Hello everybody, good afternoon. Welcome to the
second session of the webinar series for the
prevention of gender-based violence at schools.
My name is Raquel Sánchez-Ruiz and I am, well,
apart from being an Associate Professor and,
sorry, an Assistant Professor and the Vice Dean
of Academic Planning and Teaching Staff at the
Faculty of Education in Albacete, dependent
on the University of Castilla-La Mancha,
I'm also the leader of the e-tweening group,
e-tweening for future teachers in Spain.
There we do different training sessions and we share
experiences on e-tweening and e-tweening related
issues for initial teacher education institutions,
which in Spain corresponds to faculties of education.
So I would really like to thank
my colleagues Ana Martínez y Guiomar, UNED
and the full team for inviting me here today.
I'm going to introduce Guiomar Merodio, who is
who is an Associate Professor at the Department
of Research Methods and Assessment in Education
at UNED University. She's also a member of the
research group Grupo Inter and editor of the
scientific journal Géneros. And she's the
coordinator of the UNED group that participates
as a partner in the European TeachXEvidence project.
So I give the floor to her. Thank you very
much for being here today as well and to Guiomar.
Thank you. Good afternoon. Welcome to this
second webinar of the European TeachXEvidence project.
Thank you again, Raquel Sánchez, for your
support from the e-tweening for future teachers
group in Spain and INTEF in organising these three webinars.
Thank you also to the Faculty
of Education at UNED and UNED Media.
So this afternoon we are having the second webinar
of the TeachXEvidence project led by full
professor Lidia Puigvert at CREA, the University of Barcelona.
The aim of this project is to
overcome gender-based violence by creating
capacities and resources for the education
professionals and fostering an European network
of researchers and practitioners that co-construct
educational interventions based on scientific
evidence with social impact. Before introducing
our keynote speaker, please note that the seminar
will be recorded. Anyone who does not wish
to appear on the screen has the option to
turn off their camera and the session will be
conducted in English, but you will be able to
view real-time translation of spoken content
into captions in another language through Zoom.
So to activate this option, go to the bottom
Zoom bar and activate the subtitles by choosing.
your preferred language, Portuguese, Spanish, whatever.
For this second seminar, I have the
honour to introduce you to Dr. Garazi López de Aguileta,
who will deliver on very important issues such as
preventive socialization of gender-based
violence, masculinity models and consent.
Garazi López de Aguileta holds a PhD in Curriculum and
Instruction from the University of Wisconsin-Madison
in the number one school of education according to
international rankings. She is a La Caixa Fellow
and she is a member of the community of research
and excellence for all, CREA, where she conducts
research on the development of language of desire
towards non-violence. She has published her work
in scientific journals such as Journal of Urban
Health, Language and Education, Language Teaching
Research or Cognitive and Credit, among others.
Furthermore, López-Aguileta holds a degree
as a soprano from the Liceo Conservatoire.
Thank you, Dr. López-Aguileta, the floor is yours.
Thank you very much, Guiomar. First of all,
for this wonderful introduction and for the whole
project for inviting me. I'm really happy to be
able to provide this part of the webinar and this
evidence on such an important topic.
I will go ahead and share my screen, but I just told Guiomar
a few minutes ago that I will leave some time
at the end for questions or comments, but if
throughout the presentation you want to ask more
about a specific point that I'm talking about or
if you want to stop me at some point, just let
me know or let Guiomar know and we can have a.
dialogue as we go. So, now I will share my screen.
And I think now you can see the full screen, the.
full presentation mode. No, not yet. Okay, let me try again.
Not yet? No.
Maybe try to do it again. Because it looks like it's...
You still can't see the whole...
No, not the full presentation. It looks like it's going to.
.. but then it stops. Something.
happens in between. Maybe you can share the full screen.
Okay.
I'm sorry, let me try again. Yes.
Okay.
So, I would like to share my whole screen and then maybe that's...
Yeah, perfect. Thank you.
Now.
Now? Okay, perfect. Okay, thank you.
So, as Guiomar said, today the topics that I will
touch upon are the socialization process,
masculinity models and consent, which are
all intertwined and they are part of the same
topic of the preventive socialization of gender violence.
But this is the index that I will follow.
So, first, I will go into the first.
topic, the process of socialization to understand
that violence is something in which some people are socialized.
It's not something that's biological.
It's not something that's inherently human.
It's a social topic. So, I will talk
about some of the science, some of the evidence.
behind how some human beings are socialized
into this normalization of violence.
So, first, I will not get too much into the
detail of the number of the ratios of violence,
because we know, we can see it, that the degree,
the amount of violence that's happening in
schools, in the street, in the leisure spaces, in
everywhere, it's huge and it's really alarming.
We have really alarming numbers of data that
show how many women and girls, and especially.
at a younger age, are suffering violence.
For example, just to name some relevant data,
the World Report on Violence Against Children
notes that schools are often not safe spaces,
but they are rather spaces where some children
suffer violence every day, and the school is
an important site where many students suffer violence.
We see, for example, that 30%.
of male students have been bullied, and 28.
2% of female students have been bullied. 33% of.
male students have bullied others, and 19.
2% of female students have bullied others.
So, we see that this is part, I mean, we see it in
the data, but I think we can also see it in the.
media, in the everyday interactions, that
violence is present in schools in different
ways, in physical violence, or in psychological
violence, or cyber bullying, etc. It's something
that we have to tackle. So, that's why we are
talking about it today, because as teachers,
we, or you teachers, are some of the people who
spend more time with students in their everyday
lives, in the spaces that are most important, or
where most of their life takes place. So, you.
have a responsibility to undertake their safety
in the space where they spend most of their time, of their day.
But what the research shows is that
in many cases, teachers or other adults who are,
who surround children or students, undermine
the violence, or often don't see the violence
that surrounds them. Sometimes we, as adults, we
put some opaque glasses, and we don't want to see
it, we don't want to identify violence.
Sometimes we justify it, saying that it's a children's
thing, or that it's normal, or saying that it's
not so, if it's not physical, it's not so serious,
or even if it's physical, sometimes we think,
especially with the younger ages, we think that
it's a, you know, a game, or something like that.
But the evidence shows that this type of
normalization is really serious, and it has really
terrible consequences. And since we are talking
about a project that's called TeachXEvidence,
we have to look at what the evidence shows.
We can see it very clearly in aspects in fields
such as medicine, that we need to use scientific.
evidence to base the treatments, to also see the
causes of some illnesses, and to see how to treat them.
And we need to do the same with violence.
We cannot treat it as something that's part of the,
of society, as if we couldn't do anything,
or we cannot treat it as something that's, that's a game.
It's a really serious issue.
So we need to go to the scientific sources,
to the scientific evidence, to look for the
causes, and also to the solutions.
And that's what we are going to talk about today.
We are bringing you some of the best evidence,
some of the latest evidence on the serious
consequences of violence, but also on
on how it is socialized, how people are socialized
into it, and also how it can be overcome,
because it's, as I said, a social issue.
So the first thing that we, that the evidence,
that science tells us, is that we have to stop
normalizing or trivializing violence.
It's, that's where the first problem comes,
when, especially when we are talking about.
young children, we tend to see this as a game, or
as something that's not so relevant, or that's,
you know, we don't give it too much attention,
or we don't give it too much focus.
And so we normalize violence, we trivialize violence,
and that has really negative consequences.
So for example, one of the teachers said, we have
to be role models to them, we have to be clear
about how to act. Saying nothing happened, when
there's violence, no problem, when one child
hits another, it's because it happened, right?
But we often say, are you okay? Are you okay?
Well, it wasn't that much. It was nothing.
If children see these kind of attitudes in us, it's normal
that children will also say, will also say it was nothing.
They have, as you know, teachers that are
role models for them, especially for the younger
ones, but also for adolescents. And so, as we know,
children don't learn mostly from what we say,
they learn from how we act, and what we do.
So we have to act in a responsible way.
We cannot, we cannot turn our back to any sort of violence,
we cannot turn our backs to any student who
comes to us, explaining that they have suffered
violence, we have to give a response.
And it has to be a response based on scientific evidence.
But this is something that it's, as I said,
it's really very much predominant in society,
this trivialization, or this not paying
so much attention to violence, or even.
normalizing it as something that's usual, and
something that's, that just happens in among
adolescents or among children, saying things like,
as I said, it's a game, or it's a children's thing,
or even going further, saying that it's part
of learning and development, or turning to more
violence when you when when we say if someone
hits you just hit hit them back or hit harder.
