Women in universities share experiences of harassment

Academia is the latest industry to be shaken by widescale allegations of sexual assault in Sweden, with students and researchers raising their voices in a Facebook group aimed to draw attention to the problem, reports The Local.

Thousands of Swedish women joined the global #MeToo campaign, in which women shared their personal experiences of harassment in the wake of claims that Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein raped and assaulted several actresses. The social media campaign has been followed in Sweden by numerous industry-specific 'petitions' signed by thousands of women calling for concrete change in the fields of music, theatre, law, politics and tech. Now the experiences of women in academia will also be published in one of Sweden's biggest newspapers, after being collected by a Facebook group called 'Akademiuppropet', which has gained thousands of members.

"We have had a really big response. The goal is to highlight the things which are specific to the university world," Evin Ismail, one of the administrators of the group, told Upsala Nya Tidning. "There are clear hierarchies and many people who are dependent on others. Female doctorates who have been affected within a situation where they're dependent on their supervisor is a common experience."
Full report on The Local site