A Balancing Act: Agency and Constraints in University Students’ Understanding of and Responses to Sexual Violence in the Night-Time Economy

Abstract

This article extends our understanding of how university students make sense of, and respond to, sexual violence in the night-time economy (NTE). Based on semi-structured interviews with 26 students in a city in England, we examine students’ constructions of their experiences of sexual violence within the NTE, exploring their negotiations with, and resistance to, this violence. Building upon theories of postfeminism, we interrogate the possibilities for resistance within the gendered spaces of the NTE and propose a disaggregated conceptualization of agency to understand responses to sexual violence, thereby offering useful insights for challenging sexual violence in the NTE and in universities.

Hierarchies of Masculinity and Lad Culture on Campus: “Bad Guys”, “Good Guys”, and Complicit Men

“…Students’ accounts explicitly identified behaviours depicted in the vignettes as part of a lad culture ubiquitous in university settings, associating it with their many encounters with GBV, from everyday sexism to sexual/domestic violence. While a small minority of interviewees occasionally dismissed these behaviours as banter (see also Anitha et al 2020), the vast majority characterised laddish behaviour as excessive masculinity performances by sexually aggressive, predatory men: “lads being lads … lads want to be the guy that sleeps with most women and can drink the most and do the stupidest stuff. It’s all just hypermasculine.…”

“…Analysing interviewees’ constructions of fictional scenarios, as well as examining their encounters/experiences, enabled us to explore their perceptions of the complexities of and links between masculinity, GBV and lad culture. A wealth of data and analytical themes were generated, some have been explored elsewhere (Anitha et al 2020; Jordan et al 2018). We analysed discussions of lads and lad culture (both terms interviewees used unprompted) in depth because of their prominence, and due to the lack of attention to hierarchies of masculinity in the existing research on lad culture.…”

Evaluation of the good night out campaign: a sexual violence bystander training programme for nightlife workers in England

“…It is vital that venues and wider nightlife settings are working collectively to prevent and address sexual violence, support victims and survivors to approach staff and peers for support, and enable nightlife workers to identity issues and safely intervene (Fileborn 2017). Critically, the impacts of bystander programmes (and other approaches) may be undermined by the gendered and sexualised nature of nightlife (Anitha et al 2020); Griffin et al 2012). Studies suggest that women are more likely to intervene than men (Hust et al 2019), and exposure to objectifying images of women is associated with negative attitudes towards women and lower intentions to intervene in sexual violence (Hust et al 2019).…”

Certificação Sexism Free Night: da visibilização do assédio sexual à criação de um roteiro de lazer noturno mais seguro e igualitário no Porto

“…No entanto, os ALN reproduzem as desigualdades que encontramos na sociedade em geral, incluindo o assédio e violência sexual (Mellgren, Andersson e Ivert 2018;Pires et al 2018;Quigg et al 2020;Tutunges, Sandberg e Pedersen 2020;Vaadal 2020), que tendem a agravar-se pelo uso de práticas sexistas e pela cristalização das relações entre géneros (Rodrigues 2016). A sexualização da participação das mulheres em alguns ALN reforça processos de socialização de género sexistas que contribuem para normalização e generalização do assédio sexual enquanto interação sexualizada aceitável e expectável (Graham et al 2017;Observatorio Noctambul@s 2017;Pires et al 2018;Anitha et al 2021). Por esse motivo, à noite são tolerados comportamentos que noutros contextos sociais diurnos são considerados inaceitáveis e socialmente reprováveis (Observatorio Noctambul@s 2017; Pires et al 2018).…”