These are lessons that they are learning every
day from adults. So again, the first thing that
we need to do when when we are talking about
violence, when we tackle when we want to tackle
violence from schools, is to first look at
ourselves and look at our environment and see
what are we doing to what what do we do when
there's violence. So we have to kind of open
our eyes and realize that there are tons of
violent situations that we oversee, and that we
don't pay attention to. And so we need to first
recognize and first identify those those moments,
and never let them go away as if nothing happened.
We always have to take violence very seriously.
Otherwise, we are sending children the message
that it's not so important, or that, you know,
or that it will not have any impact on them.
It's not true. Any type of violence will have.
huge impacts on on any student, but especially
it will have impacts or it will have.
more serious consequences if we don't act to
stop or to prevent this violence. So that's why
the evidence always talks about promoting safe
spaces or promoting zero violence spaces from age zero.
This means that since the moment that
children are born, we have to be we have to make
sure that they live in a in a safe space, that
they live in a space that they are situated in
a space where there is no violence, or if there
is violence that we will act against that we will
act to stop this, this sort of violence.
We can never normalize violence, not even when it's.
about when we are talking about children who are
zero or one year old. We can never normalize it.
We have to stop it. The earlier we stop it, the better.
So we know that there will be instances
of violence, but we cannot we can never turn our backs to it.
We always have to give a response
and give and reject any form of violence.
And it doesn't matter if they are five years old or
two years old or just one year old.
We can never not respond to violence. We have to we always have.
to give a response that shows rejection towards violence.
And then if those of you who are maybe
who are teachers in high school, who are thinking,
sorry, the other way around, for those of you who
are teachers in elementary school or in primary
school or elementary school or even in their
garden, we know also that there are higher rates
of violence in when students are adolescents.
And I will get into that in the more further in the in the webinar.
But what the evidence shows as well is that.
That the roots of violence in
adolescence also take place during childhood. So.
we for those of you who are teachers of younger
children, of children, even the age of five,
there is violence happening here.
And many students start normalizing violence at this
age if we also normalize it. So it's not just
something about adolescence or it's not something.
about more older children. It's something that
that surrounds that happens to children regard
of all ages, regardless of the age.
And we have to act always whatever age our our children have
our children are. Here, for example, you have
a research, a scientific article that shows.
a successful education action in a nursery, in
a nursery school, which takes some of the which
implements some of the evidence that I would talk about.
Mostly not normalizing any form of violence,
even among very even with very young children.
Why? Because there are victims everywhere and
we cannot leave victims isolated. We always have
to help them and especially the most unprotected.
ones. Some of the data show and we know this that
many children are victimized because of their
sexual orientation or their skin color or their
culture or religion, etc. So we know that there
are some students who are even more vulnerable
or even more at risk of suffering violence.
And these children are in our classrooms.
We might you might even start thinking of.
identifying some some instances in your classrooms.
So we have to be very mindful of
anyone who is suffering violence, but especially
those students who might be more at risk or more.
vulnerable to us when facing violence.
So, as I said in the beginning, the fact that there is violence when
children are so young doesn't mean that it's
a natural thing for human beings or that it's a
biological thing or that it's something inherent
in human beings. It's not. It's something that's purely social.
We learn to or some people learn
to behave in violent ways, the same way as other
people learn to not act against violence. So.
all our feelings, our desires, our tastes, who
we feel attracted to, everything is social.
And this is where we find the root of gender violence,
which I will get more in depth into towards the
end or towards the middle of the presentation.
But it's really important to understand that.
violence is not something inherent to human beings.
It's something that is constructed.
It's something that's fed or that is made bigger
due to or as a consequence of the social responses.
that we give to anyone who is doing violence.
And so this has a negative side, which is that.
many children today or even more children today
than maybe a few years ago are socialised in
normalising violence and even seeing violence as attractive.
But it also has a really positive side
or a really positive aspect, which means that
if it's social, it means that it can be changed
and we can change our response to violence.
We can change how we feel towards people who.
exercise violence and we can change our desires
and our attraction. But the basis or what is
clear, super clear in the scientific evidence
is that there is nothing biological about.
any of these issues like love, desire, attraction, etc.
So violence is not biological. It's something
that we have constructed, that is socially constructed.
And how people react to violence
depends on such socialisation, not on any
biological factors. And here, when we talk
about how we respond to violence, it's also
really important to understand the difference,
to see the difference between emotions and feelings.
And this is what Eric Kandel, he's.
one of the, he's probably the main neuroscientist
in the 21st century or in modern neuroscience.
First of all, he showed, he's not the first one
who has showed this, but he has theorised and he.
has provided tons of evidence showing that our
brain, even our brains, are changed through social
interactions and social experience.
For example, this book, this is what is considered the Bible
of neuroscience. It contains some of the latest
evidence and the latest studies and the most
important studies in neuroscience. And he shows,
or he starts the book by saying that after anyone
reads this book, their brain will be different.
Actually, this idea was introduced or the one
who discovered this neuroplasticity, this
ability of our neurons, of our brains to change,
was Ramón y Cajal. And he talked about human
beings being the sculptures of our brains.
So, here we see that we have evidence,
even from neuroscience, that shows us that.
how people behave and how we react to violence is
not something biological, but it's influenced by
the interactions and the social experience we have.
So, Eric Kandel, based on this
neuroplasticity or this ability that we
have to construct and to sculpt our brains,
talks about the importance of distinguishing
between emotions and feelings.
Emotions are the set of physiological responses that occur
more or less unconsciously when the brain detects
certain challenging situations. These automatic
physiological responses occur both within the
brain and in the body. There are some key aspects here.
First of all, it's really important to
understand that emotions are, to some extent,
they are unconscious. So, this would be the.
unconscious or the kind of first reaction
towards anything that happens around us,
for example, violence. When we see a challenging situation or when we see
violence or when we suffer violence, there is a response.
There is kind of an automatic response
to this situation that is unconscious, that we don't control.
And this is a response that happens
in the body, but also in the brain, but also in the body.
So, it's a very physical response.
This is the first response that happens when, as
I said, when we suffer violence or when we see.
violence or when we face any sort of challenging situation.
But then we have feelings, and these are very different from emotions.
Feelings are the conscious experience of those somatic and
cognitive changes that we feel in our body and in our brain.
They are the conscious perceptions of these emotional experiences.
So, the main difference between emotions and feelings is that
whereas emotions are mostly unconscious or to
some extent they are an unconscious reaction,
feelings are totally conscious. Feelings are the
conscious perceptions of our emotional response
or our emotional experience. Why is this so
important, especially when we talk about.
violence? But always, this is hugely relevant
because we have to remember that what makes us
human and what makes us different from other
animals is that we have feelings, that we have
a conscious, that we are aware of our feelings,
that we are aware of how we respond.
And so, we are not like any other animals that just react
to situations. Now, why is this important when we.
talk about violence? Because this goes back
to the justification that's always given to how we react to violence.
Sometimes it seems like it's something we cannot control,
but when something happens to us, when we are
facing a challenging reaction, that we only react.
in the way that our body responds, which would be the emotion.
But understanding that feelings are
conscious and that feelings are perceptions,
our conscious perception of how we react
means that we can change our feelings.
And this is super important because.
we can react, we can have some emotional
responses, some emotions when we face violence,
but then we can make those emotions conscious,
we can have dialogues around how we feel,
around how we have responded, and we can
change our feelings. So, we can have a control,
we can be the sculptors of what we feel.
So, this is super important. Also, to understand what I.
will explain in a few minutes, because again,
it means that how society deals with violence.
is social, that how we react to violence is
social, because we have the ability to change
our feelings if we want to. And the way to do
that is to be conscious of how we are feeling,
of how we are responding to violence, and to
have dialogues around how we want to respond,
or how we want to feel, and what we want to
desire, or what we want to focus attention to.
So, now I'm going to explain what this word
socialization means, which I'm sure all of us
know, or we can have an idea of what it means.
This is a process that from sociology has been
studied a lot, and it's really important
to understand how human beings are formed,
how we are the way we are. Socialization is a
process through which individuals of society
or culture learn and internalize a combination
of rules, values, and ways of perceiving reality.
So, this gives individuals the necessary
capacities to develop themselves in the
social interaction with other individuals.
As I said, and we know this, no one is born
with a specific taste or a specific desire.
If I like classical music, it's not because I was born
with some gene that made me like classic music,
or if I like to dress this way, it's not because
I was born like this, but it's because of the
socialization that I have received.
