Lad Culture in Higher Education

Sexism, Sexual Harassment and Violence

Carolyn Jackson, Vanita Sundaram

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781351334723
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Responding to increasing concerns about the harmful effects of so-called 'lad culture' in British universities, and related 'bro' and 'frat' cultures in US colleges, this book is the first to explore and analyse the perspectives of university staff on these cultures, which students suggest foster the normalisation of sexism, homophobia, racism, sexual harassment and violence.

Drawing on in-depth interviews with a broad range of staff and faculty across different types of universities in England, the book explores the following key questions:

• 
  
  

• What is lad culture?

• 
  
  

• How and where is it manifest in higher education and what are the effects on students and staff?

• 
  
  

• How can 'laddish' behaviour be explained?

• 
  
  

• How can we theorise lad culture to enable us to better understand and challenge it?

• 
  
  

• How do dynamics in the United Kingdom compare to so-called 'bro' and 'frat' cultures in US colleges?

By examining the ways in which lad culture is understood and explained, the authors illustrate that current understandings of lad culture obscure the broader processes through which problematic attitudes, practices, and educational climates are fostered. This analysis enables a theorisation of lad culture that makes visible the gendered norms and intersecting structural inequalities that underpin it.

This timely and accessible volume will be of great interest to anyone looking to understand and tackle sexism, sexual harassment and violence in and beyond university contexts. It will be of particular significance to researchers, undergraduate and postgraduate students, academics, and policy makers in the fields of gender and sexuality in education, higher education, and sociology of education.

1 ‘Show Us Your Tits and We’ll Buy you Shots’

Lad Culture, Sexual Harassment and Violence in Higher Education

Introduction

In this chapter we explore lad culture in higher education based on existing research in the United Kingdom and across international contexts. We recognise that lad culture is a UK-specific term, but that the attitudes and behaviours associated with it – including sexism, sexual harassment and violence – are not UK-specific. Thus, we pay particular attention to the similarities and variations in the manifestations of UK lad culture and its international equivalents, notably US bro culture and frat culture. We also explore the links between understandings and conceptualisations of lad culture/frat culture in higher education and national-level responses to addressing them. In discussing this relationship, we set the scene for our own research – explored in Chapter 2 onwards – which examines the perspectives and experiences of staff working in universities in England, and contributes to knowledge about the characteristics of lad culture, explanations for it, and enablers and barriers to prevention.

Understanding how lad culture has been discussed and analysed in previous studies gives us important insights into key aspects of the phenomenon: its forms, locations, and prevalence in university contexts, whether it is perceived to be gender-specific, and how institutions respond to it. It also helps us to consider whether lad culture might be described as a global phenomenon or whether it is specific to certain cultural contexts or specific sectors. In this chapter, we draw primarily on research from the United Kingdom and the United States as this is where the bulk of the published research has taken place; where available we also highlight work from other countries in which research on sexual harassment and violence in universities has been conducted, for example, Australia and Canada. We build a picture of the ways that lad culture (or its equivalent) has been described and delineate the key factors associated with it, including alcohol consumption, sport, and specific university communities. Of course, the way in which a problem is conceptualised and understood drives responses to it. For example, as we have argued elsewhere, if sexual harassment and violence are regarded as problems located at the individual level, and associated only with a ‘few bad apples’ or ‘sex pests’, the response to it will be very different than if it is seen to be a widespread cultural and structural problem underpinned by gender inequality (Jackson and Sundaram, 2018; Sundaram and Jackson, 2018). Thus, university-level and national campaigns and policy initiatives to combat lad culture reflect much about its perceived causes, the factors that are seen to sustain it, and its most problematic aspects. They also reveal how and where responsibility is attributed for practices associated with lad culture.

We now consider research on lad culture in the United Kingdom, before moving to consider research internationally.

Research on Lad Culture in Higher Education in the United Kingdom

As discussed in the Introduction to this book, the notion of ‘lads’ in education is not a new one; it was first conceptualised by Paul Willis in his germinal (1977) work Learning to Labour. His ethnographic study was predominantly concerned with the disaffection and disengagement from school of a group of white, working-class young men who termed themselves ‘the lads’. They defined their own sub-culture as one that prioritised ‘having a laff’. Willis’ narration of certain practices associated with ‘the lads’ – some of which might be described as anti-social – mirrors in numerous ways how lad culture has been presented more recently in popular culture: in so-called lads’ mags (e.g. Maxim, Loaded), television programmes (e.g. Top Gear, Men Behaving Badly), and elements of popular music culture (e.g. Oasis). The emphasis is on having fun, not taking things too seriously and not worrying about how others might view or be impacted by the behaviour.

