Each year during Orientation week at Sydney University, boys from St Paul’s invite women from the all-female colleges to their bar, the Salisbury, for the “Tight and White” party.
The night pretty much does what it says on the tin. The tighter and whiter the clothes the better. Especially when the girls are soaked in water on arrival, their clothes now transparent and sticking to their bodies.
And even more so when they lie down on the bar while men drink shots of spirits off their bodies, off their bare stomachs, breasts and thighs.
This is, for many, part of their first experience of adult life, their first time away from home. It is also one of the very first official and advertised college events of the year, paid for by the students’ fees.
Of those who attend events like the “Tight and White” party, there will be those who profess to having a really good time, but there are many who don’t. The problem is, the social currency which is exchanged for status, friends and a support network away from one’s family, is to be found through participating and accepting the sexist, elitist culture which colleges perpetuate.
Men initiate men into a world of disrespecting women and bad behaviour from the moment they arrive at college, revelling in the “boys-will-be-boys” and “tradition” nonsense which has been used for far too long to justify a hideous culture.
But women also initiate other women into this world, knowing that subjugation is a way to gain a kind of power and status in the culture. Women who don’t publicly want to be seen as having a problem with college life often tell a very different story privately.
I lived in a residential college at the University of Sydney for several years. I’m now a PhD student researching girls and women. I heard about and witnessed many horrific events in college life. I was not surprised in the least to read of the allegations of sexism and violence taking place on college grounds as this kind of behaviour is totally obvious to anyone who’s lived in one of these places.
I don’t wish, here, to detail the specific horrors that I’ve seen or experiences I’ve personally had. I don’t want to reproduce other women’s trauma in print and I think that there is already a fairly rich picture of the nature of college culture. I do, however, want to talk about some of the reasons women who have experienced terrible things at college may be reluctant to either speak out at all or seek legal action.
It’s a fact that sexual assault is underreported and that many women choose not to get involved in a daunting legal process where it’s hard to get a conviction. This is compounded in residential college situations for a number of reasons. If you speak out you potentially cut yourself off from a social, home and academic life. Rocking the boat is never easy, but especially so when in the midst of personal trauma. Speaking out in the face of a culture that has been ignored for years is not easy either.
The community response to reports of ‘pro-rape’ Facebook pages and accounts of terrible sexual assaults has understandably been one of outrage. The focus now needs to shift to how we change a dangerous misogynistic culture. There are a raft of positive changes that can take place, the first being an acknowledgement, by everyone involved in college life, that there is, indeed, a problem with the college system.
The NRL and AFL have recognised the problems in their sports and taken very seriously their commitment to changing an often sexist culture through extensive education and training campaigns with their players, despite the fact there are still ongoing problems.
The colleges similarly need to accept that their attitudes and behaviours toward women are dangerous and must take urgent steps to improve these. The time, money and effort which is funnelled into O-week activities needs to be better spent on initiating young people into interacting with each other in ways which reflect current community standards and the law.
Changes need to come from both the college administration as well as the students themselves, who are responsible for organising many O-week activities. There needs to be a real commitment to change from everyone involved in college life. Education should not be about policing consensual sexual activity or legal consumption of alcohol, but about how to treat other people with dignity and respect.
The lack of any tangible harassment and discrimination policy or procedures governing the intercollegiate community is shocking. While the University of Sydney does have a comprehensive strategy in place for dealing with complaints regarding harassment, the process quite clearly excludes the college community from making full-use of this when resolving their issues. This is largely because colleges are considered to be private, separate entities. Any new policy must be between all colleges to really work, because it is clear that as many problems exist between colleges as well as within individual ones.
There has been a push for this kind of documentation for years and it is now time that it be implemented. The residential colleges of the Universities of Melbourne and Queensland (amongst others) have put such policies into place and it is appalling that Sydney is yet to follow suit. There are many really good reasons for doing so.
First, it makes clear that harassment and discrimination are unacceptable in colleges.
Second, it gives important recourse to victims of harrasment in the early stages of the sexism and bullying. There is much to be said for ebbing the flow of bad behaviour before it becomes seriously violent and criminal.
Third, it means that there is an opportunity to actively resist in a supported fashion the current endemic sexist culture.
And fourth, if complaints of harassment and discrimination are supported by a clear and fair process where women are not made to feel excluded, this can encourage the proper reporting of sexual crimes in the more serious cases.
One can only speculate that change has been so long in coming is because that it seems too difficult. Another reason for such resistance to change is chilling, but must be considered: the colleges simply don’t want to.
If the colleges are really serious about stamping out a damaging culture and maintaining relevance in the 21st century, then comprehensive changes must happen before the new academic year and new students arrive.
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