Gender, sexual danger and the everyday management of risks: the social control of young females

Journal of Gender-Based Violence

Donovan

Durey

2019

Many undergraduate students in the UK fall into age groups particularly at risk from interpersonal violence. Recent evidence suggests that a range of interpersonal violence is part of the university experience for a significant number of students. In this article, we report on the findings of an online survey of male and female students administered at a university in the north of England in 2016 exploring experiences of interpersonal violence during their time as a student. Focusing on the qualitative responses, 75 respondents, mostly women, wrote about their experiences of sexual violence. In presenting women’s accounts, we challenge the construction of the ‘ideal victim’ who is viewed as weak, passive and without agency or culpability (Christie, 1986). Women adopt a range of strategies to actively resist men’s sexual violence. In doing so, they challenge and problematise perpetrators’ behaviours particularly tropes that communicate and forefront the heterosexual dating model of courtship. These findings raise implications for women’s strategies of resistance to be viewed as examples of social change where victim-blaming is challenged, perpetrator-blaming is promoted and femininity/victims are reconstructed as agentic. Universities must educate students about sexual violence, dating and intimacy, as well as provide support for victims of sexual violence.

Section: Resisting Sexual Violence: Agency Within Limitssupporting

confidence: 64%

Section: Explaining Sexual Violencementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Resisting Sexual Violence: Agency Within Limitsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Agency, resistance and the non-‘ideal’ victim: how women deal with sexual violence

Journal of Gender-Based Violence

Donovan

Durey

2019

“…Such strategies are thought to alleviate individuals of their feelings of unsafety when near spaces perceived as unsafe. In a similar vein, in the United Kingdom, Roberts (2019) found women were more likely to adopt strategies to stay safe on campus compared to men. They were more likely to use well-lit/visible spaces, secure personal belongings out of sight, and tell someone of their whereabouts both during the day and after dark, on campus, compared to men.…”

Section: Students’ Perceptions Of Safety and Strategies Of Safetymentioning

confidence: 83%

Gendered landscapes of safety: How women construct and navigate the urban landscape to avoid sexual violence

Criminology & Criminal Justice

Donovan

Durey

2020

This article presents findings from an online survey gathering quantitative and qualitative data from men and women students at a university in the north of England in 2016. The survey explored their perceptions of safety and experiences of interpersonal violence during their time as a student, both on and off campus. We show how women were more likely to report sexual violence compared to men. We also show how women students, compared to men, were less likely to say they never felt unsafe as they moved away from the university into the city, and as they moved from day into night. We illustrate how interconnecting factors construct women’s perceptions of safety, and subsequently, how locations perceived as unsafe ‘hotspots’, become physical barriers impeding women’s access to public and educational spaces. Consequently, we outline measures to enhance women’s safety while at university.

“…This research builds on previous studies by the author at a post-1992 university in the north of England (Roberts 2019 ; Roberts et al 2019 , 2022 ) by assessing students’ perceptions of on-campus safety more broadly, including perceptions of campus security. In the author’s earlier research, it was noted that 40% 1 of 192 students ( n = 76) did not know that a campus security service was available (Roberts et al 2022 ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 93%

The makings of an exclusive community: students’ perceptions of dangerous others

2022

High Educ

Contemporarily, universities are perceived as neoliberal entities, self-absorbed, driven by corporate interests, markets and economic goals, rather than perceived as providing a public good, concerned for the wider world (del Cerro Santamaria in Review of European Studies, 12 (1), 22–38, 2020 ). This perception of universities as individualised communities rather than collective communities (Rousseau in Social Currents, 7 (5), 395–401, 2020 ) accentuates the responsibilisation of individuals who are viewed as responsible for solving their own problems (Martinez and Garcia in What is neoliberalism , 2000 ), including ensuring their own safety (Garland in The British Journal of Criminology, 36 (4), 445–471, 1996 ). Set against this social-political backdrop, this paper, using data from an online survey about students’ perceptions of on-campus safety at a university in the north of England, shows how some students, particularly women students, view others as dangerous, rather than view them as vulnerable groups who are residing on the margins of an inequitable society. The porous borders of the university campuses amplify some students’ perceptions of dangerous others and students’ suggestions for campus security to keep out such others arguably serve to aggravate rather than relieve their perceptions of unsafety. Yet the porous borders of the campuses should be seen as advantageous because an ecological university can connect its students to the wider world to help facilitate care for the other (Barnett in The ecological university , 2018 ). In doing so, this may enhance students’ own sense of well-being and safety in the urban environment. This is a timely argument amidst a global pandemic, where the university restricts access to unauthorised others and, in doing so, facilitates the makings of an exclusive community.