Professor Alison Phipps

Teaching

At York St John I am currently teaching on the Politics programme, focusing on political theory and political sociology. I supervise a number of PhD students in areas related to my research interests, and I am accepting new applications.

At Newcastle I led the final-year dissertation, co-led the second-year methods module Researching Social Life, and led the first year core module Politics and Society. At MA level I taught a module called 'Gender, Violence and Social Change' and supervised dissertations. At Sussex University I taught at all levels throughout the Gender Studies and Sociology curriculum, and taught pretty much every module at one point or another.

In my classroom, I practice what bell hooks calls ‘engaged pedagogy’. This works towards the intellectual and personal growth of students and foregrounds the notion of praxis, which involves both reflection and action. I aim to challenge the received 'canon', to bring politics into the classroom, and to encourage research for social change. My principles for teaching include validating student knowledge and experience, an emphasis on dialogue and not ‘debate’, recognising multiple inequalities and power relations, developing self-awareness, and ‘calling in’ rather than ‘calling out’ when conflicts arise.

I share many of my teaching resources online for colleagues and students to use - my personal website hosts a range of resources including a set of introductory lectures on feminism, an advanced gender theory syllabus (with suggested classroom activities), and a set of handouts and infographics for dissertation students and their supervisors. Sharing resources is a political choice that allows me to resist the commodification of knowledge and the territorialism over ‘intellectual property’ that universities sometimes have.

I am a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Research

The big ongoing questions for my work are around the relationships between heteropatriarchy, racial capitalism and gender-based violence, and how mainstream feminist theory and activism can divest from racial capitalism and become truly transformative.

My second book The Politics of the Body (published by Polity Press in 2014) covered several issues - sexual violence, sex work and reproductive justice - and argued that mainstream feminism around these was caught in a dialectic between neoconservative and neoliberal frameworks.

My third book Me, Not You: the trouble with mainstream feminism (published by Manchester University Press in 2020) explored how mainstream feminism around sexual violence tends to pull the levers of oppressive systems rather than building alternatives. In addressing this, I grounded established critiques of how class-privileged white women dominate feminism, in the social and cultural history of white womanhood. Drawing on Black and abolitionist feminist theory, I argued that mainstream feminism, in its focus on criminal punishment and institutional discipline, effectively treats Black and other marginalised people as disposable.

The book also looked at some other Others of mainstream feminism – sex workers and trans people. I argued that branches of mainstream feminism can become reactionary, turning a focus on the wounded body into deep defensiveness. This positions other liberation politics as threatening, especially when it’s challenging, and trans women especially are constructed as a threat. In contrast, I argued that a truly transformative feminism requires what Angela Davis calls an ‘intersectionality of struggles’ in which we’re comrades and not competitors.

This analysis was shaped by my experience of being a scholar-activist in the movement around sexual violence against students since 2006. With NUS, I was involved in the first national survey of sexual violence against students and I led the report on ‘lad culture’ that helped catalyse a movement in the UK. I’ve focused particularly on how sexual violence is framed by the neoliberal institution and in 2016 I co-founded the Changing University Cultures collective, which conducted projects at several UK universities. I also co-led the pan-European Universities Supporting Victims of Sexual Violence project, which designed, piloted and evaluated disclosure training programmes for over a thousand staff in 21 different institutions in the UK, Spain, Greece, Italy, Latvia and Serbia.

My work in universities has theorised how marketised, competitive cultures create the conditions for violence by giving certain individuals a lot of power and value, and tend to prioritise reputation over staff and student wellbeing. I have introduced the concept of ‘institutional airbrushing’, which takes two main forms: concealment and erasure. Either issues are minimised, denied or hidden, or when this isn’t possible, the perpetrator is ‘airbrushed’ from the institution and it’s made to appear as if they were never there. This stabilises the system - all the institution needs to do to preserve itself is remove the blemish. The malaise remains, and the blemish tends to reappear elsewhere. I’ve consistently challenged approaches to violence that treat the institution as neutral. I draw from abolitionist university studies, which positions the university as key to the capitalist, colonial world-making project. As Audre Lorde famously said, ‘the master’s tools cannot dismantle the master’s house’.

