Another crucial and very evident element in perpetrating violence in communicative acts is the fact of raising the tone of voice as a means to place oneself as superior to the other. In the case of a student harassing several peers, his behavior and the fact of shouting instead of talking normally had a major effect on the victims but also on the whole classroom and the general atmosphere in class.
the climate in class had become very tense, in the beginning we used to debate a lot and everything fine, but at some point we didn’t debate anything anymore because this guy didn’t know how to debate, he shouted and he was very
derogatory like ‘You, shut up, you have no idea what you’re talking!’, he got up from his chair and shouted ‘You, shut up!’. (Sofia, victim)
These elements are probably the most easiest to be identified by the university community as violence, although even these clear examples have not been enough for the institution to acknowledge the behavior as deviant or as problematic for the learning environment inside the higher education institution.
However, Sofia also explains that his harassment was not always that straight forward but rather subtle, showing his attitude as a macho man transmitting superiority and violence in his behavior.
it was also his attitude, (…) he was tilting the chair, and stayed seated only on the two legs of the chair and looked at you from above like a tyrant, I don’t know like cocky, this attitude of a macho man ‘you’ll come to me’, because he never said anything, but I think he expected us to go after him. (Sofia, victim)
This attitude of provoking in order to draw the attention of women alines with the theory of a tendency of attraction towards violence which is used by the traditional dominant masculinities and unfortunately (Gomez, 2015; Flecha, Puigvert, & Rios, 2013). According to this theoretical approach, as long as these men are successful with their strategies, there is no need for them to change their behavior. Thus, the preventive socialization suggests in this regard to focus on changing the model of attraction, so that this kind of behavior is considered as something not only unacceptable, but as something unattractive, something boring and frustrated (Flecha, Puigvert, & Rios, 2013).
Further elements that represent an abusive and intrusive behavior is the fact of following another person, or controlling and watching over another person’s life. In this regard, Sofia and Irene explain that the harasser used to show up next to them when they did not expect him to be there which made them feel very uncomfortable and frightened as he also followed them outside the university building. They felt that he was trying to take advantage of specifically vulnerable situations for his appearances such as when they were alone or following them on their way home.
he always appeared next to you in the university, if you went to do photocopies he suddenly appeared next to you, if you went to the toilet, he appeared there. (…) It’s not only that he appeared but he came in silence, he always scared you. (…) and he appeared in places where this was frightening, I said at the copy shop, but where he always appeared was near the toilet, the ones that are down here in the back [of the building], and even if he didn’t appear, this is not a sympathetic place. (Sofia, victim)
he always tried to look for moments when we were alone to appear, for example one day at the library he appeared in the hallway. (Irene, victim)
He always got off [the metro] at one of our stops, well, he usually got on the same metro but the next wagon and when he saw that one of us got off, he got off, too. (Irene, victim)
Although the interaction might apparently not involve any kind of violence. Nevertheless, it is considered internationally as gender violence and thus criminal behavior. Moreover, the fact that the victims experience emotions like fear are crucial in drawing a line between violent and non-violent behavior. Irene explains the fear she experienced during the time of being harassed.
I was alone at home and started to imagine tons of things, and I was so afraid, suddenly I saw him all around, it was like, he will appear, for sure, he knows where I live, of course, since he always followed us and it was horrible. (…) When I was walking in the hallways [of the university] my legs were trembling.
(Irene, victim)
Also, Gemma had these kind of experiences due to the harassment by one of her professors. She felt that he was controlling her life and that she had to justify her actions and decisions about her life to him, because if she did not reply to his requests they would only become more intense. According to her explanation shared by other informants, there was no possibility of saying no, because the professor would insist on what he had suggested. Otherwise he would send even more mails and insist on knowing why she did not answer his emails or did not come to class.
I felt watched, not only in the university but in my personal life, I felt that I had to give explanations about my personal life. When he organized a party and I said I couldn’t come he would ask ‘But why can’t you come?’ He was following me and wanted to know everything about my personal life. It was horrible. (…) During all this time [of harassment] I had to go to his classes and I didn’t want to. And if I didn’t go to class he called me afterwards to ask me why I hadn’t been there (…) in his emails, for example there were three very large paragraphs that were out of line, very dirty-minded, so what I did was to answer the email ignoring all those parts that I considered inconvenient. Because if I didn’t answer his email he’d send it three times or he’d write asking why I didn’t answer. (Gemma, victim) This explanation of the situation that Gemma had experienced evidences the lack of illocutionary communicative acts, that are defined as a search for agreement (Soler & Flecha, 2010). Her interpretation evidences that the professor is not looking for her agreement to meet him, but he is only concerned about his personal interests. The interaction narrated by Gemma indicate a complete lack of dialogic communicative acts. There were no dialogic interactions, or a dialogic relation, but the interactions were plagued by perlocutionary acts.
To provide an idea of how verbal violence and harassment linked to the abuse of the power position of a professor who had been gaining the students confidence over time turns into severe physical harassment, the experience made by Rafael is relevant. Although more severe situations have occurred in higher education in Spain, it is not necessary to provide further details. This quote sheds light to the scope of physical gender violence at Spanish universities. Rafael explains that he expected to meet his professor at the office, but then after an invitation to lunch he ended up in a private office and being victim of sexual advances.
There was something [he used to do] that was very clear ‘let’s have a drink and we will do so where I want to and in a place outside the university’ (…) Once I went to his office, because I thought he wanted to discuss something, and he said ‘hey let’s have lunch!’, and he took me, well we took his car, and went to a place near his office. He had a private office outside the university. And that day everything became very clear, he got out the heavy artillery, this cannot be included in the ‘let’s have a coffee’, this was something completely different
because he started to show me books of Japanese pornography, or Japanese erotic books and at the end he suggested to masturbate together. (Rafael, victim) As a conclusion of this section, it is worthy to highlight that the communicative daily life stories with some victims account for most of the diverse forms of gender violence reported in the numerous studies on gender violence in higher education conducted by the international scientific community (Benson & Thomson, 1982; Fitzgerald et al., 1988; Lott et al., 1986; Rossi & Weber-Burdin, 1983). Additionally, the examples provided by the participants shed light on the myriad facets of the presence of violence in communicative acts, which can range from very subtle violent interactions to very direct forms of perpetrating power over somebody. But, the examples all evidence the prevalence of perlocutionary acts over illocutionary acts. One element that accompanies violence is the effect that violent communicative acts cause on the victims, which is feeling uncomfortable, violated or scared of the person one is interacting with. Thus, an indicator for violence could be the intuition. However, due to the major lack of identification of gender violence, it might be necessary to train the intuition in listening to feelings when fear and unease are involved in order to guess correctly.