There are few pleasures quite like finding a jumper that sells for £70 new listed for £14, “worn twice” by someone in Leeds. It is cheaper, potentially more individual, and crucially already exists. No new jumper is manufactured on my behalf. I can congratulate myself on my thrift, environmental consciousness, and extraordinary eye for a bargain all at once. The problem is that I rarely close the app there.
Vinted’s innovation may not simply be making fashion circular, but bringing the doomscroll to shopping. Opening the app resembles opening Instagram or Pinterest: an endless stream of images invites the same absent-minded scroll, becoming uncannily attuned to my taste with every search, click, and favourite. Here, however, my For You Page comes with a price tag and a buy button. The infinite feed has entered the wardrobe.
Yet within that apparent abundance is individual scarcity, as each listing offers a single garment, with another buyer potentially hovering over it. Every bargain comes with a countdown: deliberate too long, and someone in Bristol gets your next vintage, one-of-a-kind going-out top. Missing out triggers a push notification that a favourite has sold, followed by an obliging carousel of ‘similar items’ ready to inherit your attention. Scarcity creates urgency, and recommendations ensure the cycle continues. The garment is finite; your scroll, unfortunately, is not.
Vinted’s ecological proposition to circulate existing clothes rather than manufacture new ones is compelling. But circularity describes what happens to clothes, not necessarily what happens to our appetite for them. When I asked four Oxford students whether Vinted had reduced their purchasing, one admitted the opposite: lower prices meant freedom to buy more. Another described that spending on the app felt less like a “real purchase”. Asked whether second-hand status made unnecessary purchases easier to justify, the consensus was striking: “yes, definitely”, “all the time”, and, most revealingly, “it’s fine because it’s Vinted.”
Behavioural economists have names for my amateur theorising. The ‘rebound effect’ describes how cheaper, more efficient consumption can encourage more of it; ‘moral licensing’, how virtuous behaviour makes indulgence easier to justify. Hence three unnecessary second-hand tops somehow feel more defensible than one bought new.
Research suggests this is more than hypothetical. A 2025 Journal of Cleaner Production study identified a ‘circular rebound effect’ on Vinted itself, linking lower prices to increased demand, and time spent on the platform to impulse buying and overconsumption. A separate 2025 Scientific Reports study of 1,009 American consumers found a positive correlation between purchasing second-hand and new clothing. The enthusiastic thrifter need not be the antithesis of the fast-fashion shopper, for the same appetite finds another marketplace.
This is not to collapse the distinction, for I welcome a fashion economy in which second-hand eclipses fast fashion. But Vinted is far removed from meandering through the rails of Mind or Cancer Research. It borrows social media’s algorithm of personalised feeds and frictionless transactions, applying it to consumption already furnished with an ethical halo. It makes our appetite for novelty less destructive without asking us to desire less.
Take the Vinted balance. Sell a dress for £20, spend £18 on another, and somehow I have not spent £18; I have practically conducted a swap. Richard Thaler’s paper on ‘Mental Accounting and Consumer Choice’ offers one explanation: consumers mentally code and budget money differently despite its objective fungibility. £18 remains £18, even when Vinted has helpfully quarantined it from my bank account; psychologically, however, the proceeds of selling clothes can feel remarkably like credit for buying more. Apparently pounds become Monopoly money once they acquire a Vinted balance.
There is an irony here. Co-founder Milda Mitkutė has traced Vinted’s beginnings to her “overflowing wardrobe”, revealing that: “I was surprised at the 100 pieces of clothing that I had worn only once or not at all.” Vinted converted those unused possessions into circulating value, yet its balance system complicates that solution, as sale proceeds remain poised to fund the next purchase unless manually withdrawn. Once an unwanted dress becomes £20 of in-app spending power, decluttering funds re-cluttering.
The prospect of resale also changes our commitment to ownership. A questionable purchase can always be defended with promises that “I’ll sell it again”. My interviewees admitted that potential resale made buying easier to rationalise, while photographing, listing, packaging, and posting the item was quite another matter. Vinted can therefore lengthen a garment’s material lifespan while shortening our psychological commitment to it.
None of this should obscure what Vinted gets right. The Apparel Impact Institute reported in 2026 that fashion industry emissions rose 6.3% between 2023 and 2024, driven principally by growing fibre use, particularly petroleum-based polyester. Against rising material throughput, circulating existing garments is not cosmetic environmentalism. Vinted’s own 2026 Impact Report estimates that 76% of its 2025 orders displaced the purchase of a new item. Even with the caveat of company-commissioned research, this suggests that resale can meaningfully substitute for primary consumption.
But perhaps substitution is not the end of the question. If Vinted successfully changes where we satisfy consumer demand, what happens to the demand itself?
My interviews exposed this tension. Asked how many of their last five Vinted purchases they would have made without the platform, answers ranged from one to two. Though hardly representative, this raises a distinction between the environmental benefits of individual purchases and the consumption habits the platform encourages. Unlike the charity shop, constrained by opening hours, physical stock, and the effort of getting there, Vinted is always open, endlessly replenished, and rarely more than a thumb’s movement away. Clothes become not merely things we acquire, but content we consume; shopping doesn’t always start with wanting something, sometimes boredom is enough.
Yet expecting Vinted to discourage that impulse is perhaps to misunderstand what Vinted is: a marketplace that, in 2025, generated roughly £930 million in revenue and £52 million in net profit. Its business is transactions, even if those transactions are materially preferable to fast fashion. The Vinted paradox is therefore structural rather than hypocritical: a more circular marketplace can prosper within, and perhaps intensify, a culture of perpetual wanting.
My criticism is therefore directed as much at consumers like me as it is at Vinted. When buying second-hand is demonstrably preferable to buying new, ‘better’ can quietly become ‘blameless’. I will continue using Vinted (you would have to pry my £14 cashmere jumper from my hands). But perhaps the most sustainable wardrobe is not simply one that is pre-owned; it is one where, occasionally, the scroll ends without a parcel on its way.
Who gets to make art, who gets to see it, and whose art history gets told? Oxford’s artistic identity may seem firmly established: the Ashmolean’s collections, the portraits and sculptures tucked away in university colleges, and the dreaming spires that have made the city famous. This is only part of the picture, look closer and a more varied artistic landscape begins to emerge.
This Michaelmas, the city offers new ways of thinking about art and its place in the world. From Mike Nelson’s unsettling installation at Modern Art Oxford and Rhodes House’s exhibition exploring the meaning of home, to the Ashmolean’s exhibition on Aphrodite’s artistic legacy and display of work by contemporary Bangladeshi artist Soma Surovi Jannat, a city is revealed whose artistic heritage is as much about asking new questions as preserving old answers.
Mike Nelson: The past is never past
At Modern Art Oxford, the past acts as a starting point for new perspectives. Mike Nelson’s Double Negative (The Clown), on display from 3rd October 2026 to 11th April 2027, revisits an installation he created at the gallery 22 years ago. His dilapidated desert shack, once evocative of the turmoil of the Iraq War, returns more weathered and broken than before, its exposed foundations laying bare a disillusionment that continues to haunt the present. Visitors must navigate the fragmented structures and objects, from left-wing pamphlets and travel books to a projector flipping through self-portraits, piecing together their significance for themselves.
Constructed on-site from remnants of the original exhibition and newly created sculptures, the installation collapses together two moments in time into one unsettling environment. Nelson forces us to ask ourselves what has changed in the decades between – and what, more troublingly, has not.
Rhodes House: A home of one’s one
While Nelson asks how we reckon with the past and cope with the present, Show Me Why You Love Home at Rhodes House explores how memory and cultural traditions shape our sense of belonging. The exhibition brings together work by Rhodes Scholars and fellows from across the world. Lana Alabbasi’s mixed-media piece Carrying a Starry Home reimagines Van Gogh’s The Starry Night through Saudi memory and heritage, while Palestinian embroidery and Nadine Pinede’s poetic exploration of Haiti, diaspora, and remembrance illustrate how artistic expression allows us to preserve shared histories across generations and borders.
