Der universitäre Umgang mit sexualisierter Diskriminierung und Gewalt. Eine Bestandsaufnahme

The Hidden Problem: Sexual Harassment and Violence in German Higher Education

“…We take this act of hiding as a starting point for a theoretical reflection on the structural causes of sexual violence in the German university context. Drawing on some overall results of the survey, the results of our analysis on how German universities deal with the issue (Schüz et al, 2021), and international research literature on the topic, in this article, we show that the subject is tabooed, normalized, and trivialized by students, faculty and staff alike. We analyze the many ways in which the problem is hidden.…”

“…In order to understand how universities deal with sexual harassment and violence beyond the elaboration of guidelines, we examined the ways in which the issue is addressed at German universities, what information and services can be found on the subject, and where responsibility for the topic lies within the universities (Schüz et al, 2021). In our research, we found that out of the 90 universities analyzed, 12 only 3 have university focal points explicitly specializing in sexual harassment and violence.…”

“…In doing so, dealing with sexual harassment and violence openly and transparently is "reckoned up" against potential damage to the university's reputation in a market-based approach (Phipps, 2020). A case study we conducted in 2019 about the institutional handling of sexual harassment at German universities (Schüz et al, 2021) poignantly illustrates this "reckoning up" of sexual harassment and reputation. One of the experts interviewed in this study recounted how her university had refused to put the university logo on a poster campaign on the topic due to fear that this alone could be interpreted as indicating that the university had a particular problem with sexual violence.…”