‘Laddism’ and violence in a
marketised sector
Alison Phipps and Isabel
Young, University of
Sussex
28 June, 2016
‘We reassert that education is a public good that is and should remain
free of perverse market incentives in every aspect of its provision’
(Sussex Against Privatisation, 2012)
28 June, 2016
Hidden Marks (NUS 2010) found that
68% of university women had been
sexually harassed and 1 in 7 had been
subject to a serious physical or sexual
assault, during their studies
28 June, 2016
Research summary
• Commissioned by NUS to provide a deeper
examination of the phenomenon of ‘lad culture’ and
women students’ experiences with it
• Literature review on ‘lad culture’ and gender in HE
more broadly, and focus groups (4) and interviews (21)
with 40 women students in England and Scotland
• Sample self-selecting and largely made up of white
middle class undergraduates between 18 and 25, but
there was some diversity in relation to level of study,
age, ethnicity, social class and sexual orientation
28 June, 2016
•
'a lot of lad culture is based on just
competition. It doesn’t matter what it
is, drinking competitions, pulling
competitions, like being the biggest
twat competitions' (FG participant I)
•
'[lads] all act like they are the ‘alpha
male’ and their main aim of a night
out is to ‘get with a girl’ or ‘pull a girl’
(Interviewee 21)
•
‘One group [of lads] used to compete
to see how many numbers they could
get of girls in a night - they used to put
them on tissue paper “so the girls
can't text us and get clingy” – [and
then] throw these tissues away’
(Interviewee 8)
‘if a guy decides a girl is his, whether she likes him or not, no one
else is going to get with her because they all know that the leader
of the pack has decided, he kind of owns them’ (Interviewee 10)
28 June, 2016
‘On their initiations if they are
drinking and if they need to go
to the toilet so much they have
to go and piss on one of their
teammates in the centre of the
room’ (Interviewee 20)
‘As opposed to helping him, as
opposed to getting him to bed,
as opposed to any of that…chairs
were piled on him, take a picture
of him Facebook it, the next
morning so everyone could see.
It’s like you don’t, you’ve lost
that caring’ (FG participant H)
28 June, 2016
‘They think it’s going to be
this great thing where the
girls are going to be up for
doing whatever they want
and the style of the sex as
well, I think they imagine it’s
going to be all them just
proper going at it and the girl
is just there for them to just
go at and it’s just like ‘yuck,
noo!’, kind of objectifying, like
women are the object, they
are there just for them to use
as they feel fit’ ((Interviewee
10)
28 June, 2016
• ‘Laddism’ of course pre-dates
neoliberalism, but is also responsive
to prevailing social conditions so
must interact with the
neoliberalism of our contemporary
HE sector
• Neoliberal masculinism, seen in
managerial practices, can also be
seen in student social and sexual
cultures
• Gender differences and inequalities
are magnified in the current
climate, and market trends
(outsourcing, dominance of PR
concerns) threaten to silence
students who find this problematic
• How can we ally our antimarketisation and anti-violence
efforts more closely?
28 June, 2016