In a city that prides itself on international exchange and communication, these works reveal how Oxford’s artistic life is shaped by the people who come here and the stories and traditions they bring with them. Home, after all, is not a fixed place, but something we continue to build.
Aphrodite: Beauty through the ages
Just as home can mean different things to different people, so too can beauty take many forms. Yet, for thousands of years, artists have turned to Aphrodite as its enduring symbol. At the Ashmolean, Aphrodite: The Making of a Goddess (8th October 2026 – 11th April 2027) traces her evolution across more than 5,000 years through over 150 objects, spanning ancient Cyprus, the Greek and Roman worlds, Renaissance Europe, and contemporary culture.
As successive societies have reshaped Aphrodite in their own image, the goddess has come to embody shifting ideals of beauty, femininity, love and desire. Yet, beneath these changing interpretations lies a figure whose image remains remarkably recognisable across the millennia. With free admission for University of Oxford students, the exhibition brings ancient and contemporary art together into one space, encouraging us to reflect on how our ideals of beauty have evolved, and what has remained unchanged.
The Ashmolean: Beyond the colonial gaze
However, the Ashmolean’s engagement with art extends far beyond simply preserving historic works. In its Ashmolean NOW series, contemporary artists are invited to create new artwork in response to the museum’s collections. In Climate Culture Care, the fifth exhibition in the series, Bangladeshi artist Soma Surovi Jannat draws inspiration from the Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest, to explore the intersection between climate change and social inequality. On display until 1st November, her work, including a thirty-foot-long scroll and imagined landscapes, places art in conversation with urgent environmental concerns. As the first solo exhibition by a Bangladesh-based artist in a UK museum, it also broadens the range of voices represented within these institutions.
A different perspective emerges in Colonial Views of India, on display until 13th December. The exhibition presents photographs taken by nineteenth-century British colonial officer Eugene Clutterbuck Impey, documenting people, landscapes and religious sites across India. Taken during, and by a proponent of, British colonial rule, the images are far from neutral records and were often used to reinforce cultural distinctions that underpinned imperial power. Displaying them today raises questions not only about what they show, but whose perspectives they privilege, and how their colonial context informs our understanding of them.
While Jannat uses the museum’s historical objects as a starting point for imagining environmental futures, revising Impey’s photographs invites us to question how British colonial rule shaped the images of India that have survived. Neither exhibition requires us to abandon the past; rather, both ask us to look at it more critically.
Oxford’s art scene is not simply a compendium of what past generations have valued, but an ongoing conversation about what matters to us now. By stepping beyond our usual galleries and seeking out unfamiliar perspectives, we may discover just how many stories the city’s art still has to tell.
I want to tell you how this play ends, but I think you should watch it yourself. The thematic potency and the overall success of Lighthouse Productions’ iteration of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull all came together in a great and terrible revelation. I say this not to diminish the preceding three hours in favour of a single line, but to compliment how masterfully and intentionally they were crafted, for the final sentence to have the power it had.
The Seagull is a simmering, slow play, written to subvert the theatrical conventions common in Chekhov’s time. It’s theatre laid bare, which is why the choice of a minimalist set works so well for this production. Beauty still flickers incandescently across the austere, almost empty, stage in the form of a talented dance crew choreographed by Anya Fuller, showing that the symbolist techniques derided within the story still have their uses. With their changing clothes, all evoking birds, they act as a sharp contrast to the monotonous blue costumes of the characters in the story. Clara Woodhead and Sophia Harris have both done well as costume designers for such an extensively large cast, and the symbolism in their clothing comes across clearly without being gaudy. Lucian Ng’s original score, which evokes the glacial minimalism of a Hildur Guðnadóttir film soundtrack, adds further depth to the interplay of sterile calm and quick bursts of movement we have already seen with the costumes and staging, the string quartet expertly evoking horror when it was needed. I did find that the score could be overbearing for my tastes at some times, though that was more an issue of volume, exacerbated by microphone issues on stage on the night I attended.
Much of what I have talked about with the play’s minimalism focuses on how it changes the experience of theatre through what it omits. But what makes this staging unique is what it does show, through a plexiglass box designed by Max Antoniou.
Chekhov intended for the play’s principal actions to take place off-stage. Here, these key moments, including that ending, take place inside the glass box. This is an audacious move for a play that relies on subtlety for its subversive effect, and it would certainly have failed if not for the cast’s tactful performances. This is an audacious move for a play that relies on subtlety for its subversive effect. It would certainly have failed if not for the cast’s tactful performances. The cast handled the comic and tragic aspects of this polytonal play exceptionally well. I cannot commend all of them, as this ensemble is absolutely massive, but that none of the characters felt two-dimensional is a testament to both the play’s enduring greatness and the cast’s ability. Ezana Betru and Rufus Shutter, Chekhov veterans from Fennec Fox’s Uncle Vanya (Michaelmas 2025), continue to impress. Danya Griver makes a welcome debut on the Oxford stage as Nina: it takes an exceptionally talented actress to play a rather mediocre one. I have particular praise, though, for Rowan Brown as Irina, a self-absorbed matriarch who could have easily become a shrill caricature of an ageing, vain woman, but whom she plays with exceptional life and sympathy. Because of these sublime performances, this production adds a darkly ironic and almost voyeuristic dimension to Chekhov’s script, rather than reducing emotional complexity and subtlety. It changes the purpose of the story, from a revolution in theatre to an indictment of its audience. There is the excitement that comes with seeing, with being in on the secrets of these characters, followed by a sense of guilt: it almost implicates you for watching. Chekhov’s Trigorin looks at a dead seagull and sees only material for a short story, and the glass invites us to do something not too different with someone else’s suffering.
Lighthouse Productions’ The Seagull is not a play to be missed. In her Director’s Note, Alys Young writes that she hopes to leave us “feeling more sure of the power of theatre than ever before”. By this metric, she is surely successful. Staging a lengthy, character-driven and understated play like The Seagull — so poorly received in Chekhov’s own day that he almost resolved to never write again — for an audience with a beleaguered attention span is no easy task. This production indicts our world’s lurid appetite for other people’s tragedies from TMZ to LiveLeak. Three hours long and unhurried, it still kept me perched on the edge of my seat, complicit and captivated in equal measure. A conventional part of me, however, wishes the play retained some of Chekhov’s tendency to hide the action, in defiance of our demand to know and to see. It would’ve surely strengthened the great, explosive ending all this work built toward, that final line I cannot yet tell you about.
It’s safe to say that Stuart Jeffries has a complicated relationship with the University of Oxford. He is now a freelance arts journalist, writing regularly for The Guardian, Financial Times, Spectator, and Mail on Sunday. Earlier in his career, he also wrote as a jazz critic for the communist newspaper Morning Star, under the pseudonym Lew Lewis and penned his first book, The Oxford Handbook. Since then, he has written four more. He published his most recent, A Short History of Stupidity, last September. Before that, he was the first person in his family to attend university, matriculating at Exeter College.
As we settle down at a table just around the corner from his third-year accommodation, he tells me: “I really hated it. I came from Solihull Sixth Form. Oxford was really loud, really boorish… and it was very rugby-oriented, which was just not part of my culture.”
Jeffries recounts a specific evening when the team had been on a club dinner. He says: “They were scrumming down, in the quad, and just being absolute a***holes.” He then describes his retaliation. He and the drummer in his short-lived band “got a fire extinguisher and… sprayed it on [the rugby team]… which, of course, is just like a red rag to a bull. They all came tanking up the staircase and… there was a bit of a fight.” He stops for a moment, then adds somewhat more bashfully: “In retrospect, we were the people who started the trouble.”
For him, another stark difference between his state comprehensive and university was the quality of teaching: “The teaching I had at sixth form was really, really good, consistently… all the teachers were really passionate. And I didn’t really feel that with many of the teachers I had at Oxford.” Again he stops and counters himself. He considers his consistent love of philosophy: “I had a couple of philosophy tutors who I really loved, and clearly left a mark on me, because I’m still really interested.”
