A string of headlines about misogynistic behaviour has become a depressingly recognisable sign that the new university year has begun. For many female students, those headlines represent the tip of the iceberg. In 2014, should young women really still have to brave this barrage of sexist “banter” in the process of getting a degree?  For female students starting at Emmanuel College, Cambridge this month, a depressing welcome awaited. Student newspaper The Tab reported on a leaked email encouraging members of an all-male drinking society to “smash it (/the girls)”.  A student at a different university reported to Everyday Sexism that they had overheard a student halls rep telling a fresher: “I’m going to treat you like a dolphin, segregate you from the group until you give into me.”  Others from different universities report “points systems” for games such as “fuck a fresher”, “seal clubbing”, or “sharking” – where older male students win points for sleeping with first-year girls. (In some cases, extra points were reported for taking a girl’s virginity or keeping their underwear as a trophy.) In many cases, these are the people supposed to be looking after freshers as they settle in.  The term had barely started at the London School of Economics before the rugby team was disbanded for distributing a homophobic and misogynistic leaflet calling girls “mingers”, “trollops” and “slags” and describing female athletes as “beast-like”. This came after Durham University rugby club’s “It’s only rape if ...” drinking game and Aberystwyth University’s cricket team going out wearing shirts bearing slogans such as “casual rape”.  At the University of Nottingham, a video has emerged showing a crowd of first-year students singing a chant including the lines:  These are the girls that I love best, Many times I’ve sucked their breastsFuck her standing, fuck her lying, If she had wings I’d fuck her flyingNow she’s dead, but not forgotten, Dig her up and fuck her rotten  It echoes last year’s video of students at Stirling University chanting on a public bus about sexual assault and miscarriage.  This certainly isn’t just a British problem – it follows the story of last year’s “frosh week” chant at St Mary’s University in Canada, which included the words: “Y is for your sister/ O is for oh so tight/ U is for underage/ N is for no consent/ G is for grab that ass.”  And a fraternity from Yale University that hit the headlines for marching through campus chanting: “No means yes! Yes means anal!” this year announced plans to expand to UK universities.  One student present at the University of Nottingham event told the Guardian: “I was angry because it was the first night of my university experience, which I’d been looking forward to for a long time. I was upset that I was already experiencing misogyny on my first night.” And it’s not unusual for freshers’ week to see a spike in sexist incidents – last year, a freshers’ week event was advertised to students at Cardiff Metropolitan University using a poster bearing the words: “I was raping a woman last night and she cried.”  Female students wanting to get involved in clubs and societies often find themselves pressured or coerced into highly sexualised and often degrading initiations, from simulating oral sex to giving lap dances or taking their clothes off.  After the recent proliferation of online “spotted” and “confessions” pages dedicated to specific universities, female students can find themselves photographed unawares in the library or elsewhere on campus, with their pictures widely commented on and rated. Those who aren’t photographed might be treated to the joy of comments such as:  Recent years have seen a depressing return to retro sexism, particularly at schools and universities. As I’ve visited institutions up and down the country, countless students have reported coming up against “old school” sexist comments like these, not just in social situations but also when trying to contribute in academic sessions or lectures. Rape jokes are also commonly reported.  A recent National Union of Students study revealed that 37% of female students had experienced “inappropriate touching and groping” – acts defined as sexual assault under UK law. But so great is the social acceptability of these experiences that very few students would consider reporting them and many describe them as the norm.  It’s not just club nights and initiations – female students come up against sexism in the classroom too. Two world-class debaters faced sexist abuse about their appearance and cries of “Get that woman out of my chamber” while participating in a competition at Glasgow University union last year. And another recent NUS report found that female students were experiencing sexism across campus, including venues such as lecture halls and the gym.  Perhaps worst of all, when female students try to challenge this litany of misogyny, they often come up against the defence that it’s just “banter”, it’s all just an “ironic” joke. It’s hilarious to rank women out of 10 and laugh about raping them and post anonymous public judgments of their appearance online, because nobody really means anything by it! The defence is an incredibly effective silencer, branding anybody who dares to complain as uptight or lacking a sense of humour. But the truth is, in 2014, it shouldn’t be possible to write a 10-point list of the abuse women have to brave in the process of learning. There’s nothing funny about it at all.
Laura Bates: As a new university year dawns, there are the depressingly familiar reports of misogynistic behaviour. Should young women really have to endure this to get a degree?