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Why is the NUS waging an ideological campaign to vilify a disadvantaged minority group?

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Two weeks ago the NUS launched its latest attack on “lad culture” at UK universities, with the publication of a survey of students’ experiences of sexism, with the accompanying claim that harassment “is rife on campus”.

The survey found 37% of women and 12% of men who responded said they had faced unwelcome sexual advances, while 36% of women who took part said they had experienced unwanted sexual comments about their body, compared with 16% of men.

The first question that springs to mind, is why findings showing that a third to fifty percent of those experiencing sexism are male students, isn’t also evidence of “ladette culture”?

The report also included these quotes from students who took part, neither of which were highlighted in the accompanying press release or articles:

‘Lad Culture Summit’

“I think it is a little overdramatizing and sexist in that it only looks at the over sexualisation of women. As a woman I do not feel that I am vulnerable and that I do go out to events dressed sexily because I want to and I can handle myself.” Woman, 3rd year university

“Although I have witnessed other men making sexual comments amongst themselves about a woman’s personal appearance, I notice that this behaviour amongst women discussing a man’s physical attractiveness is just as common and deemed much more socially acceptable!” Man, 2nd year university

But the most important question is why, in light of the deepening crisis in young men’s university attendance and educational achievement in general, does the NUS feel that “lad culture” is the most pressing gender issue on campus in the first place?

Since 2010, the NUS has produced a series of high-profile reports, consultations and surveys aimed at revealing what it says is a widespread climate of sexism against female students at UK universities, including a “Lad Culture Summit” in February of this year, covered with live updates on the Guardian website.

Male students a ‘disadvantaged group’

If there is an issue with “lad culture” on campus, then clearly it should be addressed. But the NUS is tasked with representing all of its members – not just female students. So why has it simultaneously downplayed male students’ experiences of sexism and produced no research into the issues facing men at university?

In January this year UCAS reported that there were now a third more girls applying for university than boys, leading the head of the organisation to state that male students are becoming “a disadvantaged group”.

Then in September, exam results revealed the gap had widened even further, with 52,000 less men than women allocated places, jumping from 46,000 fewer places for male students last year.

This disparity hides even starker figures at individual campuses and on particular courses. In 2013, the Guardian published a gender breakdown of students across universities and subject areas, with the conclusion: “The sheer number of female students means that they outnumber boys on the majority of courses, but those most dominated by women include veterinary science and subjects allied to medicine and education.”

What are male students’ needs?

At 20 institutions there were twice as many female fulltime undergraduates as male undergraduates. At Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, the Courtauld Institute of Art and the Institute of Education, respectively 79.5%, 83.3% and 85.7% of undergraduate students were female.

In terms of subject areas, law, veterinary science, education and subjects allied to medicine, respectively 61.7%, 79.5%, 80.4% and 82.1% of undergraduates were female.

These figures beg the question, what must it be like for a young man to be so completely outnumbered by female students? How does this impact on his experience of university? To what extent does this imbalance affect male students’ ability to be heard and have their educational needs acknowledged, particularly in a climate that appears to cast male students as privileged, potential aggressors?

These figures also throw into question the claims by the NUS that there is widespread sexism against female students on campus. On courses and at universities where 80% of students are female, are female students really facing a culture that is “rife” with sexual harassment and sexism?

NUS has no men’s officer

I asked the NUS if they had done any research into men’s experience of university in light of the gender gap on campus, or if they were planning any work to raise awareness of the crisis in male applicants. The press office declined to answer repeated requests for this information. From the list of reports published on the NUS research website, none address male-specific concerns of students. The NUS has a women’s officer, but no men’s officer. The press office said they did not know if there were any NUS men’s officers at individual universities.

This is from the NUS press office response to my questions.

“The plain fact is that there are too few women in leadership positions, whether in the student movement, education, workplace or wider society – and those that are face intolerable barriers.

“Having the post of women’s officer is not much to ask in the face of such inequalities and they are often campaigning on campuses for things men already have. The sexism that women face is part of the system and exists at every level of our lives. It’s important to remember that the remaining posts in students’ unions, often four or five of them, campaign on behalf of men too.”

‘To suggest that men need a specific space to be ‘men’ is ludicrous’

Leaving aside the debatable question as to whether the lack of women in leadership roles is due to the “intolerable barriers” they face, or what exactly the “things men already have” on campus but women don’t are; surely the role of the NUS is to represent students, not to campaign for more women in Parliament or on the boards of FTSE 100 companies?

But the NUS’ underlying attitude to the welfare of male students was most-starkly revealed in 2009 — a year before the first report that led to its anti-lad culture campaign — when students at Manchester and Oxford universities set up men’s societies, to discuss what it means to be a man in contemporary society and address issues such as men’s mental health, testicular cancer and men’s experience of domestic violence.

