The Routledge Handbook of

Gender and Violence

The Routledge Handbook of Gender and Violence provides both a comprehensive and authoritative
state-of-the-art overview of the latest research in the field of gender and violence. Each of the
23 specially commissioned chapters develops and summarises their key issue or debate including
rape, stalking, online harassment, domestic abuse, FGM, trafficking and prostitution in relation
to gender and violence. They study violence against women, but also look at male victims and
perpetrators as well as gay, lesbian and transgender violence.
The interdisciplinary nature of the subject area is highlighted, with authors spanning crimi-
nology, social policy, sociology, geography, health, media and law, alongside activists and
members of statutory and third sector organisations. The diversity of perspectives all highlight
that gendered violence is both an age-old and continuing social problem.
By drawing together leading scholars this handbook provides an up-to-the-minute snapshot
of current scholarship as well as signposting several fruitful avenues for future research. This
book is both an invaluable resource for scholars and an indispensable teaching tool for use in the
classroom and will be of interest to students, academics, social workers and other professionals
working to end gender-based violence.

Nancy Lombard is a Reader in Sociology and Social Policy at Glasgow Caledonian University,
UK. She has been an activist in the VAW movement for over 20 years. Nancy is a Coordinator of
the Gender Based Violence Research Network (GBVRN) and sits on the Scottish Government’s
Strategic Board for the implementation of Equally Safe. She was also a Core Expert with the
European Network of Experts on Gender Equality.
‘This is a wonderful, thought provoking, collection of research at the forefront of gender-based
violence studies. Lombard shows through this Handbook how different forms of gendered vio-
lence follow patterns in terms of how they become identified and responded to. Crucially, the
book also identifies areas for transformation and opportunities for action. I recommend this book
for researchers, policy makers, practitioners and advanced level students who want a thorough
overview of up to date research on gendered violence written by those doing cutting edge
research in the field.’

– Professor Nicole Westmarland, Director,

Durham University Centre for Research into Violence and Abuse,
Durham University, UK

‘This handbook is a must-read for every gender violence researcher, practitioner, and student.
Lombard has brought together in one volume contributions by an esteemed and diverse group
of scholars, whose work convincingly demonstrates that gender-based violence can be pre-
vented and remedied only by scrutinizing its multiple manifestations through an intersectional
and interdisciplinary lens.’

– Professor Claire Renzetti, Department of Sociology

and Center for Research on Violence Against Women,
University of Kentucky, USA
The Routledge Handbook
of Gender and Violence

Edited by Nancy Lombard

First published 2018
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
 2018 selection and editorial matter, Nancy Lombard; individual chapters,
the contributors
The right of Nancy Lombard to be identified as the author of the editorial
material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted
in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Names: Lombard, Nancy, 1977- editor.
Title: The Routledge handbook of gender and violence / edited by Nancy
Lombard.
Description: 1st Edition. | New York : Routledge, [2018] | Series:
Routledge international handbooks | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017027831| ISBN 9781472483515 (hardback) | ISBN
9781315612997 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Women—Violence against. | Girls—Violence against. |
Sex crimes. | Women—Crimes against. | Male rape victims. | Abused
women—Services for.
Classification: LCC HV6250.4.W65 R687 2018 | DDC 362.88—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017027831

ISBN: 978-1-4724-8351-5 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-61299-7 (ebk)

Typeset in Bembo Std

by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon, UK
 Contents

Notes on contributors viii

Acknowledgements xiv

Introduction to gender and violence 1

Nancy Lombard

PART I
Theoretical discussions of gender and violence 13

1 Coercive control as a framework for responding to male partner

abuse in the UK: opportunities and challenges 15
Evan Stark

2 What’s in a name? The Scottish government, feminism and the

gendered framing of domestic abuse 28
Nancy Lombard and Nel Whiting

3 On the limits of typologies: understanding young men’s use of

violence in intimate relationships 41
David Gadd and Mary-Louise Corr

4 Male victims: control, coercion and fear? 53

Emma Williamson, Karen Morgan and Marianne Hester

5 Domestic violence in lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or transgender

relationships 67
Rebecca Barnes and Catherine Donovan

v
Contents

PART II
Specific forms, representations of, and responses to,
gendered violence 83