It's because of the interactions that I have had throughout
all my life, even before I was born, when we
know that children even receive interactions
when they are in their mother's womb.
All these interactions that we have make us who we are,
and this is the process of socialization. It's.
the rules and the values and the ways of
perceiving and acting in reality that we
learn and internalize through participating in
our context, through social interactions with our context.
This is explained by Herbert Mead in
a very interesting way in which he talks about,
because this sometimes when we talk about
socialization, then it means that all of us
like the same things and all of us feel the same things.
That's not true. And there are people who
have different processes of different ways of in
which they have been socialized, because we are
very diverse human beings and we have very diverse interactions.
So we don't always internalize the
rules or the values of the people around us.
We can have a response to them. So, for example,
Herbert Mead explains that with every interaction
we have, every social interaction we have,
we have that within us. So when I speak to other
people, I have all those interactions within me,
but then I decide how I respond to that. I can respond by.
going along the way of the or giving into those
interactions, or I can respond by rejecting.
those interactions or by rejecting the rules
and the ways of perceiving reality that those.
interactions promote or impose in many places.
But we always react in some ways, either following
along the interactions that we have or rejecting them.
That's how we learn how to behave and that's
how we develop our identity and our taste, our desires.
Again, we are not born with it.
There is no evidence that shows that a person is born
with the biological structure that says that they
will like salty food and they will not like sweet food.
This is not the case. No one is born with.
some biological determination of taste or desire or attraction.
This is purely social.
And we learn this and we internalise this through social
interactions with the people around us.
Even our memory is constantly being changed, as
Santiago Ramón y Cajal has said, and then Kahn said,
we are in a constant reconstruction and construction of our memory.
So, everything that we are is because of the
interactions we have. And if taste, desire, feelings, etc.
are social, love is also social.
This was a very revolutionary idea and it still
is a very revolutionary idea. But when Jesús
Gómez was the one who published and who did
actual research showing that love is social,
and this was in 2004, in a moment when there
was almost no theories or no scientific works
around love, it was something that was not really.
studied or it was thought to be more mythical or
more something that was not tangible or something
that was not really worth studying.
There were some authors and some theories that did try or.
attempt to study love. For example, Beck and
Beck-Gernsheim have made relevant contributions
to the study of love. And they talk about, for
example, if it has gone from being a lifelong
relationship to a relationship that is maintained
under certain conditions, or in love everyone is
responsible and guilty for his or her actions,
everything is done with intention and will.
So, they did make contributions to understanding that
we have an agency and we can have actions or we
take actions and make decisions when it comes to love.
But even within the very few authors who
studied or who tried to study love as something
scientific did not really get to this point or to
this key, which is that love is social.
And in fact, when Jesús Gómez, who initiated this research.
like when he attempted to study to see what was
being studied until that moment, until the 2000s,
and he read all those, well, the few theories
that there existed about love, he constantly
heard this or read these ideas that we still
hear sometimes that love is something chemical or
that it's something like a lightning that
strikes you or that it's something magical.
So, love is something, love and attraction and desire,
but it's something that has been talked about.
as something, as a mystery or as something magical.
And it's nothing like that. Love is something,
again, purely social. We learn who to love through
socialization, through the social interactions that we have.
We learn who to love.
We learn who to choose, which is different from,
sometimes different from feeling attraction.
We learn who is desirable. We learn who is,
who is, who will give us pleasure, etc.
And this is something that children, that all humans,
all human beings learn from a very young age.
And I will get into it from the field of language,
which is the realm I have most training through
my dissertation. But we, as teachers and as people
that spend most of our days with children
or with adolescents, we have to know that.
all the interactions that we have and that
they have around relationships or even around
friendships or different types of relationships
are building the patterns that they will have
of who they like or who is desirable or who is attractive and who is not.
So, as I said, we are socialized and we learn
how to feel, we learn who to desire, we learn
all these things through interactions.
Interactions mean that means or include
interactions within the family, especially when
children are younger, they give more importance.
or the role model that's more relevant for them
are usually the parents. But then, especially when.
they become adolescents, the family often takes
a step aside or is no longer the main agent in
their socialization. And then friends or the peer
group becomes the main agent of socialization,
along with the Internet, social media,
traditional media like TV, etc., TV shows.
The school is also an institutional space where they socialize.
But mostly what we see in the.
evidence is that the social, that the interactions
that have the greatest influence in children and
especially among adolescents are the peer group.
They can have a positive or negative influence,
but those are the ones that we have the most, the biggest influence.
Usually, they will care more about what their peers or
their friends think than what their teachers or
their parents think, especially as I said, when
they are younger, they still give importance to
their parents or even to the teachers.
The teachers are one of the main role models for them.
But when they become teenagers or early adolescents,
they no longer place such an importance,
give, they no longer give such an importance space
or place in their interactions to parents and.
teachers. So, we also have to know that because
we know that in order to tackle violence from
schools, we cannot do it alone. The teachers or
the families cannot do it alone, but we have to
do it at the peer level, at the level that is
most meaningful and more important for them.
So, as I have explained, there are many studies
that show that interactions within the peer group
are the most important ones when we talk about
who is desirable, when we talk about who is,
who they love, who they like, who they feel attracted to, etc.
And also, it's really important to know that,
again, as I said, don't just think that.
the younger ages don't matter, don't have such
an important role in this aspect, because what we
know also is that the first relationships, all
relationships are important for a human being,
but the first one is the most important one.
It's the one that will mark that pattern of attraction.
It's the one that will, in some way, solidify the
pattern of who they feel attracted to, who they desire, etc.
This doesn't mean that if the first
relationship they have is violent, all
of their relationships will be violent.
It doesn't necessarily mean that, but what we do know is that.
if the first relationship of a young child or
an adolescent is violent, and especially if the
response that is given in the environment and
within that person is not of the rejection of.
that relationship, but rather to remember that
relationship as something fun or positive or
desirable, this will have very negative consequences
for the future, because it will build a pattern.
in which that person remembers the first violent
relationship as attractive or desirable or as fun.
And this will build who they are. This will build
an identity of someone who feels attractive to
people who disdain them, who are violent to them, etc.
So, the first relationships are always key,
but as I said, it doesn't mean that there is no
room for transformation. We can always transform,
regardless of the age, but it's really important
that we pay attention to the first relationships
and not just to the experience itself, to the
relationship itself, but to the interactions
that they have around those relationships
and the interactions that we have as or that
you have as teachers around their relationships. That's really key.
We know that there is a lot of violence
in sexual affective relationships.
For example, 25% of adolescents have experienced psychological
or physical abuse in their dating lives.
So, we know that in many cases today, when
we talk about the adolescents today, or even.
younger children, we know that most of them or
many of them will be marked by violence or abuse.
or some sort of harassment. We see that this is
increasing, that today, the adolescents today
have more violent relationships. It's really hard
to find a first relationship that is based on.
freedom and on love than maybe it was a few years ago.
Actually, now, well, this is from the.
2000s, but probably the data are even more
worrisome today. Girls who had been, for example,
other data show that girls who had been assaulted
in high school were more likely to be assaulted
in their first year of college and so on.
This is what I was talking about when we talk about this
pattern of violence. It doesn't mean that
this pattern cannot be broken or stopped,
but we do know that people who have been
victimized or people who have had violent
relationships when they were younger are more
likely to be re-victimized in other relationships.
And why is this? Here, I will talk about
the source or the root of the problem,
which is the dominant coercive discourse.
So, going back to the issue of love being social,
what we know in addition to being social, what
we have seen is that there are many different,
there are different processes of socialization.
We are very diverse human beings and we have
different tastes, different desires, different
things that we like or that we feel attracted to.
or different people that we feel attracted to.
But what we have found is that there is a main or
predominant pattern of socialization or a model of
socialization that links attraction and violence.
What does this mean? This means that there is
a dominant coercive discourse that is promoted
through interactions, through imposition,
especially among adolescents. It has really.
strong power among adolescents.
And there is a discourse that forces them, that imposes.
this association between violence and attraction.
And this influences their socialization process.
You can find this article, explains the coercive
discourse in a very good way because it shows.
how not just the existence of this pattern of
socialization, but it shows the extent to which.
adolescents are influenced by this.
Because in this study, they compared the perceptions of
girls towards boys in different European countries
and they found the same pattern. They found the
same coercive discourse present in adolescents
from very different countries, from very different.
socioeconomic contexts. And we see, we have the
evidence that shows that many girls, not all
girls, and this should be clarified, but many
girls feel attracted towards the bad boys or
towards the aggressive boys, towards boys who
even disdain them or are violent with them.