It sets the tone for the conversation. For Jeffries, Oxford “was f***ing hard”. His strong Birmingham accent set him apart, with tutors regularly ‘correcting’ his pronunciation and taking aim at his flattened vowels. He felt out of place with the “ethos” of the college, especially in 1981, when Exeter had gone co-ed only two years earlier. He says that a postgraduate student that he spoke to when he last returned, in 2007, described his time as “specifically… quite a bad era”. But then he soon continues: “Part of the problem was mine. I wish I had been more mature.”
He seems caught between the haunting memories of that “bad era”, which he “suspects” he “probably repressed a lot”, and the opportunities the University offered him. He mentions the weight of his place at Oxford more than once, and it is something he also wrote in his first book, The Oxford Handbook: “There was no question I could drop out… I think I was quite depressed and was probably struggling a bit mentally, but I didn’t feel that I could yield to any of that.” He is smiling as he considers his past: “I can’t remember myself that clearly when I was young… why didn’t I have a breakdown?”
Then he tells me: “You shouldn’t whine too much.” His tone, as it has been throughout, is light and joking. And he admits that Oxford is “absolutely worth it”. He adds: “For that name alone, the name of the University.” After all, it is also at Oxford where he found his love for philosophy. This love manifests clearly in his literary work, and it is obvious as we discuss his most recent book, A Short History of Stupidity. Beginning with the Ancient Greeks and taking us all the way to the artificial intelligence of our modern day, Jeffries looks at humanity’s moments of ‘stupidity’.
He talks to me specifically about intelligence and IQ tests: “They were first introduced in France, in 1905.” This, he says, was in an attempt to help students that the government thought were being left behind: “The psychologists’ idea was that if you introduced some sort of battery of tests… you would be able to help the kids who are struggling… but it very, very quickly became what the eugenics movement made of it… You get a number, and it hangs around your neck like an albatross…The eugenics movement perverted a really hopeful idea of what education could be, and instead became an absolutely racist means of trying to change society.”
“Oxford was absolutely part of it… it’s shocking to me that Rhodes is still up,” he continues, referring to the controversial statue of Cecil Rhodes in Oriel College. This sparks another memory: “I remember when I was at Oxford there was a massive fuss about putting up the Thatcher statue in Somerville.” Jeffries picketed against it. He also protested against his college’s association with Rio Tinto Zinc, for their involvement in apartheid in South Africa. Although he was demonstrating against the University, he says: “You didn’t feel as though you were necessarily pushing against a closed door… you could do something.”
He is not sure students today have the same opportunity. With rising university fees and the omnipresence of social media, there are “consequences” and “risks” he never really thought about. He thinks about recent headlines, and says that “the panopticon of social media has a chilling effect on… protest”. For him, “being a student was three years in which you were kind of expected to be a pain in the a***… for the powers that be”. Once more, reflecting on his time at Oxford, he adds: “Not that I did all that much.”
Jeffries admits that he thinks his perspective has been “skewed” by the experience of his daughter, who took up a degree in history at Oxford last year. His delight is palpable: “I was just desperately proud… I’m so proud that she went to Oxford.” He also notes the very important impact that access programmes such as Opportunity Oxford (OppOx) have made: “OppOx is extraordinary. I think it is really, really amazing… I could have done with it. It would have really helped me… just getting used to this weird environment.” An environment he felt was made to “wrongfoot” him, in the 1980s.
For the first time, he was very aware of his place in the English class system. He was different from his public school peers, who thought of him as one of “these state school oiks”. He tells me: “I was being completely transported into a world that was… like an old class structure, which was actually the reality of what our country is. This is where the power is.”
As much as Oxford and his perspective might have changed since he was last studying at Exeter, he tells me he thinks the university “is a symptom of our divided society”. According to him, public schools and their “business model” of education must be abolished: “Until that happens, this country is going to be, I think, a very divided and… unfair one.” It is a sober note to end on, and speaks to the difficulty of a university he experienced in 1981, that he otherwise covers with a joke that it is hard not to laugh at.
Stuart Jeffries is not a man who takes himself too seriously, and as he tells me about his time at Oxford, it is easy to smile with him as he manages to make a comedy out of an experience I certainly do not envy. But it is also clear that the University made a profound impact on the arts journalist, and he will always be followed by those three years at Exeter.
A Cherwell investigation found that only 5 of 40 sexual misconduct complaints reported to the University of Oxford’s Proctors’ Office in the past 7 years were accepted for investigation. Excluding the four reports complainants withdrew, 86% of reports resulted in a No Further Action outcome.
In contrast, the University of Cambridge investigated 84% of reports made through its Student Disciplinary Procedure in the same period, and upheld 33% of total complaints.
In the course of this investigation, Cherwell spoke to students who said that their assaults were referred to as “misunderstandings” by staff, that they were discouraged from reporting as they were told it would be a devastating process, and that they were told that Oxford prefers to resolve these matters with “informal conversations” between the victim and the accused rather than disciplinary action.
At Oxford, if a student experiences misconduct from a student at their own college, they can make a report to their college dean. Each college has its own disciplinary procedure, which the dean can then use to investigate the report. If, however, a student experiences misconduct by a student at another college, the student must contact the Proctors – the two academic officers who oversee student discipline across the entire University. The Proctors would then consider whether to investigate under their own disciplinary procedure.
Freedom of Information (FOI) responses show that policy restrictions were the main reason cases were not accepted for investigation by the Proctors.
Fourteen cases, or 35% of the total number of reports, were referred to another body. Of these, ten were referred to the police, two were referred to colleges, and two were referred to investigation by other bodies.
Referrals to colleges occur when both the reporting student and the accused student attend the same college, so the complaint falls within the jurisdiction of the college dean.
Referrals to the police occur when the matter involves “serious criminal conduct”. The University stated in a FOI response that, under its Serious Criminal Conduct Policy, it “will not usually investigate a report of conduct that could constitute serious criminal conduct until it has passed through a Police procedure”.
Graph credit: Oskar Doepke
Seven reports were refused investigation because the alleged incident occurred outside the context of the University. Two were refused investigation because too much time had elapsed between the alleged misconduct and the report. An additional report was refused investigation because both reasons applied.
Three complaints did not progress because one of the parties left the University. One was refused investigation because the student was about to finish and was dealt with under a No Contact Arrangement. Three cases received a No Further Action outcome with no reason recorded.
Of the five cases the University investigated, one was upheld with a formal disciplinary sanction, two were referred to the Student Disciplinary Panel with outcomes unknown, and the other two did not result in disciplinary sanctions. As a result, the percentage of reports made to the Proctors’ Office which end in a disciplinary sanction falls between 2.5% and 7.5%.
The University’s investigation and complaint-upholding rate are markedly lower than those of the colleges. Of the 15 colleges that responded to FOI requests with exact figures, 50% of reports were investigated, and 35% were upheld.
Cherwell also compared Oxford’s investigation rates and complaint-upholding rates against other universities. Of all the universities that responded to Cherwell’s FOI request, Oxford’s Proctors’ Office had the lowest investigation rate: Cambridge investigated 84% of complaints in the same period and upheld 33% of them; the University of St Andrews investigated 100% and upheld 38%; the University of Edinburgh investigated 44% and upheld 13.5%; the University of Newcastle investigated 100% and upheld 56%; and the University of Bristol did not specify how many cases were upheld, but investigated 100% of cases in the past five years.
These figures raise questions about whether Oxford is doing enough to take action against sexual assault and harassment, as well as supporting those who are victims of it.
The University’s Non-Academic Disciplinary Procedure classifies “sexual intercourse or engaging in a sexual act without consent” as a Category 4 Breach, the most serious category, with an indicative penalty of expulsion. “Touching inappropriately through clothes without consent” is Category 3, with an indicative penalty of suspension.
On paper, this suggests the University recognises sexual assault among the most serious forms of misconduct – one which merits severe punishment. In practice, however, the data suggest the University is highly unlikely to take formal action against it.
The data also highlights likely under-reporting at Oxford. Across the 30 colleges that responded with figures, between 85 and 111 formal sexual misconduct complaints involving members of the college were recorded in the last 7 years. Combined with the 40 formal complaints received by the Proctors in the same period, this averages 18-22 reports per year. Even though this excludes some colleges, this suggests that, in a University of 26,000 students, sexual misconduct is under-reported.
