Lottie Young
Cambridge Socialist Students
Article taken from Autumn 2025 edition of the Socialist Student magazine
Sexism is an enduring problem in universities that has significant impacts on students. Sexual harassment, objectifying and misogynistic comments from classmates, drink spiking, and sexual assault are common. These attitudes are a product of and perpetuated by capitalism, which is a system based on exploitation and inequality. Today, women’s lives are vastly different from even a few decades ago. Struggles for personal autonomy, financial independence, and legal rights –such as equal pay and access to education – have made gains. At the same time, these gains are not conclusive, and the horrors of sexism can still be seen, such as the murder of Sarah Everard by an off-duty police officer.
A survey of 4,491 students by Revolt Sexual Assault found that 70% of female students had experienced sexual violence, with 25% of these students reporting that they skipped lectures, tutorials, or changed certain modules to avoid their attackers, and a shocking 16% ended their studies as a result of the violence and harassment they experienced.
It is clear that whilst attitudes towards women in universities have experienced some progress – with women now able to earn degrees, enter into careers in academia, and hold positions of leadership in universities – we are still incredibly far from the elimination of sexism and sexual violence within universities and wider society.
These shocking statistics come amidst the years of cuts to services and infrastructure for students, including campus lighting, night transport, counselling services, student bursaries, and the funding of programmes to tackle on-campus sexism. The fact that only 6% of respondents felt that they could report their assault to their university shows that current university services are not helping students to feel comfortable, safe, and supported on campus.
Fight for funding and control of our campuses
In 2023, the average salary for the vice chancellor across the UK’s twenty-four Russell Group universities exceeded £400,000 (with the vice chancellor of Oxford University earning a staggering £1,048,000), with more than two-thirds of them receiving pay rises. While students are left to deal with rising tuition fees, the cost-of-living crisis, and cuts to education – including the subsequent lack of prevention of sexual violence – the decision-makers are raking in the cash.
If we can’t trust the cutting university bosses to keep us safe, then students have to fight to guarantee this right ourselves. That should start with student unions linking up with trade unions to campaign against sexual harassment in schools, colleges and universities. Part of that should be campaigning for democratically elected committees of students and staff to be in charge of investigating reports of sexism and sexual violence on campus, ensuring that the processes are effectively implemented and accessible to those who need them.
The money is clearly there in society to create fundamental change for all students, but it is going into the pockets of a select few instead. Socialist Students has initiated the Funding not Fees campaign to build a movement for fully funded, free education – paid for by taking the wealth out the hands of the super-rich.
Imagine what we could do if we had all the resources we need for education. We could scrap tuition fees and introduce maintenance grants that actually cover the cost of living. There could be massive investment in things like campus lighting and secure student housing. We could make sure that every university campus had free-to-use, properly staffed creche facilities, so that parents with young children could attend classes.
How to take on ‘lad culture’
Many measures within universities to tackle sexism are aimed at quelling ‘lad culture’. This sees sexism and sexual violence as deriving from the behaviour of individual or groups of men, or a culture among young men which encourages sexism.
Misogynistc ideas exist across society, and can even become more prominent among sections. The Revolt Sexual Assault survey found 42% of respondents agreed that actions constituting sexual assault and harassment had become “normalised” at university. There are also stories of disgusting sexist messages shared on many student group chats. For example, a group chat of Durham University students included discussions of sleeping with ‘a different bird every night for a bed’ and ‘posh lads’ competing to sleep with the ‘poorest girl’.
Students absolutely have the right to ‘call out’ derogatory comments made by individual men, but what could most effectively stamp out sexism and misogyny on a campus- and society-wide basis is a mass movement against sexism and for the things we all need, uniting people of all genders in a common struggle. Today working-class and young people’s struggles against all forms of oppression have been pushed back. Previous generations were able to use their collective weight and joint interest in challenging reactionary ideas to make gains against sexism.
It is no coincidence that the propaganda of Andrew Tate and Co. has become more popular during the huge crisis of capitalism which exists today and the misery which comes with it. But limiting campaigning against sexism to opposing male ‘culture’ or individual sexist men, without acknowledging that the capitalism system embraces and promotes gender inequality and sexism, also doesn’t offer women a way forward. It can also subsequently repel men from participating in the fight against sexism (and thus capitalism) instead of uniting the working class in a mass struggle against oppression, both on campus and beyond.
A socialist alternative to sexism and capitalism
There are many examples of how capitalism benefits from promoting gender inequality and sexism. The notion that women should care for both the family and the home is promoted because it means that women will continue to do this unpaid work, subsequently saving the capitalist class billions, which would otherwise need to be spent on public services – like expanded childcare and social care – or on increased wages so that those services could be bought privately in the market. The objectification of women and unattainable beauty standards are promoted by the fashion industry to sell their products, continuously promising women that they can help them reach this ‘ideal’ form of attractiveness. And finally, sexism, which more often than not causes strain between men and women in society, is useful to the ruling class as it encourages the division of the working class.
To truly eliminate the sexist ideas and ‘culture’, the dismantling of capitalism and the socialist transformation of society is necessary, for it is capitalism that drives sexism and misogyny. A socialist society would be one in which public and state organisations and institutions (including universities) were under the democratic control of workers and service users; in which society was democratically planned for need not profit; and in which the idea of gender norms and inequality were no longer promoted.
Whilst this would not instantaneously eradicate gender norms that have been embedded in class society, the socialist transformation would dismantle the structures and means through which those ideas have been sustained, thus forming a society in which gender norms, sexist ideas, and gender-based power imbalances would no longer be relevant. Therefore, the ‘lad’ culture and the deeply ingrained sexist values within our society which significantly drive sexism on-campus would be eliminated.
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