We see, we don't just see this in the
evidence, but we see this in the media.
For example, there is a study that shows that delinquency
increases dating outcomes by making the delinquent.
more attractive to prospective mates.
We know that when a boy goes to jail for having killed.
his girlfriend or having raped her or done
something violent, there are boys, there are.
fan clubs that are created for those boys after going to jail.
So, there are boys who receive.
more attention from many girls after they have
committed some crime or some violent acts against.
women. And at the same time, on the other side of
the coin, and this is something that I will talk.
in the second part of the presentation, many
girls see the nice guy as the one who is funny,
but it's not, or sorry, funny, strong, romantic, etc.
, but not, but sorry, they see the,
they talk about the nice guy as in danger of
becoming too nice or the loser. We see this.
idea of the nice guy being the ideal type,
especially for a relationship, for a stable.
relationship, but not the, but often they
talk about them as being too nice or even.
too boring or losers, etc. So, how is it discourse transmitted?
This is really important because we
can see this first throughout history.
This is something we have been socialized for history,
I mean, for centuries in this course of discourse.
It has now become, well, especially since the 50s
or 60s, it has become stronger and it has a
greater influence among adolescents, but we
cannot deny or we shouldn't forget that we, that
as human beings, as societies, we have received
this kind of message for centuries.
With the example of Casanova, or for those of you who are.
from Spain, you might be familiar with, now I
don't have the name, well, I forgot the name,
Guiomar, maybe you remember? I will remember it at some point.
Don Juan, yes, thank you. I couldn't
remember the name. We are, I think many of us are
familiar with Don Juan, the figure of this womanizer
who tricks girls, who disdains girls, who just
wants to conquer them as if they were prey,
nothing else, not seeing them as women or as
people to love or to have a relationship with,
but just as something to conquer. In Don Juan, for
example, it's because of a bet with another man.
We see this also in other classical art or
literature or music, for example, in Rigoleto,
we see the same figure throughout years,
throughout history. So, we should start from
this basis, from recognising that throughout
history, we have received, we have learned that
the womanizers or that the figure of the men who
are supposed to be attractive are the violent ones,
or they are the dominant ones.
So, this is just to understand that we are fighting against
something that's very deep in our society.
It doesn't mean that this cannot be fought,
or that we cannot do anything about it, but we
have to be mindful that this has been in our.
social imaginary for centuries. But as I said,
it's becoming stronger in the last decades,
and we can see it all over the media, for example, in movies,
Fifty Shades of Grey, or after which is maybe
more recent, a street or the classical street
kind, street car named Desire, or Gone with the Wind, etc.
In all of this, we can see the same or very similar pattern in which
the popular person or the popular guy,
the guy who receives more attention, more
attraction, the one who is seen as the desirable.
one, is always dominant, or it's always someone
who has some aggressive or even violent or
disdainful attitudes. And the movies, most of
them put all the glamour, all the excitement.
in this voice. Also, the songs, for example,
Rihanna's famous song, Love the Way You Lie,
we see it's not just about voice, but we see
that in general, there are many messages,
many interactions that we receive, and especially
adolescents receive, that lying or that
disrespecting someone or disdaining someone is
cool, or is something desirable, it's something exciting.
So we are teaching them or many things
in society are teaching them that they should be.
hooked on someone who disdains them, that they
should be in love or that they should feel.
attracted to someone who treats them with disdain
or humiliates them, or is even aggressive to them.
It's not just something about the media, it's
very easy to blame social networks or the media.
But sometimes we do it also, sometimes without
even being aware. For example, this post is a
few years old, but it's very illustrative of how
sometimes we react, as I said in the beginning,
to how we normalise and we trivialise violence.
This is a father that makes a post on Facebook,
explaining that, as you can see, this is
his daughter's face after another boy.
hits her, who by the way, I think it says
something, yeah, she's four years old.
So, as we see, this happens in very early ages.
So this girl who is four years old is hit by another
classmate in her school. As you can see,
it's a very serious aggression. It has really
physical, really serious physical consequences.
And when he takes her to the hospital, the nurse
tells the girl, where is it? I bet he likes you.
So the nurse, this adult person who is supposed to.
have a response to reject violence, not only does
she not reject this aggression that the girl has
suffered, but she tells her, she sends the message
that if someone hits her, it's because he likes her.
We are constantly surrounded by these messages.
We are bombarded by these messages,
because we are told again and again, and we tell
children and adolescents that they should feel
attracted to the bad boys or to the bad people.
And so this means that there can be violence in.
all kinds of relationships. Also, something that's
really important to understand when we look at the
evidence is that there is not only violence in
stable relationships, there can be violence in
stable relationships, but there is also violence
and there is especially more violence in sporadic relationships.
And what we see by the evidence is
that the coercive discourse is more influential.
when it comes to sporadic relationships or
one-night stands or hookups than when we talk
about stable relationships. For example, we have
a lot of evidence that shows that, or going back
to the article that I mentioned about the girl's
perceptions about the boys, in the study, the.
authors made a questionnaire or made a vignette
test to participants, to adolescents, showing
different pictures of boys, the same pictures of
boys with different profiles. So, one picture of
a boy, for example, said something like, described
the boy as a nice boy, and then the same picture.
of the same boy, after a few pictures, showed
the same boy, but with describing him as someone
aggressive or someone who is dominant.
So, they asked them first whether they liked or whether
they felt attracted to those boys for a stable
relationship, and then whether they were attracted
to them or they would choose them for a sporadic relationship.
Most of the girls said that they
would not choose them for a boyfriend or for a
stable relationship because they have associated,
because they know that they are supposed to have
a nice boyfriend, that they are supposed to have
an egalitarian relationship, etc.
, when it comes to a stable relationship. But the coercive
discourse tells them that when it comes to hookups
or when it comes to one-night stands, they should
choose the violent ones. And so, most of the
girls, when asked about whether they would choose
or what type of boy they would choose for
a sporadic relationship, almost all of them
chose the violent one, the boys with the violent descriptions.
So, we can see that the coercive
discourse makes a really double standard between
choosing the nice people or the egalitarian people.
for stable relationships, but choosing violent
or dominant people for hookups. So, that's why
we talk about disdainful hookups, which are hookups
or one-night stands, which are dominated by.
violence, which are full of humiliation,
disdain, rape, even murder in some cases.
And so, when we talk about violence in adolescents or
in young children, we have to recognise that,
or we have to know that there is more violence
or that the biggest risk comes in hookups.
This doesn't mean that all hookups are violent.
Of course, there might be hookups which are egalitarian.
So, it's not really about the duration of the relationship.
There can be relationships that are five minutes long and that
are wonderful, or there can be relationships that
are five years old and they are a nightmare.
But what we see is that the coercive discourse.
mostly pressures girls to have disdainful
hookups, to choose violent boys for hookups,
for sporadic relationships. And this is an imposition.
Today, for adolescents especially,
it's really difficult to say no to this kind of
pressure because they receive it all the time.
All the questions that they make, for example,
in the peer groups of "you're still a virgin" or
"you still haven't kissed anyone" or "today we're
going out with how many boys are you going to
hook up with" or things like that.
All these kinds of conversations that are going on,
if you are a high school teacher, you know
that this happens in your school every
day, every week, after the weekend.
There are questions about how many did you hook up with or
you still haven't slept with anyone or things like that.
And so, all these interactions put huge
pressure on many girls and also on boys.
I'm mostly talking about the girls and their
attraction towards boys, but we can see that.
this pattern of socialization in violence also happens for boys.
Excuse me because my battery is dying.
I will connect my computer.
As I was saying, the pressure is huge.
It's really difficult today for an adolescent to be able to.
reject this coercive discourse because it's super serious.
It's an imposition. It's really hard for
them to have the self-confidence and to have
the awareness and the critical awareness that
they don't have to go through this if they don't want to.
Most of them, or actually none of them, want to.
When we talk about these painful hookups,
we have done a lot of research with adolescents
asking them what was their first kiss or their
first sexual relationship like. For all of them
that we have asked, it's not a representative
sample, but the ones that we have talked to,
for all of them, it was a disaster.
It was dominant. It was violent. It was aggressive.
It was disdainful. It was humiliation.
It was painful. It was an experience that they didn't
enjoy, in which they didn't feel any pleasure.
