Oxford female students 'sexually harassed'

FRIDAY 15 MAY 2015

The head of an Oxford college warns her students that a profoundly worrying culture of sexual harassment is on the rise at bars and parties at the university.

Alice Prochaska, the principal of Somerville College, said that she had seen a sharp rise in "excessively harassing and intimidating behaviour" towards the female students in her college.

In an email last week to her students at the college, she warned that young women were facing a "barrage" of inappropriate behaviour.

Dr Prochaska, who has been the principal since 2010, told students that she had received reports of "rude and sometimes threatening behaviour on a scale unprecedented in my time as principal".

She said she wanted to make it easier for female students to "call out" their harassers rather than keeping quiet.

'Rape is not a joke'

Her intervention comes after Ione Wells, 20, an English student at Keble College, Oxford, waived her right to anonymity to write an open letter about being sexually assaulted near her home in Camden, north London. She said that she wanted to empower women not to feel ashamed or guilty if they are attacked, but to seek help and support. Her attacker was sentenced last week.

She wrote: "Rape is not a joke, as those who have been victims of it could tell you. Any level of sexual harassment is also not a joke; it is not acceptable that members of the college and their friends should be made to feel uncomfortable and disrespected here."

Somerville College was founded for women and only accepted male students in 1994. Its alumni include Britains first female prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, novelists AS Byatt and Iris Murdoch, and Esther Rantzen, the former television presenter who founded ChildLine.

'Intimidating behaviour'

Speaking on Radio 4's Today Programm, Dr Prochaska said: "There were reports of lots of groping going on in college parties, jokes being made, very inappropriate jokes, about rape in public places, an atmosphere of discomfort in the college bar because people were being confronted with rather harassing and intimidating behaviour.

"Much the best thing is to call it at the time. One of the things I wanted to do was to encourage our students to call it and not to feel intimidated and fearful about speaking out.

"After I sent my message there was an emergency meeting of the junior common room, and they passed a very firm resolution condemning that sort of behaviour, it was passed without any dissenting voices.

"I think they now feel empowered."

Last year it emerged that the university has enrolled its rugby and football teams on special courses teaching them how to achieve "positive masculinity".

The Good Lad courses discuss topics such as sexual harassment, consent, lad "banter", and team initiation ceremonies with the young sportsmen in an all-male environment in a bid to encourage them to examine their own behaviour.