The employees both worked as carpenters in the theater's scene shop. They say the shop was a hostile work environment, particularly for women, and that the Guthrie did not move quickly enough or effectively enough to deal with the situation.
Thursday, February 01, 2018
Guthrie scene shop was hostile place, say departed workers
The employees both worked as carpenters in the theater's scene shop. They say the shop was a hostile work environment, particularly for women, and that the Guthrie did not move quickly enough or effectively enough to deal with the situation.
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Reading this article breaks my heart because it shows how hard it can be for a shop culture to change when the people perpetuating that culture are established and “respected” people. The question here becomes, how do you change people who don’t see a problem with what they are doing? From the article, I get the impression that this behavior is simply ingrained as “the way we do things.” Even when the HR department offers opportunities for change, the people who need it probably just laugh it of and see it as unnecessary. As difficult as these conversations are, I think it’s really important for these issues to come forward and start a conversation. Even though its sad that Molly Diers was forced to resign from The Guthrie, the story is getting attention and pressure which can hopefully help change the theater industry overall. This situation serves as a reminder that shop culture is not harmless, and that smaller remarks add up.
I hate reading articles like this. I have always loved working in scene shops and with power tools and such, and no matter what theatre group I work with, some man, usually older, makes a weirdly worded comment about girls with tools or a "Do you need help with that sweety?" My main build crew for most of my junior and my entire senior year of high school was entirely female. My TD made a comment about it one time, because that had never happened to him before, and I looked at it him and said "And we'll be the best crew you'll ever have." I held true to that. Every new place I go work in, I am always afraid that I am going to get comments like this or be treated like Diers was at the Gutherie. Part of me hoped that I kept getting these comments simply because I look so young. It makes me so upset that it does not get better in the professional world full of adults. My high school tech crew now has a zero policy for things like this, and I've seen people get kicked out of leadership positions for making sexist, racist, homophobic, and other disrespectful comments and jokes. I admire the courage Diers has to speak out for how she was treated, and I too hope that not only the company, but industry as a whole can become better from stories like this going public.
Yeah, ok. No surprise here. A scene shop run by men treating women like inferiors? How strange! Sarcasm aside, I am pleased that the Guthrie has open an investigation about these remarks and actions, especially the ones detailed from Molly Diers: “"when they approach you, they sort of lead with their hands instead of their voices." I know exactly how she feels. For some reason, some men think that unless they physically guide a woman into a task she will not understand it, even if he explains it and she understands. These constant physical contacts during work must be so tiresome; I am surprised Molly was able to make it 13 years in that environment. Hopefully this investigation will lead to more awareness of the management of the Guthrie of these kinds of situations, and will eventually become a hiring factor when searching for more employees in the scene shop.
This article disgusted me, maybe even more than a good many of articles with similar topics. This was her dream job. She got her dream job. It was ruined for her. Everyone can relate to having a dream job, a goal they want to reach, or a thing they want to do in the future. You work towards these things, and rightfully expect that, if you have worked hard enough to achieve these goals, you will get everything you deserve from them. That is not true in many cases for female theatre technicians!! I myself feel afraid to begin lighting design, as it is such a male-dominated (like everything else tech theatre) field. Since lighting involves having to have a ton of very specific knowledge and usually at least a little strength, I find that LD culture includes a lot of know-it-all-y one-upping (although, disclaimer, I have obviously never worked as a professional). It’s the perfect crossroads for mansplaining and toxic masculinity. I just hope the future holds better treatment for the women of tech theatre.
I feel that we are again beating the same topic to death. Here in the broadest sense is yet another case of people not being conscious of those around them and how what they say can make others feel. This is sadly a fairly common problem in parts of this industry. It falls to everyone around to call things out when they see that they are not what they should be. The critical failing in this situation, other than people just saying inappropriate things, was with the leadership and the way the problem was addressed. We all need to help look out for each other. The administration needs to start being required to have actual training on this topic, and we as an industry need to take more active steps in apologizing and correcting the problems as they happen rather than after the fact. At this point, it feels as though we are using buckets to try and stop the sinking of the Titanic, with regards to these offenses.
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