Harassment in Brazilian universities: how big is this problem? The Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) as a case study

BRITO, CAROLINA; BARBOSA, MARCIA C.; PAVANI, DANIELA B.; COSTA, ANGELO BRANDELLI; NARDI, HENRIQUE C.

doi:10.1590/0001-3765202220201720

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Social Sciences • An. Acad. Bras. Ciênc. 94 (2) • 2022 • https://doi.org/10.1590/0001-3765202220201720 copy

Harassment in Brazilian universities: how big is this problem? The Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) as a case study

Authorship SCIMAGO INSTITUTIONS RANKINGS

Abstract

Harassment is a common problem in many institutions, including academic ones. It creates invisible barriers for attracting and maintaining women and other minorities at academia. In this work, we quantify and qualify this problem in one of the biggest universities of Brazil, the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). We applied a spontaneously-responded survey to 25% of its professors, 20% of its staff and 12.5% of its students. Our results present that sexual and moral harassment are very frequent in UFRGS and are not distributed homogeneously among all groups: women, black+parda, and non-heterosexual people are the most common victims. Moreover, the staff has higher percentage of moral harassment victims. We also unvealed an important problem of under-notification, where only around 10% of these cases are reported. We show that victims are afraid of reporting or do not believe in the institutional channels of reporting proposed by the university. We then discuss which type of events are perceived as harassment and the frequency at which they happen with different genders. We finalize the paper with a discussion of our results and recommendations to improve this scenario.

Key words
diversity in science; harassment in academia; women in science; sexual harassment; moral harassment

Total and Profile of the Respondents
		Professors	Staff	Students
Total	Number	739	521	4791
	Percentage	25,4%	20,2%	12,4%
Sex assigned at birth	Woman	55%	63,1%	63%
Sex assigned at birth	Man	45%	36,9%	37%
Self-Identification	Woman	54,5%	63%	62%
	Man	45,4%	36,3%	36,3%
	Travesti	0,14%	0%	0,13%
	Trans Woman	0%	0,19%	0,17%
	Trans Man	0%	0%	0,23%
	Non-binary	0%	0,58%	0,75%
	Others	0%	0%	0,46%
Race Ethnicity	White	94,3%	85,3%	80,6%
	Black	1%	5,5%	7,2%
	Parda	3,8%	8,3%	11,4%
	Asian	0,85%	0,4%	0,52%
	Indigenous	0%	0,61%	0,3%
Sexual orientation	Heterosexual	90,5%	91,2%	74,1 %
	Homosexual	6,5%	3,8%	7,7%
	Bisexual	3%	3,8%	16,1%
	Asexual	0%	0,77%	0,71%
	Other	0%	0,38%	1,4%
Other characteristics	no Disabilities	96,8%	94,4%	98,6%
	no Religion	52,9%	44,7%	58,7%
	Average age	47 y.o.	42 y.o.	27 y.o.

