̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Breaking the Silence

Someone breaks their silence: what do you say?

ts657 — Thu, 17 May 2018 13:19:23 +0000

Her comment came as the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge released figures showing that fears about friends’ reactions were among the main reasons Cambridge staff and students chose not to report sexual misconduct officially.

Today a film featuring Al-Ani giving staff and students advice on what to say and do when a friend confides in them was launched on the Breaking the Silence website.

She says: “What they need to hear more than anything is that you believe them, and it’s not their fault.”

To accompany the film, a new guide to handling disclosures is now available on the website.

More than a quarter (26%) of victims reported without identifying themselves or their perpetrator as they feared a backlash from friends, according to the first annual figures from the ̽��ֱ��'s anonymous reporting tool, launched in May last year.

̽��ֱ��tool is available on the Breaking the Silence website.

A Cambridge student recently told her story in Varsity describing the impact of a negative reaction to her disclosure of sexual assault. “These kinds of ‘bad’ responses catch me off guard,” she said, “turning a conversation I am prepared and ready to have into a situation in which I am deeply uncomfortable.”

What a friend needs to hear

In it, Al-Ani says: “If a friend, or somebody close to you, tells you that they’ve been a victim of sexual violence, it can be a difficult thing to hear. It can be stressful, you might feel that you have to immediately resolve the issue for them or indeed you may have conflicting views if you know the person who’s perpetrated the harassment.

“Let them know that you care, that the experience has not changed who they are or how you feel about them,” she continues.

“What they need to hear more than anything is that you believe them. If they think that you disbelieve them, they may never tell anyone again.

“Remember to say it’s not their fault. Nothing they have done or not done has resulted in the experience they have been through.”

She emphasises the need to help survivors “take back control” and empower them to make their own choices on how they wish the misconduct to be handled.

Lastly, she reminds staff and students: “As a supporter, you must remember to take your needs seriously. You are not a miracle worker. If you need to, take a supporter’s break and get some support for yourself."

As one Cambridge student who had been sexually assaulted advised in Varsity: “Provide a gentle, calm and encouraging space for the speaker to share what they wish to share, in their own words, and you can’t go too far wrong.”

Members of the Cambridge community are also showing solidarity with victims by sharing Breaking the Silence social media cover and profile images saying “Three little words can change a survivor’s experience: I believe you”.

More than 240 reports have been made in the 12 months since the tool was launched, compared with fewer than ten formal reports in the same period.

Staff and students can report online at www.breakingthesilence.cam.ac.uk.

Leading culture change

Vice-Chancellor Professor Stephen J Toope re-affirmed his commitment to the campaign in response to questions about unacceptable behaviour at Cambridge at a meeting with students on Tuesday.

Following a question on alcohol-related activities of some student groups, he said: “We’ve seen really sad cases in the past where people have been injured, deeply damaged, harassed, or assaulted - this is not acceptable. We know we can deal with the results through the disciplinary process and the work of Breaking the Silence but we need to tackle the underlying behaviour.”

Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education Professor Graham Virgo added: “We need to try to think constructively about what needs to be done to change a culture that allows this.” He called for societies to be non-gendered and not based on alcohol consumption.

Secretary to the Senior Tutors’ Committee Dr Mark Wormald echoed these comments, saying: “There is no place for any form of harassment at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge. ̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� is dedicated to creating and maintaining a safe, welcoming, inclusive and diverse community that nurtures a culture of mutual respect and consideration.

“We are aware of a number of serious allegations that have not been reported to the ̽��ֱ�� or Colleges. We would strongly urge people to come forward with any concerns, and speak to their College or the central Office of Student Conduct, Complaints and Appeals so these can be subject to immediate and thorough investigation.”

Breaking the Silence is aimed at embedding a zero tolerance culture to all forms of harassment at Cambridge. Its work focuses on improving the preventing, response, support and investigation of all instances of harassment, and enabling staff and students to make disclosures without fear of reprisal.

“From a young age, the people we most want to confide in are our friends – then somehow that starts to change into worrying about what they will say if we do,” says Norah Al-Ani, Director of the Cambridge Rape Crisis Centre.

What they need to hear more than anything is that you believe them, and it’s not their fault

Norah Al-Ani, Director of the Cambridge Rape Crisis Centre

Breaking the Silence: How to be a good friend

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Can men respond to feminism?

mjg209 — Fri, 11 May 2018 09:45:41 +0000

In the era of Trump, Weinstein, #metoo and Cambridge’s own #breakingthesilence campaign, feminist anger has reached a crescendo, and it is not for the first time. Lucy Delap, lecturer in modern British history, will speak as part of the Cambridge Series at the Hay Festival about past efforts by women to get men to listen and attempts by men to reshape masculinity in 20th century Britain.