The societies were ferociously attacked by student women’s officers, with Olivia Bailey, then NUS national women’s officer, stating: “Discrimination against men on the basis of gender is so unusual as to be non-existent, so what exactly will a men’s society do?”

“To suggest that men need a specific space to be ‘men’ is ludicrous, when everywhere you turn you will find male-dominated spaces,” she added.

By “everywhere you turn”, she presumably did not mean virtually every university in the UK.

The stated aim of the lad culture campaign is to ensure that “students’ unions and universities must work together to create campuses that are welcoming, safe and supportive to all”.

It is hard to see how an organisation whose role is to represent all students, yet focuses exclusively on the problems faced by women, while simultaneously vilifying male students and dismissing their concerns, will achieve this goal.

By Dan Bell

Do you think the NUS should be doing more to support male students? What do you think about the lad culture campaign? Are you a student, what do you think of the NUS’ approach to gender issues in general?

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  • Nigel

    Actually I think it likely that the campaigns about “lad culture” are in response to the fact that the lack of male applicants and students is being noticed and official bodies are at least noting it as a concern. The latest “wave” of feminism appears to be returning to old narratives of women needing protection from males as it is becoming obvious that younger generations of women are not disadvantaged and don’t need a whole raft of positive discriminations. This appeal, in effect to notions of chivalry, is effective precisely because it plays into atavistic notions that pre date the sexual revolution of the late 60s and 70s.
    It is a common tactic to sidestep an issue (poor performance in education by boys) by reference to few females in Parliament etc. And this was used in the last decade as a means to avoid doing anything about boys underperforming. It is revealing that the NUS idealogues have become more vociferous at the same time that this previous argument has lost ground and at least some official bodies are starting to take seriously boys education.
    Much the same can be seen in Domestic Abuse as a response to even modest shifts in funding to support males.
    Of course in truth there is no real reason for specialist women’s officers in the NUS now so they have to create one!

  • Sean Dean

    The reason for this so called campaign to end “lad culture” is quite simple. Feminism is losing traction, at least in the industrialised west, because young women and girls are actually seeing it for what it truly is, an ideology which spouts nothing but hate and blames one half of humanity for the “problems” of the other half. Unfortunately this movement does NOT want to do any of the work to sort out there own issues and wants men and boys to be responsible for doing all the work. They (feminists) need to constantly show a male privilege in society because they need to justify there existence even when the reports and figures show the reverse. When threatened it is easy to scream “but boys have everything and women have nothing” even in the face of figures which prove that boys are now in the minority.

    There is now such a disparity and bias toward women in western culture that people of both sexes are beginning to question the facts that feminists hold close to there hearts. Soon there will be no male students on university campuses because it will be such a toxic environment for a boy to be in that when they NUS womens officer starts to yell about the “patriarchy” and look for a man to blame it on and point a finger at all that will be seen is tumbleweed blowing gentle past what was a boys dorm, To have a student body that is supposed to represent ALL students not represent a significant minority of those students is just indicative of feminist theory’s lack of empathy and disabuses there stated (dictionary only) definition of “feminism is about equality”.

    My youngest son started university this September and I HAD to tell him to stay away from any and all the female student body because as a boy he would have no protections from either the university OR the NUS if he engaged in any kind of consensual activity with a young woman and she later suffered from any kind of “buyers remorse”, I had to tell him that HE would be seen as the aggressor and she would be seen as a victim and her false claims would be taken with utmost seriousness whilst his protestations of innocence would be dismissed out of hand based solely on his gender and nothing else. Frankly that is a sad and upsetting thing as a farther to have to do to a young man starting out in life, but I felt it my duty as a man to make him aware.

  • aj

    The survey and the sort in the guardian are quite deliberate misandric propaganda. The most significant thing is that there is nothing wrong with an unwanted sexual advance. They are inevitable until humans develop telepathy. It is part of life to deal with them in a way that does no t upset or offend either p arty. as long as the advance is abandoned when it is clear it is unwanted what is the problem?

    There is a fundamental dishonesty in the way this is presented and an assumption of fragility and lack of capability in women that is astonishingly sexist and patronising.

    In life we have to handle difficult situations, deflecting an unwanted sexual advance, as I have done as a man, does not register compared to having to sack a hard working conscientous employee or even worse telling one of my parents they were going to die soon. University is about developing capable young adults. The assumption that young women need shielding from even mildly embarrassing social interactions is misguided and deeply patronising to women.

  • Nick

    These ideologs are fanatics and best understood through reading Animal Farm: two breasts good; two testicles bad.

    It’s for women and men to call out these gender lunatics who see the world through the lens of extreme feminist dogma.

    Im their view all women are subject to the power of hypermasculinity and must be protected at all costs.

    The brilliant psychoanalyst and feminist (because she was a female with a feminine perspective) Karen Horney named this behaviour years ago: ‘the neurotic need for a vindictive triumph’, this sadly is what feminism degenerated into.