Gendered Violence in Classics: where are we now and what can we do?¹

by Maxine Lewis, University of Auckland

The ‘Gendered Violence’ panel at Feminism and Classics VII highlighted the worrying reality that gendered violence can strike anywhere in the academy. During the panel, Judith Hallett shared her own experience of institutional bullying; Fiona McHardy presented statistics on harassment in U.K. Classics and Ancient History, gathered in a large survey by the Women’s Classical Committee (WCC U.K.); and Alison Surtees provided context on the wider social issues that drive gendered violence in our own discipline(s). Taken as a whole, the panel emphasised that harassment and bullying, especially with a sexist valence, has occurred in our field across many different environments: within the classroom, among colleagues within institutions, and at conferences and colloquia. It can occur everywhere from the micro-level, of unconscious microaggressions, to serious sexual harassment and/or assault. The urgent question arises: how can we prevent gendered violence in all its forms, in our community?

We must think and act both locally and globally. The panel emphasised that as students and academics we each move between and among local, national, and global Classics contexts. It follows that we need actions and plans at each of these levels to create a completely safe and healthy community. To do this, we all need more information about local, national, and international issues which may differ from university to university or from country to country.

We do not know the exact extent of the current problem. Around the world, how many people in Classics and ancient world studies experience gendered violence in our community? What gaps in laws or institutional policies have contributed to their situation? How have organisations responded to reports of harassment and bullying? The evidence that we have so far — both statistical and anecdotal — shows that gendered violence still occurs in our field at a not inconsiderable rate. The problem has not been solved by generational change within the academy, nor with the advent of national or state anti-discrimination and anti-harassment laws. That sexual harassment still occurs within our disciplines is indicated by the qualitative responses to the WCC U.K. survey (discussed by Deacy and McHardy),² and by the September 2016 newsletter of The Australasian Society for Classical Studies (ASCS), in which the president reported that its executive had received reports of sexual harassment occurring at its 2016 conference. In short, while we do not have a full-scale statistical picture, we know enough to conclude that the problem remains current.

Moreover, we have hints that certain types of events currently enable harassment more than others. Deacy and McHardy revealed that many respondents to the survey singled out conferences as places where sexual harassment had occurred. In the discussion at the end of the panel conferences came up again as places where harassment and gendered violence often took place. Why? The particular conditions of academic conferences seem to enable higher rates of misconduct and harassment by those in power. In particular, conferences tend to combine: social functions built around alcohol, networking opportunities between people with vastly differing levels of professional experience and expertise (rife for exploitation by the senior party), a ‘when in Vegas’ mentality that suggests that the normal rules of professional conduct do not apply, and frequently a lack of clear procedures and policies around stopping harassment or bullying.

Deacy and McHardy’s paper strongly brought home to me that it is vital to have both qualitative and quantitative data on harassment, bullying, and gendered violence in our profession. Thanks to the work of the WCC U.K. in their 2016 survey, we now have a statistical picture of the situation in Britain. However, to my knowledge no comparable statistics currently exist for other locales. In my view, we urgently need to conduct research on this front outside the U.K., and we need to work with experts on data collection to make our results as foolproof as they can be. One important point that was raised in the panel discussion is that we will get the most benefit from our research into professional conditions if we have involvement from social scientists, to help validate survey methodologies and solve significant ethics questions (such as, who has access to the raw data, how the data is published, and how respondents’ anonymity is protected). People with positions in universities or institutes may be best placed to spearhead this research, as they often have access to social scientists within the academy. With this in mind, group of academics and students from Australasia plan to run a questionnaire later this year on Australasian ancient world studies; similar questionnaires of the community in North America, Asia, and Europe would improve our knowledge of the full picture. The collaborative exchanges between the current ‘sister organisations’ in Classics (and related disciplines) can help this project; the WCC U.K. survey organisers have provided very valuable assistance to members of Australasian Women in Ancient World Studies (AWAWS) and this type of knowledge-sharing about conducting quantitative research can extend to other organisations in other countries. We need to work with each other, while also recognising local peculiarities of our individual national/regional communities.