Her talk will focus on two peaks of feminist activity in the 20th century: the suffrage era and the women’s liberation movement of the 1970s and 80s. ̽��ֱ��former was most recently celebrated with the erection of the statue of Millicent Fawcett. ̽��ֱ��plinth on which Fawcett stands carries the further images of 55 women – and four men, from establishment insiders to a radical vicar – who were part of the fight for women's right to vote. This was the era in which the term feminism was becoming more known and was used by self-consciously 'modern' men and women, to distinguish their ideas from those of 'the women's movement'. “Feminism deliberately included men and it loses that over the rest of the century, although that optic is back today,” says Delap.

̽��ֱ��second period Delap will consider is the women’s liberation movement over the course of the 1970s and 80s. Delap’s research examines men’s reaction to the movement - from men marching for abortion rights to the creation of anti-sexist groups by those who claimed that they too were suffering from patriarchy. These groups aimed to provide men with a space to work through their emotions, to cry, to share their feelings and to raise consciousness. They also focused on how men could help women in their struggles, for instance, by providing childcare through male-run creches at women’s events or through setting aside a proportion of their income to support the women’s movement - the ‘cash against sexism’ initiative.

Women had mixed feelings about some of these activities, particularly ‘cash against sexism’, since they felt they still put men in a position of power and reinforced patriarchal structures. Some women questioned men’s ability to do childcare and felt that women should instead be paid to do it. Such discussions and a feeling that they were being mocked in some quarters made some men feel that women were not supportive of their efforts to explore and question masculinity. “There were mixed feelings on both sides about what each wanted,” says Delap. “It was very difficult to navigate.”

For some men the questioning of masculinity combined with a feeling of rejection by feminists led to a tendency towards separatism, towards seeking the company of men, questioning what being a man was and a discussion of men’s rights. “There was a painful shift from the men’s movement being responsive to women to not being allowed to be full partners,” says Delap. One offshoot of this was the evolution of the kind of men’s rights groups which coalesced around child custody issues in the lead-up to and aftermath of the Child Support Act of 1990. “In some cases it led to men blaming feminists rather than listening to them,” adds Delap.

Yet, despite all of this, men did change over the next decades, she says, as can be seen in everything from the greater involvement of dads in childcare generally to the questioning of binary gender categories. “Change has happened,” she states. “More generally masculinity has pluralised and homophobia has diminished. Men and boys have more choices. For young people, you could say that Grayson Perry is the end point, not Donald Trump.”

She adds that feminist movements have become much more globally connected and that there is a real attempt to include men, for instance, through the HeforShe campaign. This extends to a recognition of men’s past role in the move towards greater equality.

Despite what has been referred to as a backlash, Delap says that the general impetus is towards progression. She highlights what she calls “the micro-capillary of change” on the everyday level. She adds that the most important change has been among young women in spite of the conflicting messages they often receive as they grow up: “Broadly speaking, they feel they can work; they do not expect sexual harassment; they are very surprised when they have children and discover the world is unequal; there is a feeling of outrage. There is a powerful sense of consciousness raising going on today.”

Lucy Delap will be speaking at the Hay Festival about men's response to peaks in feminist activism in twentieth century Britain.

Change has happened. More generally masculinity has pluralised and homophobia has diminished. Men and boys have more choices. For young people, you could say that Grayson Perry is the end point, not Donald Trump.

Lucy Delap

Nic McPhee from Morris, Minnesota

̽��ֱ��Women' March Morris, US, the Saturday after Donald Trump was inaugurated.

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Opinion: As institutions, we need to match the bravery of sexual misconduct victims with our own

ts657 — Wed, 28 Mar 2018 13:40:19 +0000

Very soon after I was appointed Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge in 2014, a student came to see me. She had never told anyone what she shared with me in our conversation. Months before, at a student society event, she had been raped. She had not wanted to report this to the police. She thought in my new role, I could do something about the incident. She tasked me with taking action.

At the time, the only support I could offer her was emotional as well as sign-post her to student support services. Uncomfortably, her only hope for justice was to go to the police. Guidance at the time stipulated that universities should not investigate sexual misconduct cases themselves, but had to refer them to the police.

