Beatrice, a friend of Angela, advises her not to ask for explanation from the male lecturers too many times:
It's not that they are not willing to help. Normally you should not be going too much to lecturers for help. A lecturer may think it's not because of … maybe you can't read the course and you want a favour so it's better that you don't normally go to them.
There are indeed rumours that women are favoured by the (male) lecturers, because women use their sexuality strategically and that the male lecturers also use their institutional and patriarchal power to 'get what they want' from the women students. David, who is on the course with Angela and Beatrice reports a commonly held view about transactional sex, or sex for grades:
I don't know but it's like here when a female student gets close to the lecturers they would think there is something going on with her and the lecturer. A female getting close to a lecturer and everybody starts thinking like she is going for marks or something, you understand? So that's the mentality that people have here that if especially a female gets close to a lecturer there is something going on.
The sexualised organisational culture often meant that female students were positioned as flawed learners. For example, David questions how some women were able to enter the course:
Sometimes you will see a woman or a lady in a class or maybe in a group discussion…you wonder how she got admission? But when the paper comes she performs better than you. …Sometimes some women have been favoured.
Fatima suggests that there is a gendered surcharge for women students and that transactional sex, or sex for grades is an institutional norm:
Being a girl costs sometimes…There are some things in which people can take advantage of you because you are a girl…There are corrupt staff… Certain staffs like if you want help they say you have to do this or that, it is not your fault but he does that so that he can get you… get sex.
Comfort, a member of staff, comments on what she sees as behaviour that is very much part of institutional culture:
I'm sure you probably know is that [in this country] men are not very aggressive, and so in fact they say 'Well we don't rape them!' ... and so my argument of course is always well ... 'If you didn't take up the offer they would stop offering ... I mean you've taught young girls that that's the way they can use themselves and while you're teaching them that they can use themselves in that way of course you're teaching them also that they're not supposed to use their minds'.
Emmanuel, a senior manager at the university, sees the issue as soluble through the right policies and procedures:
We need to devise a system to make them understand that they will all be treated equally, and we need to put in place ethical policies and implement them, such that some categories of students - especially our young women - do not think that they have to sell their bodies for grades. Because if they sell their bodies for grades, they will know deep down that they haven't achieved.
Beatrice, the student, says that these policies just won't work because of taboos, shame and lack of support:
It is personal stuff and so most of them do not talk...There is nobody to be told. Women lecturers such as D are not close to us students …people may fear going to them …These female lecturers …should show us the way and listen to our problems because at least we will know that there are people whom we can turn to when we have problems…Otherwise we are alone here; we do not have parents here.
- How do gendered power relations influence students' learning experiences?
- What do you believe is enabling the sexualised departmental/institutional culture?
- What strategic action should be taken to counter these gendered cultures?