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There is now much collective hand ringing, promises of more robust complaints procedures, and we are being urged to report incidents. 2/n
They will be taken seriously. We are told. 3/n
This is what happened to me and why I am not convinced about the promises of my institution for change. This is my story. My story involves a student. 5/n
It is the end of my first year on a tenure-track job. It is July 2013. We have moved countries and I am happy to finally have a permanent tenure-track job that pays enough to live. 6/n
I am succeeding in academia. 7/n
The only training I have ever received was at my previous UK university where we were always told to never close the door of your office. 8/n
However people seem to do things differently here. There seems to be more of a culture that the students and faculty are equals. We are all adults and can you know sort stuff out. Have a coffee, a chat, reach a compromise. 9/n
It is the end of my first year of my new job. My fourth year of supervising MA dissertations. This is not my first rodeo, I know what I am doing. 10/n
I have one student who has struggled throughout. I have done more than I should. I have given him a question, an outline, a literature review. I have refined his project. 11/n
I think this is what I am supposed to do, rather than say this student is not good enough I feel it is my responsibility to carry him over the line. 12/n
Throughout the process the student has sought my attention for the smallest thing, sending email after email with irrelevant and often intimate information. 13/n #MeToo #AcademicHarrassment #harassment
I tell myself this is normal. How things are done here. People are open. They share. This is part of my pastoral role. My colleagues seem very involved with their students too. 14/n #HarassmentCulture #MeToo #MeTooUvA
The student hands in his thesis. It is not good enough to pass. I am not surprised by this. The student has the chance to re-write over the summer. 15/n
I invite the student to my office to explain that he has not passed and that he has the possibility to re-write. I am handing him a lifeline. I am saving him and his MA. I think. 16/n
I carefully go through what he has to do to make the thesis passable. 17/n
But I have to tell the student that he cannot have the same amount of input from me. 18/n
The re-write is supposed to be unsupervised and anyway we are going on the first holiday we have had in three years. It is the summer. 19/n
The student gets angry. He blames me. He says it is my fault. He says I haven’t supervised him properly. 20/n
My immediate desire is to do what women are conditioned to do and to make myself small. Make the raised angry voice stop. To please. 21/n
However my sense of professional respect kicks in and I try to calmly explain to the student what the role of a supervisor is. 22/n
I tell him an MA thesis is an independent piece of work. That I have already done more than I should to get him this far. 23/n
The student pushes back, getting angrier and angrier, growing larger and larger, redder and redder, sitting across my desk from me. 24/n
I then say something that I have for years berated myself for saying although I also now know this is what I am conditioned to do, blame myself. 25/n #VictimBlaming #MeToo
To try and get my point across about the role of a supervisor I tell this student my job is not to be his mother. 26/n
At this he leaps from his chair and starts screaming down at me that I am his mother. “You are my mother! That is your job! Your job is to be my mother!” 27/n
Over and over again. “You are my mother! That is your job! Your job is to be my mother!” 28/n
“You are my mother! That is your job! Your job is to be my mother!” 29/n
He stands there bellowing down at me sat in my chair. 1.90m tall and 100kg. I ask him to leave. 30/n
“If you are going to behave like this and shout at me I would ask you to leave” I manage to say. 31/n
I signal to the door behind him. He is between me and the door. This 1.90m and 100kg angry shouting man. 32/n
I get up from my chair and walk calmly towards him and the door, signalling with an outstretched arm that I want him to leave. 33/n
He moves backwards, still shouting. He now blocks the door completely with his body. His arms braced against the door frame. 34/n #MeToo #MeTooUvA #Harassment #AcademicViolence #ViolenceinAcademia
I am now trapped, stuck between this 1.90m, 100kg man and the door, my desk is behind me. There is no where for me to go. 35/n #MeToo #MeTooUvA #Harassment #ViolenceinAcademia
He is still shouting. 36/n
Finally the door opens from the other side and he is pulled out by colleagues who have by now overheard. 37/n
He is still shouting and now tells the assembled crowd that is is all my fault. 38/n
He is ushered away down the corridor and told it will all be fine. 39/n
I am stood there feeling like he is the victim and that his pain is more important than what just happened. 40/n #MeToo #MeTooUvA #AcademicHarassment #ViolenceinAcademia #ViolentUniversities
I do what I always do in these situations. I pretend I am fine. I laugh it off. i have been pushed around and teargassed by police. I have been shot at by the IDF. This is nothing. I laugh it off. 41/n #MeToo
It isn’t nothing. I don’t feel fine. But I blame myself. Perhaps it was my fault? Perhaps I could have done better and the student could pass? 42/n #MeToo #MeTooUvA #MeTooAcademia #VictimBlaming
No one says any more about it. Meanwhile I want the student to be punished. Kicked-out. No one says I can complain. No one tells me what I can do. 43/n #MeToo #MeTooUvA #MeTooAcademia #ViolenceInUniversities
I don’t know what I can do. I am new here. It is my first year. I am not tenured. Perhaps they do things differently here? We should all have a coffee and talk it out. 44/n #MeToo #MeTooUvA #ToxicCulture #HarassmentCulture #CultureOfHarassment
That’s how things seem to work here. Students and faculty are equals. I should sort out the problem myself. 45/n #MeToo #MeTooUvA #ToxicCulture #CultureOfHarassment #HarassmentCulture #HarassmentInAcademia #AcademicHarassment
I try and bury the experience and we go off and enjoy our first holiday in 3 years. 46/n
The student is swapped to a different supervisor who holds his hand throughout the summer and he passes his thesis. I am told this as if it should make me happy. 47/n
It doesn’t. I want the student punished. I am angry. They do things differently here. I need to adapt. To integrate. 48/n #MeToo #MeTooUvA #MeTooAcademia #HarssmentCulture #CultureOfHarassment #AcademicHarassment #HarassmentInAcademia #HarassmentInUniversities
I try to bury it. I move on to an overly-heavy teaching load for the next two years. I publish. I make tenure. 49/n
But I haven’t buried it. I can’t. Its affects are always there. 50/n #MeToo #MeTooUvA #MeTooAcademia #CultureofHarassment
Every day. I am scared of my male students. Scared of what they can do to me. Scared that the institution will centre their experiences and feelings over mine. 52/n #MeToo #MeTooUvA #MeTooAcademia #CultureofHarassment #VIctimBlaming
I am scared of my male students and their potential violent anger. Their disappointment is a constant trigger. An angry email is a reminder of what they can do and that my instituion did nothing. I am alone. 53/n #MeToo #MeTooUvA #MeTooAcademia #CultureofHarassment