6 The implications of pornification: pornography, the mainstream

and false equivalences 85
Karen Boyle

7 Statutory response to sexual violence: where doubt is always

considered reasonable 97
Deborah White and Lesley McMillan

8 Stalking as a gender-based violence 109

Katy Proctor

9 Cyber-trolling as symbolic violence: deconstructing gendered

abuse online 121
Karen Lumsden and Heather M. Morgan

10 The relationship between disability and domestic abuse 133

Jenna P. Breckenridge

11 Child contact as a weapon of control 145

Kirsteen Mackay

12 Femicide 158
Karen Ingala Smith

13 ‘Lad culture’ and sexual violence against students 171

Alison Phipps

14 Violence against older women 183

Hannah Bows

15 Female genital mutilation: a form of gender-based violence 196

Judy Wasige and Ima Jackson

16 Gender and trafficking of children and young people into,

within and out of England 208
Patricia Hynes

17 Prostitution and violence 223

Natasha Mulvihill

vi
 Contents

PART III
Conducting research on gendered violence 235

18 Lost in translation? Comparative and international work on

gender-related violence 237
gigi guizzo, Pam Alldred and Mireia Foradada-Villar

19 Researching child sexual exploitation: methodological challenges

of working with police data 250
Maureen Taylor

20 Researching gender-based violence with minoritised communities

in the UK 262
Khatidja Chantler

21 Young women’s responses to safety advice in bars and clubs:

implications for future sexual violence prevention campaigns 274
Oona Brooks

22 ‘Thinking and doing’: children’s and young people’s understandings

and experiences of intimate partner violence and abuse (IPVA) 287
Christine Barter and Nancy Lombard

23 Making our feelings matter: using creative methods to re-assemble

the rules on healthy relationships education in Wales 303
Libby, Georgia, Chloe, Courtney, Olivia and Rhiannon with Emma Renold

Index 319

vii
 Contributors

Pam Alldred is Reader in Education and Youth Studies in the Social Work Division at Brunel
University London, UK. From 2012 to 2016 she was Director of the Centre for Youth Work
Studies. She researches sexualities, parenting and sex education and has led two international
projects on gender-related violence and sexual violence: GAP Work, produced free training
resources to help youth practitioners to challenge gender-related violence (https://sites.brunel.
ac.uk/gap) and USV React, involves piloting sexual violence first-responder training for staff in
universities (www.USVReact.eu).

Rebecca Barnes lectures in criminology at the University of Leicester, UK. She has been research-
ing domestic violence and abuse (DVA) for 14 years, with particular expertise in DVA in LGB
and/or T relationships. From 2012 to 2014 she worked alongside Professor Catherine Donovan
on the ESRC-funded Coral Project, exploring the use of abusive behaviours in LGB and/or
T relationships and the development of LGBT-inclusive perpetrator interventions. Rebecca is
currently co-leading a study of churchgoers’ experiences of, and attitudes towards, DVA.

Christine Barter is Reader in Young People and Violence Prevention in the Connect
Centre for International Research on New Approaches to Prevent Violence and Harm at the
University of Central Lancashire. Prior to this she was a senior research fellow at the University
of Bristol. Her research has predominantly focused on children’s and young people’s experi-
ences of abuse and violence. Her recent work has addressed prevention of violence and abuse
in young people’s intimate relationships.

Hannah Bows is Senior Lecturer in Criminology and Sociology at Teesside University. Her
research interests coalesce around gender and age. Specifically, her research examines gender-based
violence against older women in a range of contexts. She is also interested in age and offending and
previous research includes an examination of risk management in relation to older sex offenders.
Her most recent research has examined homicides involving people aged 60 and over.

