Sexual harassment affects the lives of women and girls, in particular, every day. Studies across a range of national contexts have shown how pervasive sexual harassment and sexualised violence are. The Everyday Sexism Project, an international online project, which collects women’s stories of sexism, harassment and violence has demonstrated how women modify and restrict their own practices, language and movements in order to avoid—or to mitigate against the impacts of—sexual harassment and violence in public spaces. Their stories tell us how women experience sexualised intimidation waiting for taxis, while jogging, when they are walking to the bank, to school, to pick up their children. Young girls and women share their stories of being followed in cars, whistled at, shouted at by men on the way to school. Recent high-profile cases of women runners being attacked, even murdered, women being assaulted for rejecting unwanted sexual advances (Willsher, 2018), have highlighted the pervasive sexual harassment and abuse experienced by women undertaking what might be termed ‘everyday practices’ in public spaces.

One might argue that sexism, sexual harassment and sexual violence have become hyper-visible in recent times. The #MeToo movement has strengthened the voices of survivors and given them a platform from which to talk about their experiences. Celebrities, revered and powerful men have been named at the centre of harassment and violence, often spanning decades and involving clear abuses of power. These men have been referred to as ‘monsters’, as ‘evil’ and have generally been cast as unusual, particularly problematic individuals who pose a clear threat to women and children. We argue that while these perpetrators have certainly been prolific and more visible than most, sexual harassment, misconduct and violence are masked and made invisible by a culture in which harassment and sexual violence by men against women is normalised. The #MeToo movement itself has simultaneously enabled the ‘calling out’ of individual perpetrators and has highlighted how widespread sexual harassment and violence are in a range of contexts and sectors. The movement has itself become a vehicle for emphasising the systemic nature of sexual harassment and violence, for highlighting the multiple structural, social and cultural barriers to disclosure for survivors; it has made visible the continuum of practices that women (in particular) are subjected to, highlighting the significant and persisting impacts of sexual harassment and violence. There has been some debate about the effectiveness of ‘naming and shaming’ strategies in terms of bringing about culture change; does an individualised approach enable us to transform the culture itself? Does it enable us to name and destabilise the cultural conditions that make women vulnerable to gender-based harassment and violence?

It is clear that the culture that enables gender-based violence is not specific to particular industries or spheres of work. Rather, it pervades a range of contexts including educational ones. In this piece, we draw on findings from research conducted in educational settings to explore why these practices are so prevalent and how they are sustained; and what can we do about it? Can the culture that sustains such practices be changed and if so what factors need to be considered? Despite the recent visibility of sexism, harassment and violence, these are, of course, not new phenomena. There is no evidence that these practices are on the decline; this is despite growing awareness of, and attention to, these issues and, arguably, progress in terms of gender equality in a number of spheres. For example, the Crime Survey for England and Wales suggests that 1 in 5 women and 1 in 25 men in the general population have experienced some form of sexual assault (which covers rape, sexual assault, indecent exposure and unwanted touching) since the age of 16. We know that there is no significant change in the prevalence of sexual assault measured by the Crime Survey for England and Wales since 2005 when the module on sexual assault was introduced. When considering prevalence statistics we need to take into account under-reporting among survivors of all genders, as more than 80% of survivors do not report their experiences to the police (CSEW, 2018).

Sexual harassment has been shown to be prevalent in educational contexts, including in primary and secondary school classrooms (Lee et al. 1996; Espelage et al. 2016; Renold, 2002; NEU/UK Feminista, 2017). In the UK, the Women’s and Equalities Committee launched an enquiry in 2016 into sexual harassment in education. The report from this enquiry showed the scale and nature of sexual harassment and sexualised violence experienced by young girls and women in schools across the country (WEC, 2016). For example, 22% of young girls aged 7–12 reported experiencing jokes of a sexual nature from boys in their school. Girls as young as 9 reported having their skirts lifted up and their pants pulled down by their peers, leaving them too scared to wear skirts to school. Sexual harassment and humiliation have also been shown to be prevalent in secondary schools (Ringrose et al. 2012; Sundaram and Sauntson, 2016; GirlGuiding, 2017). Sexualised bullying focuses on girls’ physical appearance and presumed sexual activity, and harassment using pornography and digital media is widespread.

We know that sexual harassment and violence persist into university contexts. The National Union of Students has conducted several studies of women (and men) students’ experiences and has shown that two-thirds of women students have experienced verbal or non-verbal harassment (NUS, 2010); 1 in 7 women students has experienced serious physical or sexual assault (NUS, 2010); and 37% of women and 12% of men students have experienced unwanted sexual advances (NUS, 2014). More recently, the NUS has conducted research showing that staff-on-student sexual misconduct is also a concern (NUS, 2018). A significant minority of respondents in their survey reported having experienced sexual harassment from a member of staff in their university, ranging from sexualised comments to rape. Twelve percent of former students had experienced non-consensual sexual contact from a staff member in their institution. High profile examples of staff sexual misconduct in universities in other national contexts have also been exposed through #MeToo, including cases in India (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-41862615) and the USA (https://www.vox.com/2018/8/14/17688144/nyu-me-too-movement-sexual-harassment-avital-ronell), the latter case also illustrating the complexities of abuses of power. While student-student misconduct may be viewed as a ‘normal’ part of student culture, staff-student misconduct has been more explicitly condemned. Links between sexual harassment and violence and ‘typical’ student practices such as heavy alcohol consumption, sports activities and initiation rituals are discursively naturalised (NUS, 2012). There is a sort of ‘shrug of the shoulders’ about student misconduct and perhaps especially so in contexts where there is no standardised policy or legal framework for responding to complaints. However, even though staff misconduct towards students has provoked greater public outcry, we argue that prevailing gendered power relations—in universities and elsewhere—serve to silence and dismiss such complaints when they are made (this silencing has also been highlighted in recent work by Bull and Rye, 2018). University interventions to address student-student harassment and violence have often foregrounded learning about consent and rape culture; there is a clear sense in which such interventions are aimed at young people, mainly assumed to be living away from home for the first time and having relatively little experience of negotiating interactions in university spaces. Staff-student misconduct is, of course, about something rather different than people ‘misunderstanding’ behaviour or interactions. The explicit abuse of power in such interactions must be named, kept visible and inform university responses to complaints made.