We have come a long way from there, as is shown in today’s UUK report, Changing the culture: one year on – an assessment of strategies to tackle sexual misconduct, hate crime and harassment affecting university students. In the UK, it is now a sector standard to have a disciplinary procedure that refers to harassment or sexual misconduct for both staff and students. ̽��ֱ��student who came to see me was not alone. Thousands issued their own calls to action and their combined volume shifted sector thinking. ̽��ֱ��many students who were brave enough to speak up, to share their experiences, to challenge and to campaign for change have brought us here.

̽��ֱ��status quo is no longer an option

Evidence played a key part in forcing the change. With today’s UUK report highlighting that one-fifth of the providers in the sample have made very limited progress in addressing key issues around sexual misconduct, maintaining the status quo becomes uncomfortable.

Before mandatory frameworks were introduced, students created their own programmes to inform students about sexual misconduct. After national guidance was issued in 2016, universities were able to translate this momentum into policy supported by procedures and resources.

̽��ֱ��uneven progress highlighted in today’s report brings to mind my own surprise at witnessing attitudes in higher education today that date back to the era before Ireland’s Say Something and the UK’s Hidden Marks reports revealed the scale of sexual misconduct on campus. A few colleagues at other universities have come up against a reluctance to expose the scale and nature of the problem on their campus.

Advocates trying to launch a campaign like It Stops Now or Cambridge’s Breaking the Silence have found roadblocks being thrown in the way. Opponents have spread confusion and delays saying - “But we don’t have that problem here”, “It will put students or staff off applying”, and, “Well, we don’t want to look like we’re conducting witch hunts”. Have those people ever had a student sit opposite them, disclosing a raw and immensely painful trauma, and yet they told them, “Sorry, we just can’t help you”?

I do not underestimate the courage it takes to tell another person about a deeply personal and distressing incident, not least because I have witnessed it first-hand. Nor do I forget the strength of those who choose not to report, but to work through their pain alone. But we as institutions need to match their bravery with our own. As the Director of the Cambridge Rape Crisis Centre Norah Al-Ani, has said, ‘no discomfort we, as an institution, may experience in tackling sexual misconduct can come close to the suffering of a victim’.

Anonymous reporting is about victim choice

At the beginning of last month, Cambridge announced that 173 anonymous reports of sexual misconduct had been made since May 2017. In the weeks following that announcement, there were 76 more bringing the total to 249. Since the beginning of last term, six complaints have been made formally, with victims choosing to have those incidents investigated by the ̽��ֱ��. There has been much debate over the gap between those two figures.

Some people have chosen to see anonymous reporting as a tool institutions use to avoid tackling incidents. Nothing could be further from the truth. Not only does anonymous reporting give victims a greater choice in how they wish to start talking about what has happened to them, it creates a climate in which calling out sexual misconduct is the norm rather than the exception.

To place our own interpretation on why victims choose to report anonymously, and worse, put a lower value on this than on formal reporting, is wrong because it denies victims the right to make their own choices.

̽��ֱ��cornerstone to all of our work on tackling sexual misconduct is building trust with our staff and students; so that, where issues arise, they feel safe in using our full range of support services and reporting processes.

At Cambridge, this work is far from over. And in the wider sector, there is still much to be done. A recent EU study found that policies regarding gender-related violence towards young people in Ireland, Italy, Spain and the UK varied and many were in urgent need of review.

Across Europe, policies remain centred on violence between students, and some critics have argues that students who are victimised by staff do not enjoy the same level of support.

Cambridge has a staff student relationship policy that can be accessed on the Breaking the Silence website. With it, clear lines can be drawn between consensual relationships and abuses of power that we will meet with zero tolerance.

Breaking down barriers

When you begin to draw lines, clarify what sexual misconduct means and what the consequences for perpetrators will be, a rise in reports is an inevitable and important result of increased confidence in how they will be handled. See this as a positive, and you have taken a huge step in understanding, and then acting on, issues that are affecting members of your community in ways that can be devastating.

There is still much to fight for. Where barriers put up within our communities, or the wider society, are preventing victims from speaking up, we must break them down. At Cambridge, 26% of people who reported anonymously chose not to formally report because they were worried about the reactions of their friends. We all have a part to play in ensuring those around us feel safe to disclose, knowing we will believe and support them. And it is up to the institution to respond to the finding that 35% of people who reported anonymously chose not to formally report because they were worried about being considered a trouble maker. Harassment, hate crime or sexual misconduct is never the fault of the victim.

As our community’s understanding of sexual misconduct and power dynamics deepens, we must re-evaluate our definitions and policies.

This is an issue that affects the community as a whole and we must work together to remain agile in our response, to keep listening and acting.