Karen Boyle is Professor of Feminist Media Studies and Programme Director for Gender Studies
at the University of Stirling. She has written widely on gender violence and representation,
including in relation to pornography. She is author of Media Violence: Gendering the Debates (Sage,
2005) and editor of Everyday Pornography (Routledge, 2010). She is also a long-term member of
the Board of Directors for the feminist anti-violence organisation, the Women’s Support Project.

Jenna P. Breckenridge is a research fellow at the University of Edinburgh. She is an experienced

qualitative researcher with a clinical background in Occupational Therapy. She has a particular

viii
 Contributors

interest in doing sensitive research and developing inclusive research designs that enable the par-
ticipation of typically under-represented groups. She worked on the first study in the UK to explore
the relationship between disability, domestic abuse and access to maternity care.

Oona Brooks is a lecturer in criminology at the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research,
University of Glasgow and a Co-ordinator of the Scottish GBV Research Network. She has
worked as a researcher and practitioner in the field of gender-based violence for 20 years. Oona
has published extensively on issues relating to domestic abuse, sexual violence, criminal justice
and gender equality. She was awarded the first Corinna Seith prize for best paper by Women
Against Violence Europe.

Khatidja Chantler is a reader at the Connect Centre for International Research on Interpersonal
Violence and Harm, UCLAN. Her main areas of research expertise are gender-based violence,
particularly within minoritised communities, self-harm, gender and ethnicity. She has published
widely in national and international journals and her professional background is in community
development, therapeutic counselling and clinical supervision. She worked for many years in
local authority settings and in the voluntary sector before joining the academy.

Mary-Louise Corr is Lecturer in Criminology at the School of Social Sciences, Education and
Social Work, Queen’s University Belfast. Her research to date has focused on the lives of
marginalised youth, employing biographical interviews as the key research method. She has
conducted research and published in the areas of youth offending and youth justice, domestic
violence and youth homelessness.

Catherine Donovan is Professor in Social Relations and leads research in the School of Social
Sciences at the University of Sunderland. She has spent nearly 30 years researching the intimate
and family lives of lesbians, gay men and, more recently, bisexual and trans people. Currently
her work focuses on domestic violence and abuse in the relationships of LGB and/or T people.
Building on her recent university-wide collaborative research on student safety, she is also an
institutional lead for a Bystander Intervention Programme.

Mireia Foradada-Villar is a teaching assistant in the politics of education at the Autonomous

University of Barcelona (Faculty of Education), Spain. A PhD student in Gender and Education
at Lleida University, her thesis was titled ‘Linked girls: A peer-mentoring project for Foster Care
and Care Leavers young women’. Her research interests are formal and informal education; gen-
der, social exclusion and youth; peer-mentoring; and feminist theory. She is an active member
of Gatamaula, a feminist organisation in Barcelona. She speaks Spanish, Catalan and English.

David Gadd is Professor of Criminology at the School of Law, University of Manchester. His
research addresses domestic abuse, modern slavery, racially motivated crime, psychosocial crimi-
nology and responses to interpersonal violence.

gigi guizzo is European Project Manager at CEPS Projectes Socials (asceps.org) in Barcelona,
Spain. With a background in contemporary art and cultural memory she now designs and directs
projects concerned with social and cultural issues, and specialises in the following subjects:
LGBT and gender equality, digital discrimination, and environmental justice. She is co-author
of Responding to Violence against Women: Guide for Companies, #CARVEdaphne project. gigi is
multicultural and polyglot, fluent in Spanish, Catalan, English, German, Italian and French.

ix
Contributors

Marianne Hester, OBE, is Professor of Gender, Violence and International Policy at the
University of Bristol, based in the Centre for Gender and Violence Research in the School for
Policy Studies. She is editor-in-chief of the Journal of Gender-Based Violence. Her research covers
many aspects of violence against women and children, she has developed of new methods for
understanding gender-based violence, and her work is rooted in the experiences of survivors.
She is trustee of Devon Rape Crisis & Sexual Abuse Services

Patricia Hynes is a Principal Research Fellow and Principal Lecturer in the School of Applied
Social Studies at the University of Bedfordshire. Her research and teaching focus on forced
migration; human rights; ‘trafficking’ of children; sexual and gender-based violence in humani-
tarian contexts; and trust and mistrust during forced displacement. She has worked and con-
ducted research on forced migration for more than 25 years, including five years’ experience of
working in refugee camps across Southeast Asia. Her most recent work relates to independent
advocates for children who have experienced trafficking into and within the UK.

