Classical music teachers humiliate female students on purpose, a recent claim reveals

Understyle jokes, harassment, harassment, emotional abuse and gender inequality. All of this occurs in classical music in Finland. This is revealed in the last Friday’s inspection at the University of Helsinki Anna Ramstedt in a feminist musicology dissertation.

In his dissertation, Ramstedt has studied the gendered use of power in classical music culture in Finland.

The topic has been studied quite a bit. According to Ramstedt, his research on the subject is the first in Finland and one of the first on an international scale.

“I noticedthat no research has been done on the subject, although quite a lot of research has been done on, for example, gender inequality. For example, harassment or the use of power have not been studied, which is amazing if you compare, for example, to sports, where similar studies have been conducted since the 80s,” says Ramstedt.

For his research, he interviewed fourteen classical musicians – pianists, cellists, violinists and violists. The interviewees were white Finnish women aged 25–45.

As one of his “sad and worrying” observations, Ramstedt mentions the connection of playing skills to how a person is valued or not valued.

“That was a pretty central thing that emerged in the investigation. In general, the fact that harassment can also be seen as a normalized part of that culture,” he says.

“It’s about power hierarchies, which may also hide the problem – or they don’t necessarily dare to bring it up.”

Ramstedt states that he did his interview five years ago, and since then, with #metoo, there has been a lot of talk about sexual harassment in the media.

One of the surprises revealed in the study was related to the emotional violence practiced by instrument teachers. The interviewees had experienced that in music colleges and later during their studies.

“The experiences of mental violence were those that had either been experienced personally or had been observed in the field.”

Mental violence could manifest itself as unwarranted anger, indifference, barking or humiliating the student. It can also be a valuable comparison and consciously exposing the student to failure.

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“It doesn’t mean that all teachers practice it.” – Anna Ramstedt

“There are, among other things, [toimittaja] Sonja Saarikoski written by about the culture of humiliation in the field of classical musicso in itself it wasn’t such a surprising thing, but I didn’t consciously set out to investigate it myself, but it emerged from the material.”

Teachers the humiliation and barking practiced by Ramstedt is related to the idealization of excellence.

“A culture where performance or the pursuit of perfection is seen as more important than human well-being can expose you to such a phenomenon. It happens in sports culture and I see a similar phenomenon in the music industry. And I might connect it to a genius myth tradition,” says Ramstedt.

“It does not mean that all teachers practice it. This is also something that hasn’t been talked about much.”

of Ramstedt according to the report, in addition to low-style jokes, touching and harassment, there was also luring by teachers, which is a form of gendered and sexually inappropriate behavior. Attracting that is grooming is a long-term behavior through which the aim is to subvert power structures.

“It can be, for example, that the teacher tells intimate things about himself to the student. Asks the student about intimate things or praises his appearance and personality, perhaps in a sexual way. Let’s strive for a closeness that can blur roles.”

According to the research material, it happened to young women, late teens and students.

“It doesn’t always have to lead to harassment, but it’s generally about blurring the boundaries, which can expose the student to abuse of power.”

According to Ramstedt, the issue is not talked about much, and it can be difficult to recognize the phenomenon yourself if you don’t know about it.

Classic the gendered inequality of music culture also manifests itself in music education.

Ramstedt mentions, among other things, appearance pressures. According to him, certain kinds of habits and ideas about what it’s like to be a musician can be quite limited and gendered as mental images.

“We think that women or supposed women should dress in a way that somehow supports or strengthens heteronormativity. The limited images were also evident in how perhaps it is easier to associate boys and men with the image of professional musicianship.”

According to Ramstedt, the software is also still very gendered.

“We play a lot of 19th-century men’s repertoire, even though we know that there is a lot of other repertoire.”