An analysis of ‘lad culture’ and sexual harassment focusing on the Case Study University.

‘Lad culture’ has become a growing trend within universities, particularly over the last decade, causing there to be an increase in attention paid by the national media and academic institutions (Shahriar and Syed, 2017). Phipps and Young (2013) identify that in higher education ‘banter’, student nights out, initiations and other social events all contribute to the perception of ‘lad culture’. This is furthered by the participants of the NUS report ‘That’s what she said’ who described ‘lad culture’ as group or ‘pack’ mentalities, heavy alcohol consumption, Banter, Homophobia, Sexism and misogyny, Sexualisation and the objectification of women and Rape supportive attitudes/sexual harassment (Phipps and Young, 2013). The Oxford English Dictionary (www.OED.com cited in Shahriar and Syed, 2017 pp. 127) defined what constitutes a ‘lad’ by; ‘a young man characterised by his enjoyment of social drinking, sport, and other activities considered to be male-orientated, his engagement in casual sexual relationships, and often by attitudes or behaviour regarded as irresponsible, sexist or boorish; (usually) one belonging to a close-knit social group’. But it is not just males that can be considered ‘lad’ with females as well as males being associated to ‘laddism’ (Arevalo and Mitchell, 2017). These ‘laddish’ females became more commonly known ‘ladettes’ and the term officially made it into the Oxford English Dictionary back in 2001 when the BBC News reported that ‘ladettes’ was one of the new words, amongst more than one hundred words, to be added to the dictionary (BBC News, 2001). The term ‘ladette’ was defined as ‘young women who behave in boisterously assertive or crude manner and engage in heavy drinking sessions’ (BBC News, 2001). Due to the presence of ‘lad culture’ on university campuses, this causes an increase in the level of sexual harassment which Phipps and Young (2013) warn is still rife at universities. Merryweather (2014) reports in an article for the Guardian that ‘female students find themselves treated as conquests by men on nights out’. Drury (2015) states that male students (or ‘lads’ which is the frequently used term), can be involved with sexist ‘banter’, sexual harassment and sexual assault. This is especially common during Fresher’s week (Ibid). A mixture of peer pressure, alcohol and a lack of seriousness regarding university policies in relation to sexual harassment and assault has thus allowed an increase in sexual harassment on campus (Merryweather, 2014). Paludi (1990, pp. 3) believes that there is ‘compelling evidence’ that sexual harassment can have an emotional, psychological and physical effect on students. Therefore, it is important that universities are actively trying to tackle the problem. However, McVeigh and Cresci (2015) conveyed that a Guardian investigation that was conducted in the May of 2015, uncovered that less than half of the top universities in Britain were found to be monitoring the extent of this issue. The investigation also found that one in six of these universities failed to have specific guidelines set out for students establishing how they were supposed to report an incident (Ibid). It is clear that there have been various studies that have focused on the ‘laddish’ cultures in Secondary Schools within the UK and other countries (examples of which are Younger and Warrington, 1996; Francis and Greer, 1999; Martino, 1999; Warrington et al., 2000) but there seems to be very little research on ‘lad culture’ and ‘laddism’ at Universities (Dempster 2009; Jackson and Dempster, 2009)