Karen Ingala Smith is Chief Executive of nia, a charity supporting women and girls who have
experienced sexual and domestic violence. Karen has been recording and commemorating UK
women killed by men since January 2012 in a campaign called Counting Dead Women. She is
co-creator of the Femicide Census with Women’s Aid (England). Karen is a doctoral candidate
at Durham University researching men’s fatal violence against women. Her PhD builds upon
her work with Counting Dead Women and the Femicide Census.

Ima Jackson is an experienced clinician, lecturer, researcher and project manager and has spent
most of her career working with marginalised groups: initially pregnant women in the poor-
est parts of London and Glasgow, and in more recent years with refugees, asylum seekers and
other migrants in Scotland. She is a community engaged researcher and works with migrant and
established Black and minority ethnic communities, helping them to articulate their experiences
towards the Academy and towards policy-makers.​

Libby, Georgia, Chloe, Courtney, Olivia and Rhiannon attended the same high school in
Merthyr, Wales at the time of writing their chapter. They have presented their ‘Relationships
Matter’ project at the annual 2015 Welsh Women’s Aid conference and their case study appears
in the Welsh Government’s (2015) ‘Good Practice Guide: A Whole Education Approach to
Violence Against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence’. They have submitted written
evidence to the Women and Equalities Select Committee Inquiry into Sexual Harassment and
Violence in Schools and were interviewed for Radio 1 Newsbeat about this evidence and their
project. In 2016 Libby and Olivia joined the young people’s advisory group to help co-create
‘Agenda: A Young People’s Guide to Making Positive Relationships Matter’ (2016). This free
bi-lingual online toolkit features two of their case studies, ‘RulerHeART’ and ‘Word’s Won’t
Pin Us Down’, which includes two poems and a short film (see www.agenda.wales). Libby
co-launched the resource with Professor Renold at the Pierhead, Cardiff Bay on 30 November
2016 to an audience of over 140 young people, practitioners, policy-makers and academics.

Nancy Lombard is Reader in Sociology and Social Policy at Glasgow Caledonian University.
Her research interests include men’s violence against women, particularly domestic abuse; vio-
lence prevention and working with children and young people. She recently devised a gen-
der equality training programme for educational practitioners. Nancy is a Coordinator of the
Gender Based Violence Research Network (GBVRN) and sits on the Scottish Government’s

x
 Contributors

Strategic Board for the implementation of Equally Safe. She was also a Core Expert with the
European Network of Experts on Gender Equality,

Karen Lumsden is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Loughborough University. She is the

author of Boy Racer Culture (Routledge, 2013), co-editor of Reflexivity in Criminological Research
(Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) and has published in a range of journals including Sociology, Feminist
Media Studies, Theoretical Criminology, Qualitative Research, Sociological Research Online, Policing &
Society and Mobilities. Research interests include policing, victims, social media and online abuse.
She has contributed to methodological debates on ethnography and reflexivity.

Kirsteen Mackay is an academic lawyer whose doctoral research considered the treatment of
the views of children in child contact disputes. She was subsequently commissioned to produce
a report for the Children and Young People’s Commissioner for Scotland on child contact
disputes in which there are allegations of abuse. This has informed recent judicial training.
Dr Mackay delivers teaching within the School of Law, University of Edinburgh as well as
being an Associate Lecturer with the Open University.

Lesley McMillan is Professor of Criminology and Sociology at Glasgow Caledonian University.

