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Attitudes to Sexism and the #MeToo Movement at a Danish University

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We explore the relationship between academic employees’ attitudes to modern sexism and the #MeToo movement to better understand how interventions designed to address sexual harassment might be received in Danish academia. Using a survey of employees at a large Danish university (N = 1128), we categorised employees’ open answers about their attitudes to the #MeToo Movement as (a) positive, (b) ambivalent, or (c) negative. These categories were associated with employees’ modern sexism scores, such that those higher in modern sexism were more likely to be negative about the movement, while those with lower scores were more likely to be positive. To better understand possible sources of resistance to policy interventions, we used an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design to analyse the open comments for themes related to employee’s negative attitudes towards #MeToo. The two most prominent themes were: (1) delegitimisation of the purposes of the movement, and (2) perception that the rights of potential sexual perpetrators were more important than those of potential victims. We discuss the implications for the implementation of interventions targeting sexual harassment.
Original languageEnglish
JournalNORA - Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research
Volume29
Issue2
Pages (from-to)124-139
Number of pages17
ISSN0803-8740
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - May 2021

    Research areas

  • #MeToo, Modern Sexism, Sexual harassment

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