SPECIAL FEATURE: Interview with a feminist

The Tab’s Deputy Chief Editor Edward Claxton sits down and has a chat with Feminist Society member Lucy Morris about Feminism at UEA.


Feminism is kind of a buzzword around campus, if you want to strike up a debate, feminism is the word to throw out there. But what actually is Feminism at UEA about? The Tab as ever is on the case to investigate.

EC: What would you say is the main issue facing feminists at UEA at the moment?

A major problem at UEA, is a lot of people don’t really understand what feminism really is.  They think it’s just a lot of ‘man-hating’, or ‘whinging’ about Blurred Lines. It’s not. It’s about all sorts of everyday things, like people having vulgar comments yelled at them in the street, or women being grabbed by a stranger in a club and not being let go, just because they happened to be female and wearing a dress, or some female students being really afraid to walk home alone at night because they might be attacked.

Another issue is everyday sexism, probably most clearly defined through what’s known as ‘Lad Culture’. Plenty of UEA students are members pages like the ‘LASS Bible’ and the ‘LAD Bible’ online, which include such ‘rules’ as “Thou shall remember the saying ‘Up the Rectum won’t affect them'” “Though shalt respect a woman, when she’s in the kitchen” and “Though shall rate a girl out of 10 when talking about conquests” and refer to them as a joke. Sure, so they’re jokes. But what kind of attitudes do they endorse? It’s simply a ‘joke’ if you have anal sex with someone who’s not prepared for it? That women are there to act as part of some imaginary system of ‘conquest’ points, and not real people? That you’re only a ‘real LAD’ if you subscribe to these views? That seems a pretty shallow definition of masculinity. There’s also plenty of mocking someone for being a ‘slut’ – in a jokey way – then condemning another for sleeping with lots of people. That’s a big double standard, here, like anywhere.

EC: Do you think that Feminism at UEA and the union are making progress in addressing these issues?

The Union and most of the schools in general are pretty good at being gender-equal – there are lots of women in positions of power at the university, in societies, and at the Union offices, as well as men. I’d say that the Union leans to the feminist side in a lot of its policies as well. Every club has an Equality and Diversity officer, to report to the Union about incidences of sexism or harassment if they need to. I also have to praise the LCR. I’ve never been harassed there personally, or had any of my friends be harassed there, only on nightclubs off campus.

I think the new Union ‘safe room’ initiative at LCR nights is a very good thing too, if people ever need to get away from someone bothering them sexually or just need a breather from the dance floor.

There are, however, some not-so-good areas. I remember, a guy in my first year at university had ‘pussy preparation zone’ stuck to his door in halls, until I think, our cleaning-lady made him take it off. Not the university. The cleaning-lady. I wondered how girls coming back to his place or walking in and out of the flat felt about it. Most university policies to stop stuff like that are predicated upon people complaining. Quite a few people might not be exactly comfortable with it, but complaining specifically about one smaller thing somehow seems a bit over the top. It’s just kind of there, in the background. So, you just let it lie. And so this sort of sexism goes unaddressed.

A more subtle example of everyday sexism than ‘pussy preparation zone’.

A lot of students, who do some kind of sexist stuff like that – wolf-whistling at a woman on the street, or put up sexist statuses on facebook – they’re not trying to be sexist. They’re just ignorant of why other people might find it bad. They’ve never experienced it, or thought of it that way.

And I think that this is where the problem lies. We have plenty of anecdotes from random women about sexual insults and groping to prove that sexism exists while people are at university, but no hard data. So maybe a good idea for how to really emphasise and prove to people that there is a problem with sexism on campus – that it’s not just ‘isolated’ cases that women complain too much about (like the comments on the ‘T shirt party’ story basically suggested) – might be to launch a campus-wide survey about it.

How do you feel the Feminist Society contribute to the fight against sexism on campus?

Nothing says ‘fight sexism’ quite like Snow White with an assault rifle.

There’s a lack of cohesion and action within the Feminist Society itself. All of the people in the feminist society are people who are, by self-definition, feminists. The only way we’re going to make a real change to other people’s views is to reach out more widely every day to other students who do not self-identify as feminists, but nevertheless still disapprove of sexism. We’d probably get a lot more feminist students than the 700-odd on the UEA Feminist Society facebook page, that way. You see it all the time– someone will post an article, another person who’s maybe new to feminist discussion will post a comment on that article saying that it’s stupid, or even just politely disagreeing, and then the next dozen comments will all be to do with attacking that person or their view as somehow incorrect or anti-feminist. This is not productive in promoting feminism.

You mention the union’s feminist stance on most issues, 11 of 17 UEA student officers are women, do you think this is representive? Why a women’s officer but no Men’s officer?

I’d say that all those women were democratically elected by students, so they’re probably pretty representative of who voters thought was best for the job.  The fact that 11 out of the 17 officers elected – a majority – were women, though, is certainly impressive. It’s a very positive sign that women are no longer discriminated against holding such everyday positions of power solely on the basis of gender.  Although we’ve still got a way to go, seeing so many female students involved in helping with the running of the University gives me a lot of hope.

Women’s officer is there for the same reason as LGBT and Ethnic Minorities officers are there.

As for the women’s officer – yeah, I get that one a lot. I understand where a lot of people are coming from when they question it. I mean, UEA in Norfolk isn’t somewhere we think of as having a truly terrible record on women’s human rights or education. In many crucial ways you could argue that the problem of women’s gender equality has become so much less severe, less serious, here than in other places or in the past, to the point where you could say – well, do we really need a women’s officer anymore?

But then, you have to look at the context of the ‘Women’s Officer’ role and the issues it deals with. You have to look at the other issues handled by similar part-time union officers that we have. For example. Is racism a severe, but thankfully shrinking problem, compared to previous decades in this country? Yes. Is homophobia a severe, but a thankfully less severe problem, compared to previous decades and other countries? Yes. And yet, we still have an Ethnic Minorities Officer. We still have an LGBT+ officer. And far fewer people seem to be suggesting that we get rid of those roles. Just because an issue’s getting much better, doesn’t mean that it still doesn’t have some way to go – just like racism or homophobia. Maybe we shouldn’t be so hasty to automatically question the women’s officer.

Feel your questions about feminism at UEA or in general haven’t been satisfied? Fear not! Lucy Morris will be returning with a column all about feminism, discussing her thoughts and trying to answer your questions!