Abstract

The incidence and nature of sexual violence at UK universities has been aligned with a ‘rape culture’, where sexual violence is taken-for-granted. Consequently, victims and survivors’ experiences of sexual violence are often excluded. Calls to change such a culture permeate literature from government, charities, and academia. This paper pulls out of the literature the strategies called to change rape culture. Focusing on three overarching strategies: naming sexual violence, reporting sexual violence, and preventing sexual violence. We carried out a website analysis of all UK universities that focused on gathering data along these three themes to ascertain the extent to which their websites supported changing the culture of sexual violence at their university. Many universities’ websites had an online reporting tool and defined sexual violence, but many universities’ websites excluded information about bystander initiatives. The research raises implications for universities to enhance their webpages to include in-person bystander initiatives and to standardise definitions of sexual violence used in online reporting tools, however, more research is needed into the efficacy of these reporting tools. These recommendations are important if universities are seen to be inclusive of victims and survivors’ experiences of sexual violence, and in doing so, change the culture of sexual violence at university. This paper therefore addresses the theme/s of the conference.