Organizational norms of sexual harassment and gender discrimination in Danish academia: From recognizing through contesting to queering pervasive rhetorical legitimation strategies

Abstract

Studies of sexual harassment in professional contexts, including academia, provide detailed explanations of the predominance and pervasiveness of sexist organizational norms that enable harassing behavior—and offer a thorough critique of the structures and practices that support and reproduce these norms. When sexist organizational norms are linked to acts of sexual harassment, it becomes clear that harassment is systemic, and that organizations tend to justify and excuse the very norms and behaviors that propagate harassment. Focusing on the context of Danish universities, we do not ask whether sexism exists in Danish society generally and in academia specifically, but rather, why issues of systemic sexism and normalized sexual harassment have been ignored for so long and how sexist organizational norms have been maintained. Based on an investigation of prevalent rhetorical strategies for legitimating sexual harassment and gendered discrimination, we discuss how recognizing these strategies may translate into concerted action against them. Introducing queer organization studies as a lever for such translation, we suggest that a norm‐critical approach may, first, explain how currently dominant norms offer sexist excuses for continued harassment and, consequently, delegitimize and change these unjust norms and the untenable practices they support.

The Persistence of Sexism and Racism at Universities: Exploring the Imperceptibility and Unspeakability of Workplace Harassment and Discrimination in Academia

“…For my study, it demands being attentive to how intersectionality comes to matter in the context of this study rather than simply assuming that it does. form has been presented in Guschke et al, 2019;Guschke, Just, et al, 2022;and Guschke & Sløk-Andersen, 2022).…”

“…Thereafter, I describe the study design as well as the actual research process, that is I move from outlining my intentions and plans for this study to a reflection on how the research was implemented in practice. As I wrote an article together with Sine Nørholm Just and Sara Louise Muhr based on parts of my empirical data, some of the reflections and descriptions in this part can also be found in the article 'Organizational norms of sexual harassment and gender discrimination in Danish academia: From recognizing through contesting to queering pervasive rhetorical legitimation strategies' (Guschke, Just, et al, 2022).…”

“…The most notable factors, as identified in the interviews, that come to matter are power relations and in/formal hierarchies, personal-professional relations in an international academic setting, competition, precarity, and individualism, the ideal of academic freedom and the glorification of conflict, a belief in meritocracy and 'enlightened' academia, untouchable 'star' academics, as well as what has been referred to by interviewees as 'the Danish way'. In a shorter form, I describe these contextual mechanisms in an article I wrote for Gender, Work and Organization in coauthorship with Sine Nørholm Just and Sara Louise Muhr (Guschke, Just, et al, 2022). In the article, the contextual mechanisms are used to situate the empirical data as the article draws upon data from my PhD research whereas here, I extend the description of the mechanisms as they are a core part of my analysis.…”

“…The insights provided by interviewees who have experienced harassment and discrimination themselves and who were met with delegitimization provided supplementary starting points for the analysis. The (de)legitimization strategies presented in this part have also been used in an article on 'Organizational norms of sexual harassment and gender discrimination in Danish academia' that I wrote with Sine Nørholm Just and Sara Louise Muhr (Guschke, Just, et al, 2022). While the article analyses these strategies as 'rhetoric legitimization strategies' and argues how research can move 'from recognizing through contesting to queering' such strategies, I use this part of my dissertation to outline each strategy in nuance and detail with the aim of understanding how they work together and reinforce each other in reproducing workplace harassment and discrimination.…”

“…Three articles were published in 2021, one in Ephemera on sexual harassment in the university and the military context with Beate Sløk-Andersen (Guschke & Sløk-Andersen, 2022), and two on norms and norm critique -topics that I have been exploring and working with closely wherefore they are important part also of my dissertation -in Women, Gender and Research with Jannick Friis Christensen and Human Resource Management Review with Jannick Friis Christensen, Kai Inga Liehr Storm, and Sara Louise Muhr (J. F. Christensen et al, 2021;. This year, in 2022, an article I wrote together with Sine Nørholm Just and Sara Louise Muhr on sexual harassment and gender discrimination was published in Gender, Work and Organization (Guschke, Just, et al, 2022) as well as a book chapter with Jannick Friis Christensen and Thomas Burø on Sara Ahmed's work on affect and her influence on organization studies (Guschke, Christensen, et al, 2022) -maybe unsurprisingly, an influence she has also had on my research. I do not deny that partly I wrote these articles because I know that the advice that it is essential for a career in academia to publish articles is not wrong.…”