She is Associate Director of the Scottish Institute for Policing Research and academic lead for
public protection research, and Associate Director of the Centre for Research in Families and
Relationships. Her research focuses primarily on sexual violence, with a particular interest in
statutory and institutional responses.

Heather M. Morgan joined the Health Services Research Unit, University of Aberdeen in
2012. She is a research fellow with a multidisciplinary social science background and she con-
tributes to the Delivery of Care programme. Heather specialises in research where technologies
meet surveillance/monitoring, compliance/deviance and gender. Heather is currently explor-
ing uses of health self-monitoring technologies (apps, wearables, etc.). Her previous work has
looked at self-management of long-term health conditions, interventions for healthy behaviours
in pregnancy, and gender in police CCTV.

Karen Morgan is a Research Fellow in the School of Social and Community Medicine, at the
University of Bristol. As well as over ten years’ research experience mostly in gender-based
violence, she also has experience from the voluntary sector of supporting survivors of domestic
and sexual abuse. Currently, Karen is working on REPROVIDE, an NIHR-funded pilot trial
of a domestic violence perpetrator programme, which is seeking to gather evidence as to the
effectiveness of group programmes for male perpetrators.

Natasha Mulvihill is a lecturer in criminology and member of the Centre for Gender and
Violence Research at the University of Bristol, UK. Her research interests include the opera-
tion of gender and power within and through the state and its institutions. Her early work
focused particularly on the making of prostitution policy in England and Wales. Currently she
is working on a 30-month ESRC-funded project looking at what ‘justice’ means to victims and
survivors of gender-based violence.

Alison Phipps is Professor of Gender Studies at Sussex University. She co-authored the 2013
NUS report on ‘lad culture’ and has written extensively on violence against women students in
the neoliberal university. She also co-led Universities Supporting Victims of Sexual Violence,

xi
Contributors

a major EU-funded initiative providing disclosure training for staff. She is a founding member
of the Changing University Cultures collective, which combines sociology and organisational
development to create cultures more conducive to equality and diversity.

Katy Proctor is a lecturer in Criminology and Policing at Glasgow Caledonian University. Prior to
this Katy worked within the violence against women sector for ten years, supporting women, young
people and children who have suffered domestic abuse and sexual assault. She has sat on the boards
of Stirling Women’s Aid, Dignity Alert and Research Forum (DARF), Action Scotland Against
Stalking (ASAS) and Forth Valley Rape Crisis. Her research comes from a feminist perspective.

Emma Renold is Professor in Childhood Studies at Cardiff University. She is the author of Girls,
Boys and Junior Sexualities (2005), Children, Sexuality and Sexualisation (2015) and Gender Activism
and #FeministGirl (2018). Her research investigates how gender and sexuality shapes children and
young people’s everyday lives across diverse sites, spaces and locales. Recent projects (see www.
productivemargins.ac.uk) explore the affordances of co-productive creative methodologies to
engage social and political change on young people’s experiences of gendered and sexual violence.

Evan Stark is a sociologist and forensic social worker whose award-winning book, Coercive
Control: How Men Entrap Women in Personal Life (Oxford, 2007) contributed to the reconceptu-
alisation of domestic violence in British policy and law. A founder of an early battered women’s
shelter in the United States and co-director of the Yale Trauma Studies, Dr Stark is Professor
Emeritus of Public Affairs at Rutgers University in New Jersey. He has also held appointments
at Yale and the Universities of Essex, Bristol and Edinburgh.

Maureen Taylor is a final-year PhD student at Glasgow Caledonian University with 17 years’
experience of working for the police and other criminal justice agencies as a forensic scientist,
a crime scene investigator, financial investigator and criminal intelligence analyst. She currently
works as an associate lecturer for the Open University and as a project coordinator working
with adults and young people who sexually harm.

