Animal Metaphors and University Rape Culture: A Look at Violence against Women on Campuses in Canada, Spain, Australia, Mexico, and the USA

This article focuses on animal metaphors in real cases of rape culture in universities in the Anglophone and Hispanophone worlds. To this aim, it analyzes the animal metaphors permeating several episodes of violence against female students perpetrated on campuses in Canada, Spain, Australia, Mexico, and the USA in the last decades (2000-2024). A total of 6 cases are studied. Apart from reflecting the (ab)use of animal metaphors in cases of rape culture in the higher educational system, this selection was made considering the different types of contexts and media where the metaphors are encountered within the university setting. Some of the animal metaphors are found in the names of parties that portray female students as «bitches». Others belong to WhatsApp groups where male students self-identify as predatory animals planning a gang rape. They are also part of dorm’s publications and emails that label female students as prey to be hunted. Even bathroom graffiti display metaphoric fauna that renders female students as pigs. Through the lens of Conceptual Metaphor Theory, which underscores the pivotal role played by metaphor in both cognition and action, and Critical Discourse Analysis, which highlights how language (re)produces ideologies, social inequalities and power relations, the paper shows how college students resort to the zoomorphic scenario to promote and legitimize (sexual) violence against women. Male students describe their female peers as «cows», «seals», «pigs», «bunnies», «kittens», «bitches», and «chicks» to sexualize and deride them physically, morally, and intellectually. They also cast themselves as predatory animals— «wolves», «studs», «eagles», and «hawks» —to make sense of heterosexual relationships, explain their sexual urges and violent behaviors. These animal metaphors that permeate students’ college life are ultimately part of university rape culture in the English and Spanish-speaking worlds.