people are turning to each other to have their voices heard. It should be haunting to everyone that when I started researching, I was able to access such a horrifying number of stories and experiences from both people I was training with, and people I didn’t know at all. 

The ineptitude and often weaponized incompetence of these spaces are toxic. It’s the reason these incidents are underreported. As ever, this is a worldwide issue and a major phenomenon in all academic spaces. It rings closer to home when the spaces are so small, and the work is so vulnerable. How do you get up on stage and perform knowing somebody who has caused these issues for you is watching? How do you lead a team with one of these men undermining you, who you know at any point could become a threat? What do you do when it happens to somebody else and you know deep down that you aren’t in a position to change it?  

When I’m asked what advice I would give to someone new to one of these spaces, or to myself this time 3 years ago, it stunts me that my instinct isn’t to talk about the course or studies, but to say find your support network, because all of you will need it at some point. There are failures being allowed to happen that are only salvageable via the route of mutual care. There is a wave of practitioners who are still at risk when they enter these buildings. A new generation of theatermakers is still being failed by a system that serves to uphold male dominance. These men, still undergraduates, can make mistakes. They can be unsure of how to conduct themselves socially, but they are allowed to learn how to be adults for the first time in these spaces; the people around them just have to grow up.