My upcoming book (out early 2026) is called Sexual Violence in Racial Capitalism (again with Manchester University Press). The book contains what it says on the tin – it focuses on what sexual violence does in racial capitalism. By that, I mean: what is the role of sexual violence as racial capitalist systems corral (or kidnap), mould (conscript, force), use (wear out, dilapidate), and discard (dispatch, destroy) the workers they require? (You’ll note that I didn’t say ‘produce’ or ‘reproduce’, which is one clue.) I examine how sexual violence encloses bodies and populations, supports the extraction of surplus value, facilitates the expropriation of all kinds of resources, and disposes of the unwanted. Violence is a basic means of moving from difference to division to domination, and this violence is often sexualised.

I situate my writing practice within Elaine Castillo’s scopious definition of reading: we read books, she writes, in order to help us read the world we live in. Moreover, she reminds us, ‘if we don’t figure out a different way to read our world, we’ll be doomed to keep living in it’. We’re also constantly being taught how to ‘read’ what surrounds us, usually by those who stand to benefit from a particular text. With that in mind, and especially given the persistent political weaponisation of imputations of sexual violence, I offer the book as a ‘reading’ of the relationships between sexual violence and racial capitalism, that can help its readers as they create and recreate their own.

Describing what sexual violence does in racial capitalism is an ambitious task. To paraphrase Tithi Bhattacharya, my aim in the book is to sketch a general framework rather than to provide a detailed historical account or an analysis of specific countries, economies, legislation, policies, or communities. I hope the general points I make will ring true, at least to provide an outline that others can colour in, amend, or erase as they like.

Publications

Books

Phipps, A. 2026. Sexual Violence in Racial Capitalism. Manchester University Press (in press): 350 pages

Phipps, A. 2020. Me, Not You: the trouble with mainstream feminism. Manchester University Press: 214 pages

Phipps, A. 2022. Jo sí, tu no: Una mirada crítica sobre el feminisme dominant (Catalan translation by Carles Miró Jordana). Eumo Editorial SAU

Phipps, A. 2022. Minä, et sinä: Me Too ja valtavirtafeminismin ongelmat (Finnish translation by Elina Halttunen-Riikonen). Niin & Näin, Tammerfors

Phipps, A. 2022. Me, Not You: the trouble with mainstream feminism (audiobook version narrated by Chloe Massey).

Phipps, Alison. 2014. The Politics of the Body: gender in a neoliberal and neoconservative age. Polity: 208 pages

Phipps, Alison. 2008. Women in Science, Engineering, and Technology: three decades of UK initiatives. Trentham: 184 pages

Peer-reviewed journal articles

Shannon, E, A Phipps, N Godden-Rasul and T Sikka. 2025. ‘Transformative justice in UK universities: exploring the conditions of possibility’, forthcoming in special issue of Gender & Justice

Phipps, A. 2024. “Holding on’ in a crisis: theorising campus sexual violence activism within precarious labour relations’, in Feminist Theory 26(1): 63-82

Mwedzi, G and A Phipps. 2024. ‘Using “community power” to tackle gender-based violence: an intersectional theorisation’, in Sociological Research Online 30(1): 136-152

McDonnell, L, A Clarke and A Phipps. 2024. ‘‘They should have been looking after people for a long time’: human giving during COVID-19, in austerity Britain,’ in Sociological Research Online 30(1): 43-58

Phipps, A, and L McDonnell. 2022. ‘On (not) being the master’s tools: five years of Changing University Cultures’, in Gender and Education 34(5): 512-528

Phipps, A. 2021. ‘White tears, white rage: victimhood and (as) as violence in mainstream feminism’, European Journal of Cultural Studies 24(1): 81-93

Phipps, A. 2020. ‘Reckoning Up: sexual harassment and violence in the neoliberal university’, Gender and Education 32(2), 227-243

Phipps, A. 2019. ‘The Fight Against Sexual Violence’, Soundings 71, 62-74

Phipps, A. 2019. ‘Every woman knows a Weinstein: political whiteness and white woundedness in #MeToo and public feminisms around sexual violence’, Feminist Formations 31(2): 1-25

