Broken Silence: GQM Special Edition 2017

CW: Sexual violence

Dear Colleagues and Friends,

Today we are launching the special edition of GWIS Quarterly Magazine (#GQM)  focused on submitted stories of sexual violence within our STEM academic community. Sexual violence is an issue that is ever-present within our campus community, but one with reach far beyond STEM. It affects people – especially women – within and outside of the academy, all across the globe. For too many of our peers and friends, experiences with sexual violence are common to the point of expectation, and are often suffered through in silence and without the necessary support. The GWIS Communications and Advocacy teams have come together to address the widespread problem of sexual violence both on this campus and beyond, its profound consequences for the lives and careers of violence survivors, and the systematic failure of our academic community to meet the needs of our survivors.

This special edition of #GQM is the beginning of a serious and painfully overdue conversation about sexual violence in our community: one which we hope will move us all to action.

We need real solutions. Right now.

Read the magazine, and write to us with reactions, ideas, or your own stories. Join the #SafeAtWork campaign to help educate and empower us all to speak up (#BrokenSilence), hold one another accountable (#CleanUpYourDepartment), and take it upon ourselves interrupt cultures of violence and silence (#disrupt) to do better for ourselves and each other.

Go to www.GQMag.org, and become part of the movement towards safer and more dignified treatment of the people on our campus.

Stay tuned, and participate.

This is just the beginning!

– The GQM Editorial Team