Diario Feminista, a leading Spanish outlet in this field and the only one publishing daily, has published today an interview with Mar Joanpere, the director of Daily27. The interview celebrates her remarkable accomplishment of winning the university professor contest and highlights her pivotal role as the first survivor to successfully win a sexual harassment case in Spanish universities. At Daily27, we extend our heartfelt congratulations to Mar Joanpere for her achievement and her relentless dedication to supporting and protecting survivors.
—-
Today we interviewed Dr. Mar Joanpere after hearing the excellent news of winning the selection process to obtain the competitive position of university professor. An achievement for all victims and survivors, since she was the first to win a case of gender violence in a Spanish university. Diario Feminista, which has already had almost 11 million visits in different countries, has been, is and will always be in favor of the victims, and for all to be survivors it will continue to promote the required legislative and institutional changes.
Can you list the reprisals that have tried to prevent you from getting a full-time contract?
Since I reported the sexual harassment case I was suffering, being a Master’s student, the inputs I have received have been that if I got into “this” my academic career would never progress, especially when I became the first victim to win a sexual harassment case in a Spanish university. Even people with high positions of responsibility in Equality in universities have warned me that if I kept reporting, I would never achieve a stable position because no university would hire me. It has been exactly ten years in a precarious position and with these discouraging messages. I would also highlight all the attacks received that have tried to undermine my image and especially that of people like Ramón Flecha, for having always stood by my side. Attacks to which many times, unfairly, I have had to give an explanation or try to deny and that are creating a narrative against those who stand with the victims that seriously affects the fight against harassment in general but also in particular in our lives and our closest environments. Finally, I would highlight the direct consequences of all this, which are reflected in the comfort of universities in preferring some of the people who do not raise their voices and remain submissive than someone who takes a stand with the commitment to improve the university institutions themselves.
How did you achieve to be the first victim to win a case in a Spanish university?
I achieved it not because I am special, nor different from anyone else, but by the mere fact that unlike many other victims I received selfless, supportive and unconditional support. And thanks to this, I am still at the university today. Professors Ramón Flecha and Marta Soler from CREA showed me their support from the very first moment when they realized the harassment situation we were suffering, without even having seen me before. Then also Professor Lídia Puigvert from the same center gave us all her support, being a professor of the Master’s degree in which we were suffering the harassment. It is no coincidence that they are in the top 10 of the GoogleScholar ranking in GenderViolence. Their determination to support us allowed me to counteract all the inputs I was receiving from other parties encouraging me to abandon my studies or to remain silent. Their support was very risky and compromised as they had been suffering Isolating Gender Violence for years because of their positioning, but despite this, they decided not to leave us isolated. And in fact, once again they were attacked. I have conversations during those months very present, especially with Flecha of whom I remember very well a call from Brussels that deeply changed my fear for hope, because with his support I felt that we could do anything to end that situation. Without these people we would never have gone from victims to survivors.
The current MeToo of journalists is clarifying the impunity that existed in the media that attacked you. Is there a causal relationship between the two events?
Of course, whenever victims and those who support them are attacked, it is because there is a lot to hide. This case is the best example, in 2016 some journalists from the media of the Catalan Corporation of Audiovisual Media and others launched themselves in defamatory campaigns without any proof or evidence. If you throw enough mud, some sticks. They tried to silence us and to eliminate us at all costs with very cruel personal attacks. Now what we all imagined is known, the media that attacked us the most were allowing with impunity very serious internal harassment cases that are now coming to light thanks to the courage of their survivors. The causal relationship is evident, those who attacked the most are precisely those who are now most silent in the face of the MeToo accusations of journalists.
You are one of the most active members of MeToo University worldwide, what are you achieving?
Our biggest achievement globally is the contribution on Isolating Gender Violence (IGV). People always talk about victim protection mechanisms, but our contribution has shown that you cannot protect victims if you do not protect the people who support them. It is essential to establish mechanisms that protect those who protect victims, thus putting an end to the IGV. We have developed pioneering contributions in this regard by analyzing the consequences of IGV even in the field of health. Thanks to these contributions, we have opened bridges of dialogue with political parties, social movements, entities of all kinds, which has allowed us to achieve the first world legislation in the Catalan Parliament on Isolating Gender Violence, approved unanimously. This achievement has opened a door that has been joined by other parliaments such as that of the Basque Country, moving the debate to an international level as in the case of countries such as Brazil. In addition, we have promoted a change in scientific associations with the incorporation of the prevention of IGV in their ethical codes, as in the European Sociological Association. The achievements to end IGV are creating much safer environments for victims because more and more people feel protected to support and protect those who need it most.
Now that you are teaching at the Julius Maximilians Universität Würzburg (Germany), have you been leading the way against GBV there as well?
Yes, in fact, even before I arrived there I had an online meeting with the heads of the university’s equality unit, who were very interested in hosting a representative of MeToo University at their university. Two months before my arrival we were already organizing meetings and sharing proposals with a lot of enthusiasm, unlike what I have usually encountered in other contexts. In the last four months we have held more than four meetings with the equality officers, the equality office technicians, the equality officers of the different faculties, etc. in order to establish collaboration mechanisms, see how they can incorporate aspects such as IGV in the elaboration of their protocol and share effective mechanisms in the attention to victims. They have welcomed MeToo with a sense of pride in this collaboration, dedicating all the official activities of the university to give voice to MeToo University with different precious and very profound acts. These dialogues have allowed for example for me to be able to intervene at their request in the resolution of a case of harassment by a student, or for all students to have received a message from the equality unit informing them of the problem of harassment in the university context and where they can turn if they know or suffer any problem in this regard. To these dialogues and this co-creation of proposals I would add the determination of some university deans to find ways of collaboration to put an end to what they call “misunderstood power” or the abuse of power in the matter of harassment. Many universities deny dialogue with MeToo for fear of being questioned, Würzburg has smartly acted as the world’s leading universities do, opening their doors to dialogue and collaboration to offer the best solutions.
You are a surviving victim, a winner, do the good ones win in the end on this issue?
If I am especially happy to have won, it is because I see this as giving hope to many other girls who feel the same vulnerability I have felt when faced with something so big. I see this achievement as a collective victory of kindness and courage because we showed that things can change and we are already changing them. I would say that the winner here is solidarity. Without the solidarity I have received, I would not have won. The commitment to continue changing things through goodness and truth wins. Those who decide to look the other way, not to act and even attack more and more will be marked forever, and this victory proves it.
You can read the full interview at Diario Feminista.