Introduction

This chapter addresses the issue of sexual violence against students and the concept of ‘lad culture’ which has been used to frame this phenomenon in the UK and has connections to similar debates around masculinities in other countries. This issue is much-researched and debated but under-theorised and, due to a lack of intersectionality, radical feminist frameworks around violence against women are useful but incomplete. The chapter sketches a more nuanced approach to the understanding of campus sexual violence and the masculine cultures that frame it, which also engages with the intersecting structures of patriarchy and neoliberalism. It argues that framing these issues structurally and institutionally is necessary in order to avoid individualistic and punitive approaches to tackling them which may seem feminist but are embedded in neoliberal rationalities.

Background

From concerns about ‘eve teasing’ or gendered and sexual harassment on South Asian campuses, to debates about ‘lad culture’ and freedom of speech in the UK, to Lady Gaga's performance at the 2016 Oscars when dozens of US survivors joined her silently on stage, the issue of sexual violence against students has recently been high on the international agenda. Starting in the 1980s, the sexual victimisation of women students has been studied in many countries including Japan, China (Nguyen et al, 2013), South Korea (Jennings et al, 2011), Haiti, South Africa, Tanzania (Gage, 2015), Jordan (Takash et al, 2013), Chile (Lehrer et al, 2013), Canada (Osborne, 1995), Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain (Feltes et al, 2012), Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka (Chudasama et al, 2013; Nahar et al, 2013), the US and the UK (Phipps and Smith, 2012). Beginning in the US, initial studies were often psychological and individualistic, focused on motivations of male perpetrators, acceptance of ‘rape myths’ and experiences of post-traumatic stress. This orientation, as well as a largely positivist slant, continues in much academic and policy work, as the ‘problem’ is established and explorations begin in new international contexts. However, there has also been a strong thread of feminist analysis grounded in the concept of patriarchy, and the continuum between more ‘everyday’ forms of sexual harassment and more ‘serious’ manifestations of sexual violence. More recently, there have been attempts to contextualise campus violence within theories of masculinity, shaping discussions of ‘lad culture’ in the UK, ‘bro culture’ in the US and a new/renewed interest in ‘rape culture’ internationally.