Chapter 8: Teaching About #Metoo and Gender-Based Violence in a Way That Engages All Students

Gender-based violence (GBV) is one of the world’s worst human rights violations. It includes myriad forms, although in the United States, the most common are sexual assault and harassment, and domestic and dating violence. Due to the sheer scope of these problems, they must be included in curricula wherever appropriate. Even more, because college students are uniquely vulnerable to each of these problems, campuses must make efforts in the classroom and beyond to address them.

This chapter focuses on teaching about GBV in the #MeToo era. It discusses how I have approached teaching about these issues in an introductory course that is required for arts and sciences majors at Barry University, a small, Catholic, liberal arts university. In this chapter, I describe the issues in greater detail and highlight how I have addressed them in my course. In particular, I focus on the importance of educating young men about these sexual harassment and assault and describe efforts to engage men and boys in ending various forms of GBV. I also present the limitations of the #MeToo movement and how I have handled issues of trigger warnings and mandatory reporting. The chapter concludes with an appendix offering a compilation of curricula that have been created to address sexual violence.