This is consistent with findings from Oxford’s Sexual Harassment and Violence Support Service, which found that among students using the service in 2023/24, only 16% reported to the Proctors’ Office and 11% reported to their college. It explicitly says students choose not to report because of concerns about negative outcomes or that no action will be taken.
An OURSPACE survey by sexual violence researchers, administered to Oxford students in 2021, found that 76 respondents reported they had been raped in the past year at Oxford. One hundred and fifty said they had experienced unwanted sexual touching, and 188 reported that they had been stalked. The survey included 1,314 respondents, only around 5% of the total student population. Because students chose whether to respond, the survey may not represent the wider student body, so it cannot tell what proportion of all students experienced sexual violence that year. But it does strongly suggest that the real number of sexual violence incidents dwarfs the number of formal reports received.
University context
Oxford’s Student Disciplinary Procedure states the University will not investigate conduct that occurs outside a University context. Conduct occurs in a University context if it takes place on University or college premises, or in the course of University activity.
In a FOI response, the University stated its rationale, and in doing so, referred to sexual assault and harassment that happens outside of a University context as “disputes amongst individuals” that were outside of the intended aims of University procedure. They told Cherwell: “The purpose of the disciplinary procedure is to address misconduct by students, rather than to resolve disputes between individuals.”
The policy makes no provision for the effects on the victim of being denied the opportunity for an investigation.
Serious Criminal Conduct Policy
The provision that the University “will not usually investigate a report of conduct that could constitute serious criminal conduct until it has passed through a Police procedure” was referred to in an email as its “Serious Criminal Conduct Policy”.
Oxford’s adoption of such a restrictive policy is an outlier amongst UK universities. For instance, Cambridge, Durham University, Edinburgh, and University College London all expressly allow disciplinary investigations into allegations of serious sexual misconduct to proceed without a police investigation having occurred first. Standard practice across most universities is to pause procedures only if a police investigation is occurring at the same time.
Referring cases of serious criminal conduct to the police, with the University willing to intervene once their investigation concludes, can sound like it gives serious misconduct the weight it deserves. But in practice, it often means that survivors cannot achieve justice from either body, and those accused walk free.
Home Office statistics show that rape investigations leading to a charge or summons took a median of around 14 months to reach that outcome in the year ending March 2026.
The same figures show that around 5% of rapes recorded by the police in that time resulted in a suspect being charged or summoned. Combined with the rate of conviction once a case reaches trial, around 3% of rapes reported to the police result in a conviction. The majority of rape survivors have trauma-related symptoms or PTSD and are required to relive their most distressing moments in order for the investigation to proceed.
The policy meant survivors were required to put themselves through a lengthy and potentially retraumatising ordeal, with no conviction in the majority of cases, for the University to investigate their case.
In theory, reporting students could ask for a University process after a police investigation has completed. But in practice, none of the ten students who refused a University process on this basis came back to ask the University to take on their case once a police process had concluded. It is highly plausible that the demanding nature of the policy means survivors were likely to disengage from the system before that point.
When contacted, Oxford said it introduced changes in 2025 that strengthen the University’s ability to investigate serious misconduct and allow it to investigate more cases without a reporter first having to make a report to the police.
Time constraints
As Oxford’s FOI responses show, there have been three cases in the past seven years where an investigation by the Proctors was refused on the basis of a delay in reporting.
The University changed its Student Disciplinary Procedure in 2025 to allow discretion to investigate cases beyond the six-month timeframe, noting that there are more likely to be good reasons for delayed reporting in cases of sexual misconduct, harassment, bullying, or conduct involving violence or a threat of violence.
Currently, the procedure states that it will not investigate a report made more than six months after the incident, unless “there are good reasons for the delay in the Report being made or there is a strong interest in the investigation proceeding regardless of the delay in the Report being made”.
From a trauma-informed perspective, delayed disclosure in cases of sexual assault and harassment is common. The current policy means survivors reporting beyond the six-month limit have to advocate for themselves to justify that they had a good reason for not reporting earlier, and the Proctors then decide whether their argument is valid.
Despite the procedure being revised to allow discretion in investigating cases beyond the six-month time frame, a sexual misconduct case was still refused investigation on the basis of a delay in reporting in the academic year 2025/26.
ItHappensHere, Oxford University’s student-led anti-sexual violence group, criticised the University’s multiple restrictions on investigating sexual misconduct. They told Cherwell: “It can be unbelievably traumatic for a survivor of sexual violence to be denied the chance to have their voice heard and their experiences treated seriously, and we hope the University policies are able to change to reflect this. Only around 3% of cases of sexual assault reported to the police result in someone being charged, let alone convicted, and many people choose not to go to the police at all due to fears of being disbelieved, blamed, retraumatised, or seeing no action taken. This leaves people with their only chance for justice being at the university level, and the statistics show this is being denied due to unreasonable policies that don’t align with either the colleges’ or those of other universities.
“We’re looking to work with the university on this issue and to make sure survivors are supported, and cases properly investigated to protect all students. If you’ve been affected by sexual violence, there is support out there and people who believe you, and we’re working on making the university a safer, more supportive place for everyone.
“We’ve heard so many stories of survivors being silenced by the university. Students do not trust that the university or its colleges will take reports of sexual violence seriously or handle them sensitively, and many are afraid of retaliatory action. There is a collective responsibility to change the culture of silence, and that starts with changing policies that prevent cases being heard at all.”
Colleges
Among the 30 colleges that responded with figures, between 85 and 111 formal sexual misconduct complaints were recorded in the last seven years. That averages 2.6 to 3.4 per college.
A higher number of reports does not necessarily indicate a higher incidence of sexual misconduct: other factors that affect the number of reports may be the culture around reporting, students’ confidence in the college’s response, and staff’s attitudes.
Colleges often offer the provision of an informal meeting to advise students considering making a complaint. Whether deans or principals appear encouraging or discouraging in such meetings can affect whether a student goes ahead to make a formal report.
Graph credit: Oskar Doepke
Jesus, Regent’s Park, and Reuben were the only responding colleges that recorded no formal complaints. The three colleges together represent thousands of students passing through over the period, so the absence of any formal complaints across these colleges raises questions about whether students who experience sexual misconduct are being adequately encouraged and supported to report it.
Like the Proctors’ disciplinary procedure, many colleges include a provision stating that a dean will not normally investigate an incident if more than six months have elapsed since it occurred. Balliol, Brasenose, Christ Church, Lady Margaret Hall, Lincoln, Mansfield, Regent’s Park, St Hilda’s, St John’s, Trinity, and Wadham all have such a provision. Harris Manchester and Keble have an equivalent provision of 3 months, and Merton offers 60 days.
These provisions often state that a dean may investigate in “extraordinary circumstances”, with considerations like “risk of harm”, “reasons for a delay in reporting”, and “the gravity of the alleged breach” viewed as making such circumstances more likely.
“Risk of harm” is not defined in any of these policies, and it does not specify whether it refers to the risk of reoffence or whether it includes any psychological harm to the reporting student of having their case denied an investigation. In practice, both are highly likely to be the case in instances of sexual misconduct. Research shows that rates of recidivism for sexual offences are significant: one study in the U.S. found that of 238 students who reported committing at least one act of sexual coercion or assault, 68% committed another act during the four-year period, and a separate study analysed data from 12,624 male students and found that more than 87% of alcohol-driven sexual assaults were committed by serial perpetrators. This raises questions about whether perpetrators who routinely escape formal accountability are emboldened to continue their behaviour, and thus pose a safeguarding risk.
Without internal guidance on how to interpret “risk of harm”, the attitudes of deans and wardens may vary, meaning the same circumstances could result in an investigation at one college but be rejected on the basis of the time limit at another.
Student testimonies
Cherwell sent out a survey to ask students about their experiences of reporting sexual misconduct, or their decision not to report. The survey had 27 respondents.
