Like many academics, I have over the years experienced various situations of abuse and harassment. I developed coping strategies that helped me to move on, but they were not necessarily positive for me. I believe that opportunities to share and reflect on experiences of abusive situations provide one of the most constructive ways to find healthy strategies to counteract this type of behavior.
I was spared during my first semesters in academia. Apart from a few incidents of wandering hands at department parties, most lecturers treated me with respect. I was completely unprepared, however, for my first encounter with my future supervisor in France. I was excited to be there, but when I went to see her after class, her gaze remained trained on the wall behind me, signaling clearly my inferiority and insignificance as she coldly explained that she would not meet with me until next year, and only if I passed my master exams. She also advised me that on days when students came out of her office crying, it was better to postpone the appointment. During my five years as her graduate student, there were many such days when I consciously avoided her out of fear of bursting into tears in front of her and everyone else. All her students feared committing faux pas in her presence, as she could be mean enough even on a good day.
This was the history of the department. Her predecessor had made her suffer tremendously for years and years as a lecturer and it was only by playing power games that she had finally attained this position. She was not a particularly brilliant or successful researcher, but she was a ruthless strategist who held the entire department in thrall to her persona.
She was not ready to open up to anyone at that time. Later on, during the long periods of illness that finally led to her death, her attitude changed, and one day soon after I had defended my PhD, she apologized for how she had behaved during my first years as her graduate student.
I was lucky to be able to work on my PhD at an international research institute, although I didn’t have a grant and had to work in different projects on the side. It was a vibrant environment with scholars of all ages and nationalities passing through. Being abroad made them more open and accessible than at their home institutions. I was happy and inspired to share ideas with researchers with common interests and with whom scholarly exchange was independent of age or gender. Or at least that’s what I thought.
One day I was sitting together with a local colleague on a little bench outside the library of the international institute. He was a senior researcher, but we often sat there together, discussing our research, new publications or interesting buildings. But today was different. The air was thick. He obviously felt it, too, for he was sweating and breathing heavily.
“It’s very simple,” he said, “you do something for me and I’ll do something for you. You can begin by filling in this form and returning it to my post box within a week. Then I’ll know and can make arrangements accordingly …”
Who in my position wouldn’t want a grant to spend a semester at a prestigious research institute? It would be an ideal opportunity to write my dissertation with a full salary, with access to an amazing library and renowned scholars. But it was not due to my intellectual capacity, research topic or innovative methodology that I would receive this. None of these things were of interest in this exchange of services. Shame, disgust and guilt surfaced in my mind and I could feel the tears burning. But I didn’t want anyone to know about this shameful experience, so I kept a straight face. A few days later he reminded me to turn in the grant application. I did so without having filled it out. He pretended it had never happened, but he never, ever discussed research with me again.
In a job interview a couple of years later, I mentioned the situation as an example of how I had dealt with harassment, and I later learned that this had got me the position. It was outside of academia, but it was also an opportunity to finish my PhD without exchanging services with anyone.
When I returned to academia as a postdoctoral researcher, I needed to go on longer research trips to reconnect with the field and my topic. I also re-established contact with researchers I knew from before, many of whom were close to retirement, but very knowledgeable in the field. One of them had spent all his professional life working on the same period as I specialized in. When I was on a research visit in the city where he lived, he invited me to stay at his house.
“Come and stay at my place,” he said. “No reason to take a room at the institute, there are so few. I can introduce you to my networks here and we can discuss your work after hours.” I agreed, of course, eagerly.
This was followed by several exciting meetings with interesting colleagues, long days of archival research and long evening talks about the history of the discipline and the current research environment in our field. It was such a pleasure to finally get to know a senior researcher who understood and appreciated my work. There was a wonderful intellectual connection that developed and made me feel more confident about my own value and contributions as a researcher.
One night I was awoken by someone slipping under my covers.
“I can’t sleep,” he said. “I need to feel the warmth of another human being.”
I slipped out of bed, went into the kitchen that smelled of cold tobacco and spent the rest of the night on a plastic chair smoking and staring into the dark, concentrating very hard in order not to cry. The bond of trust and equal dialogue had obviously only existed in my mind. All that was left now was sadness, anger and disappointment. I left early in the morning, before he woke up.
We stayed in touch because his work was intertwined with mine through documents and connections that I could not disregard or avoid without coming across as unprofessional. I remained silent for years, until he passed away.
In the numerous recommendation letters he subsequently wrote for me, one sentence was recurrently used—a person with an extraordinary integrity and loyalty.
The vulnerability to harassment may decrease over the course of a career and with age, but exposure to abuse of power, unclear distribution of (or exclusion from) responsibility and non-transparent decision-making processes are power strategies that can be just as intimidating, confusing and disorienting. The effects of such behavior can be similar to that of gaslighting, when the perpetrator manipulates another person into doubting their perception of reality.
When such a situation recently occurred at my workplace, my reaction was surprisingly different from twenty years ago. Instead of heavy, cold silence and guilt spreading in my mind, I could not stop myself from expressing anger and frustration. As floods of angry tears rushed over my face, I gave voice to my thoughts about the situation. This time I conveyed my opinion to a person mature enough to take the emotional reaction and who was wise enough to allow me the space and time I needed to reformulate my thoughts into something constructive. But I was also confident enough to express my anger and cry without shame, and mature enough to take a step back, analyze the situation and find a solution that was positive for me.
Harassment and abuse, whether emotional or physical, are ways of maintaining power structures. They can also be a source of pleasure for the perpetrator. They are means of controlling or isolating strong individuals who are perceived as a threat, or weaker individuals considered easy prey, denigrating their intellectual capacity and equal rights.
One recurring observation I have made of academia in general, and the humanities in particular, is that students and young researchers are especially vulnerable due to the nature of the field, lack of funding and lack of permanent positions. This situation opens up a space for individuals in power positions to abuse or harass those with less power. Sometimes this behavior seems to be hereditary within a department, following the logic of “my professor/supervisor did this to me, thus I’m entitled to behave the same way when I attain the same position.” Sometimes it is attributed to a certain individual who is so brilliant that no one dares to question their behavior, although it is clearly that of a bully.
The culture of silence and guilt that protects the perpetrators needs to be addressed and dealt with. I know from experience that it is difficult to deal with something like this on your own. In addition, the unbearable shame of crying in an academic environment makes us keep it all to ourselves. It took me two decades before I was confident and mature enough to cry without shame in front of my boss. We need to raise awareness and create possibilities to share experiences and get advice anonymously. Although it may be difficult to eliminate harassment and abuse completely from any workplace, opening spaces where experiences can be shared can strengthen those exposed to it and diminish the personal and professional damage it causes.