Judy Wasige is a PhD student at Glasgow Caledonian University exploring issues around public
policy and community engagement. She is involved in a range of projects aimed at addressing
African women’s issues including raising awareness about Female Genital Mutilation and the
impact of harmful cultural practices on communities. She has worked in a variety of education
roles, including teaching and qualifications development, and is a strong advocate of education as
a conduit for social justice. ​

Deborah White is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at Trent University

in Ontario, Canada. Her research focuses on the institutional responses to sexual violence, par-
ticularly medico-legal interventions and the role and nature of forensic evidence and experts in
criminal justice systems.

Nel Whiting is a Learning & Development worker with Scottish Women’s Aid, Scotland’s
national domestic abuse charity, where she has worked since September 2003. Her role takes her
throughout Scotland providing learning opportunities which explore the dynamics of domestic
abuse to a range of professionals in the voluntary and statutory sector. She is author of a variety
of chapters and articles which focus on aspects of gender and domestic abuse.

xii
 Contributors

Emma Williamson is a senior research fellow and head of the Centre for Gender and Violence
Research at the University of Bristol. Emma has over 20 years’ research experience working
in the area of gender-based violence, which has included research on health, law, social policy
and service interventions. Current research includes research on an expanded health interven-
tion, IRIS+ as part of the Re-Provide programme; an ESRC/AHRC funded project looking
at GBV and displacement; and a project looking to improve the signposting of military families
to appropriate DV specialist services.

xiii
 Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Claire Jarvis for approaching me with the idea of this collection, and for
her, and Georgia Priestley’s, support throughout the process.
The main gratitude here must go to the authors who have worked tirelessly to write,
meet deadlines and respond to my numerous frantic emails. What started off as 23 authors has
expanded into 39 and the commitment of all has been heartening. Each has their ‘real life’ jobs
and families to contend with, as well as their commitment to the field of gendered violence, a
passion which I hope shines through in their writing. To the research participants in the stories
conveyed in the chapters and, in particular, the six young women from Wales, who not only did
their own research but allowed me to use their own words in describing its success.
Thank you to Lesley Orr and Nicky Stanley for their comments and helpful editorial sugges-
tions on the chapters I co-wrote with Nel and Christine, and to Nel Whiting who gave her time
to edit the introduction (and take me to the spa!). Thank you also to colleagues at the Connect
Centre at UCLan in Preston who, in 2015, organised, in conjunction with the British Council
and the University of the Witwatersrand, an event which brought together VAW researchers in
Johannesburg and introduced me to an inspirational range of academics – some of whom I went
on to ask to contribute to this volume.
Thank you to my colleagues at GCU, some contributors here, and others, Rachel Russell,
Lani Russell and Angela O’Hagan, for providing supportive shoulders, funny tales and most
importantly brews.
Big thank yous must also go to my Mum and Dad and extended family. Finally, to the family
of our own creation, I could not be the person I am without you. Roy, my cheerleader, confi-
dante, partner in everything, and our children who inspire me every day: Dylan, Milo, Autumn
and Stanley and our new addition, Theo, whose imminent arrival has meant the book just had
to be submitted on time!
May this book inspire those who read it into action and positive change.

xiv
 Introduction to gender
and violence
Nancy Lombard

This research handbook provides an overview of the latest research in the field of gender and
violence and more specifically what is known as gender-based violence. The interdisciplinary
nature of the subject area is highlighted through authors spanning the academic fields of criminol-
ogy, social policy, sociology, geography, health, media and law, alongside activists and members
of statutory and third sector organisations. The diversity of perspectives highlight that gendered
violence is both an age-old and continuing social problem. This edited collection is divided into
three sections: broader theoretical discussions of gender and violence; specific forms, representa-
tions of, and responses to, gendered violence and conducting research on gendered violence.