30% of respondents said they reported their experience of sexual misconduct, while 70% said they did not. Of the options listed, the most prominent factor influencing students not to report was fear of social consequences, with 18 respondents citing this. The second most prominent factor was a lack of trust in the colleges’ or the University’s procedures, cited by 15 respondents. Third was the fear of a counter-complaint initiated by the perpetrator, cited by eight. Six respondents cited a lack of information on reporting channels, three cited policy barriers, and the “Other” category included concerns that the respondent wouldn’t be believed and concerns that the matter wouldn’t be taken seriously since the perpetrator was a woman.
Of the eight respondents who said they reported their experience, three said they were “very dissatisfied” with the University or college’s response, two said they were “somewhat dissatisfied”, two said they were “somewhat satisfied”, and one said they were “neither satisfied nor dissatisfied”.
Cecily
Cecily (name changed to protect the student’s identity) told Cherwell that one of the reasons she did not report her alleged sexual assault was that multiple members of staff at her college warned against making a formal complaint, telling her the process would be devastating.
“They were deeply against reporting because in most cases it causes more harm to the victim than it does help,” she said. “I was told they would go through my whole history, anything I’d ever done, and tear me to shreds. And that it would be very humiliating.”
She added that her College Chaplain told her the University’s response to cases like hers was often to encourage an “informal resolution” where the two parties attend a supervised meeting to “talk through their issues”. She said that in a case which revolved around sexual assault, she “could not see how this would help at all”, and demonstrated the University’s lack of awareness around issues of sexual violence.
She also claimed that before he assaulted her, her alleged perpetrator had already been investigated for sexual misconduct by a different college, but this had resulted in no formal consequences.
Another reason Cecily did not report her alleged assault was the response of some of her peers when she told them that she had been sexually assaulted. Some did not believe what happened, while others believed her but continued to be friends with the alleged perpetrator. Some encouraged her to remain friends with him herself.
She said that this made her feel “horrible and invalidated”, and that her diagnosed PTSD was made worse by her peers’ response.
“All this happened even though it was deeply traumatic and negative, and affected everything in my life for months,” she said. Cecily says she had to go on antidepressants as a result of her PTSD.
“I think there are more people who will invalidate you by saying ‘it’s sexual assault, but there is still room to forgive’ than there are people who will invalidate you by denying there was any assault at all.”
“Not all rape culture is as explicit as denial and disbelief – a lot of it is playing things down and trying to pretend they never happened.”
Hannah
Hannah (name changed to protect the student’s identity) describes waking up to a male friend who was pressing his body against hers and rubbing his hands up and down her body. She said it took her several months to realise that what she experienced was sexual assault.
She says she spoke informally with her College Dean about reporting her alleged assault, and says he discouraged her from making a complaint. She was told by the Dean that it would be her word against his, and that if she made a formal complaint, it probably would not go far. Instead, it was suggested that she speak to the student who assaulted her to resolve the situation, which the Dean referred to as a “misunderstanding”.
Hannah also said she was put off making a complaint by the fact that the harassment advisor in her college was one of the alleged perpetrator’s tutors.
She told Cherwell: “There is definitely a rife culture of typically privileged male students who do not have any concept of the meaning of consent and do as they please, pushing boundaries to the point where they assault girls.”
Hannah said she later witnessed the man who assaulted her making unwanted physical contact with other women, and that she was concerned that if no formal authority ever intervened, he would continue to engage in such behaviour.
Emily
Emily (name changed to protect the student’s identity) told Cherwell that she experienced sexual coercion and physical assault from another student at Oxford, and that her alleged perpetrator retaliated against her when she expressed an interest in seeking a No Contact Order against him.
She said she did not formally report her perpetrator’s conduct due to a fear of retaliation. However, she said she did tell him she would ask her College to apply for a No Contact Order from the Proctors, and this was enough to trigger what she believes is the retaliation she feared.
According to her, her perpetrator made a series of allegations and vexatious complaints to every society and workplace she had been involved in. It took three months of investigation before they were deemed vexatious and dropped.
While the investigations were ongoing, Emily says she received an email from college instructing her not to talk about the complaints made against her. The email read: “For your own wellbeing you must keep this information strictly confidential, make no reference to the complaint or allude to its existence in any way in communication on social media / email / etc.”
Emily says she feels this was likely reputational damage control by the college, and that she felt alienated from them as a result.
She says she also received an email from the perpetrator’s college saying she was banned from its premises, with no explanation. As well as this, her College did not end up making an application for a No Contact Order to the Proctors because the alleged perpetrator’s College had applied for one and received it before they could.
Emily says that while some members of staff at her College were verbally supportive, she feels her College Dean was unempathetic, and that her perpetrator’s College was more effective in supporting his retaliatory counter-complaints than her own College was in supporting her.
Retaliation in response to allegations of misconduct is classified as “victimisation” by the University. Oxford’s Harassment Policy and Procedures says that the University defines victimisation as any instance where someone is subjected to detrimental treatment because they have, in good faith, made an allegation of harassment, indicated an intention to make such an allegation, or taken any other steps in connection with the policy and procedure, or are suspected of having done any of these things.
The Policy says that: “The University does not tolerate any form of harassment or victimisation”. It states that those in positions of authority “have a duty to implement this Policy and to make every effort to ensure that harassment and victimisation do not occur”.
Emily says that the University let her down by allowing victimisation to occur against her, despite its stated no-tolerance position towards it.
She says her alleged perpetrator had been previously reported to his college by another student, but that no action had been taken against him at the time. She told Cherwell: “I was horrified to find out his college had already received reports against him. By not dealing with his behaviour from his very first victim, it allowed him to continue hurting other individuals, and then hurting me.”
Dan
Dan (name changed to protect the student’s identity) told Cherwell that he reported a member of staff for harassment at his college. Allegedly, Dan said he had personally witnessed the member of staff engaging in unwanted physical contact of a sexual nature with other staff, and that they were known to make sexually charged comments to students. He claims this member of staff’s behaviour was an “open secret” in the college for at least two years.
He added that while many of his peers supported him in bringing forward a complaint, others discouraged him. He said that since the member of staff was known to give free wine and formals to their favourite students, some discouraged him as it meant they would lose these “perks”.
Dan said that when he and his friend spoke to the Head of Welfare at his college, they were told not to let the information relating to the complaint “take on a life of its own”. He says he later found out that another student overheard another member of staff making disparaging comments in public about him and his friend for reporting. This included being annoyed that they wanted to take it further, and claiming that they had no proof.
Dan says this made him feel discouraged from taking his complaint further, and powerless in addressing the harassment he was witnessing.
Dan ended up deciding to take it to senior staff, where he felt his complaint was taken on board seriously and swiftly. The college human resources team began an investigation into the matter, during which the member of staff in question left his position.
Dan said that while he was pleased that his complaint was taken seriously when it was escalated to senior level, he felt his experience “speaks to a culture of open secrets, underhanded benefits, and a feeling that honest reporting is discouraged”.
Isla
Isla (name changed to protect the student’s identity) said that she was raped after a college ball. She said that after her assault, she stopped going to lectures, stopped going to the Schwarzman Centre, and fell massively behind on her academic work. She said she felt “in a constant state of anxiety, as [she] no longer felt safe in Oxford”.
She told Cherwell that a man had left her college ball with her when she was intoxicated and struggling to walk, and then taken her into his accommodation at his college and raped her. Afterwards, the college’s porters saw her trying to leave the man’s accommodation, and they came to try and help her. Allegedly, they saw her slurring her words and struggling to form coherent sentences. They offered her a taxi to get home, which, in her drunk state, she refused.
Isla says she felt it was a mistake for the porters to do this, as she was clearly in no state to walk home alone. Her house was a ten-minute walk away, but she only got there an hour later, after having to be dropped off in a police car.
Isla says that after that night, she was dismayed that no one from the man’s college followed up with her. She said she found it hard to believe that people whose profession is in security would be unable to spot the signs of danger, such as an intoxicated woman being taken into an accommodation by a non-intoxicated man. Instead, she found out that the college had gotten involved, but only to Dean the student for breaching the college’s guest policy. She told Cherwell: “I was frustrated that the extent of the college inquiry into the matter was to Dean the student to discuss guest policy, and require only that he apologise to the porters.”
