Feminist and Anti-Oppressive Leadership. Preventing Harassment and Bullying in the Performing Arts

This article examines the role of leadership for preventing abuses of power through harassment and bullying in the Swedish performing arts, highlighting the significance of feminist and anti-oppressive leadership. Previous studies of harassment and bullying in workplaces across sectors have identified the role of leadership as central. For example, passive leadership has been found to increase the likelihood of sexual harassment, work cultures of bullying have been found to begin at the top of an organization, and leadership has been found to be the best opportunity to prevent sexual harassment and assault. The article aims to understand the impact of leadership on prevention strategies against harassment and bullying. It is based on interviews with leaders, recorded observations of rehearsals and written policies from two Swedish performing arts institutions. Understanding organizational structures and processes as always already gendered and shaped by inequality regimes of gender, class, and race, we focus here on how harassment and bullying is approached in practice and on paper. Our conclusions are that feminist and anti-oppressive leadership is highly significant for the institutional ability to live up to the written policies in practice, and the analysis describes successful ways of working to prevent harassment and bullying.