Category: Uncategorized
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Universities, don’t conflate ‘lad culture’ with ‘drink culture’
Originally published in The Guardian Last week, Rob Behrens, chief executive of the Office of the Independent Adjudicator, commented on the need for universities to do more to tackle “lad culture” among students. Discussing the problem, he associated it with a “drink culture in universities that leads to a loss of discipline and thought”. His…
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Student political protest is under threat, not free speech
This is the original, longer version of a letter which appeared in The Observer on February 22nd (and can be read online here). It also contains more signatories, since people were still adding their names when we sent the letter off. If you wish to add your name, please leave a reply right at the…
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Neoliberalism and the commodification of experience
The personal is political, that revolutionary phrase which illuminated the Women’s Liberation Movement of the 1970s and after, was originally coined in response to claims that consciousness-raising was navel-gazing with no coherent programme for social change. It posed a direct challenge to the idea that ‘personal problems’ and especially so-called ‘body issues’ should not be…
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Universities are reluctant to tackle sexual violence for fear of PR fallout
Originally published in The Guardian We have heard a lot lately about how UK universities have a problem with sexual violence. Nicole Westmarland, writing in the Telegraph on 20th January, cited a YouthSight poll which found that 1 in 3 female students had experienced sexual assault or unwanted advances, and described institutional inaction as a…
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The dark side of the impact agenda
Originally published in Times Higher Education There has been a great deal of discussion, much of it critical, of the impact agenda in higher education and in the research excellence framework. We have been cautioned that this agenda might prioritise lower over higher quality research if it has demonstrable social reach, that the role of ethics…
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Why feminism needs trans people and sex workers
Originally published in the New Statesman, 24th November 2014 There are several stories circulating about what happened at this year’s London Reclaim the Night march. The Sex Worker Open University have criticised the organisers for including a speaker from Object, a campaign group they claim oppresses those in the sex industry by picketing their workplaces and…
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Laddism is not just a working class phenomenon
This article was published in The Conversation with a changed title. The world media cognoscenti have been on a crusade recently against a particular brand of misogyny. And their campaign has achieved some results. Controversial comedian Daniel O’Reilly just announced that he is retiring his “Dapper Laughs” character after footage emerged of him on stage describing…
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Lad culture thrives in our neoliberal universities
Originally published in The Guardian “Now she’s dead but not forgotten, dig her up and fuck her rotten,” so chanted this year’s freshers at Nottingham University, in an incident hot on the heels of the revelation that the LSE men’s rugby team had distributed a freshers’ leaflet full of racist, classist, homophobic and sexist slurs. As…
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‘Normal birth’ and ‘breast is best’ – the neoliberalisation of reproduction
Originally published in Cost of Living In July this year Sir Marcus Setchell, recently retired surgeon gynaecologist to the Royal Family, made his first public statements about the birth of Prince George. Jenni Murray, interviewing him on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour almost a year after the event, asked him whether he had been entirely necessary.…
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‘I am a victim of nothing but my own bad choices’: Women Against Feminism and neoliberal individualism
Originally published in The F Word A group called ‘Women Against Feminism’ has recently been making the news. Now up to almost 20,000 likes on Facebook, the initial buzz was around its Tumblr where (mostly very young) women post photos of themselves holding messages about why they don’t want to be feminists. There are a variety…
Alison Phipps 