Attitudes to Sexism and the #MeToo Movement at a Danish University

Abstract

We explore the relationship between academic employees' attitudes to modern sexism and the #MeToo movement to better understand how interventions designed to address sexual harassment might be received in Danish academia. Using a survey of employees at a large Danish university (N = 1128), we categorized employees' open answers about their attitudes to the #MeToo Movement as (a) positive, (b) ambivalent, or (c) negative. These categories were associated with employees' modern sexism scores, such that those higher in modern sexism were more likely to be negative about the movement, while those with lower scores were more likely to be positive. To better understand possible sources of resistance to policy interventions, we used an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design to analyse the open comments for themes related to employee's negative attitudes towards #MeToo. The two most prominent themes were: (1) delegitimisation of the purposes of the movement, and (2) perception that the rights of potential sexual perpetrators were more important than those of potential victims. We discuss the implications for the implementation of interventions targeting sexual harassment.

Re-Imagining Sexual Harassment

“…Possibly due to this ineffective 'fixing the women' approach to gender equality in academia in Denmark, gender norms and values that build on sexism and sexual harassment are still a major challenge. We have previously documented that Danish university employees in general − and employees in male-dominated faculties in particular − have sexist attitudes (Skewes et al, 2019) and tend to delegitimise speaking out against sexual harassment via the #MeToo movement (Skewes et al, 2021). We have also shown, in a sample of 300 Danish academics (primarily women), that almost 60 per cent reported experiences of sexist hostility in their workplace.…”

Men run academic track; women jump sexist hurdles

“…In the Danish-based studies about sexism mentioned earlier, we used a combination of the Modern Sexism Scale (Swim et al, 1995) and open questions about attitudes to gender equality policies and to the #MeToo movement to capture patterns of sexist attitudes in academia in Denmark (Skewes et al, 2019(Skewes et al, , 2021. We complemented this with a Sexual Experiences Questionnaire (SEQ) (Fitzgerald et al, 1995) to capture concrete experiences with sexual harassment (in the form of sexist/ sexual hostility, unwanted sexual attention, and sexual coercion) in the academic environment in Denmark (Einersen et al, 2021).…”

The Persistence of Sexism and Racism at Universities: Exploring the Imperceptibility and Unspeakability of Workplace Harassment and Discrimination in Academia

“…Despite its global spread, the #Metoo movement was at first largely ignored, ridiculed, or deemed as having gone too far in the Danish context (Askanius & Hartley, 2019;Skewes et al, 2021). Only Even back then, it was clear that harassment and discrimination were problems (FRA -European Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2015), also at Danish universities (Swedish Research Council, 2018).…”

“…Despite its global spread and influence, it almost seemed as if the #MeToo movement had not really reached Denmark. It had until this point been largely ignored, ridiculed, or deemed as having gone too far in the Danish context (Askanius & Hartley, 2019;Skewes et al, 2021). While in some countries, #MeToo triggered discussions about different types of harassment and discrimination -for instance, demanding intersectional analyses and particular attention to racism and racist harassment resulting in the #MeTwo movement against racist harassment and discrimination in Germany (Gavras et al, 2019) or discussions around the Black feminist origins of #MeToo in the US (Burke, 2022) -, in Denmark such conversations were largely absent in both public and academic discourse.…”

“…We need to invest time, care, and resources into understanding how the sexism and racism that so many continuously experience persists. Attention towards these issues might come in waves but the problems of sexist and racist harassment and discrimination do not; they persist, they stick, they stay, by Utoft (2020, p. 328), "Danes generally champion the success [of] feminism in the past by declaring that gender equality constitutes a defining Danish, cultural value […but deny] the need for further feminist activism, politics or intervention in the present […for instance by opposing] legal initiatives to support the economic and political empowerment of women, […and being hesitant as to] whether and how work organisations should address gender (in)equality" (see also Dahlerup, 2018;Skewes et al, 2019Skewes et al, , 2021.…”