The<i>what, who and where</i>of female students’ fear of sexual assault on a South African University campus

Singh, Shakila; Mudaly, Ronicka; Singh-Pillay, Asheena

doi:10.1080/10130950.2015.1045335

Cited by 15 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…Epidemiological data from South Africa has documented that urban women and women aged 18 to 24 may be at higher risk of sexual coercion than women in rural areas and women 25 years and older (Jewkes & Abrahams, 2002), suggesting the possibility that university women may be at elevated risk by dint of their age and attendance at university in an urban area. One small study at a South African university found that 94% of female students reported feeling fearful on campus, with 57% specifically afraid of sexual assault (Singh, Mudaly, & Singh-Pillay, 2015). Most female students reported fear of strangers and a desire for better campus security (Singh et al, 2015), although the majority of sexual assault is perpetrated by individuals whom the victim already knows (Breiding et al, 2011; Collins, Loots, Meyiwa, & Mistrey, 2009; Hollander, 2016; Sinclair et al, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Epidemiology of Campus Sexual Assault Among University Women in Eswatini

Fielding-Miller

Shabalala

Masuku

et al. 2019

J Interpers Violence

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Sexual assault on university campuses has attracted growing attention, but there is little data available on the scope of the problem in Southern Africa. We sought to measure the prevalence of campus sexual assault among female university students at the University of Eswatini and describe the experience of survivors using a mixed-methods study design. Women were randomly sampled from a list of all full-time female university students provided by the office of the registrar, and participants completed a brief behavioral survey in a private study office using a tablet with computer-assisted self-interview software. Women who indicated experiences of sexual violence during the survey were invited to self-identify themselves to study staff to participate in a follow-up qualitative interview. We measured sexual assault using the Sexual Experiences Survey–Short Form Version (SES-SFV). We found that women in University were over 6 times more likely to report forced or coerced sex in the previous 12 months than has been previously reported in the general population. Sixty percent of participants reported experiencing an attempted or completed sexual assault in their lifetime, and a total of 38% reported an assault in the past 12 months. The vast majority (93%) of assailants were known to their victim, and the majority (56%) of perpetrators were romantic partners. The majority of participants had never disclosed their assault, and victim blaming and stigma emerged as highly salient themes during in-depth qualitative interviews. Food insecurity, losing a parent before age 21, and hazardous drinking were all significantly associated with experiencing sexual assault in the previous 12 months, as was experiencing a previous assault before the age of 18. To our knowledge, this is the first generalizable study of campus sexual assault prevalence conducted in the Southern African region.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Epidemiology of Campus Sexual Assault Among University Women in Eswatini

Fielding-Miller

Shabalala

Masuku

et al. 2019

J Interpers Violence

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Research in the global south have also emphasised the need for research-led interventions into gender violence at universities (Treffrey-Goatley et al 2018;Singh, Mudaly, and Singh-Pillay 2015), with young female students starting university often being eager to explore their newly discovered freedom (Dranzoa 2018). For many first-year female students, especially those who live in campus residences, it is their first experience of being away from home and thus from any form of parental or familial surveillance (Gordon and Collins 2013).…”

Section: Sexual Violence On University Campusesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Such a situation, however, also laid students, particularly females, open to highly negative experiences, including sexual harassment and rape (Gordon and Collins 2013). The findings of research in a South African university highlights that sexual violence, particularly amongst female students living in university residences, is widespread, and their activities are determined and constrained by fear of sexual assault (Singh et al 2015). It is mainly first-year students who are exposed to a "party rape culture" where they are not only pressurised to consume alcohol and drugs but also pressurised to engage into having unprotected sex, which makes them vulnerable to gender-based violence (Armstrong 2006).…”

Section: Sexual Violence On University Campusesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Studies revealed that female students do not report gender-based violence because they fear reprisal from the perpetrator and that they may not be believed, as the traumatic incident may have caused them to block out details to reduce the impact. They may also fear being accused of being complicit or worse, of provoking the assault and blame themselves for what happened (Singh et al 2015;Gordon and Collins 2013).…”

Section: Dangerous Spaces: Dark City and Residence Roomsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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“Fresh meat”: First year female students negotiating sexual violence on campus residences

