The Lad: The Face of Gender-Related Violence
By Claire Watson (Features Editor)
Content Warning: The following article contains references to sexual assault, rape, and gender-related violence. It also contains mentions of discrimination. Some readers may find the themes discussed distressing. If you are a victim of gender-related violence, the Rape Crisis Network provides links to local crisis and sexual violence centres.
“A lad is the archetypical Irish young man, likely plays GAA/soccer and FIFA. Commonly wears a GAA jersey, or shorts even when it’s cold. A lad is often misogynistic and has outdated views on and poor respect for women, their role in society and in relationships. Though they are usually ignorant to this due to the prevalence of ‘lad culture’ making it widespread and thus seem acceptable. Lads are also often discriminatory towards minority groups, such as the LGBTQ+ community and Irish travelling community. They often participate in and/or are complicit in casual sexism, racism and homophobia…”
Participants of a survey were asked to describe what they believed a lad to be, this was their response. The aim of this survey was to analyse how the general student body perceived the lad. Did he exist, or was he a myth created by popular media to stir tension against working class men? If he does exist, is he a threat, and a threat to who? 96% of participants identified the lad as a real figure. Participants forged a vivid image of who wears the title of lad in Irish life.
“Just highly filled with toxic masculinity…”
The lad is a British and Irish subculture that emerged in the 1990s and early 2000s. Sociologist Rosalind Gill describes the lad as ‘post- (if not anti) feminist.’ The lad is a self-constructed identity responding to equality movements that seek to disrupt the status quo. According to Gill, they enjoy the binary; the societal structures that keeps everyone in their place, but with white, heterosexual, cisgender, upper-class men on top. However, the lad is often associated with working class circles, and while he may benefit from these structures in one regard, he is oppressed in another. Some sociologists argue that lads merely appropriate working class culture, and do not feel the marginalisation of class divide. Survey participants offered that the lad can come from many backgrounds, and is not necessarily a gendered title.
“A male, between the ages of 16-26. Plays GAA. Straight. Misogynistic. Homophobic. Transphobic. Loud.”
As the lad enjoys, or at least, believes to enjoy, the status quo he is immediately threatened by those that contrast this ideal. Many participants described the lad in association with bigotry. 81% of participants noted that they had been harassed by lads, with 86% of those who had experienced harassment noting it as a result of their racial, gender, sexual, or religious identity.
53% of participants who had experienced harassment admitted to concealing their identity to avoid further harassment.
I bring up these figures as I believe the lad destroys diversity. When the aggressive behaviour of the lad subculture thrives without little criticism, those most at risk of facing harassment hide their identities and are pushed further into the sidelines for fear of their life.
The methods of harassment used by lads were then surveyed. 92.3% of targeted individuals were verbally harassed. 53.8% felt intimidated by lads. This includes stalking, threatening looks and gestures. 38.5% were victims of sexual harassment. 28.2% were physically harassed, 25.6% were victims of cyber-bullying, and 7.7% experienced extortion and/or blackmailing.
The lad is not one individual. Nor is it one group of people. The power the lad holds does not reside in the groups of anti-social men that loiter in the dark waiting to pick a fight. The lad is the result of a systemic issue, the same one that allows gender based violence, and violence against people of colour, the LGBTQ+ community, people of different religious identities, to continue. The lad is a culture. One of hatred, aggression, and bigotry.
One participant described the lad as a “himbo if you’re lucky. An Andrew Tate fan if you’re not.”
Andrew Tate is a social media figure that has recently gained a lot of traction due to his blatant misogyny. In Tate’s content, he often portrays men as the underdogs. The oppressors are then women, who he and his following believe need to be controlled and returned to binary gender roles. Under suspicions of rape and sex trafficking, Andrew Tate was arrested in December 2022.
Tate panders to the idea that social change is oppressing men. On social media, he presents women as solely sexual objects, and that by denying men sex they deny them a right. This mindset extends across different communities to create a feeling that those who don’t fit within the status quo, are falling out of line and must be punished.
Many who don’t adopt the sigma, alpha or hustler mindset may find it easy to laugh at Tate’s backward views, thinking his influence does not extend further than social media and lad culture. Andrew and his brother Tristan claim to have made their money by bringing women into their studios to star in adult videos. The brothers admit to bringing in women who claim to be in financial difficulties, and exploiting this vulnerability to earn their wealth. This admittance led to the suspicions of sex trafficking, all the more realised by Andrew’s detention in Romania. While the Twitter feud between climate activist Greta Thunberg and Tate will remain a pop-culture moment, his arrest confirms the systematic issue that affects us all.
“They are misogynistic pricks that, left unchecked, can become rapists and abusers etc.”
The survey encouraged participants to discuss their personal encounters with lads. One participant explains “I've been cat called when they perceive me to be a woman. I've never been physically harassed, but it is something I fear when I see a group of lads somewhere I need to pass by.” Another states, “I was sexually assaulted by a member of a lad group, and the rest of the group harassed me for months online and verbally.” Another says “as a visibly queer, outcast female student I was often a target for harassment. I often had slurs and crude remarks yelled at me. [...] The lad is a person I fear.”
“People pleaser that craves attention… A nameless faceless person… Confident, plays GAA, drinks in a pub on the weekends…”
The ‘not all men’ scapegoat even points to the systematic issue at hand. Many women and people who have been assigned female at birth (AFAB), have taken this all too common phrase and expanded upon it, stating ‘it could be any man.’ According to Women's Aid, it is revealed that in 87% of victims of gender-related violence, their perpetrator was a man known to them. Perhaps not all men are like that, but statistics alone give us ample reason to be wary of all men.
“Awful individuals…” “Brutish, stand-offish and antagonistic figure.…” “Racist, misogynistic, ableist, horrible people…” “Loud and obnoxious…” “Immature…” “A dirty little fella…” “An a******...”
Attending a vigil led by UCC’s Femsoc in remembrance of victims of gender-related violence, was a bittersweet moment. Bitter, as we looked over the portraits of just a handful of victims, lit candles in commemoration of their lives, and listened as Student Union president Asha Woodhouse read out the names of victims, so that their lives will not be lost to time. There was a strange sweetness as we stood together, and mourned this great loss. Speakers urged for change, and while many tears were rightly shed, I think that many flames of ambition were lit that evening. There was an overwhelming sense of solidarity, and in placing these victims side by side, we showed a passion to fight for all of them.
The lad is the son of the patriarchy, born to uphold its societal divisions that sweep the majority of us to the sidelines. With intersectionality and solidarity we can fight for social change and bring an end to gender-related violence. What’s most important is that we work together. We protect each other, we protest together, we channel our voices into one, thunderous noise. We educate each other, we learn from each other, and we love each other. The lad may seek to divide us, but only solidarity will change his status quo.
