Bringing our best to the table: how can academics work to eliminate sexual harassment and sexual violence?

Bringing our best to the table: how can academics work to eliminate sexual harassment and sexual violence?

Bringing our best to the table: how can academics work to eliminate sexual harassment and sexual violence?

This year, the whole country stood still and mourned when we learned of the murder of another vibrant woman. This was an act that generated calls for cultural change to address causes of violence against women. Across the higher education sector, we took stock too. We asked ourselves how do we most meaningfully respond in the face of such tragedy?

Higher Education Institutions across Ireland are committed to the implementation of policies and practices that seek to prevent and eradicate sexual violence and sexual harassment from our landscape. We demonstrate this through our active engagement with the Consent Framework for higher education institutions entitled Safe, Respectful, Supportive and Positive - Ending Sexual Violence and Harassment in Irish Higher Education Institutions and through our commitment to rolling out initiatives like the #UnmuteConsent campaign and the SpeakOut anonymous reporting tool (launched in late 2021),  as well as the implementation of policies that embed the principles of dignity and respect, and via a suite of important services that support our students and staff. But to see our role in this space as one that focuses only on policy implementation and support delivery within our institutions overlooks a critically important contribution that Irish universities are uniquely positioned to bring: a multi- and trans-disciplinary evidence-based research lens that looks beyond our own campuses and considers the issue of sexual violence and sexual harassment as a broader societal matter.

A key role of public universities is to engage in empirical research and theoretical scholarship to capture and understand social and cultural processes for transformational impact in the interests of the wider public good. Cultural change is a slow process that policy or political solutions generated in response to a crisis and public outcry can rarely deliver. However, this slower, deliberate and exploratory work going on in our universities generates insights that can catalyse and shape positive cultural change, inform legislation, policy, and practice. In addition, universities play a key role in training, educating and preparing the next generation of key health, social work, education, legal and many other professionals to be able to respond to victims of violence across a range of key settings.

To illustrate, those recent discussions amplifying calls for action on violence against women that fantastic NGOs like Safe Ireland, Women’s Aid, the Rape Crisis Network of Ireland,  Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, the National Women’s Council of Ireland and others had been making for some time set us thinking about data generated during a research project on sexual socialization (Conlon, 2018).

The research was commissioned by the HSE Sexual Health and Crisis Pregnancy Programme and explored Irish parent’s practices and aspirations regarding sexual socialisation of children under ten years. An unexpected thread in the data heard parents demonstrating a commitment to ‘doing things differently’ in terms of breaking the cycle of unhealthy connotations relating to the body, relationships and sexuality being passed on to children.  

They referred to a prevalence of sexualised language and imagery in popular culture which meant they often observed children invoking sexualised language e.g., ‘hot’ or ‘sexy’ to talk about their feelings and bodies in ways that had the potential to objectify and cultivate disrespectful even harmful attitudes. Parents aspired to lay the foundations for respectful, egalitarian intimate relationships; positive, respectful attitudes in their sons towards women and a commitment to consent based intimacy.

Parents presented in the study as highly motivated to do the emotional labour necessary to lay foundations for healthy attitudes in their children towards their own bodies, their own sexualities and their relationships within and across genders. This took many forms. Parents strived to be open in talking with children from a young age about topics children raised in their everyday talk. Topics such as differences in child and adult bodies, differences in male and female bodies, where babies come from, displays of intimacy in adults and different family formations. Parents talked about wishing to generate a culture of normalization in children regarding their bodies, sexualities and relationships and to contribute to positive cultural change. 

This research showed parents express a need for support in driving this change towards greater openness with children.

This is just one example of many that hints at how our universities, through – and across - disciplines like nursing, education, sociology, social policy, psychology, social work, and others can play a part in achieving a collaborative pedagogical approach to sexual socialisation with young children to effect positive intergenerational cultural change in all our interests. 

Writing in the Irish Times in 2018, Trish Murphy, Head of Counselling Services at Trinity College Dublin wrote, “If we are to create a culture of consent, it will involve all of us.” All of the Irish universities are actively involved in this work on every front. And we are here to bring our best to the table. 

Our research work can inform policy, pedagogy, practices, and, where appropriate, legislation. In 2021, the Royal Irish Academy and the Irish Research Council jointly published a discussion paper on Research for Public Policy: An Outline Roadmap. They note, and we concur, that: “Higher-education institutions (HEIs) are major research performers in Ireland, bringing together world-class expertise from the full range of disciplines in the natural and life sciences, engineering, computer sciences, arts, humanities, social sciences and medicine. This is a hugely significant resource for policymakers who seek to develop evidence-based policy.”  Ensuring this happens requires coordinated collaborative commitment from all key stakeholders, and indeed, they recommend that the DFHERIS consider specifically resourcing its funding agencies to accelerate a long-term funding programme for policy-oriented research. Contributing to positive social change in ways such as this is a central component of ethical research engagement for our universities in partnership with, and for, the communities we serve.

Dr. Catherine Conlon, Assistant Professor in Social Studies, Trinity College Dublin

Prof. Lorraine Leeson, Associate Vice Provost for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, Trinity College Dublin, and member of the IUA Vice Presidents for EDI Group

Dr Siobán O’Brien Green, Acting Equality Officer, Trinity College Dublin


Audra Mockaitis

Professor of International Business at Maynooth University

2y

Not tiptoeing around the issue is a good place to start.

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