Gender-based violence in the university: perceptions, attitudes, and knowledge from the voice of the student body

Abstract

Universities are public spaces where gender inequalities survive and reproduce, manifested in discrimination, epistemic, sexual, and psychological violence. In Mexico, gender-based violence (GBV) has become visible in these spaces through the mobilization of women within these institutions, since they have made evident the impunity and the lack of policies for the attention, sanction, and eradication of this problematic. The purpose of this study was to identify the perceptions, attitudes, and knowledge of GBV in the students of five academic entities of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. To do this, 10 focus groups were held in which 46 women and 44 men (N=90) participated. A qualitative analysis of the reflections arising from these groups was carried out with the support of the MAXQDA software. The most relevant categories that emerged from the analysis were: 1) Institutional culture of gender, 2) Responses to GBV, 3) Actions against GBV, 4) Myths about GBV, and 5) Knowledge about instances of attention to GBV. Even though care protocols have been implemented in some universities, there are still lags in making the problem visible, as well as the presence of patriarchal pacts that favor a climate of impunity, for which the right of women to higher education continues to be hindered.