“Why you touching me? This is scary.” Alcohol, fear, and miniskirts as risk factors in female students’ understandings of violence on campus

Abstract

This chapter examines how alcohol, fear, and female dress are constructed as risk factors in female university students’ accounts of violence on campus. A racially diverse group of 10 female students who resided at the on-campus residence at the University of KwaZulu-Natal participated in the qualitative study on which this chapter draws. The aim of the chapter is to investigate female students’ vulnerability to gender violence and how this is interlinked with substance use, fear and the discursive production of female dress. Participants argued that female students’ “deviation” from traditional gendered scripts increased their vulnerability. They saw women’s acquiescence within hetero-patriarchal settings not as an indication that their femininity was passively constructed, but that it was a protective strategy enabling them to mediate and reduce the risk of violence. Our participants also demonstrated agency through actively proposing ways of raising consciousness about gender violence in the student body, and suggesting roles that men could play in the prevention of violence. The chapter concludes with recommendations for working with female students’ agentic capacities to challenge violence.