The student also admitted to her that he had been deaned in the past after another drunk girl was seen trying to leave his accommodation – again, for a breach of the college’s Guest Policy.
Isla said she then tried to obtain CCTV footage of her trying to leave the man’s accommodation in case she needed it. She went to speak with the porters and was told she couldn’t see the footage herself for data protection reasons. Instead, she was told that she should email the Head Porter. Isla says she saw this obstacle as a reason to give up, given her lack of trust in the porters after she felt they had failed to follow up with her after that night, and her deteriorating mental state following her rape.
Later, when the term finished, she felt more able to make a formal report as she knew she would not have to see her rapist again. She contacted the Head Porter and was told the CCTV footage she was looking for had been deleted, as all footage is deleted after 23 days unless a request is made to keep it. She was “baffled” that they did not think to keep it regardless, as she had come in to request it, and expected that a welfare concern would have been flagged.
*name changed to protect the student’s identity
When asked for comment, Oxford University said: “Sexual misconduct, harassment and violence have no place at the University of Oxford. We are committed to fostering a safe and respectful community and to preventing and responding effectively to misconduct. In 2025, we made significant changes to our disciplinary procedures, informed by student feedback and consultation with student groups. These changes removed some of the barriers to reporting sexual misconduct and harassment, although we recognise that cases are under-reported relative to the number of students seeking welfare support.
“The University’s complaint-handling processes provide clear routes for concerns to be raised, considered and acted on. Changes to Statute XI, approved by Congregation in 2025, strengthen the University’s ability to investigate serious misconduct, including sexual violence, and allow the University to investigate more cases without a Reporter first having to make a report to the police.
“The changes also make disciplinary processes clearer and more accessible, and support compliance with Office for Students requirements on harassment and sexual misconduct. The revised procedures allow discretion for the University to investigate cases beyond the six-month timeframe, noting that there are more likely to be good reasons for delayed reporting in cases of sexual misconduct, harassment, bullying or conduct involving violence or a threat of violence.
“This term, all students starting a course at Oxford are required to complete the University’s Harassment and Sexual Misconduct online training. Developed with Oxford students, it reflects Oxford’s collegiate structure and signposts students to both college and central University support. This complements Healthy Relationships and Consent workshops delivered by trained student facilitators, with support from the Sexual Harassment and Violence Support Service.”
Harris Manchester College told Cherwell: “Although our published procedure references a time limit, investigations are in practice guided by the wishes of the student raising the complaint, not by the length of time between incident and complaint. We will shortly be publishing an updated policy to reflect this.”
Regent’s Park College told Cherwell: “Regent’s Park College places the highest priority on the safety, welfare and wellbeing of our students and staff. The College takes reports of harassment and sexual misconduct extremely seriously and is committed to ensuring that all concerns are considered fairly, sensitively and with appropriate regard to safeguarding. Our policies, including our Non-Academic Disciplinary Policy and Procedure, are regularly reviewed and follow University and Conference of Colleges guidance.
“The policy to which you refer follows guidance issued by the Conference of Colleges. As the policy makes clear, the six-month period is not an absolute time limit: provision is made for allegations to be considered outside this period in exceptional circumstances, and the policy specifically recognises that exceptional circumstances are more likely to exist in reports of sexual violence and harassment.”
Lincoln College told Cherwell: “The College’s Non-Academic Misconduct Disciplinary Procedure states that reports concerning alleged breaches of discipline occurring more than six months previously will not normally be investigated. However, this is not an absolute cut-off: the Procedure expressly allows the Senior Dean to investigate where they judge that there is a compelling reason to do so.
“In reaching a decision to investigate, the Senior Dean is required to consider the gravity of the alleged breach; whether it was an isolated event or part of an alleged course of conduct; the length of any delay in reporting; the reasons for that delay; and any barriers to reporting. The Senior Dean may also take account of risk to others when considering whether there is a compelling reason to investigate.”
Brasenose College told Cherwell: “Our student handbook includes more detail on the exceptional circumstances, noting in particular the emphasis on sexual misconduct and/or violence:
“In deciding whether there are exceptional circumstances, the Dean will place particular weight on whether there is a risk of harm to any current member or members of the College and whether there are safeguarding considerations. The Dean may also consider factors such as the severity of the alleged misconduct, whether the alleged misconduct was an isolated event, how much time has passed since the alleged misconduct, and any barriers to disclosure or reporting of the misconduct. Exceptional circumstances are more likely to be found to exist in cases of sexual misconduct and/or violence.”
St John’s College told Cherwell: “‘Risk of harm’ has intentionally not been defined in order to allow for the possibility of a broad interpretation. The non-academic disciplinary procedure states under 3.2. Formal Resolution ‘The College recognises that exceptional circumstances warranting the consideration of a report after more than 6 months may be particularly likely in cases of sexual misconduct or violence.’
“This implies that the 6-month time restriction would not be applied in cases of alleged sexual harassment or misconduct, and that such reports would be investigated in accordance with the procedure.”
If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article and would like to seek support, please reach out to any of the following:
There’s much about the experience of studying at Oxford that makes it truly unique compared to other universities. There’s the almost millennium-old tradition of wearing sub fusc and the regular formal dinners, but most glaringly of all perhaps lies in the day-to-day experience of the college system. While other students find a sense of community in their halls of residence or in student societies, at Oxford, the college serves as an amalgamation of the personal and the academic. It is where work is done, friends are made, and for most first-years, where they live and eat. This combination of purposes means that the college is central to the student experience at Oxford, and therefore inevitably forms a significant part of your identity at this University.
This can be a part of the allure of Oxford (or Cambridge) to the potential applicant. Pushing past the initial unfamiliarity that such a set-up may cause, the close sense of community that college fosters can add comfort to the disorienting experience of the intense eight-week terms and workload of studying here. While at other universities, there can be a sense of being thrown straight into the deep end, with little moderation between the intimacy of your student flat and the openness of the entire course and university as a whole, the Oxbridge college system acts as a middle-ground, allowing for inter-subject mixing and familiar faces. It also allows the applicant a unique degree of freedom in the environment in which they will be studying over the next three years. This freedom to be selective about elements may at first seem superficial, as prospective students compare the beauty of certain colleges’ gardens and dining halls. But, it can also involve having control over more meaningful traits. Factors such as the proportion of state-educated students at a college or of elements of its social life, for example, can act as deciders for where a student may choose to study. That such diversity between colleges can exist within the University is a great strength and enriches the quality of student life. Save those that end up being pooled or submit an open application, the majority of applicants often do research and get excited about the prospect of which college they are going to choose to study at and spend most of their time in. This gives them an immense, almost unparalleled, amount of control over a huge aspect of their university experience.
However, consideration of living costs is growing to dominate conversations about higher education. Maintenance loans struggle to keep up with the growing costs of being a student, and the failures of successive governments to address the financial pressures that students face mean that for many the cost of university is growing unbearable. This negative effect is multiplied by studying in a city with living costs as high as Oxford. The purpose of going to university is not just to come out with a degree at the end, but to nurture interests independently for the first time and develop a sense of self at such a transitional age. This is something that the college system at Oxford can facilitate in a unique way. Facilities and interests between colleges vary, with the distinct rowing culture at Oriel, for example, contrasting with the reputation that St John’s holds for sports. While there is definitely scope for this beyond the college, the college system uniquely positions students to tailor their experience at university to what they want it to be. Taking full advantage of the opportunities presented by these years of study was previously facilitated by policies such as the maintenance grant, which gave students greater room to manoeuvre in their lifestyles and the ability to make choices which may have previously been inaccessible. The rising costs that going to university now entails, however, begin to limit this potential for choice.
