- Dr Alison Phipps, Director of Gender Studies, University of Sussex, Freeman G45, Falmer Campus, Brighton BN1 9QE, UK. Email: a.e.phipps@sussex.ac.uk
Abstract
This article reports on research funded by
the National Union of Students, which explored women students’
experiences of ‘lad
culture’ through focus groups and interviews. We
found that although laddism is only one of various potential
masculinities,
for our participants it dominated the social and
sexual spheres of university life in problematic ways. However, their
objections
to laddish behaviours did not support contemporary
models of ‘sexual panic’, even while oppugning the more simplistic
celebrations
of young women’s empowerment which have been
observed in debates about sexualization. We argue that in their ability
to reject
‘lad culture’, our respondents expressed a form of
agency which is often invisibilized in sexualization discussions and
which
could be harnessed to tackle some of the issues we
uncovered.
