The culture of ¡°laddism¡± in universities is linked to the transformation of education into a commodity, which shares responsibility for a failure to take seriously sexual harassment in higher education.

That was among the points raised at a conference on sexual harassment in universities, which also heard that those trying to bring the issue to the attention of institutions are too often dismissed as ¡°feminist killjoys¡± or ¡°whingeing women¡±.

Co-organiser Anna Bull, a researcher in the department of culture, media and creative industries at King¡¯s College London, opened the event at Goldsmiths, University of London, by pointing to ¡°the lack of specific expertise¡± on and the ¡°relative invisibility¡± of sexual harassment of students by staff.

Tiffany Page, who is completing a PhD at Goldsmiths, wanted to know how many students ¡°fail to complete their studies each year because they have been subjected to sexual harassment by academic staff¡±.

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She also warned delegates about the way institutions often seek to ¡°individualise the problem. A complaint is made about an individual, not a department, and not a culture. When sexual harassment is formally recognised, the institution treats it as a problem of an individual aggressor¡± ¨C who may well go on to another institution where students ¡°have no knowledge of the abusive behaviour of their new supervisor, their new lecturer¡±.

For Alison Phipps, reader in sociology at the University of Sussex, ¡°¡®lad culture¡¯ and neoliberal culture are natural bedfellows¡±.

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Everywhere we find ¡°education markets, institutional markets [and] sexual markets brought together by similar modes of assessment and audit¡±. Students rate their universities and lecturers. Many also rushed to ¡°Rate Your Shag¡± pages on Facebook (until they were taken down), where mainly male students followed instructions to ¡°name them, shame them and if you must, praise them¡± in relation to their casual sexual encounters.

Anyone who sought to protest about harassment, Dr Phipps continued, faced huge obstacles. ¡°Bringing a problem to institutional attention frequently means becoming the problem¡­[Those dismissed as] feminist killjoys and whingeing women are bringing the university into disrepute ¨C as if the prevalence of violence in the higher education sector has not brought us all into disrepute already,¡± she said.

Sara Ahmed, professor in race and cultural studies at Goldsmiths, described sexual harassment as ¡°a social justice issue¡±, since it functioned as ¡°a means through which the academy itself becomes available only to some¡­[Those] who are harassed end up being removed or removing themselves: if the choices are ¡®get used to it¡¯ or ¡®get out of it¡¯, some quite understandably ¡®get out of it¡¯¡±.

It was not unusual, Professor Ahmed went on, for ¡°academics who identify as progressive or radicals¡±, and are critics of ¡°audit culture and managerialism¡±, to treat equality regulations as ¡°a way of managing unruly bodies and desires¡­Feminism becomes translated as moralism; those who challenge sexual harassment are understood as imposing moral norms and social restrictions on otherwise ¡®free radicals¡¯.¡±

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The conference also included the reading of a play called The Girls Get Younger Each Year and workshops addressing themes such as the legal framework, building inter-institutional links and the specific challenges faced by transgender and black and minority ethnic women.

matthew.reisz@tesglobal.com