For more information on the Breaking the Silence campaign visit www.breakingthesilence.cam.ac.uk.

One year on from the publication of landmark sexual misconduct guidance that empowered universities to investigate cases, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, Professor Graham Virgo, looks at what more needs to be done

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Yes

Opinion: Universities - listen to students if you want to end sexual violence on campus

ts657 — Fri, 09 Feb 2018 11:40:19 +0000

I chose Cambridge because I was drawn to its English course, because there was something magic about the city itself, and, frankly, because I was offered a place. I did not choose my university on the basis of whether or not it would uphold the basic duty of care that it owes to all students. ̽��ֱ�� is a total institution – we live, sleep, study and socialise here. We should not have to think twice about the treatment we will get when something goes wrong.

̽��ֱ��university’s policies and procedures surrounding harassment and sexual assault have undergone significant reform, but this momentum must be constant. Above all, the university’s agenda on harassment and sexual assault needs to follow its students lead.

It is easy to feel small here. Centuries of spires loom overhead, and you may find yourself rushing to a 9am supervision regardless of what happened the night before. It is easy for voices to get lost. But, as we are beginning to see, it is also easy to find them again.

A university’s agenda on harassment and sexual assault needs to follow its students' lead. This is why Cambridge ̽��ֱ��’s anonymous reporting tool has proven itself to be a strong step forward. A mechanism was put in place, and students are using it. It is a void into which students can send accounts of their experiences as they come to terms with them. It is a soundboard for bystanders to consider the implications of instances of assault and harassment on the wider community. It is an instrument for the university to gauge what is still to be done.

To change student behaviour, start by talking

Dialogue with students is perhaps the most vital tool a university can equip itself with. Only through it can institutions achieve consensus among students on what is and is not acceptable. Only then can places of education build structures of support founded on the genuine needs of the young people they represent.

On Wednesday, the student union Women’s Campaign published an open letter, imploring the university to update the disciplinary procedure for cases of harassment and sexual assault. This is the conversation we need – specific and co-operative, openly engaging both students and the institution that serves us.

̽��ֱ��open letter demands disciplinary decisions be based on a balance of probabilities, rather than the criminal burden of proof. This means that a claim will stand if it is more likely to be true than untrue. It’s this constant revision and addition that an issue as raw and multifaceted as sexual misconduct necessitates.

It’s easy to forget that not everyone comes to Cambridge with the same awareness of the implications of harassment and sexual assault. Our collective understanding is messy; some people are neither used to asking for consent, nor aware that it is something they can withhold themselves.

Know where to draw the line

̽��ֱ��process of securing the spaces we operate in has to be a concentric one, driven from all angles and on all levels. It’s about acknowledging that every situation that you enter has a line, no matter what the precedent. You do not have to actively hurt someone else to be implicated in their pain.

We must view harassment and sexual assault on campus as a tremor of wider, deeply embedded problems, not just as a problem of individual misconduct. It might be the corner of the college bar you and your friends dominate every Thursday night, the comment you let your friend get away with over lunch, the girl you saw standing alone on your way home after midnight.

We have to provide checks and balances for one another. Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� was the first to release anonymous reporting statistics to the media. I hope it will not be the last. ̽��ֱ��‘Breaking the Silence’ campaign is working to instil a culture of collaborative prevention and protection across the university and the city.

It can and must be bolstered further, a discussion I compel you to involve yourself in.

Aoife Hogan is the digital editor of Varsity newspaper. To read the full article, visit the Varsity website. Join this week's Breaking the Silence campaigning to increase bystander interventions to stop sexual harassment as part of National Sexual Abuse and Sexual Violence Awareness Week 2018. Download materials here or at www.breakingthesilence.cam.ac.uk.

Harassment and sexual misconduct on campus are everyone’s problem, but it's students who have the solution, says St John's College undergraduate Aoife Hogan

Megaphone

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Yes

Opinion: What Ancient Greece can teach us about toxic masculinity today

ts657 — Thu, 08 Feb 2018 10:10:19 +0000

‘Toxic masculinity’ has its roots in Ancient Greece, and some of today’s most damaging myths around sexual norms can be traced back to early literature from the time, as Professor Mary Beard discusses in her latest book Women & power: a manifesto.

Euripides Hippolytus has toxic masculinity on every page, Greek myths are populated by rapists who are monstrous or otherworldly while Medusa is an early example of victim blaming. Of course, in some texts, rapists are condemned and victims believed. But the ending is usually the same – triumph for the aggressor, tragedy for the survivor.

