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What to do about sexual harassment on campuses
2017/11/20 09:25:10 AM
Universities have been caught up in recent accusations about sexual harassment. How can campuses around the world tackle the problem?
GLOBAL
Ashwini Deshpande
17 November 2017 University World News Global Edition Issue 483
Universities have been caught up in recent accusations about sexual harassment. How can campuses around the world tackle the problem?
We are witnessing a virtual tsunami of lists of well-known men in academia, policy-making, the entertainment industry, hospitality and the food industry who are being accused of sexual harassment.
Skeletons tumbling out of closets from all corners of the globe and from all walks of life confirm the outpouring of support for the #MeToo campaign on social media, where women universally have declared that they have been sexually harassed at least once in their lives.
This is actually a good time to step back from individual names and focus on the real, deep-rooted problem that these lists highlight, which, in the university context, is widespread sexual harassment on campus.
The unfortunate reality is that centres of higher learning are as prone to sexual harassment and the domination of a patriarchal, conservative, misogynist mindset as the rest of society is. It would be good to remind ourselves that this is not a hallmark of poorer countries or specific cultural or religious contexts. It is omnipresent.
What are the contours of sexual harassment in educational institutions? How can we deal with it? How should we guard against discourses of moral turpitude and focus exclusively on harassment without penalising consensual interactions between adult men and women, sexual or otherwise?
Confronting the real problem
The word ‘draconian’ gets attached very easily to any measure or law that seeks to protect women as it raises fears that women might misuse it to settle personal scores.
In the case of sexual harassment, too, the fear of false complaints dominates the public discourse, instead of the real problem, which is the underlying pervasive, ubiquitous sexual harassment that transcends class, race (or caste, ethnicity) and educational categories.
This reaction is not unrelated to the basic premise of sexual harassment or rape: it happens because women ‘ask for it’ or start something consensual only to change their minds either during or after the act.
Sexual harassment on campus
While it is important to recognise that there are asymmetries of power that tilt the balance in favour of professors, which some might construe as a licence to harass students, the fact is that sexual harassment is not a preserve of male professors: the accused include teachers, administrative staff and fellow students.
The first challenge in dealing with these cases is an inadequate understanding of what constitutes harassment.
The more direct or egregious cases (such as the ones doing the rounds currently) are relatively easier to identify; however, most often, despite the evidence being as clear as daylight, it is disputed: “But what was she wearing?”; “Why did she get in the lift with him?”; “Was she drunk?”
So imagine how much harder it is to define harassment when there is a whole ocean of men who are oblivious to the fact that their behaviour – in their view innocuous – might be causing distress to their colleagues or juniors.
I recall one case of a student who complained that her professor sent her regular text messages – in pre-WhatsApp, Facebook or Twitter days – at 10.30pm to 11pm at night and while he never propositioned her or touched her, she said she felt uncomfortable around him. She found his repeated texts objectionable and out of line. If she replied, he sent her more messages. If she didn’t, he would ask her the next day why she hadn’t replied.
The professor’s first reaction was one of dismay. What’s wrong in a few harmless texts, he asked? It took several meetings to convince him that his intentions were not the point – if a woman finds the attention unwelcome for whatever reason, it is harassment.
Then there was the case of a male student who would sit in the library every day opposite a female student (who eventually complained) and stare at her incessantly. When confronted, his reply was: “I am not doing anything to her so why is just looking at her a problem?”
This is another example of a simple but incredibly difficult to fathom idea that what might seem like a harmless mild gesture to this man could be very annoying and offensive to the woman. Again, if she feels harassed, it constitutes harassment.
Sensitisation: Are women asking for it?
As waves of freedom and change envelop universities, there is a counter-current of reaction and conservatism. Lowering of inhibitions in the interactions between men and women and changes in dress and habits are often seen as ‘proof’ that women want it both ways.
When they get what they want, they call it empowerment or liberation. When they don’t, they raise the bogey of sexual harassment, so it is said. In other words, the suggestion is that women who make choices about their (sexual) lives cannot be victims of sexual harassment since they must have done something to provoke it.
A big challenge on campuses would be to initiate sensitisation measures that might challenge these ‘ways of seeing’. Sexual harassment is never justified – certainly not on the basis of what a woman is wearing or her location – for instance, if she is out on the street at night or in someone else’s house. A woman’s intoxication can never be a reason to harass, abuse or rape her.
Complaint mechanisms with teeth
As an accessible first port of call, as credible alternatives to the behemoth of legal structures and the police, grievance and complaints committees inside campuses are absolutely essential. Such mechanisms should come with checks and balances that should also help allay fears of false indictments.
Going forward, we need to firmly acknowledge the ubiquity of sexual harassment on campuses, move away from a ‘name-and-shame’ approach for reasons I have discussed elsewhere, and demand a decentralised network of committees that are approachable, accessible, accountable and have teeth that are able to bite when necessary.
Ashwini Deshpande is professor of economics at the University of Delhi, India. Email: ashwini@econdse.org.