(iPoster) The Work Consent Does: Testimonies of Faculty-Student Relationships

• In Event: Poster Session: Foundations of Political Theory 1 (Normative)

Abstract

Consent has, for the last five decades, functioned as the litmus test of acceptable sexual behavior, first in courts, and then in universities. If a sexual act is deemed consensual, it is acceptable; if it is not consensual, it constitutes sexual violence, becomes criminal, and is deserving of disciplinary action. Contemporary feminist literature on consent has clarified that consent is tricky, perhaps a killjoy, but is ultimately desirable. Similarly, universities often operate on the premise that consent is possible, if difficult, in professor-student relationships. What work is consent doing for universities as institutions? We employ thick descriptive, feminist phenomenological analyses of two first-person testimonials from an undergraduate and graduate student to show that consent has at least three deleterious effects: 1) the atomisation of students’ experiences, thus making the sexualised abuse of power appear less public and less severe (atomisation), 2) de-contextualisation of students’ accounts by denuding them of their pedagogical context, thus rendering the inherent power asymmetry invisible (de-contextualisation), and 3) locates the responsibility for any harm the student-victim suffers with herself, thus making the institution invisible and unaccountable for what it is enabling (individualisation of responsibility).

Authors

• Qian Qian Ng, University of Michigan

• Leyla Gimalieva