In Hippolytus, the titular male hero challenges sexual norms because he is celibate, by some counts asexual, preferring to spend his time outdoors. He is also a pious young man devoted to Artemis, the goddess of the wilderness, and virginity.

Aphrodite, as goddess of sexual love, is none too impressed. Hippolytus refuses to worship her. To seek her revenge, Aphrodite causes Hippolytus’ stepmother, Phaedra, to fall in love with him. Phaedra sexually harasses him, and his resistance leads her to falsely accuse him of rape in her suicide note. Hippolytus flees in disgrace and is killed. A sad tale, and far more complex than this brief summary can show.

My work training ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge students to be active bystanders, as part of the ̽��ֱ��’s Breaking the Silence campaign, has made me think more about Hippolytus and the concepts of masculinity that stretch back to ancient times.

Hippolytus’s father Theseus prefers to accept his son is a rapist rather than the fact he does not fit with the definition of a ‘real man’. What kind of man doesn’t want sex after all; what young prince left at home with his young and beautiful stepmother wouldn’t be tempted to get in bed with her? When deciding sexual and gender norms, we often make emotionally based value judgments. These create false beliefs that are some of the most resistant to truth, according to one US study.

Challenging myths and stereotypes

I cannot help but wonder whether society’s restricted definition of masculinity is contributing to the staggering statistics we see about the prevalence of sexual harassment and sexual violence on college campuses, as has been documented in the NUS report Hidden Marks. ‘Toxic’ norms of male behaviour are interrogated in anti-harassment programmes such as Cambridge’s Good Lad Initiative or the Twitter movement #HowIWillChange.

̽��ֱ��images in popular culture, from men’s magazines to Hollywood movies, not to mention pornography so readily accessible on the internet, show a very restricted kind of masculinity. ̽��ֱ��kind where aggression is rewarded and celebrated.

Is it surprising, then, that so many of today’s young men seem to lack the confidence to be OK with taking things slow? With not going out for the sole purpose of getting laid? Isn’t that what everyone else is doing after all?

Challenging myths and stereotypes is also central to Cambridge’s bystander intervention programme.

We use social norms theory to show that what is perceived as the dominant view may well not be. ̽��ֱ��‘silent majority’ is strong. And it only takes one or two people to stop being silent to change what is perceived to be normal and acceptable.

We are empowering the students in our workshops to challenge the stereotypes, to see that it’s OK for them or their male friends to be a different kind of man. Helping students to understand the culture, and perceptions, that enable sexual violence to take place is an important foundation for preparing them to be active bystanders.

Making a difference

Sex offender ‘monsters’ are as prevalent in today’s media as they were on the ancient stage. Rachel Krys, co-director of the End Violence Against Women coalition describes these stereotypes as unhelpful, allowing unacceptable behaviour short of sexual assault to be disassociated from perpetration. According to the coalition, most perpetrators “look normal, can be quite charming, and are often part of your group”. When we move away from the idea that perpetrators have to be monsters, we can begin to own and change unacceptable behaviours in our friends, our group and even ourselves.

It’s clear these are complex issues, and we know it’s not easy standing up to your friends, or going against the crowd. Intervening may be awkward, and it may feel uncomfortable. But it can make a real difference, not just for potential victims but also for potential perpetrators.

A recent study of London commuters shows that only 11% of women who were sexually harassed or assaulted on the Underground were helped by a bystander.

̽��ֱ��report describes the devastation of finding that even when surrounded by people, they were unsafe. And bystanders witnessing their abuse and doing nothing left victims with the lifelong impression that no one cared.

There are also so many different ways to intervene, and it is not just about confronting people or taking a stand in a crowd. ̽��ֱ��workshops help students practice intervention skills in realistic scenarios that could come up in their day-to-day university life, and explore the different options that may be available to them.

It has been encouraging to see how the students participating have already started to gain not only confidence, but also awareness of how prevalent some of these situations are, and how what might seem like a very small action can make such a big difference.

Are we taking at least a small step to changing the culture at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge? I certainly hope so.

Tori McKee is Tutorial Department Manager at Jesus College. Join this week's Breaking the Silence campaigning to increase bystander interventions to stop sexual harassment as part of National Sexual Abuse and Sexual Violence Awareness Week 2018. Download materials here or at www.breakingthesilence.cam.ac.uk.