What are those peculiarities? Throughout the talks it was clear that the state of evidence on what gendered violence was and is occurring, the legal and cultural contexts, and the plans for how to solve sexism in our field differ among our national Classics communities. And our panel only represented Anglophone Classics — we need to hear from our colleagues in Africa, Asia, Central and South America, and Europe to get the full picture. But the variation even within Anglophone experiences struck me. For example, Surtees’ definitions of violence and consent come from and apply to a North American context. Those of us who live and work outside this region can learn from the current discussions of consent, harassment, and assault on American and Canadian college campuses, but we will have to also address the problems in the context of our own local setting. For instance, neither Australia nor New Zealand has an equivalent to the Title IX legislation that currently dominates discussions of consent in the U.S.A. Or to draw on Hallett’s discussion of trigger warnings — this can likely be understood by anyone who reads about education in America, but trigger warnings have not spread widely in Antipodean ancient world studies in any formal or legalised way.³

The potential for cultural disconnect also came into focus while listening to Helen Morales’ talk, delivered in another panel at the same conference. Morales spoke about her position in a public U.S. institution that is grappling with the legal ramifications of policing microaggressions. She identified the dangers of taking microaggressions as seriously as incidences of actual sexual harassment or assault. This struck me as right — that everyday sexism is a significant problem but arguably not as traumatic or affecting as outright sexual violence — but the litigious context Morales spoke of was peculiar to the U.S. legal and cultural world. It serves as a useful warning to us all that legislation that seems progressive can backfire, but the exact ramifications of that lesson will play out very differently for those of us who undertake feminist actions outside the U.S.A., where the threat of civil lawsuits does not factor highly into institutional policy. Moreover, as Morales’ piece demonstrates, even those of us who find sexual harassment and bullying abhorrent will disagree on certain strategies or approaches. But this does not have to be a problem, as long as we keep communicating and thrashing out the issues. I firmly believe that our conversations around this issue will (and probably should) remain pluralistic. As Morales points out, it is problematic that in the U.S.A. the standard for judging whether speech is offensive now lies with the listener; this may benefit some victims of prejudice but will have other negative effects (for example, hamstringing whether people can teach certain topics in the classroom at all). At the same time, the over-application of university regulation in some places does not negate the real psychological effects of sustained prejudice and discrimination, including microaggressions, as Surtees points out. Having the conversation — hearing both views — allows all of us to refine our stance on these issues.

Beyond the regional and national differences highlighted by the Feminism and Classics VII talks themselves, one can more broadly identify differences within our global Classics community that might shape our future conversations and actions about stopping gendered violence. As I mentioned, the set of disciplines within which we cluster varies. Sometimes these differences matter; establishing policies on harassment during fieldwork will have less relevance for those of us who are separated from archaeologists by institutional structures, but it might be an urgent priority in a context where Classicists and archaeologists work and teach together.

Secondly, the state of our professional organisations differ, in terms of size, professionalization, and aims. This has a flow-on effect on how political and politicised organisations are and how institutional change occurs. Given the role that the Society for Classical Studies (formerly American Philological Association) has historically played in the Classics job market, it is perhaps unsurprising that it is especially professionalised, and has developed and articulated policies on equity before other similar groups. Additionally, the Women’s Classical Caucus’s (WCC) longstanding role in North American Classics means that U.S. Classicists have a long tradition of gender activism at their fingertips which to draw. In contrast, the WCC U.K. and AWAWS were both formed recently. This means that we lack U.S.A. Classics’ long institutional memory of formalised feminist organising within the discipline, but on the other hand the long dearth of feminist organisations in the U.K. and Australasia has made some people particularly keen to get involved now that there is something for them to get involved in.⁴

Yet, the fact that sexism does not always manifest exactly the same way everywhere in Classics, and that our roads to solutions may not always follow the exact same route, does not mean that we all need to reinvent the wheel. We can learn from each other, collaborate with each other, and work locally within our own context to address a global problem.

Strategies for making change

At the most local level we must address sexism in the classroom, within individual departments, and local institutions. How? Some ideas to start with:

1) Research inclusive teaching practices and feminist pedagogy, attend professional development on this topic, and be prepared to intervene in classroom discussions where sexism unfolds (this does not mean halting the discussing, but actively engaging in it).
2) Learn the institutional policies that relate to sexism, such as university policies and processes around bullying and harassment, student-staff relationships, and student and employee entitlements to parental leave, breastfeeding spaces, and childcare. Talk about these policies with colleagues and peers to raise the general level of awareness.
3) Make teaching assistants aware of university policies around staff-student relationships. Those of us who teach, and who mentor other teachers, ought to seek out information on student-teacher power dynamics and how to manage them. Yes, ‘we are all adults’ and adults can have consensual relationships, but academia is littered with accounts of people abusing their positions of power, even with other adults. We need to make sure that neither we — nor our teaching assistants — perpetrate misconduct.
4) Make it known to your students and peers that you are willing to listen when people need or want to talk about incidences of sexism. If you can be someone’s ally, support person in a mediation, or point of contact to refer them to services, make that known in your circles.
5) Identify allies both in educational institutions and the community. Find the women’s networks on campus, seek out women’s leadership and mentoring initiatives, and make contact with local community women’s and LGBTQI groups. When allies cannot help us solve problems directly, they can still provide support and empathy, alleviating feelings of having to deal with the situation alone.
6) Take an assertiveness training program, either in person or online. Intervening directly in sexism can lead to uncomfortable confrontations; some of us need to develop skills to help us deal with confrontation confidently.