As also noted in the introductory chapter, the term lad culture has only recently been applied to higher education and associated with a set of practices or a culture within universities (Dempster, 2007; NUS, 2013). Thus, research on lad culture in UK higher education contexts is still in its infancy. There is a relatively small but important body of work in which the focus has been exclusively on students’ perspectives about, and experiences of, laddism (Dempster, 2007, 2009, 2011; Warin and Dempster, 2007; NUS, 2013; Jackson, Dempster and Pollard, 2015; Phipps and Young, 2015a, 2015b; Lewis, Marine and Kenney, 2018; Jeffries, 2019; Stentiford, 2019; Diaz-Fernandez and Evans, 2019a). This work, spearheaded by Dempster’s research in the early-to-mid-2000s, has explored how men and women students conceptualise, engage with, and are impacted by lad culture in UK university contexts. This body of research has highlighted several themes that are important for our own research and will be picked up at various points throughout this book. First, laddism is typically regarded by researchers to be a particular performance of masculinity that is most often performed by men. Second, laddishness is not one thing, but might best be conceptualised as a continuum of gendered practice (Dempster, 2007; Jeffries, 2019; Stentiford, 2019). Third, men’s relationships with laddism are complex: men self-identify as ‘lads’ to varying degrees, and even those who do identify as lads often disassociate themselves from the more extreme forms, thus practising what Dempster (2007) refers to as ‘laddishness by degree’. However, while many self-identified lads disassociate themselves from more extreme forms of laddism such as sexual violence, lad culture scaffolds this violence (Phipps and Young, 2015b; Lewis, Marine and Kenney, 2018). Fourth, not all men engage in laddish behaviours, but lad cultures can dominate in certain contexts (NUS, 2013). Fifth, lad culture is associated with groups of men, especially in social contexts. Finally, elements of lad culture that are portrayed as involving ‘homosocial bonding’, fun, and having a good time with friends are often presented in a positive light. Thus, lad culture is not viewed as uniformly negative. However, it is particularly associated with sport, alcohol consumption, sexual harassment, and ‘banter’ that is frequently sexist, misogynist, and homophobic. More extreme forms of laddism involve sexual violence (NUS, 2013).

The strong association between laddism and sexual harassment and violence means that it is useful to consider here not only the research that has focused specifically on laddism, but also that which has explored sexual harassment and violence more generally in higher education. In the United Kingdom there is limited work in both spheres and much of it has been driven by the National Union of Students (NUS). Their Hidden Marks study (NUS, 2010) explored women students’ experiences of physical intimidation, fear, and verbal, sexualised, and physical harassment and violence. It generated survey responses from over 2,000 women students in higher education institutions across the United Kingdom, of whom two-thirds reported having experienced some form of verbal or non-verbal harassment in or around their institution. Thus, it was ground-breaking in highlighting that sexual harassment and assault are experienced frequently by women university students, and it also revealed the emotional and psychological impact of the fear of sexual harassment and assault for these women. One in seven women reported experiencing a ‘serious’ physical or sexual assault while at university and one-third reported sometimes feeling unsafe to visit university buildings after dark. It suggested that violence against women in university settings was occurring at rates similar to, or higher than, rates than among women in broadly the same age group in the general population (Phipps and Smith, 2012; UUK, 2016), and that fear of violence continues to restrict women’s behaviour (as demonstrated by Hamner, 1988).

In 2012, the NUS commissioned a study into women students’ experience of lad culture as a specific phenomenon, and some of the themes referred to earlier emerged from, or were reinforced by, this project. Based on interviews with 40 women from universities across England, the researchers – Alison Phipps and Isabel Young – described lad culture as:

a group or ‘pack’ mentality residing in activities such as sport and heavy alcohol consumption, and ‘banter’ which was often sexist, misogynist and homophobic. It was also thought to be a sexualised culture which involved the objectification of women and rape supportive attitudes, and occasionally spilled over into sexual harassment and violence.

(National Union of Students, 2013, 28)

In that NUS study, lad culture was found to encompass sexism more generally, as well as sexual harassment, physical intimidation, and assault. Thus, that piece of research was pivotal in connecting the small amount of research that already existed on lad culture (notably, Dempster, 2007, 2009, 2011) with research on sexual harassment and violence.

