This is something that's hard to grasp in retrospect. I was sexually harassed as an undergrad, by which I mean things from a prof grabbing my breast at a party to another asking me to spend the summer with him. I was repulsed by this, but *we had no concept of 'sexual harassment at the time.*
The news coverage of the scandal was literally introducing the concept of “sexual harassment” to Americans and Biden and the rest of the Democrats were scrambling to get a grasp on it
I thought that what these professors did was vile, but it did not cross my mind that they were not just my personal cross to bear, a series of deeply unpleasant situations that I had to navigate.
There was no name for this. There was no understanding of it as a systemic problem.
You can talk theoretically about the difference it makes when you name something, the power language gives you, but this is the example that brought it home to me: It never occurred to me to REPORT the profs to anyone. It never occurred to me that there might be an administrative response.
I was kicked out of my graduate program after refusing the advances of my thesis advisor, and the only official person I reported it to (the graduate advisor) turned it back on me: "Why did you choose him as your advisor?" Low point of my life, even though I'm glad now that I'm not in higher ed.
That's atrocious, I'm sorry. Your instincts are right, there are way too many abusive jerks in higher ed and they love to bully grad students and junior faculty. We all have stories I bet, though few as gruesome as yours.
Well, the whole Higher Ed business is a lot different now than it was when I was a student in the 80s. The jobs are not as good, and the professors don't get the same respect they used to. Many things have improved, but the quality of the job has declined, I think.
Some of the jobs are as good as ever. But the job market, at least in the humanities, has cratered, so going to grad school is a bit like playing the lottery.
I quit my major after being harassed by a prof. The hearings were on at the time, Hill was being ridiculed and dismissed. I saw that and didn't even try to report it.