Phipps, A. 2017. ‘Sex Wars Revisited: a rhetorical economy of sex industry opposition’, Journal of International Women’s Studies 18(4), 306-320

Phipps, A, E Renold, J Ringrose  and C Jackson. 2017. ‘Rape culture, lad culture and everyday sexism: researching, conceptualizing and politicizing new mediations of gender and sexual violence’, Journal of Gender Studies 27(1), 1-8

Phipps, A. 2017. ‘Speaking up for what’s right: politics, markets and violence in higher education’, in Feminist Theory 18(3): 357-361

Phipps, A. 2016. ‘Whose personal is more political? Experience in contemporary feminist politics’, Feminist Theory 17(3), 303-321

Phipps, A. 2016. ‘(Re)theorising laddish masculinities in higher education’, Gender and Education 29(7), 815-830

Phipps, A and A Young. 2015. “Lad culture’ in higher education: agency in the “sexualisation” debates’, Sexualities 18(4), 459-479

Phipps, A and I Young. 2015. ‘Neoliberalisation and “lad cultures” in higher education’, Sociology 49(2), 309-322

Phipps, A and G Smith. 2012. ‘Violence Against Women Students in the UK: time to take action’, Gender and Education 24(4), 357-373

Phipps, A. 2010. ‘Violent and victimised bodies: sexual violence policy in England and Wales', Critical Social Policy, 30(3), 359-383

Phipps, A. 2009. ‘Rape and respectability: ideas about sexual violence and social class’, Sociology 43(4), 667-683

Phipps, A. 2007. ‘Re-inscribing gender binaries: a Foucauldian analysis of ‘equal opportunities’ politics in science, engineering, and technology’, The Sociological Review 55(4), 768-787

Phipps, A. 2006. “I can’t do with whinging women!” Feminism and the habitus of “women in science” activists’, Women’s Studies International Forum 29(6), 125-135

Phipps, A. 2006. ‘Girls of the Future?’ British Journal of Sociology of Education 27(3), 409-415

Phipps, A. 2002. ‘Engineering Women: the ‘gendering’ of professional identities in the UK’, International Journal of Engineering Education, 18 (4), 409-414

Invited book chapters

Phipps, A. 2026. The coloniality of gender-critical feminism. K Kawasaka, A Shimuzu and C Maree, eds., Transnational anti-gender/LGBTQ movements. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press

Phipps, A. 2026. ‘White feminism on campus’, in P Alldred, A G Lopez, G Brady, M Keenan, R Kulpa, R Madziva and M Nyashanu, eds., The Sociology of Sexuality Handbook. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing

Phipps, A. 2025. ‘“Lad culture” and sexual violence on campus: an intersectional approach’, in Nancy L, ed., The Routledge Handbook of Gender and Violence (second edition). London: Routledge

Bendelow, G and A Phipps. 2023. ‘Sociological approaches to the gendering of emotions in health and illness’, in A Petersen, ed., Handbook on the Sociology of Health and Medicine. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing

Phipps, A. 2023. ‘Tackling sexual harassment and violence in universities: seven lessons from the UK’, in H Pantelmann and S Blackmore, eds., Sexualisierte Diskriminierung und Gewalt im Hochschulkontext. Erscheinungsformen, Umgang, Präventioon, 197-208. Berlin: Springer  

Phipps, A. 2019. ‘Experience’, in R Goodman, ed., The Bloomsbury Handbook of Twenty-first Century Feminist Theory, pp143-158. London: Bloomsbury Press

Phipps, A. 2018. “Lad culture’ and sexual violence against students’, in R Lewis, S Anitha and R Jones, eds., Gender based violence in university communities: Policy, prevention and educational interventions, pp41-62. Bristol: Policy Press

Phipps, A. 2018. “Lad culture’ and sexual violence against students’, in N Lombard, ed., The Routledge Handbook of Gender and Violence, pp171-182. London: Routledge

