In 2017, the outbreak of the Weinstein case brought to light the persistence in a specific environment, that of show business, of practices of abuse, coercion, discrimination and reprisals towards women by those who believed they were in a position to be able to dispose of their careers, their bodies and his silence. #MeToo became the spur to reveal, denounce and call for action against entrenched practices of structural machismo in many other sectors.
One of them, the one of the university. An area of exchange of knowledge where silence should not nest, transparency and criticism should not have obstacles and the recognition of academic merit prevails. But at the same time it is a strongly hierarchical organization, where progress in the teaching and research career is subject to decisions that are too often discretionary and depends on dependency relationships with respect to department directors, professors and directors of research teams. In other words, an environment, like many others, more conducive than hostile to power relations allow labor abuse to develop and remain unpunished. And in an even cruder way when the gender component is added.
It is not an exaggeration to say, and the promoters of the #MeToo movement at the university appreciate it, that a report published by this newspaper in January 2022 played a key role in the process of reviewing behavior in the university world. In it, for the first time, 25 professors and researchers showed their faces to break the law of silence. They decided to explain the price they had had to pay for not submitting to the demands of sexual harassment or pure and simple professional and personal vassalage. It was the starting signal for a process in which more and more teachers, students and PAS workers have decided to take a step forward to prevent 90% of cases of abuse from continuing without a complaint. In which more and more universities have recognized the seriousness of the phenomenon and have begun to design specific protocols and services to deal with the cases that are emerging. That has led to the creation of international support and complaint networks. In which the Administration has begun to establish the legal framework (as in the new law of science) that allows to react adequately.
This process continues now (some of the protagonists of this call for attention have directly intervened in its preparation) with the presentation, by the departments of Research and Universities and of Equality and Feminisms of the Generalitat, of a protocol-guide against sexual harassment in universities. A series of recommendations (and reminders that there are laws to comply with) whose strict compliance no university center should avoid.
Although it is not enough to break the silence and for the institutions to change their sensitivity and attitude. The victims (and those who have supported them) continue to warn that there is a second abuse, an isolating violence that goes through systematically discredit, isolate and hinder the academic career of the complainants. In little more than a year they have come a long way. But removing the situation of vulnerability that makes abuse possible requires a cultural change in which there is still a long way to go.