Anderson

Naidu

2022

SAJHE

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This article focuses on first-year black female students at the University of KwaZulu-Natal who were exposed to and experienced sexual violence. The aim of the study was, broadly, to determine how female students experience and negotiate gender, sexuality and violence in campus residences. Semi-structured individual interviews were utilised to generate data. The findings show that violence was shaped by gender and power dynamics. These students were first years, and predominantly from poor backgrounds, and therefore particularly vulnerable to sexual violence and unequal relationships. Alcohol, substance abuse and dangerous masculinised spaces further exacerbated their vulnerability. Poverty, scarce resources and gender intersect to produce vulnerability and constrained forms of their agency that translate into transactional relationships. The findings also suggest that being first year female students have implications for how these young women negotiated their newfound freedom away from the parental gaze. The study highlights the ways in which these first-year students are aware that sexual violence is prevalent on campus particularly in certain spaces such as Dark City and residence rooms. Members of the SRC and DSRA are cited as likely perpetrators of sexually predatory behaviours. We therefore propose that the Gender Based Violence Policy at UKZN should be introduced to first year students by way of induction courses, and that these courses should also include gender and sexuality education to help ensure that awareness around gender violence permeates the lives of all students.

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“…While violence is not peculiar to South Africa and that people subscribe to violence to assert dominance to resolve disputes is a universal social issue, in South Africa violence against girls and women has become normalised and this normalisation demands disruption as Graaff and Heinecken (2017) have argued. Evidence from the South African context suggests that much of this violence against girls and women happens in homes (Kempen, 2019a) in schools (Bhana, 2018) and on university campuses (Singh, Mabaso, et al, 2016;Singh, Mudaly et al, 2015) with boys and male teachers as pre-dominant perpetrators (Beninger, 2013;Taole, 2016). Violent performances of hegemonic masculinity are of distinct behavioural concern for schools with some activists calling for school-based interventions that become integrated as an essential element of the curriculum (Bhana & Mayeza, 2016;Rasool, 2017), an imperative that I have taken up in the curriculum I constructed for pre-service and in-service teachers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Aligning with feminism: Critical autoethnographic reflections of a profeminist heterosexual male teacher educator

Maistry

2021

Journal of Education

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In the last two decades, education scholarship has made significant progress in advancing the feminist social justice agenda with women scholars having been almost entirely the drivers of this movement. Women scholars in teacher education have been successful in establishing and consolidating this disciplinary field of study quite firmly in the teacher education curriculum. Despite this, many forms of oppression, including domestic or intimate partner violence and sex- and gender-based violence, continue to plague South African universities and society in general. The current COVID-19 pandemic's mandatory home confinement restrictions have further exacerbated the conditions for individuals likely to experience domestic violence. Men have been relatively silent and inactive in this social justice project. There is also limited extant scholarship that addresses the role that profeminist men might play in this social justice enterprise. There is also little work that attempts to understand the level of sophistication with which men understand feminism, determine with which feminisms men might align themselves, and the accountability and responsibility that might come with assuming certain positions. In this critical autoethnographic piece, I engage with the questions of how critical pedagogical encounters in a teacher education course might serve as disruptive devices that trouble stubbornly resistant gendered socialisations. I draw on my experiences as a teacher educator as I struggle to locate and identify my own profeminist positionality and the tensions this presents. I contemplate the poststructuralist caution about writing (my)self into a text given that the writing self is an evolving/changing self. I reflect on my attempt to disrupt obliviousness as I contemplate the prospect of self-disclosure as a point of entry for profeminist men's praxis in a teacher education programme subscribed to by young men (and women) deeply socialised in a patriarchal history and culture.

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Thewhat, who and whereof female students’ fear of sexual assault on a South African University campus

Cited by 15 publications

References 21 publications

Epidemiology of Campus Sexual Assault Among University Women in Eswatini

Epidemiology of Campus Sexual Assault Among University Women in Eswatini

“Fresh meat”: First year female students negotiating sexual violence on campus residences

Aligning with feminism: Critical autoethnographic reflections of a profeminist heterosexual male teacher educator

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