These suggestions include active intervention in other people’s misconduct when it happens but go beyond that to an ongoing habit of personal reflection and development, research and skill-building, and community building. Personally I think this element of personal reflection is crucial to changing a culture (challenging individual instances of behaviour is good, but we also need to change an overarching culture that tends to ignore or minimise reports of gendered violence). Abuse thrives in the dark, and all too often well-meaning people in our field (I count myself among them) have perpetuated a culture of silence that allows abuse to continue, not because we think it is just or fair, but because we do not know what to do, or how to help, and in many cases because we are also in vulnerable, junior positions. Or we have unwittingly allowed a sexist or unhealthy culture to develop through simply not thinking to address something directly (for example, it had never occurred to me to discuss staff-student relationships and their dangers with my GTAs until I came to write this article).

Thinking nationally and internationally, we can address cultural habits and power structures that enable gendered violence within our national bodies. In practical terms, we can:

1) Activate conversations about sexism in our profession. We can give people a place to talk about problems in an institution or organisation. Possible ‘spaces’ include: meetings, a virtual space on social media, a skype/video-conferencing conversation, or roundtable discussions on the profession at conferences, etc. When organisations are already spearheading these initiatives we can support them, attend, contribute, and make contact with other people who care about eliminating sexism.
2) Take governance roles in an institution and work to improve its policies around harassment, assault, and bullying. Publicise those policies.
3) Learn about the national legal context and keep abreast of changes to laws relating to gender (for instance through solo research or through women’s and social justice networks).
4) Ask our national and international organisations, the bodies that host the major annual conferences, to have a clear policy for dealing with gendered violence at their events. If they do not have a policy, work with allies to ensure that one is created and then put in place. The internet offers open-source Codes of Conduct that can be adapted for different types of events; policies and procedures do not need to be created from scratch.
5) Apply feminist principles when we organise our own national/international events (e.g. conferences or lecture series). When we organise events, are we creating a space that is as free as possible from gendered violence? Are we prepared to deal with reports of misconduct, sexist or otherwise? Do conference attendees know who to talk to if gendered violence occurs?

Many of these things happen already. For example, the WCC, WCC U.K. and AWAWS all have virtual spaces in which conversations about sexism in the academy are occurring right now. ASCS recently worked with AWAWS to create a code of conduct for its national conferences, a code currently in draft stage and the subject of many intense conversations at the most recent conference.

Hopefully these instances hearten you; if you care about gendered violence and sexism in our community you are not alone. There are concrete actions you can take that can make a difference to our community, and groups exist that you can work with. No-one can — or should! — do all of these things at once, but we can each do something.

Bibliography:

Palmer, T. (2017) ‘Monash University trigger warning policy fires up free speech debate’, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-28/monash-university-adopts-trigger-warning-policy/8390264

Rabinowitz, N. S. and McHardy, F. (eds.) (2014) From Abortion to Pederasty: Addressing Difficult Topics in the Classics Classroom, Ohio State University Press.

Footnotes:

1. This discussion will focus on our disciplines globally, across the Anglophone world. After much thought, I have reluctantly decided to use the term ‘Classics’ throughout, as a catch-all term to refer to all educational and professional contexts that focus on material from the ancient Mediterranean world. I am conscious that in some countries ‘Classics’ is not the preferred name of the discipline, and moreover that the word does not capture the full range and breadth of ancient world studies. It problematically elides the disciplines of archaeology, ancient history, ancient philosophy, and classical studies, with which the Classical languages are often taught and researched. However, no formula ‘Classics and X’ exists that solves this linguistic problem, because the classical languages are co-taught in different configurations around the world. For instance, in the U.S.A. Classics and archaeology regularly fall within a single department, whereas in Australia ancient history serves as the most common ‘sister subject’, while in New Zealand the most common major is Classical Studies.
2. Deacy and McHardy commented on the types of behaviour that respondents reported; no individual comments or identifying markers were presented.
3. On warning students about difficult material, see multiple discussions in Rabinowitz and McHardy (2014), especially G. Liveley ‘Pedagogy and Pornography in the Classroom’ 147–8. Controversy has recently erupted in Australia because Monash University unveiled a policy to provide trigger warnings on certain courses (Palmer 2017).
4. This view derives from anecdotal evidence, from conversations with students and staff at local and national AWAWS events I have been involved with. This is not to say that all Australasian members of our disciplines support the organisation or its aims.