{"id":1868,"date":"2025-04-17T23:29:49","date_gmt":"2025-04-17T22:29:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/?p=1868"},"modified":"2025-04-18T07:20:47","modified_gmt":"2025-04-18T06:20:47","slug":"misogyny-in-the-research-centre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/?p=1868","title":{"rendered":"Misogynistic Bullying in the Research Centre"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The 21 Group has received the following report of misogynistic bullying in a UK University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bully is the Director of the Research Centre, the victim is a woman on a fixed-term contract. How many times do we see this in our universities? To be a woman on a fixed-term contract is frankly unsafe in many UK universities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many facets of misogyny are apparent in the testimony. The bully has a history of “bullying women in junior positions to himself, including administrative staff”<\/em>. Many of the women are “fearful of the consequences and career implications”<\/em> and don’t pursue disciplinary action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One woman did courageously stand up for herself. The response of the bully is the well-known pattern of DARVO<\/a>, first described in Freyd (in 1997 in an article in Feminism & Psychology, 7<\/strong>, 22<\/em>). The acronym stands for “deny, attack, and reverse victim & offender<\/em>\u201d. The bully presents himself as the victim, and those who tried to restrain him as the wrong-doers. However, with trade union help, she was able to win an internal disciplinary procedure — obviously the University is not Cambridge who always side with the bully!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there are two stings in the tail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, the chair of the disciplinary panel told the victim that she had to some extent brought the bullying upon my own head by being “aggressive<\/em>“. This again is familiar misogynistic territory — a man is assertive, a woman is aggressive. He shows leadership, she’s controlling. He’s committed, she’s obsessed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Secondly, after the charge of bullying was upheld, the University made the bully Head of Department. This is very common in universities. Promotion is the reward of bullies. Universities seem to have no concerns about the safeguarding of women, or about possible repetition of bullying behaviour with new victims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The main reason why bullying is so persistent in universities is that bad behaviour is rewarded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“I had only been at the university for about two months when the Director of the Research Centre that employed me left amid considerable rancour.  There had long been disagreements between him and the University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was employed on a short-term research contract, the most insecure of all contracts in the HE sector. The University renewed this many times over the 12 years it employed me, breaching employment law. It  paid a five-figure redundancy sum when I retired … but that is another story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Director had long had been in conflict with a man who was, on his departure, catapulted into the role of the new Director. Let\u2019s call him R. He had it in for me from day one, largely because I was the previous Director\u2019s appointee. When I later spoke to this previous Director about R\u2019s behaviour towards me, he suggested there was an element of racism there. I am inclined to agree. I am a white woman of Irish\/British heritage who studies African history. R is of Asian heritage, and made it clear from the very start in his communications with me that he couldn\u2019t tolerate the idea of a white woman studying African issues. That to me is anti-intellectual. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

R began picking on me at every opportunity, both face to face and in emails. This involved querying my intellect; testing my knowledge; belittling and scorning me, especially when it came to Africanist scholarship issues; failing to involve me in a large funding bid for research on Africa even though I was the only staff member who studied African issues (he did not, and the bid failed). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

R already had a reputation at the university for bullying women in junior positions to himself, including administrative staff. (Unfortunately, none of these women, who included a close friend of mine, took this up as a higher disciplinary level, beyond reporting it. They were too fearful of the consequences and career implications.) I responded robustly to R, both verbally and in writing, and discussed the bullying with my official mentor, a department head who did not work at the Research Centre. He in turn took it up with the then Dean of the faculty, who was a close friend of R’s. The Dean did nothing about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For at least a year I decided not to take this further, though I did seek union advice. For one thing, I knew it would be extremely stressful if I took action against R. He was also in a powerful position as a professor and permanent member of staff while I, as a mere contracted researcher, was not. But I began to compile a dossier of the emails and other communications that provided evidence of bullying. It amounted, in the end, to 50 pages. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then R made a major error, and mailed the Dean and the faculty\u2019s chief administrator, accusing me<\/em> of harassing him<\/em>. I responded by initiating a procedure, with union support, which successfully used the University\u2019s own bullying and harassment policy against R. The union also advised me that the action would have to include the Dean too, since he appeared to have failed in his duty of care towards me. And so it came to pass. The University had to bring in an external, independent team of investigators. It cost them thousands. By this time, R had been forced to quit as Director because the centre\u2019s other staff strongly opposed him and his style of management. But I had by then decided that I should pursue this action in order to stop him from bullying any other women in future. In my view, and that of others, he was a career bully. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The inquiry process was indeed very stressful. But I had excellent support from my UCU rep. The panel largely found in my favour, against both R and the Dean, who was found guilty of lack of duty of care. Though I was annoyed when the female chair of the panel told me that I had to some extent brought the bullying upon my own head because of my \u2018aggressive\u2019 behaviour towards R.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That did not stop the university appointing R to a Head of Department position shortly afterwards.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The 21 Group thanks our correspondent, We are always pleased to receive the testimony of the victims of bullies in academia. Their voices should be heard. If you have been bullied, please use contact@21percent.org to tell us your story.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 21 Group has received the following report of misogynistic bullying in a UK University. The bully is the Director of the Research Centre, the victim is a woman on a fixed-term contract. How many times do we see this in our universities? To be a woman on a fixed-term […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1868"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1887,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1868\/revisions\/1887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}