This is where a disconnect can emerge between colleges fostering an identity and the financial reality, which can be what shapes students’ decisions and experiences. My college, Wadham, has long prided itself on its progressive politics and liberal identity. However, rent for second year accommodation was recently proposed to rise by 10.63% up to £9470. Touting an inclusive image while charging rents which rank in the highest quartile across the University means that Wadham’s progressive ethos begins to ring hollow. Wadham’s character comes not only from a reputation nurtured by its students but also through its active efforts to encourage access and outreach. Its undergraduate centre doubles as a purpose-built building for widening access initiatives with schools to facilitate applications from a broader range of backgrounds. While these efforts to develop a diverse and progressive community are commendable, they sit uncomfortably with the reality of rent and living cost rises, which become barriers to students applying. While a prospective applicant may love the College’s garden and chapel and reputation of a liberal community, for an increasing number of applicants the primary consideration above all of these is cost. Wadham’s increasing unaffordability means it becomes eliminated as an option, no matter how progressive of a reputation it may boast.
Ultimately, the issue of higher living costs limiting choice is not unique to Oxford and its colleges, and its impact on the college system is perhaps a slightly low-stakes issue. However, rising financial pressures playing a greater role in college selection begins to undermine the point of the college system in the first place. Colleges have great diversity in their beauty, their academic specialisms, their facilities and their ethos. This diversity is what can make the student experience here so unique. When financial considerations must take precedence in decision-making, these nuances become flattened. There is a growing contradiction between the choice the college system is supposed to offer and the financial reality underlying being a student today. The appeal of free choice is lessened when it can be exercised only by those who can afford it.
“Sex sells: Marketing 101” says one YouTube comment under Sydney Sweeney’s Novig advert. This is the advert where she poses semi-naked to advertise sports betting.“Guess the strategy works,” says another. Does it, though? I watched the entire thing, and I can’t tell you for the life of me what Novig sells. A Google search reveals that it is a sports betting company, which is a bit like finding out your dream job is in Slough. Clicks: sure. Website traffic: great! Whether this turns into any actual revenue seems to be a mystery the ad shows no interest in solving.
That is not the real issue, though, is it? All advertising sells a dream, Mad Men style: the aftershave, the sports car, the life in which nobody is ever on hold to the GP. Here the dream is sport itself, betting on it, and the opportunities it gives you. A world where women who look and act like Sweeney are simply there, accessible, like fresh towels, or a complimentary bowl of crisps. It is a peculiar lesson to hand an audience about sport, and what the women in it are for.
“Don’t be so precious,” some will say. “It’s just an ad.” Marvellous. And to be honest, advertising has always run on attractive people, so an actress booking a job is hardly a scandal.
But this is an ad with a naked ideal of women in sport, and that is a pressure women never asked for and should not have to live up to. Sweeney is an actress, not a sportsperson. She does not describe herself as an athlete. So who is it for? The male gaze, obviously. It’s virtually in the credits.
The bill lands with women who have to compete. They put up with rampant sexualisation already. Remember the row over Nike’s high-cut kit for the US women’s track team at the Paris Olympics, while the men got tank tops and shorts? Or when in 2021, Norway’s women’s beach handball team was fined for wearing shorts instead of bikini bottoms? The Novig ad did not cause any of this. It is just another instance of a wider pattern: a woman in sport is there simply to be looked at. Instead of the pressure to perform for themselves, their country and their families, which is a huge burden already, they are back to being audited: size, shape, what they look like and what they wear. A body is meant to be a vessel for performing at your best, not a billboard. The only question left is whether women’s clothes are too skimpy or could be skimpier.
Britain, in particular, has been here before. In 2015, Protein World covered the Tube with a bikini-clad model and the question “Are you beach body ready?”, selling weight-loss products by implying commuters might not be. Tens of thousands signed a petition, and the posters were defaced. The Advertising Standards Authority ruled the campaign was not offensive or socially irresponsible, but barred the adverts from returning in their existing form over unauthorised health and weight-loss claims. In 2016, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan introduced a ban on adverts across Transport for London’s network that could pressure people to conform to unrealistic or unhealthy body shapes. The product on offer was not just protein powder, but an “ideal body type”. Novig’s version is subtler, and thus harder to object to: nobody is outrightly told they are inadequate, only shown who counts, whose body is “ideal”.
Oxford is the home to Olympians Maureen Gardner and Dame Katherine Grainger. Despite the legacy of female sporting success, it is still a place for intense scrutiny over women’s bodies. One former student says the audit follows women into the gym. “Some men are convinced we train to achieve a figure that attracts their validation and admiration. In reality, we’d way prefer them not to be looking in our direction. We work for our health, not your attention.” Her question is the one the ad does not ask: “How can we use the gym to maintain our mental wellbeing if we have to worry all the time about being sexualised?”
The mixed messaging is the funniest part. Sportswomen can be marketed to men in the privacy of their own houses (most of Novig’s customers are men), but comedians like Shane Gillis can come on SNL and publicly deplore women’s outfits. Pick a lane. Women should decide what to wear, not advertisers, not governing bodies, and not comedians. Freedom of choice is not a difficult concept to grasp, yet the rules rarely follow any logic. A current Oxford athlete notes the rules barely hold together: men’s kit in figure skating and gymnastics is “much more covered”, yet in France women “cannot compete in professional sports wearing a hijab even though doing so would make no difference, nor breach any rules”. Too little for one woman, too much for another.
The reaction to the Sweeney advert has gone far beyond America’s borders. Women on social media are posting videos saying “this is what a woman looks like”. They are showing the many ways they actually play sports.
Women’s sport, a current student athlete argues, “should not be about exposing women’s bodies, but instead demonstrating what women’s bodies are capable of”. Zahra Lari, one of the first Emirati figure skaters to compete internationally, wore a hijab and full-coverage kit, and was judged on her skating. Ibtihaj Muhammad, the American fencer who won Olympic bronze in 2016, and Nouhalia Benzina, the Moroccan defender who played at the 2023 World Cup, in a hijab among many others, are further proof that sport should not be about sexualisation.
Nobody dragging themselves out for a 6am rowing session wants to be set dressing for a betting app. Though, to be fair, you can’t bet on rowing on Novig, apparently. I checked. Sportswomen would like to excel and be judged on that. Revolutionary stuff, I know.
Walking to chapel on a mid-winter Wednesday morning, you could almost be certain to hear a teacher’s anguished cry: “Take those hoop earrings out!” Until two years ago, my sixth-form had only admitted boys for nearly six and a half centuries. There was still a strange ring of uncertainty in the voice of authority that pursued us with moral outrage, insisting we favour studs. Somehow, I always found myself wearing the wrong thing. The attention fell on the clothes, but inadvertently, the body beneath them too. Ours was a peculiar kind of uniform: no formally prescribed list beyond vague terms like ‘smart’ and ‘sober colours’, yet we were endlessly policed. I learned what was acceptable and what was not mostly through a series of raised eyebrows and disapproving looks. It left me wondering: what exactly made one outfit acceptable and another an offence?
Most schools in the UK have a uniform. While it is not mandated, the government advises that a uniform provides ‘a sense of belonging and identity’. The logic is persuasive: if we think of uniform as something beyond just a logo or a colour, it offers a visible affiliation between an individual and the collective. Leaving school ostensibly offers an escape from such scrutiny. At Oxford University, there is no everyday uniform, but students quickly become recognisable by what they wear. Whether your friend religiously favours their rowing jacket, designer gear, Lamb and Flag merch, college puffer, or rejects these altogether, they seem to offer a shorthand about the self. The college puffer is particularly interesting because it occupies the space between anonymity and personal identification. Despite being the ubiquitous symbol of the Oxford student, a black winter coat conceals much of the outfit beneath it, allowing the wearer to blend into the visual landscape of the city. Yet the college crest and embroidered initials invoke community and are a declaration of identity. I still feel a surprising sense of camaraderie when I spot a stranger wearing a Lady Margaret Hall jacket. The distance between two people who have never met can be narrowed; the coat makes us alike. We are accustomed to reading garments as statements about their wearers, their tastes, and the connections they have. Whether those readings are accurate is another matter. Clothes can tell us something about a person, but they can also tell us what we have been taught to expect.
