Female students have to fight sexist 'lad' culture at British campuses

London If you are a female student from India and aspires to join a British university brace yourself for the lad culturerdquo first Defined as a subset of student life that promotes one particular masculinityrdquo the lad culturerdquo a local euphemism like eve teasing in India for sexual harassment has made campus life difficult for female students especially freshers who are reporting more and more cases of groping sexual persecution and violenceA latest survey by the British National Union of Students NUS found that British universities have failed to tackle lad culturerdquo with only one in 10 institutions including relevant policies in the freshersrsquo welcome packThe findings follow reports in the last few months of a resurgence in lad culture on campus following a flurry of scandals on campus and which led to the head of an Oxford University college to warn of an unprecedentedrdquo scale of groping and sexual harassmentrdquo the Guardian reported citing the NUS findingsIn an another NUS survey of over 2000 men and women students almost one third of respondents said they endure unwanted sexual comments about their body 37 percent of womenTwo thirds of respondents said they have seen students put up with unwanted sexual comments with just under one third bearing witness to verbal harassment based on a studentrsquos genderNearly 75 percent of students are aware of online communities such as lsquoUniladrsquo and lsquoLad Biblersquo with almost two thirds of women students 63 per cent agreeing that these contribute to an unfair representation of womenrdquo the NUS survey statedThe report also found that manyrdquo universities first ask victims to make efforts to solve matters informallyrdquoA Guardian investigation in May had found that fewer than half of Britainrsquos top universities were monitoring the extent of the problem while one in six did not have specific guidelines for students on how to report such allegationsThe growing lad culturerdquo has finally forced the British government to actLast week the government finally decided to set up a taskforce to curb the sexist lad culturerdquo on the campusIn a letter written to Universities UK which represents the countrys vice chancellors Business Secretary Sajid Javid ordered to form a taskforce that will wipe out lad culturerdquo at British campuses the Independent reportedThis taskforce will ensure that universities have a plan to stamp out violence against women and provide a safe environment for all their studentsrdquo Javid wroteThe NUS defines lad culturerdquo as one expressed through hard drinking and hard bantering one that normalises sexual harassment and one that exaggerates this masculinity in the face of a threat to itWe do not tolerate this behaviour in any part of society and Irsquom not prepared to let it take place on university campuses uncheckedrdquo Javid wrote in the letter to Universities UKI have got three daughters and one of them is just starting her Alevels so shersquos just starting to think about what she might do and university is one of the options Javid told the Sunday TimesI just hate to think that she is sitting there thinking lsquoI donrsquot want to go to university because I might be assaultedrdquo he addedThe taskforce is expected to be convened in the autumn and work over a full year Once in action the new taskforce will look at how complaints can be better handled and work with crime prevention officers to tackle the problemThis taskforce will make sure that the universities are doing all they can to meet their legal obligations and will see where they can go furtherrdquo Universities Minister Jo Johnson was quoted as sayingThe NUS said it is happy to see the government take the issue of lad culturerdquo seriouslyWe need the education community to get behind the work that NUS and studentsrsquo unions are doing and support students in challenging lad culture sexual harassment and violence on campusesrdquo NUS womenrsquos officer Susuana Amoah was quoted as saying in the Independent report