Glasgow Conservatoire accused of ableism and transphobia

Furry your experiences mirror an American journalist's research about what's happening in youth fiction. People from minority backgrounds are told they shouldn't be writing from the perspective of others, they must write from the perspective of their minority. I find the whole thing totally abhorrent. The logical endpoint is no art, no fiction.

Are former students going to organise a letter of support, Furry?

I'm pretty sure any letter written will be dismissed as being written by cis people.

Worth a try though

There's one ~ism that is noticeably absent from the students' discussion, and that's classism. They are fucking performance art students at a fucking conservatoire in fucking Glasgow. If they don't notice their privilege relative to a decent chunk of other Glaswegians, then they need to give their heads a wobble.

Absolutely.

The barriers to art for working class people are so much more complicated than just there isn't enough shows about mining or their communities.
I couldn't use a computer when I arrived, I'd never used a camera, I had a deep rooted shame of ever standing out or being different.
I couldn't afford to do all the extra curricular stuff like going for posh dinners with artists. I spoke funny and hadn't had any dance lessons.
I didn't share the language of how to speak about thing in the proper way.

I couldn't afford to take risks because I literally couldn't afford to fail.

The academy was actually really good at offering financial and practical support to students but the more social ones where definitely an issue.

The people from my course who are still making art and not working in a more supportive role after they've graduated are the people who's parents support them.

I think it’s hard to see the benefit of this kind of teacher when you are in the midst of it, it’s only hindsight that gives you the understanding of why, how they were doing the ‘cruel to be kind’ thing

Are former students going to organise a letter of support, Furry?

There was a professor on my MA who would absolutely attract this kind of complaint and I would defend him to the hilt. He played me from the beginning but I only realised at the end. He’s an asshole but he made me a better artist and a more fully realised (possibly a better?) person.

I think this is another baby/bathwater situation, where a bunch of fairly privileged people being absolute bellends are making it really, really difficult for other people to raise legit issues of inclusion, and where subsequent discussions on this will lead to people unfairly dismissing it as "snowflakism" rather than addressing real problems.

Racism, sexism, abelism, homophobia, etc, are all issues in academia. Sessions in unconscious bias, led by a good tutor, and without the whiff of re-education, can be absolutely fantastic, eye-opening tools.

But this does look like it's been really misapplied, by a group of absolute melts, either because they are just narcissistic bellends, or - it looks more likely - so that they can cash in and get their money back.

On the specifics, I bow to no-one in my defence of any women to deal with having an abortion however she wants to, but in this case it seems like the student was approaching the art tutor as some kind of therapist, whereas the tutor was acting as, well, an art tutor. And I think the art tutor, from the available evidence, did the student a huge favour. If you can't cope with a private discussion with your tutor about your proposed performance art piece dealing with your abortion, then you are in now way ready to deal with the consequences of putting that art piece before an unfeeling public, who will not hold back with their opinions and have no duty of care towards you.

There's one ~ism that is noticeably absent from the students' discussion, and that's classism. They are fucking performance art students at a fucking conservatoire in fucking Glasgow. If they don't notice their privilege relative to a decent chunk of other Glaswegians, then they need to give their heads a wobble.

It just boggles my mind that these people can be studying and lecturing in Glasgow of all places and pretend no white groups have ever been oppressed.

' I didn't think I did perform that element of my identity I felt that it was something performed around me.'

So interesting, Furrytoebean. I think that is a crucial point about identity politics that people don't generally think about enough.

If that is the casefurrytoebean why are they moaning about the tutors being predominantly white and not from ethnic minorities?

No idea knickers. Maybe because the students think it's racist to imply that white people have anything but upmost privilege.
They ran screaming from the room when a tutor spoke about metoo without a trigger warning so I'm assuming any nuanced talk about race wouldn't go down well.

I do think it's the fault of the tutors, but more for creating this environment where identity trumps all and power lies in calling someone out. The tutors nurtured and encouraged it for years it was only a matter of time before they became victim to it.

We did an entire module running over a year about disability access in theatre ran by a director of a theatre company ran by and for disabled people (he himself had cerable palsy)
It was all about the social model of disability and how to make work that is accessible to disabled people and how to collaborate with disabled people without patronising them. We were encouraged to make the disabled access part of the performance for everyone instead of othering them.

It's probably the least ableist degree course in history.

If that is the casefurrytoebean why are they moaning about the tutors being predominantly white and not from ethnic minorities? They clearly haven't understood that ethnic minority groups often are white.

Perhaps this is the fault of tutors more than students who aren't making it clear that 'white' does not equal 'all the same homogenous mass' and explaining the history of immigration and ethnic tensions in the area.

• BSL and English Language

They also run a BA Performance Degree in BSL and Sign Language, and have weekly classes for Deaf 16+ young people and have stong links with Solar Bear theatre Company and the Deaf community.

I can't see why the students think the place is ableist.

There's also a theatre in prisons module in the fourth year.

So they are in a bubble but they try.

