IT’S TIME TO REDEFINE THE LAD
As was reported on The Debrief this week, Secretary of State for Business, Sajid Javid, has written to universities across the UK requesting that they set up a task force to investigate sexual violence against female students. Not simply looking to implement new safety procedures, Javid is calling for a total ‘culture change’ and wants to help put a stop to ‘lad culture’ in our universities.
There’s a good reason for this - figures from the NUS Hidden Marks survey last year showed that one in seven women experienced a serious physical or verbal assault while at uni and over two thirds experienced verbal or non-verbal harassment like being groped or having comments yelled at them. And the saddest part of these statistics is how unsurprising they are. Thinking back to my own time at university in Sheffield I can instantly recall several incidences where Lad culture directly affected my closest friends - and me.