What is gender?
Gender is constituted as both a social structure (through institutions) and discursively where
language and actions provide meaning. ‘Gender refers to the socially constructed roles, behav-
iours, positions, responsibilities and expectations that are ascribed to men (and boys) and
women (and girls), differentially informing ideas of how they are meant to behave and act’
(Lombard, 2015: 26). According to the UNFPA:

The term gender refers to the economic, social and cultural attributes and opportunities
associated with being male or female. . . . Men and women face different expectations about
how they should dress, behave or work. Relations between men and women, whether in
the family, the workplace or the public sphere, also reflect the understandings of the talents,
characteristics and behaviour appropriate to women and to men . . . the fact that gender
attributes are socially constructed means that they are also amenable to change in ways that
make a society more just and equitable.
(United Nations Population Fund [UNFPA], 2005: 1)

Gender refers not just to being ‘a man’ or ‘a woman’ but to the relations between them. In her
earlier work, Connell (1987: 120) maintains that the ‘state of play in gender relations in a given
institution is its gender regime’. In doing so she looks beyond the intersection between the
individual relations of men with women, and with society as a whole, highlighting instead the

1
Nancy Lombard

layers of social organisation where gender relations are played out and gender regimes created
and sustained; for example, work, education, the family.
It is the maintenance of these gender regimes – what Connell (2005: 77) terms ‘the configu-
ration of gender practice’ – which ‘guarantees (or is taken to guarantee) the dominant position
of men and the subordination of women’. Kimmel (1987: 10) emphasises that the ‘gendered
ascriptions’ are ‘learned and contested processes that change over time and culture’.
It is also this gender order that privileges certain masculinities as not all masculinities are equal –
they intersect with other social identities (Connell, 2005). Connell’s term ‘hegemonic mascu-
linity’ refers to the most dominant (and dominating) form of masculinity, which is positioned
at the top of the gender order. To maintain this privileged position and the current gender
order, hegemonic masculinity must embody stereotypical masculine traits of power, dominance,
strength and authority (Connell, 1987: 58). Femininity and non-hegemonic masculinities are
defined as weak and violence and aggression are normalised and prioritised as key elements of
hegemonic masculinity. Also relevant to some of the chapters in this collection is how hetero-
sexuality has been defined as a fundamental component of hegemonic masculinity (Connell,
2000; 2005; Epstein, 1997; Flood, 1997; Flood and Pease, 2009; Flood et al., 2009b; Mac an
Ghaill, 1994; Stoudt, 2006) constructed in opposition to all things ‘gay’ or ‘girl like’. Therefore
the maintenance of the gendered order is highly relevant when looking at gender and violence
with the key concepts here being power and control.

What is violence?
Violence is perpetrated and experienced in a multitude of ways. According to Kenway and
Fitzclarence: ‘Violence is one of the major social problems of our time. . . . It is increasingly
understood that violence occurs along a continuum and involves physical, sexual, verbal and
emotional abuses of power at individual, group and social structural levels’ (1997: 117). This
volume looks at the particular problem of gender-based or gendered violence. Gendered vio-
lence is a worldwide problem impacting disproportionately upon women and children.
International treaties use the term ‘gender-based’ to illustrate that violence against women is
‘shaped by gendered arrangements of power in society’ (Montesanti and Thurston, 2015: 3) and
that such violence is an ‘expression and maintenance of these unequal power relations’ (ibid.).
The Council of Europe Convention (also known as the Istanbul Convention) describes it as a
‘manifestation of historically unequal power relations between women and men, which have led
to domination over, and discrimination against, women by men and to the prevention of the full
advancement of women’ (Council of Europe, 2011: 1). The UN Declaration on the Elimination
of Violence against Women was the first international human rights statement that defined violence
against women within a gender-based framework (Montesanti and Thurston, 2015: 3). In doing
so it identified the family, the community and the state as major sites of gender-based violence
(see www.un.org/rights/dpi1772e.htm), highlighting the systematic global discrimination against
women and girls. Women are more likely to be killed, injured or physically attacked in their own
home, by someone known to them, than in any other social context (Gelles, 1987; Department of
Health, 2005), making the family the most dangerous place for women and children.
Measuring and recording the prevalence of gender-based violence remains an ongoing issue
which provokes methodological debate. How and what is measured are issues dealt with by
Walby and Towers (2017) and Myhill (2017) in the first edition of the new Journal of Gender-
Based Violence. Walby and Towers argue the importance of that which is measurable and com-
parable, for example statistics on actual criminal offences, whereas Myhill focuses upon the
importance of context, nature and impact and relevance of women’s own identified experiences.

