Preventing harassment with memory workshops and forum theater

It can be difficult to render visible, put into words or talk about sexist and sexual harassment in workplaces. Studies show that staff in the health and care sectors are highly vulnerable to sexist harassment and that their strong professional care ethic makes staff inclined to conceal or normalise workplace harassment. Therefore, in the project Power Plays – preventing sexual harassment through memory work & forum theater in workplaces of care, researchers in Denmark, Finland and Sweden, together with health and care industry partners, developed a new preventive tool that comprises a memory workshop, forum theatre and a tool compass. The Power Plays Memory Workshop is a workshop for staff only, involving collective analysis of personal memories and experiences of sexist harassment in a workplace context. In Forum Power Plays, staff and management engage in forum theatre in which situations are played out and participants jointly identify what is going on and factors that enable harassment, and together work out how harassment can be tackled.

The purpose of the Power Plays Memory Workshop and Forum Power Plays is to:

Make it easier for individuals and groups to talk about sexist harassment.
Develop perspectives and a vocabulary for recognising and talking about sexist harassment.
Educate staff on sexist harassment in the workplace.
Develop skills for dealing with first-hand and second-hand experiences.
Engage the whole workplace and the organisation in preventive work.

The Power Plays Tool Compass supports the workplace in choosing between and combining existing tools to prevent, survey or follow-up sexist harassment.

When sexist harassment occurs in workplaces it is a sign that the workplace culture, hierarchies, organizational structures and work relations have an everyday sexist nature that enables sexist harassment.

Marta Padovan-Özdemir, Roskilde University

Interview with Marta Padovan-Özdemir, Roskilde University, head and principal investigator for Power Plays.

What makes the Power Plays toolbox unique?

The Power Plays Memory Workshop and Forum Power Plays enable workplaces to build knowledge and skills to recognise, problematise and prevent or tackle sexist harassment. Our survey shows that more wide-ranging toolboxes for preventing sexist and sexual harassment in the Nordic countries are lacking. In our study, we have only found 38 tools online in Denmark, Finland and Sweden, the majority of which are described as guidelines to tackle sexual harassment. In addition to these, there are a few described as survey tools and a smaller number as educational tools.

Is the Power Plays toolbox hard to use?

Everyone can use the tools, but the manuals and instructions should be followed in detail to achieve maximum effect. The toolbox demands that workplace actors read and understand the manuals in order to lead the workshops in a way that let the participants trust the process. It is also required that the management reserves time for the workshops and follows up on the action plans proposed.

Why do you prefer to talk about sexist harassment rather than sexual harassment?

As a concept, sexist harassment encompasses all the different forms of harassment that are an effect of a sexist culture: Everything from everyday sexism, subtle sexism, sex discrimination, unwanted sexual attention to sexual harassment, sexual coercion, rape, or attempted rape. Furthermore, the term means that sexist harassment is not about sex but about power. In other words, some people benefit from a sexist culture while others are sanctioned, restricted or repressed.

What are the most important ways of preventing sexist harassment in the workplace?

First and foremost, everyone in the workplace needs to develop awareness of sexist harassment. This means the ability to recognise situations, behaviours, language and other aspects that are sexist. We can only prevent sexist harassment once we can recognise it and talk about it. The next step is to find out what is enabling sexist harassment – and then change that.

How can we solve the problem of colleagues who witness harassment but don’t do anything?

When colleagues witness sexist harassment, there can be various reasons why they fail to act. Firstly, they might not be able to identify the situation as a matter of sexist harassment. They might not know how to intervene. They might be worried about their career or about creating conflicts at work.

The Power Plays Memory Workshop and the Power Plays Forum create a space to equip colleagues to recognise, prevent, and intervene in situations of sexist harassment.

Key messages from the project

Preventing sexist harassment takes more than just minimising risk factors such as chauvinist humour, tabooed reporting, solo working, etc. Workplaces need to develop a collective awareness and understanding of what sexist harassment is and the factors that enable it in the workplace.
More studies are needed on preventing sexism and sexist harassment, especially on measures that focus on changing the culture. The key research question is how are sexism and sexist harassment upheld and reproduced in organisations and institutions in different industries and sectors? Such research should also explore how vulnerability to sexism coincides with other forms of vulnerability such as racism, disability and age discrimination.
Developing the prevention of sexism and sexist harassment in the workplace, we should seek to vary and combine preventive tools that are geared towards increasing awareness, action and aftercare and are applied before, during and after sexist harassment.

More about the project

The project Power Plays – preventing sexual harassment through memory work & forum theater in workplaces of care was was allocated funding in the second call of the research initiative. This targeted practice-based research activities in collaboration, focused mainly on preventative measures and methods for intervention through industry studies and comparative studies of different industries. The applications built on partnerships between several Nordic countries.

Project partners

Roskilde University (primary applicant), VIA University College and Oulu University, in partnership with Jämställd Utveckling Skåne, two privately owned physiotherapy clinics, two municipally run group housing units and one municipal youth unit.

Ongoing research

The results of the project are used in courses and programmes at the partner universities. The results are also developed further in new projects, including to prevent sexist and sexual harassment among university students: Power Plays Academy, Malmö University 2023–2025. The new project is headed by Jämställd Utveckling Skåne.