Reports consistently show that around three-quarters of women students experience sexual violence while at university. The numbers are similar for colleges and sixth forms. Many victims are forced to take measures such as skipping lectures, changing course modules, or even dropping out of study to avoid their attacker.
The majority of sexual assaults take place on our campuses. On top of this, the rising cost of living and inadequate maintenance support force working-class students especially to take part-time jobs alongside their studies. Many have to work in the nighttime economy, forced to make their way home after work in the dark, alone. Sexist harassment is rife in industries like hospitality, where a big proportion of women students work.
Socialist Students says:
- Students’ unions and trade unions must organise and campaign against sexual harassment in workplaces, including schools, colleges and universities
- Introduce democratically elected committees comprising students and staff to investigate all reports of sexual assault and sexist abuse
Fight back for funding and free education
As successive Labour and Tory governments have slashed direct government funding to universities, vice-chancellors have obediently carried out cuts – including to things like counselling services, campus lighting, transport, and student bursaries – all of which has left students further exposed to the effects of sexism and sexual violence.
Socialist Students says:
- Organise on campus to fight to provide adequate resources for women who have experienced sexual violence
- Fight to end university marketisation, by campaigning to abolish tuition fees
- Fully fund education, cancel student debt and replace student loans with living maintenance grants for all – take the wealth off the super-rich
A socialist alternative to sexism and capitalism
Socialist Students fights against all sexist ideas and behaviour, which exist not just on campus but all across society, perpetuated by capitalist institutions and corporations.
To seriously challenge sexist ideas means building a mass movement against capitalism – an inherently unequal system that benefits from sexism.
- Socialist Students says:
- Build a movement that fights to take the wealth and power out of the hands of the super-rich and the elites
- For a socialist world in which the working class democratically runs society to meet the needs of all people, to lay the basis for ending sexism and all forms of oppression