Impact Investigates: Sexual Assault, Misogyny and Harassment at UoN

In light of recent spiking incidents, Impact have collaborated with NSTV and URN to conduct a universitywide survey shedding light on female safety concerns at the University of Nottingham.

90% of female students who experienced sexual assault or harassment decided not to report it

Impact’s Investigations Team found that over half of the female students surveyed (321 women) had experienced sexual assault or harassment during their time at the University. Of these, over 90% (291 women) chose not to report the incidence.

Emily Garton, the University of Nottingham Students’ Union Women’s** Officer, told Impact that a new, inclusive and effective reporting process, known as Report and Support, had been promoted via a number of channels. These included “welfare training, emails, the website, the My Nottingham App, the screen outside the Portland Building, social media, and so on”.

Despite this, 83% of students said they did not know about the process. Furthermore, only 5.4% of female students said they would consult a personal tutor or UoN staff member for support, with 81.7% saying they would confide in friends, instead. This raises concerns, therefore, that the issue lies not simply in promoting the reporting system further, but in encouraging women to come forward in the first place.

One female student said she was “scared to report in case there [were] consequences for me or people find out”. Another wrote that if she “reported the incidents nobody would believe me” as the perpetrator was “a confident and popular student that was well liked in my halls”.

It seems that, rather than simply promoting the reporting process, the University needs to convince its female students that they will not be punished for speaking up. Devising an inclusive and sensitive reporting process for victims is a step in the right direction, but it will remain nothing more than a token measure if female students are too frightened of the repercussions to use it.

When asked for comment, Claire Thompson, the University’s Associate Director of Student Wellbeing said:

“Everyone in our community should feel safe at all times from any form of abuse. We educate our staff and students on the standards of behaviour we expect and promote safety and awareness initiatives such as Let’s be Clear on Consent to protect our community against sexual misconduct.

Students who have experienced sexual harassment and violence are encouraged to report through the University’s Report and Support system, via the website or university app. Students seeking advice about sexual violence are offered a meeting with a Sexual Violence Liaison Officer who has specialist, accredited training to support students making a disclosure (resources linked at the bottom of the article).”

After Nottingham city centre, student halls found to be the second most prevalent location for sexual assault and harassment

Impact’s recent survey has also shown that, whilst the most incidences of sexual assault and harassment have taken place off-campus, the location with the second highest rate of these disturbing experiences is student halls. A total of 167 female students reported knowing of someone who had suffered sexual assault or harassment within University of Nottingham Halls and a further 64 women commented that they themselves were personally targeted.

One female respondent expressed their concerns over the lack of support from halls’ security and staff: “When living in halls, someone reported that they’d been spiked to the health and safety officers, but it was never taken any further by those staff members, and no extra help was given after just acknowledging the situation.” The experiences of this individual are not an isolated experience, however. Another female respondent told Impact: “The abuser of my friend (and several other girls) was left to roam free. No repercussions despite being reported to university staff. This occurred in catered halls.” With 236 of the female survey respondents calling for increased security on campus, clearly more needs to be done to ensure the safety of UoN’s women, not only on nights out in the city, but in the very halls they return home to afterward.

Sports facilities are the location most women feel unsafe in on campus, survey finds

136 of the women Impact surveyed reported feeling unsafe at the University’s sporting facilities. One female student said: “I play a male dominated sport and I feel misogyny is pervasive in UoN sport…The attitude towards women in non-conventional sports is poor and sportswomen are not treated equally or taken as seriously as male counterparts.”

In response to these concerns, Emily Garton, UoN SU’s Women’s* Officer told Impact that they have been “planning a campaign to raise awareness for misogyny in sport” and a motion was passed unanimously last term ensuring that “Welfare training would include information regarding Public Sexual Harassment”. There are further plans to make such training mandatory for all sports team members.

Despite this, one female respondent said: “It’s so frequent among the boys who play sports, I’m not sure how it would be taken seriously”. With over 50% of the women who answered this question expressing discomfort in UoN sport facilities, it is clear that the University needs to recognise this as a priority and take action accordingly.

85% of male students surveyed at UoN do not feel that there is an overall misogynistic culture at the University

The majority of men surveyed do not feel there is a misogynistic culture at the University of Nottingham. Despite this, 71.4% of men responded that they knew someone at the University who had made sexist or misogynistic jokes and a further 63.5% knew of someone who had made jokes involving sexual abuse of women, such as rape jokes. These figures would indicate that most men feel the issue of misogyny is contained in isolated incidents, but the women surveyed had a more sceptical response. In fact, over half of the women surveyed felt there was an overall misogynistic culture at the University of Nottingham.

Furthermore, 55% of male respondents felt disconcerted about the way other men were speaking about women, whilst almost one third of men felt unable to call out the problematic behaviour of others. When asked why this was, one respondent expressed fears about the “social stigma around speaking up against ‘lad culture’ and the fear of being seen as less of a ‘man’, exclusion from groups, being labelled a ‘pussy’, ‘simp’, or a ‘homosexual’.” Another male respondent concerningly reported feeling unable to call out sexist behaviour as “it was a lecturer during a whole cohort lecture.”

When asked what changes they would like to see, both the women and men surveyed drew attention to the same few problem areas: greater education, attitude changes, environmental changes (such as better lighting on campus), increased security and reporting procedure changes. With respondents demanding these reforms be backed by the University of Nottingham, the Students’ Union and the Nottingham Community (e.g., the Council and Police) collectively, it would be fair to infer that students are calling for a multifaceted response.

With this survey and the recent spiking incidents pushing the problem of women’s safety in Nottingham to the forefront, it is time female students were provided with a proactive plan outlining systemic change. Are we waiting for something truly terrible to happen before anything concrete is done? No one wants to hear the words “we told you so”. Let’s hope those in power take heed now and never have to hear them.

**When this article uses the term women, men, male or female, it references all individuals self-identifying with these genders.

**The survey received a total of 826 responses, 615 of whom identified as female and 211 as male.

Further resources and support:

University of Nottingham Sexual Violence Liaison Officer (SVLO) Service: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/currentstudents/healthyu/sexual-violenceliaison-officer-service/sexual-violence-liaison-service.aspx

Report and Support: https://reportandsupport.nottingham.ac.uk/ Let’s Be Clear on Consent: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/currentstudents/ healthyu/lets-be-clear-on-consent.aspx

By Impact Investigations Team

Illustration by Ciara Lurshay Page Design by Chiara Crompton