Perceptions and Effects of Gender-Based Violence Subversive Humor (HUMOR-GV)
Overview
Gender-based violence continues to affect countless women, often perpetuated by harmful stereotypes and misconceptions. In a creative twist, some survivors are using humour to challenge these narratives. Gender-based violence subversive humour (GVSH) gives victims a platform to reclaim control and spark conversation through stand-up comedy and personal jokes.
Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the HUMOR-GV project explores this emerging form of expression, investigating how GVSH is crafted, delivered, and received by audiences. The project also looks at how it helps deconstruct myths, raises awareness, and supports survivors’ well-being. By offering new insights, HUMOR-GV aims to promote social change and create a more inclusive society where humour helps dismantle the stigma surrounding gender-based violence.
Aims and objectives
This project employs mixed methods to:
- Understand how GVSH is conceptualised, delivered by victims, and perceived by the audience.
- Examine the positive effects of GVSH on deconstructing gender-based violence myths, raising awareness, and motivating people to fight gender-based violence.
- Investigate how women who have been victims and are survivors of gender-based violence appreciate, use, and positively benefit in terms of wellbeing from GVSH.
Funder
Related sustainable development goals
Team
MSCA Postdoctoral fellow
Dr Andres Riquelme Riquelme
Marie Curie Research Fellow
Biography
I completed my PhD at the University of Granada (Spain). In 2025, I joined the University of Surrey as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow. The research project focuses on Gender-Based Violence Subversive Humour (GBVSH), a creative strategy often used by victims themselves to express and confront the abuse and violence they experience in various contexts, such as intimate partner relationships.
Supervisor
Dr Fabio Fasoli
Senior Lecturer in Social Psychology
Biography
I received my PhD in 2011 from the University of Trento (Italy). After that, I held postdoctoral fellowships at CITEC/University of Bielefeld, the University of Padua, ISCTE-IUL, and the University of Milano-Bicocca. In October 2016, I joined the University of Surrey as a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow and have been here ever since. I am the Programme Leader for the Social Psychology MSc, the co-director of the Sex, Gender, and Sexualities Research Centre, and the current Chair of the University Rainbow Network. I am also the Secretary of the International Association of Language and Social Psychology (IALSP)
Research groups and centres
Our research is supported by research groups and centres of excellence.