With the recent ruling about unpaid internships being illegal kicking up a conversation about the necessity of internships to secure a job, the topic of bullying in the workplace is apropos. Especially for the arts.
Situations like this can bring on a lot of pressure to those trying to cultivate a career. No place more so than in the arts. In fact, unpaid is more often the situation regardless of whether you are in an internship or not. Even if you are getting paid, you might be subject to all sorts of pressure and abuse in the highly competitive arts industry.
A researcher from Chapman University is conducting a survey of people’s experience of bullying in the performing arts.
Those who have an interest in the subject might want to check the survey out. It is being conducted with formal research protocols including informed consent statements.
The only really explicit incidence of bullying I can remember is someone using the cliched line that they would ruin my career before it even started.
There are probably opportunities for conversations about these and more subtle issues. For instance, when does cajoling to stay late, be a team player and help with strike go from group camaraderie to bullying?
Researcher Anne-Marie Quigg has studied this issue, focused primarily on the UK and wrote a book on the subject. There were a number of conversation sessions held in London last month on bullying that occurs in the arts. Some brief notes were posted online for each, including the question “Who looks after the ones who aren’t “artistic?”
Joe:
For a long time I’ve been thinking about whether or not to go public with my story and your post gives me the platform for doing so. More than 30 years ago, I was an unpaid intern at a summer theatre while still a high school student. I swept the floor, gathered props, sorted gel, and coiled miles and miles of cable. Due to my skills at the latter and my interest in lighting, I was hired the following summer as a staff electrician, so my internship did indeed lead to a paying job. As is sadly the case at some summer theatres, however, the interns were viewed as “fresh meat” (yes, I heard that phrase when I was promoted from intern to staff, and heard it subsequently at other places, which is why it is so very important to frame internships as teaching/learning experiences). Sexual harassment, sometimes leading to statutory rape, was accepted behavior. I was the victim of both. This was a long time ago, and we didn’t really call it bullying – we didn’t even call it sexual harassment – but it was both. And yes, statutory rape is still rape.
That you can only remember one explicit incidence of bullying may result from the difference in our genders or the difference in our ages. I experienced sexual harassment and bullying in the theatre for years following my internship – but I learned not to take it and to fight back. Here’s how:
The summer that I was a staff member (this was the summer between high school and college), my supervisor was no longer abusing me – he had moved on to that year’s “fresh meat” – but there was banter and innuendo that often crossed the line. One day, the stage manager for a show having its “out of town tryout” (that’s how long ago this was) was upset because I wouldn’t date him (“date” is a euphemism here). He said “Sometimes, you know, you’re really nice, and sometimes you’re just a fucking cunt.” That was the last straw. I stopped what I was doing (no doubt, coiling cable) and went to the producer’s office. I told him about the harassment. I’m ashamed to say that I did not tell him about the rape that occurred the year before, but in the close quarters of summer theatre, he had to have known. I told him “I don’t get paid enough – nobody does – to take this kind of abuse.” I started to walk out when he doubled my salary and assured me I would only have to communicate with the stage manager over headset. I stayed on and learned a lot about lighting. More importantly, I learned that a 17-year-old young woman does not have to take it. My whole being shifted in that moment. I realized that I could stand up to myself. To borrow form Sheryl Sandberg, I realized that I not only could “lean in,” I could “push back.” By doing so, I created a persona that some people have since called “aggressive” (in men that’s just called “assertive”), or even unfriendly. I prefer to call it UNBULLYABLE.
Linda-
That is quite a story and I was wondering if I should double check with you before approving the comment. However, I see you have posted it elsewhere. It seems this is a topic that deserves quite a bit more conversation.