All of them said they didn't want to do it,
that they only did it because they
were pressured, because their friends.
told them that if they want to be cool,
they have to give in and they have to
do what their friends say. But none of them wanted to do it.
What we see is that they don't want to have these
relationships, but because of the pressures,
because of the interactions that are given in
their environment, in which to fit in or to be
cool or to be regarded as the popular ones,
you have to hook up with the disdainful voice.
This is the message that they are receiving every day.
This is one of the most important things that we have to tackle if we
want to prevent or overcome violence.
So, this is what I was saying. They know very well
how to distinguish a type of boy or a type of.
girl, but now focusing on boys. The girls know
who is good or who is considered appropriate
for a relationship, for a stable relationship,
but they also know who they are supposed to see
attractive for a sporadic relationship.
So, for example, this girl said, "I wouldn't go out with a jerk.
" When saying "go out," she means in a
stable relationship, "I wouldn't go out with a jerk.
" But for a while, yes. They make this
separation because the coercive discourse
makes this separation between stable and sporadic
in the sense that a stable relationship has to be
egalitarian, it has to be based on values, but
it will be boring, and then they will have fun.
in sporadic relationships with the jerks or
with the bad boys. This is all made up by the
coercive discourse that is imposed. And also, as I
was saying from some of the research that we have
done with adolescents, all of them actually
recognize that they didn't enjoy those relationships.
in which they were forced or they were disdained
or even physically hurt. They didn't enjoy,
they didn't have any, they didn't feel any
passion, any desire. But then what we see about
the coercive discourse is that it not only forces
or pressures adolescents to have those kind of
relationships, it also pressures them to talk
about those relationships as if they were fun
or attractive or exciting. So what these
adolescents told us is that they felt that
after those relationships, which for them were
those hookups, they were a disappointment for them.
But when they went back to their friends,
they didn't feel like, they didn't feel cool if
they said it was horrible. They thought that their
friends would look down on them if they said the truth.
So they made up a story, they said it was
super wonderful, it was super fun and exciting, etc.
just to fit in, just to fit in with the
narrative of the coercive discourse.
And this is where the socialization is most strongly internalized.
Not so much through the experience,
not so much through the relationship itself, but
through how they talk about the relationship.
This is the key. And this is the most
important thing about the coercive discourse.
Okay, let me move from here.
Okay, so as I said, all adolescents know very
well what kind of person they should choose to be.
their friends, what kind of person is the one that
they consider more interesting or more boring.
They know very well how to classify people.
And they know very well, or they are taught by the.
coercive discourse to make this double standard
between egalitarian or good but boring, or bad.
or dominant or risky and attractive. So they make this separation of,
if I want to find something stable, I will look
for the people who are good, but they are boring.
And if I want to have fun, I will look for
someone who is dominant or who is kind of who.
has this cocky attitude. Because that's how the
coercive discourse situates the field or the
sphere of attraction. And we also do this
sometimes, even without being conscious about
it, or when we want to try to, we know how
to, we know that we should, or if I go back,
when we are, when we want, when we are thinking
about our students, we know what kind of relationships will hurt them.
We know that depending on what type of boys or girls they date
or they hook up with, they will have a good life or not.
We know this. And that's why we want them
to have good egalitarian relationships.
I think all adults, or almost all adults want this.
And we know this. But sometimes, even unconsciously or
without being aware, we send the opposite message.
And for example, this question is really important.
Which pupil do you consider to be the most.
clever or the most passive one? Sometimes we,
without being aware, we give more attention to
the ones who are more, who have this dominant
attitude or who have this cocky attitude or this.
strong attitude, right? And we tend to make
those students, especially boys, but also girls,
who are good or who are egalitarian and who are
respectful, we tend to make them more invisible.
And the language that we use is key in how we
describe some profiles, some types of students
and other types of students. We ourselves give
or portray some students who are dominant as.
attractive and those who are egalitarian as
maybe boring or passive or not so interesting.
And I don't mean to say that all of us do this,
but in many cases, we do this even unconsciously.
And this has a great impact in adolescence.
Now, as I said, this is a very serious issue because.
it's for sure that all adolescents in the West,
at least in Western countries, have at least,
they have received these kind of messages.
It's impossible for someone to escape this
coercive discourse. But this doesn't mean first
that all adolescents are influenced by it.
There are adolescents who decide to reject
this kind of coercive discourse and to reject.
this link between attraction and violence.
And we also have evidence of adolescents or young people.
who, despite having been socialized in this
attraction to violence, then are re-socialized
or go through a re-socialization process in which
they don't just choose egalitarian relationships
because they are convenient, but they develop
a taste and a desire and an attraction towards
egalitarian relationships. And this is what I
will talk about also later in the presentation.
So what we have to do now as teachers or as
adult people who are surrounded by adolescents.
is we cannot just say that we cannot say this
person is good for you or this person is bad
for you because this is just the same message that
the coercive discourse. The coercive discourse
knows very well how to distinguish between good
and boring and bad and fun. So we only talk about
in terms of you need to find someone who is
convenient or you need to find someone who is
egalitarian, who has good values.
We are just playing in the same language or in the same rules
as the coercive discourse. What we have to do is
try to, or at least provide spaces for adolescents
to be socialized in feeling attraction, feeling
desire towards egalitarian people.
So seeing people who have good values, who have ethical
values as attractive and rejecting those who are.
distasteful or those who are dominant.
So now going into more in depth into the masculinity models.
What research has shown is that there
are two main models of masculinities.
One is the traditional one and then we have the
alternative one. Within the traditional masculinity,
we have two models. First, we have the dominant
traditional masculinity, which would be.
these boys that I'm talking about, the type of
boys who disdain others, the type of boys who are.
dominant, who are aggressive, the ones who
humiliate, who rape or who do violence.
And on the other side of the coin, of the same coin,
we have the oppressed traditional masculinity,
which are the good boys, the egalitarian boys,
but the ones who don't overcome or who are not,
who do not help overcome this double standard or
who actually play into this double standard of the
attraction towards violence. So the dominant
masculinity model is the one that either
promotes or executes violence, as the name says,
they are the dominant, the boys who have a dominant
attitude or an aggressive attitude, both towards
women, but also towards other men. They are the.
types of boys who make fun of egalitarian boys or
who look down upon them, who think they are much
better than egalitarian boys. And these are
the boys, the dominant traditional masculinity.
is the type of boys or type of masculinity that is
given the most attention in social interactions, in movies, etc.
This is the prototype of the boy
who is the protagonist of a movie, who
is a bad boy and who gets all the girls.
It would fit within this model. This doesn't mean, and it's
important to recognise that not all dominant
men or not all men who fit within this category.
are violent. Not all of them have killed
women or not all of them have raped women,
but all men who have killed or assaulted
or abused women fall within this category.
So this is really important to make this distinction.
On the other side of the coin,
as I said, we have the oppressed model, the
oppressed masculinity model, which is non-violent.
These are boys who are never violent with no
one, but they are kind of, they are dominated or
subjugated to the dominant boys. They are boys who
do not stand up against violence. In most cases,
they remain silent. They are also dominated
by some women, because it's also important to.
recognise that we have seen also in the last
decades, kind of, that some women have taken up,
have copied the role of the dominant masculinities.
So there are women who have,
who on the one hand subjugate or are dominated
by this, by the dominant masculinity, but then
they replicate this model and they dominate the
oppressed masculinity. So they use their friend
or they use the nice guy, not to have a guy-parent
relationship with them, but to disdain them and to.
treat them with disdain or with aggression.
So it would be this figure of the female womaniser,
the woman who uses men, but not the, they will
never use a violent man. They will always use,
or they will always dominate the oppressed men.
So the problem with this model is that,
or first, one of the problems is that first,
they don't stand up against violence, so they
don't stop violence. They don't act against
violence because they are subdued to or subjugated
to violent people. And then they are not portrayed as attractive.
And this is really important,
because this means that both models, or none
of the two models, are an alternative to this
attraction to violence, because both of them
feed this coercive discourse. They would be like.
this representation of the double standards, of
the disdainful but fun, or the egalitarian but.
boring. These two models would fit the coercive discourse.
So for example, and this is a problem
that many boys, many adolescents encounter when
they don't see the alternative, or they don't know
that there is an alternative model.
Many of them are not dominant, because many boys are not
dominant, and they have never hurt anyone, but
they don't have the self-confidence, or they don't
have, yeah, they are not self-confident enough
to stand up against violence, to stand up against
injustice, and against disdain.
