Discussion List for campus-based and allied personnel working to end gender-based violence on campus.

["Mahri Irvine" <>]

Dear All,

 

I'm in a training program for students who might one day be professors, and
in our brief discussion of sexual harassment, we watched "No Real Winners",
a film about sexual harassment in academic institutions from the mid-1990s.
Egads! It was bad!

 

I was thoroughly unimpressed with this film: it subtly suggested that
perpetrators of sexual harassment are often the victims of honest
misunderstandings. It definitely seemed to be victimizing the perpetrator,
and in one of the case studies, the producers didn't even bother to
interview the victims at all-they only told the story from the perp's side,
and of course the perp implied that the victims were just trying to make
money off of the case, and that he was just bewildered by the whole chain of
events.

 

Do any of you have recommendations for sexual harassment training films that
are specifically directed toward people in academia? It would also be
wonderful to find a film that includes a discussion of power hierarchies
(patriarchy, racism, etc.) and how those influence perpetrators and victims.

 

And if you know of a good film that isn't relevant to academia, please let
me know anyway. I'd be much happier recommending a GOOD film that has
nothing to do with academia than have my training program continue to show
this dreadful one year after year.

 

Thanks,

 

Mahri Irvine

PhD Student

American University

Department of Anthropology

 

You're looking at a species of flimsy little two-legged animals with
extremely small heads whose name is Man. (Rod Serling, The Twilight Zone)