Phipps, A and G A Bendelow. 2014. ‘Sociology of the Body’, in The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Health, Illness, Behaviour and Society, pp161-166. London: Wiley-Blackwell

Phipps, A. 2013. 'Violence against sex workers', in L McMillan and N Lombard, eds., Violence Against Women, pp87-101. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers

Publications continued

Other academic writing

Phipps, A and Alsop, R. 2025. ‘Transgender equality and the UK Supreme Court: a UK Gender Studies community roundtable.’ Journal of Gender Studies https://doi.org/10.1080/09589236.2025.2549206

Phipps, A. 2025. ‘Hace falta todo un pueblo para violar a una mujer. Comunidad, modernidad y Gisèle Pelicot’. Zona De Estrategia June 9^th 2025.

Phipps, A. 2025. “It takes a village to rape a woman.’ Community, modernity, and Gisèle Pelicot’. Abolitionist Futures Blog, April 24^th 2025.

Phipps, A. 2022. ‘From white feminism to abolition: a work in progress,’ Read and Resist blog September 22^nd (3000 words)

Phipps, A. 2021. ‘White feminism and the racial capitalist protection racket: from #MeToo to Me, Not You’, Manchester University Press blog, May 7^th (1000 words)

Phipps, A. 2020. ‘What do we do?’ Manchester University Press blog, June 8^th (2000 words)

Phipps, A. 2020. ‘Transphobia and whorephobia and (as) capitalist-colonial gender’, Manchester University Press blog, April 29^th (1500 words)

Phipps, A. 2019. ‘Snowflakes, pseudo science, grievance studies? Situating critical scholarship and progressive politics in a context of far-right ascendancy,’ interview with Laura Jung in Sentio 1: 79-83

Phipps, A. 2019. ‘The Political Whiteness of #MeToo’, Red Pepper June 4^th (2800 words)

Phipps, A. 2016. ‘Whose Personal is More Political?’ Feminist Theory blog 17^th August, (500 words)

Phipps, A. 2025. ‘‘Lyssna på överlevare’ och fetischiseringen av erfarenhet.’ Den Queerfeministiska Oasen 19^th August (900 words)

Phipps, A. 2014. “Lad cultures’ in the neoliberal university’, British Educational Research Association blog 12^th August (800 words)

Phipps, A. 2014. “Normal birth” and ‘breast is best’: the neoliberalisation of reproduction’, Cost of Living 22^nd August (600 words)  

Phipps, A. 2013. ‘Violence Against Women Students in a Marketised Sector’, Feminist & Women’s Studies Association blog 27^th May (950 words)

Phipps, A. 2013. Research Survivors: tips by senior academics and professionals’, The New Academic 13^th February, (660 words)

Phipps, A. 2009. ‘Review of Laura Maria Agustin, Sex at the Margins’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 35(6), pp1054-1055

Phipps, A. 2008. ‘Why Do Women in SET Need Feminism?’, The Biochemist, April 2008 (900 words; reprinted in Science Policy 45, 2008)

Commissioned research reports

Sundaram, V, E Shannon, T Page and A Phipps. 2019. Developing an Intersectional Approach to Training on Sexual Harassment, Violence and Hate Crimes: Guide for Training Facilitators. Office for Students. http://usvreact.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/intersectional-approach-to-training.pdf

Phipps, A, G North, L McDonnell, J Taylor and G Love. 2018. We call it the Sussex Way: a study of Sussex University’s Institutional Culture (40 pages). http://www.sussex.ac.uk/staff/newsandevents/?page=4&id=45311

Alldred, P, and A Phipps. 2018. Training to Respond to Sexual Violence at European Universities: Final report of the USVReact Project (56 pages). http://usvreact.eu/wp-content/resources/USVreact_Report_2018_ENG.pdf

Phipps, A, N Rashid, V Cartei and G Love. 2017. Universities Supporting Victims of Sexual Violence: Disclosure Training at Sussex and Brighton Universities (17 pages). http://usvreact.eu/wp-content/resources/Uni_Sussex_training_report_ Jan2018.pdf

Phipps, A and I Young. 2013. That’s What She Said: Women students’ experiences of ‘lad culture’ in higher education. London: NUS (84 pages). https://www.nusconnect.org.uk/resources/thats-what-she-said-full-report

Phipps, A. 2005. Pipelines, Preparedness and Culture: the development of female talent in science, engineering, and technology in the US and UK. Report for task force assembled by Center for Work-Life Policy, New York (80 pages).

