The eighth of March: a matter of practices
By NextGenerationCEC
What are the practices for and why are they being discussed?
Harassment and gender violence are unfortunately, once again, and not only on the 8th of March, part of our everyday life. They interfere with our work and study environments, the spaces that we inhabit, and where we build our subjectivities in our interpersonal relationships with others.
To tackle this problem we need efficient tools, in order to respond to both macro and micro harassment to which we might be exposed, and to be good allies should someone close to us experience a situation of abuse. Feminist debates often refer to the necessity of finding and adopting new practices to be implemented individually and collectively; but what does this concept mean exactly?
At a general level, a practice is a determined individual or collective course of action. It is a course of action that is structured in a specific form and tends to be repeated and shared during collective dynamics.
For a long time harassment and gender discrimination were accepted practices, behaviors, and ways of thinking which were considered normal or not particularly serious (“Just have a laugh!”, “He was just joking”). Unfortunately, academic environments are familiar with this problem and, as people who work and study in university, we ask ourselves what we can do to improve the situation. Feminism has taught us that to enact a transformation there are four fundamental things to consider:
1) the critique of accepted reality, of so-called 'normality';
2) the sharing of experience, which from 'private' becomes collective, and therefore political;
3) the identification of dynamics or structures that require change;
4) the proposal of new courses of action and new alliances.
To build a fair society for everyone the first step is to deconstruct the practices and the systems of toxic dynamics that enable abuse, harassment, and discrimination. Universities are a fundamental part of our lives and they are not immune to these kinds of issues, it is, therefore, necessary to enact change within them as well.
It is fundamental to acknowledge critically the behaviors we adopt in our everyday lives out of habit or imitation. We need to break these habits and ask ourselves which dynamics are born out of them and proceed to rethink them. This process is developed through our shared experience of situations we perceive as harassing, even when they appear socially acceptable and widespread.
And what then? We then have to use our imagination and our work to find new ways to live together. Constructing new practices as alternatives to the established, intrinsically sexist ones, requires researching these themes, questioning the issues of gender, and letting us be challenged by them.
It is vital both to explore the thinking of feminist scholars, as well as refine the tools and strategies to enact this change. Praxis and theoresis are, after all, not separate: the first is always the necessary condition of the other in the ways in which we think and act. Numerous European Universities have acknowledged the necessity of spreading awareness and critical thinking on the subject of harassment. On one hand, they have promoted training on the subject with inside courses for the personnel and the student community, and on the other, they have drafted guides as an immediate answer to situations of harassment. European institutions in Austria, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Spain, and Italy have started a process that we intend to adopt and continue, starting from our personal shared experiences and utilizing the scientific knowledge that we are able to produce collectively, creating tools for those who experience abuse and harassment as well as those who want to help as allies. This is a necessary step to generate a real effect on a global level
and create a community worthy of the times we are living in.
This text was drafted collectively by Valentina Bortolami, Giulia La Rocca, Giovanna Miolli, Clara Mogno, Costanza Padova, Amelia Vietri.
