Browsing by Subject "sexual harassment"
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(2019)The MeToo movement struck like a flash of light through social media worldwide in 2017. Since then, the dialogue concerning sexual harassment has continued, despite the discussion remaining subdued in several places. The deep-rooted culture of silence seems to choke the words in our throats. How should the prevailing silence be broken? The purpose of this research is to investigate the forms of sexual harassment that occur at Finnish workplaces and the consequences these harassments have for individual victims and entire work communities. Furthermore, I am interested in how sexual harassment is prevented in Finland. The theoretical framework consists of definitions of sexual harassment and the MeToo phenomenon as well as an examination of current legislation, previous research and the construction of the culture of silence. The research was conducted as a qualitative study with a phenomenographic research approach. In addition, an educational-feminist perspective has been used, which is illustrated as the perception that knowledge is produced collectively and is context-bound. The material consists of five semi-structured interviews. The material collected from the interviews was analyzed using qualitative content analysis. The results revealed that the informants ask for clear practices for action when there is a suspicion that sexual harassment takes place in the workplace. Further, different ways of harassment are described as well as workplace cultures, which enable harassment, discrimination and the current culture of silence. The consequences of sexual harassment vary between individuals, two of the informants sought outside help, two did not mention the topic at work and one did not experience the harassment at work as particularly anxiety-provoking. With my research, I want to highlight concrete practices through which Finnish work communities can effectively fix and prevent the occurrence of sexual harassment.
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(2019)The #MeToo campaign started on social media in 2017, empowering women who had experienced sexual harassment and- violence. From the start the campaign was criticized for the lack of intersectionality in representation. In the autumn of 2018, the leading figure of the campaign, Asia Argento, was accused of having sexual relations with 17-year-old Jimmy Bennet. The new story presented a differing narrative from the main storyline of #metoo, that eventually resulted in heated online debates where gender, power relations and sexual violence were present and debated. The campaign has inevitably shaped society, and the way we talk about sexual violence in an online setting. This thesis focuses on the narrative of Asia Argento on social media; how she is narrated in relation to her gender and categories of #metoo and sexual harassment. Thus, the purpose of this thesis is to analyze how women are viewed on social media in the post #metoo context. The theoretical framework of this thesis builds on existing literature on feminism, gender as a cultural construct, sexual violence and power relations as part of gender and feminism, social media, hate speech and how these subjects are discussed on social media in the #metoo context in which its own communicative practices apply. The main source material is provided by Rossi (2015), Daniels (2016), Kantola (2015), Kitzinger & Thomas (1995) and Meikle (2016). The qualitative study applies feminist epistemology to analyze 75 comments collected from 5 news outlets: CNN International, the New York Times, CBS News, Fox News and ABC News. The data was collected with random sampling to enable a broad demographic of commentators, that were later fully anonymized apart from their gender. The analysis was conducted using categorical-content analysis. Argento is analyzed through three themes: women, #metoo and sexual violence. The findings indicate that white women are fair game on social media, as their appearance, merits and femininity is denied. The loss of credibility of #MeToo movement is highlighted through Asia Argento, whereas the women supporting her are processed similarly as Argento. The latest case further impacts the narrative of the victims, as the status of the victim is negotiated. The findings indicate that the power relation between genders strongly impacts how the society treats women. Victim blaming, and mob-shaming are apparent, as the social media has enabled freedom of speech. The findings further indicate that social media is a patriarchal environment, that nurtures misogyny. Hence, hostility, stereotypes and generalizations are apparent, resulting in an environment where the weak are silenced and dominant voices are being emphasized. This does not only apply to women, but to men as well, as they too are being faced with belittling and emasculation. The thesis analyzes the narrative of a woman in the era in which gender and gender roles are still being defined. It takes a closer look at social media, and how women are perceived on social media in the post #metoo context.
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