Lenka’s story

Lenka attended a media studies course. During one class, students took turns to play the role of a TV studio moderator. When it was Lenka’s classmate Jana's turn, the teacher said: „You needn't bother, Jana. You're so big your assets would take up half the table.“ Lenka was shocked by this, but because she didn't want to look like a prude, she laughed with the rest of the group. The teacher's comments stuck in her head, though, and she felt uncomfortable about how she had responded. She realised that she had been pleased that the teacher had picked on Jana and not on her...

Martin’s story

During one anatomy lecture, the lecturer was describing male reproductive organs. As she did so, she showed the students some preserved organs and said to the men in the class: „that's how you'll end up one day“ and „look what a man this one was...“

Ivana’s story

As usual, after their Tuesday class the whole seminar group went to the café together. This time, the teacher tagged along with them. During the evening, he turned to Ivana and asked her for her phone number. Ivana was surprised and didn't know how she could refuse his request quickly and elegantly. The next day she received a flood of text messages from the teacher, complimenting her and inviting her to meet him. Ivana didn't know how to tell him to stop messaging her. She felt like it would be impolite not to reply to her teacher. And she was afraid he might punish her for it the next time he set a test. So she sent short, neutral replies. Ivana didn't know what to do about the situation. When she told her friends about it, they made fun of her and the teacher. The rest of the class had also noticed the teacher's attentions, and now they all thought that Ivana's good results were because of that, and not because she deserved them and studied for them. Seeing her classmates respond like that bothered Ivana even more than the interest from the teacher had to begin with. Eventually she decided to give up that course and avoid the teacher...

Anonymous story

At one history lecture to a class that was half women, half men, the lecturer was describing how British women fought to get the vote. He commented on the protests that had taken place saying: “Feminists ripped off their bras. I wouldn't have minded seeing that. You lads too, right?“

Anonymous story

(…) When we finally completed the theoretical part of our final exams, they said to us that we had surprised them – they weren't expecting such good results from us since we're girls. They said we'll just go off on maternity leave and won't pursue such serious professional careers in the field, so they weren't so hard on girls in the exams. That made me feel like maybe I wouldn't have passed if I had been a boy. It was humiliating.

N.B. The stories included in this information happened in real life at Czech universities and are taken from handbooks What is sexual harassment and how to defend it and Sexual harassment at Universities