Tori McKee, a PhD scholar in Classical Studies, looks at ancient and modern ways of being a man

When we move away from the idea that perpetrators have to be monsters, we can begin to own and change unacceptable behaviours in our friends, our group and even ourselves

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Yes

Opinion: We're hardwired to look away when we see someone in trouble

ts657 — Wed, 07 Feb 2018 09:00:00 +0000

It has become impossible to ignore the alarming extent of sexual harassment and violence in our communities, particularly against women

For example, 25% of female students report having been sexually assaulted (NUS, 2011).

In response to this widespread issue, the bystander Intervention Initiative was developed by the ̽��ֱ�� of the West of England upon receipt of a grant from Public Health England, a telling indicator that the scale of sexual violence is now being seen as a public health issue.

Now being trialled in seven Cambridge Colleges, the initiative is an eight-session course designed to train those who may witness a problem situation (i.e., ‘bystanders’) to act as prosocial citizens and to help prevent harassment.

̽��ֱ��program addresses our culture’s common attitudes and norms that are part of the problem (such as victim blaming and gender stereotypes). One of the key objectives of the course is to identify and challenge our common barriers to intervening when we witness a problem situation arising.

What stops us from stepping in?

While many people acknowledge the problem of sexual harassment and violence, we often do not intervene, despite our core belief that it is wrong. Understanding barriers to action is the first step to overcoming them.

In one scenario I discuss as a facilitator for the programme, we imagine a first-year undergraduate student. She is bright and sociable. Her first class is in physics, and the lecturer is very difficult to understand. During the lecture she begins to panic, thinking to herself: “What have I got myself into?! I don’t belong here in ̽��ֱ��! I’m going to fail!”

She notices that most people appear to understand the material very well, nodding their heads, and seldom asking questions. After the lecture, she approaches several students for help. To her surprise, they confess that they, too, understood nothing.

̽��ֱ��same applies to many situations, including sexual harassment; we might all register an act of harassment taking place, but group inaction reinforces a false social norm for the perpetrator’s action, which becomes increasingly difficult to challenge.

̽��ֱ��example with the student also illustrates an effective way to combat a pluralistic ignorance that leads a bystander to wrongly conclude that they are in the minority when thinking something is wrong. First identify the problem; then reach out to another person and, finally, ask questions (which you may have incorrectly thought were ‘stupid’).

Now imagine a girl at a party when a man aggressively puts his arm around her waist – she cries out, ‘Leave me alone!’ What do you do? ̽��ֱ��situation may seem confusing. You might think to yourself that maybe they are dating and just having a tiff – but that’s irrelevant to whether or not it’s OK, right? It happens again before you have a chance to do anything.

Now fear of retaliation is not always imagined – sometimes it’s better to leave and report it, or ask friends for help in stepping in.

Be the first to speak up

But there are several barriers to even taking that step. Diffusion of responsibility is a tendency for people to feel less responsible when others are present. Breaking the norm is difficult. Inaction can be justified: ‘There are so many people here, I’m only one person, why should it be my job to intervene?’ ̽��ֱ��trouble is that most people tend to feel this way when in large groups. One consequence of this diffusion of responsibility is the ‘Bystander Effect’ – the decreased likelihood of someone intervening when more people are watching.

And when a perpetrator witnesses no one in a room of 50 people saying anything about what they are doing, false consensus can encourage them to believe that the majority agree their actions are acceptable.

Say something. Anything. Simply ask what is going on, or state that something makes you feel uncomfortable. Or just ask a question to disrupt the situation.

When you step in, you’ll find others who feel and think the same as you do. Step up and you can encourage others to do the same. Do this enough times, and you begin to challenge a destructive norm and create a new culture of zero tolerance.

Join this week's Breaking the Silence campaigning to increase bystander interventions to stop sexual harassment as part of National Sexual Abuse and Sexual Violence Awareness Week 2018. Download materials here or at www.breakingthesilence.cam.ac.uk.

Psychologist Dr Philippe Gilchrist outlines three simple steps to overcoming 'bystander syndrome'

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Yes

Opinion: Women’s suffrage centenary is a rallying call for us all to take action

ts657 — Tue, 06 Feb 2018 10:26:41 +0000

A hundred years on from women winning the vote in this country, gender pay gaps, sexual harassment and everyday sexism are still making headlines.

While gender pay gaps and sexual harassment were certainly overt in earlier centuries, it is difficult to say whether the everyday sexism was more common.

While women were economically active in most sectors of the economy, and in much larger numbers than is usually thought, they could be legally excluded from high-status forms of employment by guilds and professional bodies.