I really can't imagine many Conservatoire students seeking to understand Glasgow by say watching an Old Firm derby with fans in a Rangers or Celtic pub. I don't think many of them would hop on a bus out to Springburn so they can make art about the experiences of living up a high flat. For those not from the area I imagine their experience of Glasgow is only of a narrow, trendy side of Glasgow but I doubt this is unique, it is probably true of most students in most settings.

That's not true, they spend an entire year doing 'art in the community' which actually does involve doing things like going to derby matches and making work with people who live in impoverished parts of Glasgow.

Now it's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination but they definitely know this is an issue and the tutors do their very best to resolve it.

If everyone can identify with your "feminism" then that's because it's meaningless and challenges nothing. May as well just call it everything is fine as it is-ism.

I'm glad you were there before they hit their current level of up the own arse

Is this institution the Goldsmiths of Glasgow, in terms of the contrast between it's students and the people they live among?

Don't most students live parallel lives in their own little bubble?

I really can't imagine many Conservatoire students seeking to understand Glasgow by say watching an Old Firm derby with fans in a Rangers or Celtic pub. I don't think many of them would hop on a bus out to Springburn so they can make art about the experiences of living up a high flat. For those not from the area I imagine their experience of Glasgow is only of a narrow, trendy side of Glasgow but I doubt this is unique, it is probably true of most students in most settings.

This is what the feminist group Facebook page says now. The email is the woman's officer; so I'm assuming there's no actual women's officer anymore.

Totally agree kittens

I would hate to be there now it must be unbearable. Because the weird thing is whether you actually are part of that identity is irrelevant. We had a guy on our course who used to make work about being poor and working class all the time, think wearing a dustmans hat and hamming up the accent, and the tutors lapped it up. It didn't matter that actually he came from a really nice suburb of the city he was from with a lovely family and lots and lots of money. It also meant his portrayal of poverty was really one dimensional. Poverty isn't fun knees ups in the pub and community spirit. It used to make me so angry.

It's really ironic that this is what might end them, they've been hoisted by their patart.

Also I am 100% certain I would be shunned as a swerf/terf if I went now. I got really bad marks for my (to be fair shit and badly written) dissertation about the performance of pornography in young women's sex lives. My tutor kept trying to sway me into more 'sex positive' territory but I just kept thinking they couldn't possibly be trying to say that because it was so OBVIOUS how damaging pornography was.
If you look at the unis feminist page, oh wait my bad there isn't one, it's just called a 'fem' page it's all sex work is work and them putting condoms and lube in the toilets.

I recommend reading The Coddling of the American Mind by Jonathan Haidt.

Second this recommendation.

Really good point, kittens.

I had left quite an impoverished background and some traumatic experiences thinking I could become someone else they basically said 'no, the only thing we want to see is the thing you're trying to move away from, that's you.'

This is one of the many issues I have with that worldview. It's a trap. White men get to be actual fully realized humans and everyone else is only allowed to be a representative of their identity group, and we're all expected to pretend that's progressive.

A good example of the whole selling of identities thing I saw recently was that an American beauty products shop brought out a line of Frida Kahlo themed products (images are on Tumblr and probably Twitter too), with her unibrow disappeared and the most ridiculously crass attempt to cash in on what she represents to people in an identity sense. Which would be creepy and weird anyway, but it also ignores the fact that she was a communist, so probably wouldn't have been the greatest fan of being used as a marketing gimmick. Not a white man = you are your "identity" and aren't allowed to be anything else? Think you might want to be a person with your own individual politics and interests? Too bad, because your role is to be whatever you represent to well off white blokes.

In my class about a quarter were from Glasgow, a quarter from the rest of Scotland, a quarter from England and a quarter international students.

In the music and dance schools there's a high percentage of international students. 1) they pay much higher fees and 2) they are positioning themselves as one of the leading places to study in Europe rather than just the uk. Hence the name change from academy to conservatoire.

I really struggled while I was there because I'm working class, and they always wanted me to make work about being working class when quite frankly I found it boring.
They are very keen for you to make performance about your 'identity' and how you perform it in the world, and I always had an issue with that because I didn't think I did perform that element of my identity I felt that it was something performed around me.
It created this weird thing where the straight white men on the course were able to make work about anything that took their interest, their favourite football team or a funny film or holiday.
Whereas everyone else had to make work about their 'thing' and obviously that work wasn't as likeable so the boys shoes would be commissioned more.

I don't think this was because they weren't sensitive enough to identities though, in fact it was the opposite.

I had left quite an impoverished background and some traumatic experiences thinking I could become someone else they basically said 'no, the only thing we want to see is the thing you're trying to move away from, that's you.'

It's also a bit of an open secret that they break you down in first year to build you back up in the rest of your time there. The difference in maturity from the first year to the fourth year is staggering.

It was hard.
But I learnt so so so so much about myself and how to create things, I have a totally different life to what I would have had if I didn't go. And actually I DID have to confront those things otherwise I'd have never been able to move past them. I look back at some of the things that upset me in first year and think 'ah that's why they did that'.

It means a man with short hair and a beard would be my guess.

What does "traditionally male characteristics" even mean in this context? Do they mean testicles or do they mean a beard?