The NUS followed up that research in 2014 by conducting a lad culture and sexism survey that generated 2,156 responses and included men and women participants. The data suggested that students of all genders had experienced unwanted sexual advances (26% overall) but that many more women (37%) than men (12%) reported experiencing these. Just over one-third of the participants had witnessed other students being subjected to unwanted sexual comments about their body (36%) or unwanted sexual advances (36%), and almost two-thirds (62%) had heard rape or sexual assault ‘jokes’ being told at university. Rates were even higher in a survey published by the alcohol education charity, Drinkaware (2015). Their survey of just over 2,000 students across the United Kingdom revealed that 54% of 18-to-24-year-old women students (and 14% of men students) experienced sexual harassment on nights out. Of these women, half said that this is experienced most or every time they go out.

In the two most recent surveys – conducted by Revolt Sexual Assault and The Student Room (2018) and Brook (2019) – we again see high levels of sexual harassment and violence among UK university students and low levels of reporting. The survey by Revolt Sexual Assault and The Student Room (2018) generated just under 4,500 responses from students and recent graduates across 153 different institutions; 62% had experienced sexual violence: 70% of women students and 26% of men students. The rates of sexual violence were also very high for disabled students (73%) and non-binary students (61%). Only 6% of those who had experienced sexual harassment or sexual assault reported their experience to the university, with the main reasons for not reporting being thinking it was not serious enough (56%); feeling too ashamed (35%); and not knowing how to report it (29%). Sexual assault and harassment at university were regarded as having become normalised by 42% of respondents; 55% agreed that there are attitudes and behaviours that sexualise and objectify women; and 56% agreed that certain people believe they are entitled to have sex. Unsurprisingly, students reported significant impacts on self-confidence, mental health, studies, and social life as a result of experiencing sexual violence (see also Phipps and Smith, 2012).

The Brook survey (2019) which received 5,649 responses from UK university students – the largest response to date – revealed a similar pattern: a high proportion of students, especially women, experience sexual harassment and violence but very few report it. For example, their data suggest that almost half of the women in their sample (49%) said they were inappropriately touched but only 5% reported it. A quarter of women (26%) were sent unwanted sexually explicit messages but only 3% reported it. Women were more likely to experience unwanted sexual behaviours than men: 49% of women said they had been touched inappropriately compared with 3% of men.

In general, then, there is relatively small but growing body of research in the United Kingdom looking at lad culture and/or sexual harassment and violence in higher education (Phipps and Smith, 2012; UUK, 2016). The evidence available points to high levels of sexual harassment and violence and low levels of reporting. Fortunately, the increasing visibility of sexual harassment more generally, and within higher education specifically, is leading to more scrutiny and research in this sphere. This includes scrutiny not just of students’ harassing and violent behaviours, but also recently of sexual misconduct by university staff towards students (Ahmed, 2017; Bull and Rye, 2018; Page, Bull and Chapman, 2019). This has garnered growing attention in mainstream media, although the research evidence is currently still sparse. One notable piece of research that focused specifically on staff-to-student sexual harassment and abuse is the Power in the Academy study (NUS, 2018) conducted by The NUS and The 1752 Group – a national research, lobbying, and consultancy organisation. Drawing on data from an online national survey that generated 1,839 responses from current and former students in UK higher education, plus four focus groups with a total of 15 students, this study found that sexual misconduct perpetrated by staff in universities is an issue of significance. Out of all 1,839 survey respondents, 752 (41%) had experienced at least one instance of sexualised behaviour from staff, while a further 94 (5%) were aware of someone they know experiencing this (p. 8). Again, the patterns are gendered. Overall, 60% of the 846 respondents who reported experiencing sexual misconduct stated that the perpetrator(s) of staff-student misconduct were men, while 14% of respondents reported a female perpetrator (p. 10). Although most of the discussion in this book is about lad culture among university students, we do touch upon lad culture among staff at various points, most notably in Chapter 2. This is one of many areas of work in this sphere that deserves further attention; as Page, Bull, and Chapman (2019, 1311) argue, the absence of research evidence about staff sexual misconduct in the United Kingdom is ‘one of the factors that has contributed to making this issue invisible’.

Overall, there is increasing recognition in the United Kingdom that lad culture, which encompasses sexual harassment and violence, poses a serious risk to certain groups of students and needs to be tackled in and by universities. We now move beyond the United Kingdom to consider research on lad culture internationally.