In 17th century London, Samuel Pepys itemised in excruciating detail the sexual exploitation of female employees, friends and acquaintances in his meticulous diary. His actions may have been unwelcome but none were illegal unless they resulted in pregnancy. This kind of diary was fairly unusual. But the language to describe the commerce proliferating in early modern England and the language describing sex overlapped. A woman’s credit was largely sexual, whereas a man’s was financial. ̽��ֱ��range of options to discredit a woman was wide. In the introduction to the 1855 Philadelphia edition of Pepys’ Diary, it describes “almost every word in the English language designating a female, having, at some time or another, been used as a term of reproach”.

In the early 17th century, women sometimes sued name-callers for defaming their reputation. This largely disappears later, though probably because the legal defence of a woman’s reputation was no longer seen as necessary rather than that the name-calling stopped.

Feminist campaigns for equality since the mid-19th century achieved real improvements – first higher education in the later 19th century, the vote 100 years ago today, then birth control and statutory equal pay in the 1970s.

But even those radical achievements did not create a situation of equality. That is not because of any biological differences between the sexes, as some suggest. Cordelia Fine, in her books Testosterone Rex and Delusions of Gender, clearly outlines the very small biological differences between women and men.

Be aware of your bias

At least part of the answer – and it is not comforting – is that, in general, we have an ‘implicit bias’ in favour of male (and lighter skinned) people. Psychological work on these cognitive errors has been around for 30 years. We know that employers, whether male or female, rank a CV for a job application higher with a man’s name at the top than the same CV with a woman’s name at the top.

Similarly, ‘Anglo’ sounding names are preferred. One writer who ran her own personal experiment found that literary agents, who are predominantly female, were eight times more likely to respond to the same proposal coming from a (fictional) man as from a (real) woman, as Mary Ann Sieghart found out last week on Analysis.

These biases are unconscious, based on associations that are made in the culture around us, regardless of our personal beliefs. But the one thing that history can teach is that culture does change.

̽��ֱ��Everyday Sexism blog, which documents incidents ranging from trivial to criminal anonymously, as a way to share frustration and rage, is inconceivable in any previous century -- and not just because the internet is recent.

Jennifer Saul’s article ‘Stop Thinking So Much About “Sexual Harassment”’ (Journal of Applied Philosophy 31/3, 2014) directs attention away from the legal procedures and towards practical means of intervention in unacceptable situations, to intervene in the culture that tolerates discrimination.

Cambridge ̽��ֱ��’s Breaking the Silence campaign, as well as the wider movements of #MeToo and Time’s Up both speak to the possibility of changing the ‘climate’ of our institutions, even as we can expect to have to work towards that end on a daily basis.

When girls get shamed for their appearance, or boys for emotional vulnerability, or the founder of #MeToo gets abused as ‘too ugly to rape’, or one of your peers after a few too many says ‘you only got the job because you are a woman/black/asian’, it can be hard to remember that we are living in the 21st century.

Why is this kind of hatred and fear still around, in apparent contradiction to both laws and generally tolerant cultural norms?

Challenging a culture of discrimination

An institutional ‘climate’ of discrimination may arise from countless small incidents: a racist or sexist joke that passes unchallenged, for example; or a series of meetings or public forums where the voices of white men dominate.

These days, discriminatory comments may be subtle, or passing, or ‘jokey’, in such a way that makes them not worth following through with a formal complaint. Most of us don’t know how to respond in such situations, whether we or someone else is the target: we are embarrassed or freeze, hoping it will go away, or perhaps it never really happened?

But the one thing we can be sure of is that this situation will arise again. And if we do not intervene, it will continue to happen, and perhaps even more frequently. Bystander training offers options to stop the behaviour and give support to those who are targeted. ̽��ֱ��aim is to change the accepted cultural norms of workplaces and communities, even of a conversation, because most of us want to live and work in a more tolerant and supportive climate.

Sympathetic but effective interventions counter everyday sexism and racism. For example, one of the best ways to ways to deal with offensive ‘jokes’ is not to laugh. Smiling or laughing gives the speaker the impression that everyone around agrees with him.

Often comments are more thoughtless than malicious. Open-ended questions that give the speaker the chance to apologise are a good way to challenge quickly and effectively: "Why do you say that?" "How did you develop that belief?" If our first response is anger, then questions like these can help to buy time to recover our temper and think more clearly.

It can be hard to challenge prejudice without feeling like you’re making a scene or causing a fuss. It is hard to step in, and can feel costly. But as ̽��ֱ��Breaking the Silence film says, it is also hard to imagine that the cost you may experience will be equal to a victim’s suffering.

Alone, we can’t change a culture, but if attitudes are challenged, together we can change a climate of discrimination.

