"Either pose naked for me, or don't pass the exam." Stories of ordinary gender discrimination in cultural heritage

There is the student of a leading Academy of Fine Arts who receives a proposal from her professor to pose nude for a publication. Following the refusals, the professor confronts her with the possibility of not being able to pass her exam: the girl does not receive the support of the director and finally decides to change institutions. Then there is, again in academia, the professor who subjects his female students to continuous discrimination, believing that women lack culture and are less intelligent than men, not being afraid to air this unhealthy thought of his during classes. And then there is the employee of a foundation in Lombardy who is hugged and kissed by one of her superiors, but cannot report the incident due to the absence of witnesses and fear of repercussions: she ends up losing her job because of this incident, which moreover, she recounts, has deeply scarred her and changed her behavior and the way she relates to others.

The three stories just reported are dramatically true: they are stories of ordinary gender discrimination in the field of cultural heritage, and it is a much more widespread phenomenon than one might think. A picture made up of dismissals as a result of harassment suffered and rejected, blackmail, verbal and physical abuse: this is what emerges from a research conducted by the Mi riconosci riconosci? collective, which deals with work in the cultural heritage sector and collected almost a thousand (877 to be precise) testimonies and opinions to learn in depth about the extent of the phenomenon. The work lasted two months and involved a mostly female sample (87 percent of the testimonies collected) in all sectors of cultural heritage: museums, archives, foundations, academies, universities, libraries, restoration, archaeological sites, music and more. “Among the respondents,” points out Benedetta Lisotti, an activist with the group Mi riconosci, “almost 60% think that in their sector career opportunities are conditioned by gender, while more than 30% said they had experienced sexual, verbal and/or physical harassment at least once. Finally, more than 55 percent of respondents believe they have witnessed discriminatory or sexist attitudes in the workplace or training. Such occurrences in more than 85 percent of cases did not result in consequences for the people who committed them.” Data all the more serious when one considers that in Italy, in the cultural heritage sector, the workforce is composed of women by a percentage of around 70 percent.

Activists from the collective Do you recognize me?

It ranges from simple jokes, often heavy and unpleasant, to more or less explicit attempts to approach, which sometimes turn into physical assaults. Not to mention the discrimination against women on maternity leave, an issue that plagues almost all work sectors. Problems that add to a context often made up of precariousness and denial of the most basic rights. “When we decided to launch the questionnaire,” remarks Ester Lunardon, an activist with Mi riconosci? among the promoters of the survey, “we knew that a gender problem existed in our sector. Precariousness and exploitation, which thrive in our sector, create fertile ground for gender discrimination. This situation seems clear from personal experience, direct or indirect, but it remains too often difficult to measure, to describe with numbers, and therefore to report. We launched the questionnaire to collect data and testimonies, but we did not expect so many incontrovertible responses. These are very serious data, and stories that deserve attention. These results show that there is a very serious gender-related problem in the cultural sector, which too often has so far been avoided and wanted to be perceived as such.”

The problem, in short, is considerable and evident, and opposing injustice is not easy: usually, women who suffer harassment are subjected to riciattatory mechanisms that accentuate the victims’ vulnerable condition and are a source of very heavy hardship (there are those who have seen their living conditions change for the worse, those who have lost their jobs). And it would be wrong to think that this problem concerns only women: it is an issue that affects everyone. “The survey,” Lisotti explains, "is aimed at everyone and anyone involved in the sector, without any distinction. In fact, it is not a problem related to the individual, but to labor relations that turn into power relations and dynamics of prevarication. The message that the Mi Recognize collective wants to send to the community is to denounce, not to remain passive and passive, to talk about it with other people. It is necessary to create a collective consciousness that recognizes and opposes these phenomena because the problem is primarily cultural."

Pieter Paul Rubens, Susanna and the Old Men (1609-1610; oil on panel, 198 x 218 cm; Madrid, Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando)

Fortunately, there seems to be a growing perception of the problem. In November 2017, U.S. researcher Karen Kelsky circulated an online questionnaire on sexual harassment in academia that caused quite a stir and also became the subject of attention in many major U.S. newspapers. “Sexual harassment,” Kelsky wrote on her blog, “is on the rise in academia as in any other field. The entrenched hierarchies of academia, the small size of many research fields, the preponderance of males in almost every field, the culture of collegiality (read: of evasiveness and simulation), and the desperate dependence of junior scholars on good references in order to advance their careers, create the conditions for abuse, sexual but also of other kinds, to flourish with impunity.” The stories collected by Kelsky can all be accessed online. And there are chilling ones, with even episodes of rape, development of depressive illness, suicide attempts. In Spain, the Colegio de Doctores y Licenciados en Filosofía y Letras y en Ciencias in Madrid has conducted, together with CRAS - Centro Revolucionario de Arqueología Social, an investigation into sexual harassment in archaeology, and the Italian Confederation of Archaeologists is doing the same in recent weeks.

The results of the collective’s research Do you recognize me? will be presented on Thursday, June 13, at 11 a.m., at the International House of Women in Rome, in a public meeting addressed to the press and citizens. In attendance will be activists from Non una di meno, Cristina Anghinetti from the board of Archeoimprese, Angela Abbadessa from the Italian Confederation of Archaeologists, Rita Paris, president of theBianchi Bandinelli Association, and other guests to be announced soon. The goal of the study is also to spread increasing awareness of the problem. “It is important first of all to become aware of it,” Lisotti concludes, also speaking on what could be done to reduce or curb the phenomenon. “From the responses we received, it appears that many people did not know how to react and were afraid of the possible repercussions, so it would be necessary to know more about what rights and protections are available, as well as when and in what cases it is possible to file a complaint. The ideal would be to increase counters for counseling and legal advice, as well as to spread a culture of respect and equality in the workplace and training.”

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