The Research on Sexual Harassment, Sexist Harassment, Sexual Orientation Harassment and Gender Identity and Expression Harassment in the Spanish University Environment: the Recognition of a Type of GBV in Times of Opposition and Negationism.

The phenomenon of sexual harassment, sexist harassment (or on the grounds of gender), sexual orientation harassment and gender expression or identity harassment in universities has become in recent years a recognised public problem by Higher Education institutions that needs to be addressed by university gender equality policies. Several social phenomena have contributed to this concern, such as the Meetoo movement and the increase in strength of feminist movements, especially among young people, but also the development of gender equality policies, which in the Spanish case are consolidated with an advanced legislation. In parallel, this recognition of a problem that should be tackled by government and institutions occurs in a context of a crisis of democracy and the appearance and rise of far-right political parties, which have a negationist fight against Gender Based Violence (GBV) as one of the main driving forces of their political program (as it is the case of VOX in Spain, which was the third political force in the last general elections) One of the measures of the Harassment Protocol approved at the Universidad Complutense of Madrid (UCM) in December 2016 was the commission of a study focused on analysing the prevalence of different types of harassment at the UCM, including sexual harassment, sexist or on the grounds of gender harassment, sexual orientation harassment and gender expression or identity harassment. 21.500 responses (25% of the census) were obtained from the university community by an online questionnaire between April and May 2018. This study aimed at identifying and typifying the behaviours constitutive of harassment. This enables to highlight behaviours that have remained hidden or perceived as a normalized situation within the institution, that now can be recognized by the institution and its university community. Which are the tensions provoked by identifying behaviours previously normalised as forms of GBV? This paper presents the results of this study, which identifies the “gap” between “declared” harassment (recognised) and “technical” harassment (not recognised as such), which allows us to conclude the invisibility of the phenomenon and its under recognition, as well as the critical analysis of the variables that have configured the typing of the harassment situation, or the contextual and socio-structural elements delimitation (sociodemographic variables) that are linked to a greater extent with a higher prevalence of the different types of harassment. This allows us to advance in the definition, identification and prevention of university harassment by providing keys to universities that recognise the problem and support decision-making around preventive policies. Co-authors with María Bustelo (UCM; presenting author): Marina Onetti (MEANS Evaluación) y Alma Porta (MEANS Evaluación)