And so for example, as these voices, I already help with
the housework, I treat the girls well, I respect
my friends, but then why did my girlfriend leave
me for a guy who doesn't do housework, laughs
at people who do, and treats girls so badly? So.
this is really, many boys, they see their
identity in a crisis, or they enter a crisis,
when they see that they represent all those
values that are supposed to be the ones that
they should have, that they should do housework,
they should treat others well, and kindly, etc.
But they see that despite having those values
that are the ones that we are supposed to want,
the ones who get all the girls are the opposite boys.
They are all the worst boys,
the most dominant ones, the most disdainful ones.
And so these boys are really in a crisis,
because they see that even though they behave
in a way that girls are supposed to want,
they don't receive, they don't get the attention from girls.
And what we see is that it's not.
because, it's not that violent or dominant boys
get all the girls, or get most girls, despite
being violent, or despite being dominant,
but it's precisely because they are dominant.
It's because the oppressed masculinities don't
disdain many girls, that they don't receive,
that they are not seen as attractive for many
girls, not all girls. And there are girls who
are very smart, and who know how to, and who see
egalitarian boys as attractive. But there are many
girls who fall for this double standard, and only
see the dominant ones as attractive. So as I said,
this is just the same coin, two sides of the same coin.
It's the same coin that reproduces violence.
So we cannot break violence, we cannot
overcome violence with these two models.
We need an alternative. Fortunately, there is an alternative.
And this is the new alternative masculinities.
These are boys who don't fall within this double standard.
These are boys who actually break the
chains of the double standards. They are boys
who have both things. They are not violent,
they are egalitarian. They treat girls in a
good way, or they treat others with respect, with kindness.
But they are also confident.
And this gives them attractiveness. This makes them.
attractive. Precisely because they are not
violent, because they stand up against violence,
because they are strong and brave, they are attractive.
And they are seen as attractive,
because they don't fall within these double standards.
So this is the only alternative.
And this is the one that we have to promote in schools.
We cannot describe egalitarian boys
just in terms of being good, we have to describe
them or we have to promote them to be brave,
to stand up against violence, and to be
self-confident, to be confident in being.
good people and being attractive. And this is the
model where girls don't have to choose between.
passion or respect. They can have both.
And actually, the only way to have both.
is in this model of masculinities, the new alternative masculinities.
And now, I will talk about language because this is super important.
And as I have already explained,
the coercive discourse is imposed through
language, through a language that creates
these double standards. So if we want to tackle
violence, we have to do it from language also.
And we have to pay attention to what type of
language we are using to talk about some boys
or others, to talk about some relationships or others.
And science has distinguished between
the language of ethics and the language of desire.
The language of ethics, I will read this quote,
refers to a language used mainly by parents in
schools, which intends to educate children in a non-sexist way.
So the language of desire would be
the type of, the way of talking about egalitarian.
people in terms of how good they are, how
convenient they are, how respectful they are.
It's the language to talk, it's the type of
language to talk about values, about egalitarian.
values or about ethical values, but in a way
that does not arouse any type of attraction.
So it would be the words that most, that best
portray this kind of language would be like the.
nice guy or the good guy. We usually don't give
attraction to a boy when we describe him as the good guy.
It's usually when you ask an adolescent
whether they think the good guys or the nice guys
are attractive, most of them will say no,
because this type of language doesn't promote any
attractiveness towards them. On the other side,
we have the language of desire, which is the
type of language that is usually found in the
media and that is favoured by teens and youngsters.
So this is the most adolescents or adolescents
almost always speak in terms of desire.
They talk about who they like, about who they desire, who
they are attracted to, etc. And the coercive
discourse separates the language of ethics from
the language of desire to talk about the dominant
ones or the violent relationships as desirable.
So it uses the language of desire to talk about those.
violent or aggressive relationships as attractive.
So if we don't realise this,
we don't recognise that as adult people, most of
the times we speak from the language of ethics,
we are, without being aware, we are giving more
strength to the coercive discourse.
Because if we only say, if we tell adolescents that they
have to choose nice people, they will not see
nice people as attractive, because we are just
leaving the language of desire to the coercive discourse.
We need to unite the language of desire
and the language of ethics if we want to overcome
this double standard and if we want to overcome violence.
So what does this mean?
What does uniting the language of ethics and of desire mean?
First, it means emptying violence of irrapiel or.
making, talking about violent people and
violent relationships as non-attractive.
So removing attractiveness from violent or dominant or
disdainful people and relationships and then,
or at the same time, making non-violent people,
talking about non-violent people and non-violent.
relationships as attractive. So we have to use
the language of desire, we have to talk in terms
of attractiveness, in terms of desire, passion,
to talk about non-violence and to talk about.
egalitarian people and egalitarian relationships.
And this is what the new alternative masculinities
do. They don't give up on attractiveness, they
don't give up on being desirable, and they use
the language of desire to talk about goodness
or to talk about egalitarian relationships.
So, for example, in a focus group, a person said, I
believe that one way is to talk about desire as it really is.
That is to say, to talk about the
fact that what moves the world is that love,
desire, and to talk about the fact that good sex
is with the guys who love you and not with the
guys who don't care about you. The ones you go
crazy about are those guys, not the ones who ignore you.
So here we don't see this separation
of the language of desire versus the language of ethics.
We see that they are together because she
talks about good sex, she talks about excitement,
she talks about passion with the guys who love you.
So she doesn't separate love and passion
or good sex, but she talks about the guys
who are like that, who go crazy about you
as the attractive ones, as the desirable and the
passionate ones. And this is what we have to.
promote. So we have to promote from very young
ages, we have to make those masculinities or
those boys who are strong, who are courageous, and
who are good and brave as attractive. We have to.
focus on them. We have to give more voice and
more strength to boys who fight against violence,
who stand up against violence. And we don't have
to talk about, we cannot talk about them as good.
boys, but as brave, as courageous, as strong, etc.
We have to use words that portray them as,
not just as good, but as attractive, because they are good.
Here you see some resources.
These articles are in Spanish, but you can see,
so these are taken from El Diario Feminista.
It's the only daily newspaper that's feminist in the world.
And it has a whole section about masculinities.
Most of them are in Spanish, but
you can translate them automatically with Google.
I mean, you can click on the article itself.
There is like a button with languages, and so you can
select your own language, and it will be
automatically translated. So I strongly
recommend these resources because they are all
based on scientific evidence, and they deal with
the topics that I'm talking about.
And if you want, I can, or maybe Guiomar, I can send you
the link later to El Diario Feminista.
And so the last part of the presentation today is about consent.
Of course, so I have been talking about
language, and if you want, in the debate, I can
talk more about how we can do that, how we can
unite the language of desire and the language
of ethics from schools, because we are also
studying this, and there are many successful
educational actions that are being effective
and that are being successful in overcoming
this double standard. So I can tell you more about that.
But it's also important that when we
talk about language, we don't just talk about
words, or we don't just talk about the speech.
acts, but we have to focus on communicative acts.
So we know that no means no has been overcome.
by the motto, only yes means yes, or
nothing or anything less than yes means no.
This is an important step because we know, and
the feminist movement knows and has recognized,
that in many cases, victims cannot say no.
We know this. It's really hard for someone who is being.
assaulted or abused or raped to say no.
So we have moved to only yes means yes, which means that
if a victim doesn't say yes, it means that she
is not giving consent. But we are also seeing,
or research has shown, many limitations with this
approach, because we are only focusing on words, on yes.
There are many problems if we only pay
attention to words, to whether the victim said yes or no.
We have to look at the whole context,
we have to look at the whole communicative act,
to truly understand and to truly see whether
there is consent or not. And this is what I
will talk about in the last part of the presentation.
So as I said, first of all, no means no is not enough, because in most
cases, victims don't have a word, a voice,
they can't say anything. But also, because we
know that sometimes you don't have to say no
to mean no or to mean a lack of consent.
And actually, adolescents know very well how to
distinguish when someone, or not just adolescents,
we know very well how to distinguish when someone
is giving consent or not. But we don't know that
through the words, or only through the words,
we can see the whole body expression,
the context, etc. And we can see whether,
when someone is consenting or not.
So, saying the motto, only yes means yes,
as I said, it was an important step forward,
because now we are recognizing that not all.
victims can say no. But it has many shortcomings,
and it's kind of limited. First, because in a
consented relationship, people we know, people
are not saying yes all the time. I mean, if I'm
with someone and we are having sex, and we are
giving, both of us are consenting, we don't have
to say yes in each minute. There is no need to
say yes all the time, because we know, we can see.
our body language, we can see our communicative
facts, and we know that we want to have that relationship.