Phipps, A and M A Arnot. 2003. ‘Gender and Education in the UK,’ background paper for the UNESCO Global Monitoring Report Education for All: the leap to equality (23 pages). http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0014/001467/ 146735e.pdf

Journalism

Phipps, A. 2018. ‘What the “grievance studies” hoax is really all about’, Times Higher Education 4^th October

Phipps, A. 2017. ‘Tackling sexual harassment on campus is about more than naming and shaming’, Guardian 13^th December

Phipps, A. 2015. “Disappearing’ sex workers in the Amnesty International debate’, Open Democracy 7^th August https://opendemocracy.net/5050/alison-phipps/disappearing-sex-workers-in-amnesty-international-debate

Phipps, A. 2015. ‘Universities, don’t conflate “lad culture” with “drink culture”, Guardian 24^th June

Phipps, A. 2015. Universities are reluctant to tackle sexual violence for fear of PR fallout’, in Guardian 2^nd February

Phipps, A. 2014. ‘The dark side of the impact agenda’, Times Higher Education, 4^th December

Phipps, A. 2014. ‘Why feminism needs trans people and sex workers,’ New Statesman 24^th November 

Phipps, A. 2014. ‘Getting rid of Dapper Laughs and Julien Blanc is not enough if laddism continues to flourish’, The Conversation 14^th November, https://theconversation.com/getting-rid-of-dapper-laughs-and-julien-blanc-is-not-enough-if-laddism-continues-to-flourish-34156

Phipps, A. 2014. ‘Lad culture thrives in our neoliberal universities’, Guardian 15^th October

Phipps, A. 2014. “I am a victim of nothing but my own bad choices’: Women Against Feminism and neoliberal individualism’ The F Word 5^th August, http://www.thefword.org.uk/features/2014/08/i_am_a_victim_o

Phipps, A. 2014. ‘What’s driving the new sexism?’ New Statesman 19^th May 2014

Phipps, A. 2014. The drive for ‘natural motherhood”, BBC Health 9^th May, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-27239241

Professional activities

I have been involved with the following professional organisations and networks:

• Steering committee, SexGen North network (2024-date)
• Co-convener, Abolition Feminism for Ending Sexual Violence (2021-date)
• Co-Chair, Feminist Gender Equality Network gender-based violence group (2021-23)
• Patron, Association of Gender Studies in Africa (2019-date)
• Co-Chair, LEX (Law, Gender and Sexuality) Violence Against Women network (2021-2022)
• Founder and co-convenor, Safe Studies Network (now Universities Against Gender-Based Violence) (2013-16)
• HEFCE nomination process for REF 2014 panels/sub-panels and consultation on draft criteria and working methods
• Chair, Feminist and Women’s Studies Association (now Feminist Studies Association) UK and Ireland (2009-12)
• ESRC/BSA international benchmarking of UK sociology, Women’s/Gender Studies panel (2009)
• Strategic Planning Committee, US National Women’s Studies Association (2004)

I am currently on the editorial board fot the Journal of Gender Studies. I have previously served on the International Advisory Board for Feminist Theory, the Ediorial Board for Gender and Education, and the Associate Editorial Board for Sociology.

I have collaborated with many NGOs, government departments, and activist and community groups in my research, locally, nationally and internationally. These include local Rape Crisis centres and women's refuges, End Violence Against Women, the Sex Worker Open University, Abolitionist Futures, the National Union of Students, CEPS Projectes Socials in Barcelona, and Marta Resursu Centrs Sievietem in Latvia. I have also supported policy development in partnership with organisations such as Brighton & Hove City Council, the Office of the Independent Adjudicator, the Office for Students, HEFCE and Universities UK.