STEPSISTER aims at reversing socio-economic and cultural inequalities and promoting gender equality, thus supporting the realization of the global 2030 Agenda’s Sustainable Development Goal 5 on achieving gender equality, in line with the goals of the cluster 2 (sub cluster 6) of the Horizon Program. It aims at investigating the stereotypes and prejudices that permeate the social representation of GBV and that contribute to the secondary and tertiary victimization of the people who experienced GBV and end up with weakening judicial action. This latter, if not safeguarding everybody’s rights, risks hindering the inclusive growth and the social sustainability of our society. Thus, at the heart of the project there are, the inclusive growth and social sustainability that should be strengthened and boosted through evidence-based policies for tackling inequalities and through a better understanding of the social, ethical, political, and economic impacts of drivers of change. The research, indeed, will contribute to the strategies for inclusive growth by uncloaking the deeply rooted sexist stereotypes and prejudices that affect the victims of GBV and prevent them from having justice. It will develop guidelines for the professionals helping them to dismantle such stereotypes and prejudices, as well as the historical unequal power distribution between genders of which GBV is the principal manifestation. The project will be divided into four integrated research and third mission activities, consisting in monitoring, and investigating: a) the journalistic representation of domestic violence and intimate partner violence and the socio-political response to violence (Unit of Sapienza); b) the journalistic representation of male violence against women perpetrated in public spaces and/or by strangers and the socio-political response to this violence (Unit of Tuscia); c) the journalistic representation of violence against LGBTQIA+ people and associations and the socio-political response to this violence (Unit of Messina); d) the way in which institutions, institutional professionals (judges, public ministers and law enforcement), and lawyers are represented in the newspapers’ articles dealing with GBV and the way in which those subjects represent themselves and their action
(Unit of Chieti). Based on the outcomes of the research of all the Units, the social impact of the project will be achieved through the dissemination of the results among the social, institutional, and professional actors involved in the study. The highlighting of the patriarchal practices produced by sexist stereotypes and prejudices and, on the other hand, the promotion of new respectful narratives within journalistic, judicial and social services contexts may in fact be a decisive knowledge tool to contrast gender discrimination and thus to safeguard human rights and to guarantee gender equality, as stated by the CEDU.