And on the other hand, we know
that many people, especially many adolescents,
say yes, or do things that they don't want to do.
And it's a yes that is coerced, either through.
physical instruments, for example, with a gun.
Someone can say yes, if they are,
a victim will say yes, if they are pointed at
with a gun or with a knife. But it doesn't mean
that they want to. They just say yes, because
they are coerced into it. Or there are other
types of interactions that coerce victims to
say yes, or maybe not say verbally yes, but
to do something that they don't want to do.
There is, you can see here all the evidence, and
if you want, we can, I can send you some links
later, or I can put them in the chat.
But there is a lot of evidence that shows that we need this
framework of the communicative facts.
Otherwise, we would not be able to identify consent, we would
not be able to conceptualize consent in the way
that it really happens, and in the way that
adolescents have relationships. So, communicative
facts refers to all those elements of communication
that play a role in when we interact with each.
other. So, as I said, when a victim or when a
person says yes or no, or beyond the words yes
or no, we have to take into account many other
elements, such as non-verbal language, for example,
body language, or gestures, or tone, etc.
, but also the context in which the interaction takes place.
And this is really a pioneering contribution
that the consent, or that this framework of.
the preventive socialization has done,
which is to take into account all those
elements of communication. So, first we have
verbal acts, as I said, no means no, or only yes means yes.
Then we have non-verbal acts, which we
should take into consideration, which, as I said,
are non-verbal cues, or silence. We know that in
many cases, victims remain silent because they
cannot say anything, and this doesn't mean that
they are giving consent. They just remain silent.
Or, and then we move towards the framework of the
communicative facts, which includes all verbal cues,
or verbal acts, non-verbal cues, but also, as I
said, the social context and the intention of the speakers.
Also, we have to take into account all
these elements to truly understand, to truly see.
when there is consent and when there is not.
And also the consequences of the interaction.
So, what we see is that when it comes to sexual consent, we can have.
communicative acts that are based on coercion, or
that promote coercion, or communicative acts that.
promote consent, and which are based on consent.
When we look at coercion, we have, research has.
found three types of power communicative acts,
which are the ones that promote a lack of consent.
We have physical power, as I said, it can be
either physical violence, or using some type of.
gun, or knife, or something that indicates
physical power, and therefore, when someone
is being coerced with a knife, or a gun, or some
type of physical instrument, they are not giving
consent, because they are being coerced, they are
being threatened by this, by the gun, or whatever
tool that the aggressor is using.
This will be the easiest one to identify. We can always see.
that if someone is being threatened by a weapon,
they are not giving consent, they are being coerced.
But then we have the institutional power,
which I will talk more about in a few minutes,
which is the power that is given to some people
based on the hierarchies of the social context,
or the social situation in which they are,
in which the interaction is taking place.
And then we have the interactive power, which is
the probably the, is the one we can all recognize.
it, but it's maybe the most difficult one to
conceptualize, or to, again, adolescents can
identify this very well when we talk about this,
and we will provide them with the evidence,
but it's the one that's often not seen, or not
paid attention to, and it's the, probably the most,
the most important one, or the most common one
for most, for many adolescents. So, as I said,
physical power would be some type of physical
threat, either physical force, or some weapon,
or some arm that is being used to coerce the
person, and to not give them the room for consent.
Then we have institutional power, which is a person
who is in a hierarchically superior position.
in a given context. For example, in, we have
done a lot of research around gender violence
in the university, especially from professors to students.
Here we see that the very position of
being a professor gives the aggressor power over
the victims, if the victim is a student.
Because of their position as a professor, as someone who
has power to control the grades, or to control the
academic outcomes of the student, they have more
power, and they can use that power, the aggressors.
use that power to coerce their victims, to not
give them space to, to not allow for consent
in a relationship. So, here, for example, an
employer in a hiring interview proposes a date
to a candidate with a non-verbal language that
clearly indicates that his or her recruitment
depends on his or her acceptance or not.
So, the same happens in the university when.
a professor has intentions of having,
of having a non-consensual relationship,
and is using this power, this hierarchical power,
this institutional power, to take advantage
of the person who is a student, who is situated
in a lower, with less power than the professor.
But then we have interactive power, and
this is the one that the coercive discourse,
through which the coercive discourse is promoted.
And this is the type of power that happens.
in interactions, it doesn't depend on hierarchical
positions, but rather on the power that is given
to some interactions. So, the coercive discourse
is based and is transmitted through interactive
power, because it uses the power of interactions.
For example, when a girl feels pressure to have
a relationship after having previously refused
on several occasions, and finally gives in to.
the pressure. So, if a girl is harassed or is
asked by some, by the peers, for example, when
her peers tell her, you should hook up with this
person, he's super hot, he's the most popular boy,
you should not lose this chance, he wants to hook
up with you, you should take this opportunity,
this is interactive power, because they are
pressuring her to do something that she doesn't want.
And the pressure is based on the interaction.
She thinks that if she doesn't do it,
she will not be seen as someone attractive or someone cool.
So, in this case, we don't see
a hierarchical distinction, it's within the peer group.
But this has a lot of power in here,
because it has, it pressures her to do something
that she doesn't want. So, for example, one of
the, one of the interviewees says, if you push and
push and push, in the end, he who follows gets it.
It's not like that. The one who follows it for
your own security, you say, okay, well, that's it,
I'll do it, and that's it. So, many girls give
in to the pressure, thinking that if they say yes
one time, it will end, all this pressure will end.
And they've done that seat, but that's not,
that doesn't mean that it's because the other
person wanted to. So, they recognize that in.
many cases, they give in to the pressure or they,
they, yeah, they say yes to a relationship that
they don't want, but only because they want the
pressure to stop, or only because they think
after saying yes, it will stop, even though we
know that it never stops, it always goes worse.
But in many cases, they don't see an
alternative, or they don't see a way out,
because the pressure is huge.
I mean, the coercive discourse really works.
through power, through interactive power, and
many girls and boys don't see any alternative.
Here, I have put some, some quotes from, from
people, because the thing is that in most trainings.
or most workshops on consent, among other,
directed towards adolescents, they don't really
talk about these issues. And we, when we provide
them with the evidence, they instantly recognize
this interactive power, they instantly recognize
that they did something that they consented,
but they didn't really consent to a relationship,
because there was a whole coercion, either from
their peers, or from the boys, from the friends
of the boys, etc, to push them to impose on them
to have that relationship. So, when we provide
them with this evidence, they are very, very much
able to recognize these situations in their everyday life.
So, we have many, many, many.
quotes from adolescents in all these articles.
So, for example, here, this 20 year old girl.
said, "Cases of friends, cases of girls younger
than me who are somewhat under pressure, right,
where they feel less for not doing it, for not
having sex, and they then, then they end up giving
in and doing things they didn't want to do.
" So, all adolescents, all young people recognize that
this happens, that they have seen, at least they have seen it.
In many cases, they have experienced
it, or they have done it, they have pressured
other people to do it. And until we don't give
a name to it, or we don't provide the evidence,
they don't recognize it, or they don't realize,
but it's happening in their lives constantly.
So, for example, here, this girl says, "I didn't think
I would give or take consent because I had a lot
of pressure to make boys like me." So, she didn't
even consider consent. "I had to be a porn
actress on demand with the boy I was hooking up.
And I also felt very validated about that.
And I even preferred to feel a lot of physical pain
just to please the other person.
I did not consider that. So, I was more compensated by
the approval of the other person being sexy, being
liked, and my physical and emotional well-being.".
And it's not a matter, it's not a problem of
wanting others to like them, because that's,
I think, all of us want to be liked by other
people, but it's giving up on consent, or doing
things you don't want to do for the approval of
the peer group or of the boy or the other person.
Let me see a couple of other quotes before I close.
"I think the most critical moment might
be the first time, the first relationship when
you lose your virginity because you feel more pressure.
You feel that pressure from your friends
asking you, like, when are you going to do this and that?
When did you do this? They want to tell
them everything. No, they want you to tell them
everything because it happened to me the first time.
Yes. And if nothing happens, it's like,
I don't know how to express it. It's like, you're a shame.
So, they know that they have to do
something to tell their friends that they have done something.
It's either a shame for you, or, well, she rejected you, I don't know.
And this is the case of a boy. This is a boy explaining this.
So, both girls and boys have this pressure
to hook up with people they don't want to hook up with.