Moral Harassment
	Professors		Staff		Students		$χ^{2}$	p	Cramer’s V
Total number	315		270		1851
Percentage	42,6%		51,8%		38,6%		35,94	$<$ 0.001	0.08
	R	H	R	H	R	H
Woman	51,9%	67%	56,5%	68,9%	44,7%	72,9%	22.20	$<$ 0.001	0.08
Man	31%	33%	43,8%	31,1%	28,3%	27,1%	19.86	$<$ 0.001	0.09
Woman	51%	65,9%	56,8%	68,9%	45,5%	71,8%	21.50	$<$ 0.001	0.08
Man	31,6%	33,7%	42,3%	29,6%	28%	26,3%	17.13	$<$ 0.001	0.09
Travesti	100%	0,32%	0%	0%	32%	0,11%	1.56	0.21	0.47
Trans Woman	0%	0%	100%	0,37%	50%	0,22%	0.9	0.34	0.32
Trans Man	0%	0%	0%	0%	36,7%	0,22%	-	-	-
Non-binary	0%	0%	100%	1,1%	44,3%	0,86%	3.42	0.64	0.29
Others	0%	0%	0%	0%	18,4%	0,22%	3.76	0.52	0.40
While	42,5%	94,8%	52,1%	84,3%	38,1%	79,9%	34.76	$<$ 0.001	0.08
Black	56,4%	1,3%	66,7%	6,9%	41,3%	7,8%	1.61	0.03	0.14
Parda	40,3%	3,6%	48,8%	7,7%	47,9%	11,5%	7.70	0.45	0.45
Asian	16,6%	0,33%	0%	0%	41,7%	0,6%	2.45	0.29	0.29
Indigenous	0%	0%	100%	1,2%	42,9%	0,3%	3.24	0.07	0.07
Heterosexual	41,2%	87,5%	50,9%	89,6%	35%	67,1%	49.87	$<$ 0.001	0.10
Homosexual	50,3%	7,7%	55%	4,1%	50,7%	10,1%	0.16	0.92	0.02
Bisexual	68,6%	4,8%	70%	5,2%	48,3%	20,2%	6.90	0.03	0.09
Asexual	0%	0%	50%	0,7%	47,1%	0,9%	0.01	0.91	0.02
Others	0%	0%	50%	0,4%	52,3%	1,8%	2.64	0.27	0.19

Sexual Harassment
	Professors		Staff		Students		$χ^{2}$	p	Cramer’s V
Total number	77		71		567
Percentage	10.4%		13.63%		11.83%		3.02	0.22	0.02
	R	H	R	H	R	H
Woman	14%	74%	18,2%	84,5%	16,5%	88%	2.49	0.29	0.03
Man	5,9%	26%	5,7%	15,5%	3,8%	12%	4.22	0.12	0.04
Woman	14,1%	74%	17,9%	83,1%	16,4%	86,4%	2.07	0.35	0.02
Man	5,9 %	26%	5,3%	14 %	3,5%	10,9%	4.94	0.08	0.05
Travesti	0%	0%	0%	0%	31,8%	0,35%	0.47	0.26	0.49
Trans Woman	0%	0%	10%	1,4%	24,3%	0,35%	2.25	0.13	0.50
Trans Man	0%	0%	0%	0%	18%	0,35%	-	-	-
Non-binary	0%	0%	3,2%	1,4%	19,3%	1,23%	0.33	0.09	0.57
Others	0%	0%	0%	0%	9%	0,35%	0.1	0.07	0.75
While	10,2%	92,9%	12,5%	82,8%	11,6%	79,6%	2.20	0.33	0.02
Black	0%	0%	18,5%	7,8%	10,5%	6,4%	2.54	0.28	0.08
Parda	11,5%	4,2%	12,2%	7,8%	13,5%	13%	0.17	0.92	0.02
Asian	34,5%	2,8%	0%	0%	4,2%	0,2%	5.03	0.08	0.40
Indigenous	0%	0%	33,3%	1,6%	28,6%	0,7%	0.03	0.87	0.04
Heterosexual	10,1%	88,3%	13,5%	90,1%	9,7%	58,9%	7.83	0.02	0.04
Homosexual	10,4%	6,5%	10%	2,8%	13,5%	8,6%	0.48	0.79	0.03
Bisexual	18,1%	5,2%	20%	5,6%	21,7%	29,6%	0.19	0.91	0.01
Asexual	0%	0%	0%	0%	11,7%	0,7%	0.53	0.47	0.18
Other	0%	0%	50%	1,4%	18,5%	2,12%	2.00	0.18	0.17

	Professors		Staff		Students		$χ^{2}$	p	Cramer’s V
Moral Harassment	12.7%		19.6%		7.5%		89.89	$<$ 0.001	0.09
Sexual Harassment	6.5%		11.3%		7.4%		4.60	0.33	0.02

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[1] Correspondence to: Carolina Brito E-mail: carolina.brito@ufrgs.br