As we celebrate the 100th anniversary of women gaining the vote in the UK today, the fight for equality feels far from over, says historian Dr Amy Erickson

̽��ֱ��aim is to change the accepted cultural norms of workplaces and communities, even of a conversation, because most of us want to live and work in a more tolerant and supportive climate

Time's up for sexual harassment, or is it?

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Opinion: Why Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� received 173 anonymous reports of sexual misconduct in nine months

ts657 — Mon, 05 Feb 2018 13:23:26 +0000

Trust in universities’ ability to safeguard students and staff from sexual abuse will remain low until reports of sexual misconduct are in triple figures, according to Graham Towl, former chief psychologist for the Ministry of Justice.

̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge has now passed that point, with 173 reports received through our anonymous reporting tool between its introduction in May 2017 and 31 January 2018. ̽��ֱ��start of an awareness campaign against sexual misconduct called Breaking the Silence in October 2017 prompted the second largest spike in reports.

Several other universities have introduced similar anonymous reporting tools, such as the ̽��ֱ�� of Manchester, but Cambridge is the first to publish such a high number of reports.

We expected high numbers, and view it as a metric of success. It appears victims have confidence in our promise that these figures will be used to judge the nature and scale of sexual misconduct affecting students and staff, and to act on it accordingly.

Under-reporting of sexual misconduct is a problem generally, not just in universities. According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center in the US, more than 90% of those who were sexually assaulted on campus did not report it. ̽��ֱ��charity Rape Crisis describes the numbers in terms of a pyramid. ̽��ֱ��wide base is the total number of incidents, reports of incidents are in the middle and at the tip are the few that result in convictions.

Universities must step up

A number of recent high profile cases of acquittal have raised significant concerns about prosecution practices relating to disclosure of evidence. They also show the fundamental importance of the rule of law: the criminal justice system must be fair and must be seen to be fair.

But the media coverage of these cases may mean victims of sexual misconduct will be less likely to report what has happened to them to the police – and so other agencies will need to respond. Universities have a particular responsibility for their own students who have been affected by sexual misconduct, but this requires them to be able to identify and then provide support to the students who need it.

̽��ֱ��challenge is that one or two complaints a year do not give a university much information with which to formulate a response to the wider problem. Through the anonymous reporting tool, we now have a large number of Cambridge voices who have reported the issues they’ve faced. Using this data, we can start to measure the impact of initiatives and campaigns such as Breaking the Silence. But this data is anonymous, and some of it will be historic.

It supports our belief that we have a significant problem involving sexual misconduct – what we now need to ensure is that those who have been affected receive the support and guidance they need.

̽��ֱ��early signs of the impact of Breaking the Silence are encouraging. Before the campaign, 52% of those reporting recent incidents thought nothing would be done if they made a complaint. Following the launch, that has dropped to 30%. Clearly, there is work still to do, but the campaign’s message that those who report will be supported and action can be taken is starting to have an impact.

Why anonymity works for some

As part of our evaluation of the campaign, we held a series of focus groups. I was struck by one student’s comment in particular. She said the #MeToo campaign put people under unfair pressure to disclose, adding that, to her, it was wrong that victims of sexual misconduct were being encouraged to “parade their pain” in the national news.

Anonymous reporting can help survivors’ voices be heard without their rawest experiences being made public in any way. It gives them a voice in a way that is free of the fear of consequences, but also free from accusations that complaints are vexatious as neither perpetrator nor victim can be named. For some, this may be sufficient. For others, they may want action to be taken.

When speaking to our staff who support students affected by sexual misconduct, all describe students who do not want formally to report to the authorities; who do not want others to know; who do not want to have to relive their experience. These students feel there is no benefit to them in reporting, and they are fearful of the reactions of their friends or the perpetrator if they do so.

Without anonymous reporting options there are no opportunities for these silenced voices to be heard. And with anonymous reporting, these students may start to have confidence that they can come forward and be heard in person and be given the emotional support, advice and guidance they might need.

Challenging sexual misconduct is not only the right thing to do for the safety and well-being of staff and students. Universities are in a unique position to instil a zero tolerance approach to misconduct in their students which they can take with them into the future.

Graham Virgo, Professor of English Private Law; Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

This article was originally published on ̽��ֱ��Conversation. Read the original article.

In October 2017, we launched an awareness campaign against sexual misconduct called Breaking the Silence. This prompted the second largest spike in reports in our ̽��ֱ��'s history, writes Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education, Professor Graham Virgo.

Cedric Bousquet

Breaking the Science

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