So, I did feel that pressure of saying,
"Oh, she said no, this and that." And then after
two seconds, it's like, come on, now try with her.
And yes, the group would say, well, you should
have taken advantage since you were with her.
You could have done something, enjoyed yourself.
There's also this pressure from the dominant
masculinities to take advantage, to coerce.
other women. And many more pieces of evidence that
I will stop now so that we can have some dialogue.
But this is another resource that is really useful
specifically for education. If you don't know this,
this is Periódico Educación. If you type this,
I can send you, I can put the link in the chat.
It's as Diario Feminista everything's
based on scientific evidence. Most articles are
in Spanish, but again, you can translate them
automatically with the tools. So, they are super useful.
We use this to work then with adolescents.
Sometimes we have gatherings with adolescents
around these topics because we have seen what the
evidence shows is that when we provide them with
this evidence and with a space, they have a
dialogue, they have a lot of things to say.
And then because they know, they have experienced
it firsthand or they have seen it happen to their
friends, etc. So, we have a lot to say about this.
And when we give them a space to talk about
this, it's the best way to not normalize these
situations which are so normalized in movies and
TV shows, etcetera. And so, one of the best ways
is to give them a voice to let them talk, but
always having this scientific evidence to contrast
with them or to complement their own experiences.
So, I will leave it there. And I'm happy to receive
any questions or any comments that you have in.
the remaining time. So, thank you so much.
>> Thank you very much, Dr. Garazi López de Aguileta,
for your lecture. It was very inspiring and
very necessary for getting the knowledge on
the evidences on preventive socialization of
gender violence and other key issues that you have.
mentioned, that you have explained.
So, now we have a brief time for questions and comments.
If anyone would like to speak, please raise your
hand or write your comment in the chat and we will.
read it for you. Anyone want to ask something or?
Okay. Okay, Manuel. Thank you.
>> Hi. Can you hear me? >> Yes.
>> Hello, Garazi. Thank you for this important
and necessary presentation. I wonder if you can
explain a little more and give us some more
examples about how we can unite the language
of desire and the language of ethics in our
school to prevent gender violence. Thank you.
>> Yeah. Well, this is a key question because
we know that as teachers or as people who work
with the students, we cannot tackle violence only
from the language of ethics, that we have to do it
united with the language of desire.
First of all, it's important to know this, to know that
we make a separation, that the course of discourse
makes a separation. So, we have to be aware that.
sometimes or maybe many times we use the
language of desire to tackle these things.
And so, first we have to know that we are talking
in this way to be able to change our language,
but to recognize that this socialization also affects us.
Maybe we don't have this pattern,
but we do, in some way we are influenced by the
course of discourse. So, we have to be aware that
we tend to use the language of desire to, sorry,
the language of ethics to talk about these issues.
And then, the best way is not so much, well,
first of all, we have a lot of, we have,
we can do a lot by recognizing and by giving
visibility to the good people in our classrooms,
but again, not from the language of ethics, but
by portraying them as the brave students that
so, when someone helps another friend, another
student, when someone defends someone who has
suffered violence, etcetera when someone does
something good, we should make them visible,
give them a lot of attention, give them the focus,
put the focus on them and talk about them as
attractive, not as good people, but as people who
are attractive because they are good and because
they are, they have defended someone and they
have protected someone. That's what we can do.
But what we have seen in the evidence, and
especially when it comes to adolescents,
is that the best thing is to let them speak,
to let them have dialogues. And if we do that,
not just in any ways, but through successful
educational actions, we see that they have the,
if we provide them with a space, they will start
changing the language of desire and they will be
the ones who unite the language of ethics and the language of desire.
And this is, specifically my dissertation was about this at Wisconsin.
I studied many classrooms in which,
in different schools in which they, students
participated in dialogic literary gatherings,
which last week, Dr. Esther Oliver talked to you about.
In these gatherings, the students are the ones who speak.
It's their space for speaking,
for speaking up, for talking about their problems,
for taking out their issues. And because of the
characteristics of this gathering, which on the
one hand are the classical literature, which
appeals them or which connects them with some
of the most profound topics of human beings.
And because of the egalitarian dialogue, because this
egalitarian dialogue rejects any form of coercion,
any form of interactive power. What we see and
what the evidence in my dissertation showed is
that in very different schools, in very different
classrooms, there was this tendency of most
students to use the language of desire and the
language of ethics to talk about non-violent people.
So, for example, I showed you in one of.
the slides, I showed a picture of Pride and
Prejudice, which is one of the books that some
students were reading in the classrooms that I analyzed.
And without the teacher saying anything,
but they were the ones who were talking about,
for example, the whole society who was coercing
Elizabeth to marry someone she didn't want to marry.
They were very critical about that.
And they used the language of desire to reject coercion
and to reject anyone who was coercing Elizabeth.
So, they were the ones saying, for example,
they talked about the aunt, Darcy's aunt,
who doesn't let Elizabeth and Darcy be together.
They talked about her in terms of,
they described her as Tutankhamun or as a dictator
or with words that really show rejection, that
they don't talk about her as someone bad or
someone who is, no, they really reject them from desire.
And at the same time, there were many
dialogues in which they, for example, they talked
about Elizabeth not as someone who was good, but
as someone who was brave, who stood up against
injustice, who did not let others coerce
her, someone who was self-confident.
So, when we provide them with the context, with the context
they need, with the scientific evidence, with the
classic literature, with quality texts, and with
the space for dialogue, they are the ones who will
usually use this language of desire.
And then, of course, we have to do everything that's in our
power to make those students who are rendered more
invisible, to make them visible and to make them.
be the protagonists of the school or of the classroom.
Thank you, Manuel and Garazi.
I don't know if anyone has any questions?
No? Okay, if not, I was wondering, Garazi,
you have highlighted the importance of.
giving knowledge, giving this scientific evidence
to adolescent girls so they can recognise
situations of violence in their past experiences,
their living experiences, their daily lives,
in their peers and friends. But I was wondering,
are also families important in all this?
I mean, I'm thinking especially about mothers, sisters,
particularly also about families with vulnerable
backgrounds or from minority groups.
It's also important to provide them with this knowledge and evidence.
How can we do this in our schools in
the same way as you were speaking or stating that before, no?
Dialogic gatherings or anything you
want to share with us in this regard? Thank you.
Yeah, yeah, and this is super important.
So, I mentioned dialogic literary gatherings,
but then there are also successful actions that
are specifically directed at overcoming violence.
One of them is dialogic feminist gatherings,
which you mentioned some of the impacts in which
adolescents talk about, read scientific articles
about all these issues, and they become, what we
have seen in the evidence is that they become
really aware and critical towards the violence
that they have experienced. And then another
successful action is the dialogic model of
conflict prevention and resolution.
This is about this, what this model does is
take the principle of zero violence from age
zero to all contexts, not just in the classroom,
but in the school and in the whole community.
And so, to stop any form of violence, to reject
any form of violence, either physical or
psychological or cyber bullying or whatever,
and to not normalize it, but to speak up
against violence. And so, we have evidence of,
for example, in a school, located in a very
vulnerable context, we have a group of mothers
who first started participating in the dialogic
feminist gathering. So, they started reading
about these issues, they started reading about
isolating gender violence, of the importance of
defending the people who defend and protect victims, etc.
So, they started reading about
these things, and they started to become aware
of the violence that they were maybe seeing in
their homes or in the neighborhood.
And so, they asked the school to, or they became the ones who
were more the protagonists of the model of
the dialogic model of conflict prevention and resolution.
They became the ones who were leading
the implementation of this model. And what they
were saying is that because of the two sexist
reluctions, the dialogic feminist gathering
and the dialogic model, when there was some sort
of violence happening in their home or when their
children talked about a violent situation
in school, the mothers were the ones saying,
"This is not normal. How can we act?
" or "What did you do?" or "Did you help the victim?
" or "What kind of position did you take?
" So, it's the mothers who take this leading role in not
letting any form of violence go through without
any consequence. And so, we see that we need the
parents, we need the whole community to tackle violence.
And we do that through those successful
educational actions in which every person has
a voice and every person has a relevant role
in the participation. So, yeah, also really
important question because we need the whole
community to tackle violence. >> Okay. So, thank you again.
We are on time. So, thank you very much to
everyone for participating in this session.
We hope to see you again at the next webinar
on the role on protective factors and community
involvement in preventing gender-based violence by Dr.
Mar Joanpere. This last webinar will
take place next week on Wednesday, November the 20th at 5 P.
M. through the same through link.
Thank you all and see you next week.