A single day is not enough
To mark Sexual Harassment Awareness Day at Swiss universities, Vice President Julia Dannath analyses the situation at ETH Zurich, explains what anonymous reports can and cannot achieve, and presents what she believes is most needed to effectively combat sexual harassment. Today, for the first time, Swiss universities are joining forces to raise awareness about sexual harassment in the context of university education.1 For me, this day elicits mixed feelings. Part of me is grateful that this important issue is in focus today. At the same time, I am disappointed that we aren't further along considering it's 2023. It annoys me that we obviously still need awareness days to shine a light on sexual harassment. If we want to change something, the first step is to recognise and understand that there is a problem in the first place - only then can we do something about it. We know from Swiss federal survey studies2 published last year that between 20 and 60 percent of women in Switzerland have experienced sexual harassment at some point in their lives, with between 2 and 10 percent experiencing it in the past 12 months.