Research on Lad Culture in Higher Education Internationally

Research on sexual harassment and violence in university settings has a much longer tradition in the United States than in the United Kingdom or elsewhere, although as Phipps (2018a) points out, the sexual victimisation of women students has been studied in many countries. Phipps and Smith (2012) note that sexual and gendered violence have been regarded as a major problem in the United States since the 1980s. Thus, considerably more research has been conducted in the United States and over a longer time period than in the United Kingdom (see, for example, Koss and Oros, 1982; Koss, Gidycz and Wisniewski, 1987) with some important work also being undertaken in Canada (for example, DeKeseredy and Kelly, 1993; DeKeseredy and Schwartz, 1997; DeKeseredy, Schwartz and Alvi, 2000). In the United States, the National Institute of Justice funded the National College Women Sexual Victimisation Survey in 1996; it found that between 20% and 25% of women university students would experience sexual victimisation before they graduated (Fisher, Cullen and Turner, 2000). The Campus Sexual Assault survey (Krebs et al., 2007) included women and men respondents and found that one in five undergraduate women students experienced sexual assault or attempted assault during their time at university. In a more recent survey in the United States, Cantor et al. (2015) found a similar prevalence of sexual victimisation among students of all genders (around one in five). Overall, studies suggest that the sexual assault prevalence for women on college campuses in the United States is between 19% and 25% (Lund and Thomas, 2015). While there has been attention to sexual harassment and assault in universities in the United States for the last three decades or so, it is now gaining increased attention. Lewis, Marine and Kenney (2018, 57) note that:

While campus rape in the US has been an acknowledged reality for the last three decades, interest in the issue has piqued with the recent influx of highly visible student-generated lawsuits against colleges for mishandling reported rapes (Anderson, 2014; Bahr, 2014). In January 2014, a Presidential commission initiated by Barack Obama declared campus rape a national emergency in the US.

(White House Council on Women & Girls, 2014)

In the wake of increasing attention to sexual harassment and assault more generally, studies in universities in other countries are beginning to emerge, although these are still very limited in number. A notable example is a recent Australian study (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2017) which showed sexual harassment and violence to be prevalent in Australian universities, with 51% of students reporting at least one instance of sexual harassment in the course of a year, and nearly 7% reporting at least one sexual assault in 2015 or 2016. Over a quarter of respondents were sexually harassed in a university setting in 2016. Women were almost twice as likely as men to have been sexually harassed, and students who identified as bisexual, gay, lesbian, or homosexual were more likely than students who identified as heterosexual to have been sexually harassed. The gendered pattern of perpetration and victimisation noted earlier is repeated here: the vast majority of perpetrators were men and the victims women. The qualitative information generated by this national study showed that alcohol consumption and attitudes towards women were significant contributing factors to sexual harassment and sexual assault. Residential settings also present a risk factor for sexual harassment and assault: students were most likely to have been sexually assaulted in a university residence or a residence social event; this parallels findings from the United States about ‘Frat Houses’ which we discuss shortly. The spaces where sexual harassment and violence occur are crucial to consider. As we discuss in Chapters 2 and 4 of this book, differences between universities were identified in terms of their perceived conduciveness to lad culture and the risk of sexual harassment or assault. Teaching and learning spaces were also identified as settings for sexual harassment; this suggests that alcohol and partying are not necessary factors for lad culture, or practices associated with it, to occur. Sexual harassment by staff was also evident in the Australian study and, as highlighted in recent work in the UK context (NUS, 2018), power disparities were a significant risk factor in relation to sexual harassment and assault.

A focus on ‘risk’ factors is common in the research on sexual harassment and violence in higher education in the United States. Typically, the focus is on behaviours such as alcohol consumption or participation in team sports as explanatory or correlatory factors. A pattern of ‘risk factors’ for perpetration can be established across national contexts. Common factors associated with sexual harassment and assault are alcohol consumption, conservative gender attitudes or sexism, and abuses of power (e.g. in relation to staff-student sexual misconduct). An important consequence of the emphasis on risk factors is that programmes to challenge violence against women often focus on encouraging women students to minimise risk (a public health approach), for example by avoiding ‘risky’ situations (Marine and Nicolazzo, 2017). Furthermore, such programmes have focused on creating change at the individual level rather than addressing cultures of misogyny and sexism. A systematic review by DeGue et al. (2014) of prevention strategies for sexual violence perpetration revealed that fewer than 10% of programmes included content to address factors beyond the individual level (e.g. peer attitudes, social norms, organisational climate), and the vast majority were one-dimensional, very short (one-off sessions), and lacked strong theoretical frameworks. We pick up this discussion later in the chapter, as ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 ‘Show Us Your Tits and We’ll Buy you Shots’: Lad Culture, Sexual Harassment and Violence in Higher Education
• 2 ‘But Most of It’s Banter’: What Does Lad Culture Look like in Higher Education in England?
• 3 ‘They’re Mainly Private School, White Boys’: Who Are the Lads?
• 4 ‘But They’re Not Really like That’: Explanations for Laddism
• 5 (Re)theorising and Addressing Lad Culture
• Conclusion
• Appendix
• References
• Index