Adolescence is already a period of sartorial experimentation, moving between styles and trends as you try to discover who you are. However, dressing under the scrutiny of others acquires a different dimension. You begin to anticipate what might attract comment, becoming conscious of the gap between how you want to look and how you are permitted to appear. When judgement falls on a skirt, a neckline, or a pair of earrings, it is difficult to separate criticism of the garment itself from criticism of the person wearing it. Yet, being judged for my uniform made me conscious of my own emerging style. Personally, I am drawn towards exaggerated, masculine tailoring in blazers and coats that seems to parody the patriarchal authority that sought to impose its judgement on me. Whilst now there is rarely a day that I am not in heels of some description, my principal criteria for shoes is that they must make a noise before they are seen. I would knock Blakeys into the bottom of my loafers to achieve this effect at school. Perhaps even the most individual expressions of style bear the imprint of the expectations they seek to escape.
The uniform has an afterlife. Its influence can persist long after we have left the school, sporting club, or institution that first imposed it. For some, that is embedded in the ardent desire to escape from it and for others, a pleasure in the community it invokes. Both are equally valid reactions to its influence. I still find myself glancing behind me, expecting to hear a shout about the length of my skirt. For many, coming to Oxford is the first time living away from home and being surrounded by a set of new peers – and also the first time we have total reign over our own clothes without judgement. So how we choose to exercise that freedom carries a degree of interpretative value. And no, I almost never wear studs.
There is something particularly unsettling about feeling useless in a situation. Call it hypercompetence or whatever other word you want, but as someone who likes to think of herself as relatively capable of fixing most things for the people in her life, I despise feeling unable to fix something for someone. This became particularly apparent the other day, when I spent nearly 16 hours at A&E with a friend, playing a unique and frustrating version of NHS waiting-room musical chairs – the only name I can think of for the absolutely absurd number of waiting rooms, seating orientations, and hospital furniture types we were acquainted with overnight.
In all of my considerations and calculations, I foolishly thought that we would be there for a few hours max, because I’ve worked in my fair share of emergency rooms (or ERs, as we call them in the US), and I’ve seen how these departments tend to function. But those few hours turned into us camping out overnight in the waiting room(s), where my friend was very adamant that I did not need to stay and that I should go home and “get some sleep”. This was, however, impossible, since even if I had gone home, it wouldn’t have been to sleep, but to bombard her with anything I could find (medical articles, possible treatments, reassuring texts) to make myself feel useful enough to alleviate her discomfort. Instead, I took occasional jaunts to the nurses’ station, conducted semi-regular enquiries, and became a professional water-bottle-filler.
My friend, an incredibly hypercompetent and hyperindependent person, could have handled whatever she needed to handle. But just because she could do it alone didn’t mean she had to – even if my help was probably minimal, maybe nothing more than a warm body in the seat next to her.
In the days that have passed since the A&E adventure, I haven’t thought much about the night we were there, or why I stayed. The passage of time, though arduous and frustrating (even downright ridiculous when we hit 4am with as many answers as we had questions), was still time spent with a friend. So, from my perspective, my staying was quite simple. Two plus two equals four. The sky is blue. You’re stuck in A&E overnight? So am I.
I suppose you could call it quality time. Or an act of service. Or perhaps whichever love language it is that encompasses aggressively refilling someone’s water bottle from a suspicious pitcher while silently cursing NHS waiting times. But maybe that’s the point. We have become extraordinarily good at naming how we love, and considerably less interested in what loving someone actually looks like.
Ask someone their love language, and they’ll probably have an answer. They might even pull out online test results. I indulge the conversation every time, and even find how a person interprets the languages quite telling. But ask someone when they last felt truly seen, and they might need a moment.
Interestingly enough, while the love languages have been a part of my (and many others’) vernacular for many years, they were first introduced in 1992 by Gary Chapman, a Baptist minister, who found that people give and receive love in different ways. Using his anecdotal experiences from counselling couples, he created the five languages of love: acts of service, physical touch, words of affirmation, quality time, and gift-giving. His book sold over 20 million copies and has influenced clinical practice, such as how these love languages can teach us things about value-based care, therapeutic practices, and even drive public health messaging, such as the Alzheimer’s Association’s 2025 Love Language Campaign and ZERO Prostate Cancer’s Caregiver Love Language Initiative.
And yet his work has been debated for years. One 2022 study found higher relationship satisfaction, sexual satisfaction, and empathy between couples with greater intra-couple love language matches. But recent research likewise finds Chapman’s model to be overly narrow, saying that it does not offer a sufficient vocabulary for all that is encompassed in love. What do we do to ourselves by trying to find the vocabulary for loving behaviour? Does love, and the ways in which we show it, need categories?
I’ve been thinking about the spaces between these categories, whether they are those of Chapman’s traditional five, or from a different model entirely. I think about the friend that remembers the date of an important meeting; the tenderness of a “text me when you get home” before you part ways; someone coming over to help you clean or organise when it’s all been a little overwhelming.
These gestures aren’t particularly extraordinary. And perhaps they do fall into the neat categories that Chapman gives us to talk about love. But there are also the words that touch and make you feel seen in a way that can sometimes feel exposing. There’s the way you give yourself to someone when you show them physical affection, be it platonic or romantic, because there is always a moment of sheer vulnerability when waiting to see how it will be received. Time, though intangible, is something we act upon, that we fill with actions and moments that have meanings we choose to give them. Love is remembering and being and doing and everything in between. Our language for it ought to be as expansive as it is.
Perhaps that’s what those sixteen hours in A&E were, in truth. They weren’t particularly productive, certainly not comfortable, and hardly the sort of quality time anyone would willingly schedule. A circumstance of making that has far too many confounding variables. But it was time, nonetheless. Time spent together, even when there was nothing to do. Time that, in the grand archive of a friendship, might become just another small story we laugh about and retell: “Hey, remember that ridiculous night we spent in A&E?”
So, I won’t stop you from talking love languages with me. I suppose that shows me something too. But it’s not everything I would hope to know, and I delight in the discoveries yet to occur.
The Oxford Student Union (SU) has introduced a pantry scheme to provide students with access to food and day-to-day essentials. The pilot project, led by the SU President for Undergraduates Zagham Farhan, will run throughout Michaelmas term.
Students can use the pantry between 9am and 5pm on weekdays. The pantry, located on the ground floor of the SU building, is accessible to all students and no registration is required. Items such as pasta, rice, oats, and canned vegetables are available. Students are limited to taking up to 5 items per week.
A SU spokesperson told Cherwell: “Equity of experience is a key strategic theme in the SU’s newly launched Strategic Plan. We recognise that students all experience Oxford in different ways, and the SU is committed to ensuring that every student can thrive on equal terms throughout their time here.”
The scheme is being launched amid nationwide concerns about food inflation. The Food and Drink Federation recently projected a nearly 4% rise in food inflation by the end of 2026, due to the ongoing impact of the US-Iran war, drought, and the El Niño weather pattern. The same industry group forecasts food inflation to surpass 6% by mid-2027. The University estimates that food costs for a single, full-time student over a 9-month period range from £2,925 to £5,040.
Alfie Davis, Director of Operations for Oxford Mutual Aid (OMA), a local organisation tackling food poverty, told Cherwell: “Cost of living pressures are driving ever-increasing demand on OMA and other food support organisations in the city, and we are expecting this to dramatically worsen over the winter.”
The SU initiative follows similar food bank provisions at universities, including a food pantry by the Birkbeck Students’ Union and a student-run food bank at the University of Nottingham. A 2023 report by the Higher Education Policy Institute found that 27% of UK universities have a food bank, including one-third of Russell Group universities. More recently, a survey of 41 universities in England showed that 63% operated a food bank, whilst 59% ran free food voucher schemes.
Davis told Cherwell: “Fundamentally, the colleges and University need to consider ways they can redistribute their wealth and resources amongst the wider Oxford community. Students and locals alike are often left out of the vast wealth and growth the University holds, and we need to see the university community providing material support to grassroots community organisations like OMA (or the SU).”
The SU will review the pilot scheme later this year and consider how donations can be managed moving forward.