2
 Introduction to gender and violence

Whilst gendered violence is recognised worldwide as an endemic problem it is also still char-
acterised by its (at times) hidden nature (see Lombard and McMillan, 2013: 10; UNICEF, 1997:
41). Yet even this notion of violence against women as ‘hidden’ is contested: Stanko (2006), for
example, argues that it is denied rather than hidden. However, due to a lack of reporting, or at
times a lack of legislation which criminalises the problem and generates reports, it is difficult to
estimate the full scale of the problem. International agencies such as the UN estimate that one
in three women have experienced physical or sexual violence; only two-thirds of all countries
have outlawed domestic violence; 37 countries exempt rape perpetrators from prosecution if
they are married to, or subsequently marry, the victim; in the EU, 45–55 per cent of all women
have experienced sexual harassment since the age of 15; 4.5 million of the 21 million people
in forced labour are victims of sexual exploitation, with 98 per cent of those being women and
girls; at least 200 million girls alive today have undergone FGM/C (Female Genital Mutilation/
Cutting) (in 30 countries where the data is available); 700 million women alive today were
married before the age of 18 – of those more than one-third were married before the age of 15
(UN, 2015). These figures illustrate the daily experiences of women around the world and their
continued oppression. Rowland and Klein argue that:

In order to maintain the more powerful position and so feed on their need of women without
being consumed by it, men as a powerful group institutionalise their position of power. This
involves the need to structure institutions to maintain that power, the development of an
ideology to justify it, and the use of force and violence to impose it when resistance emerges.
(Rowland and Klein, 1990: 297)

As all these examples highlight, gender is integral to each discussion of violence presented in
the following chapters. The chapters focus upon a range of violence and abuses from domestic
abuse, rape, femicide, stalking, FGM, prostitution, CSE (child sexual abuse), sexual assault, troll-
ing and pornography. The authors have all been asked to define the violences about which they
write, yet it is clear that, within each chapter, we can embrace Stanko’s belief that ‘gender, quite
simply, still matters and influences the way we speak, conceptualize, and challenge violence. To
lose sight and insight by ignoring how gender matters impoverishes any analyses of violence’
(Stanko, 2006: 551).

Structure of the book

The collection begins with five chapters that all examine the theoretical frameworks of how we
understand, define and ultimately name violence and the integrity of gender within that process.
The chapters converge upon the issue of domestic abuse/violence (DVA) as paradigmatic of
these debates, considering it initially from a legislative perspective before focusing upon those
both perpetrating and experiencing it. Throughout, how gendered frameworks are used to
make sense of DVA is the central concern.
In Chapter 1, Stark discusses how his thesis of coercive control helped to broaden how we
understand the concept of gendered violence beyond the incident model characterised by physi-
cal violence. In doing so, international organisations, government bodies and women them-
selves could access a language that explained the multiple oppressions experienced and frame
these within a wider context of human rights. ‘A strategic course of self-interested behaviour
designed to secure and expand gender-based privilege by establishing a regime of domination
in personal life’ (Stark, 2013: 21). Moving away from a model categorised by discrete, indi-
vidualised incidents using Stark’s definition, we can focus instead on the patterns of abuse that

3
Nancy Lombard

subjugate women and how this forms part of the gender regime within society, where women
are in a position of inequality. As Lombard highlights:

Gendered violence is rooted in the structural inequalities between men and women. It is
both a cause and consequence of gender inequality. It incorporates a range of crimes and
behaviours including physical, emotional, sexual, psychological and economic abuse, per-
sonal and sexual violations or material deprivations.
(Lombard, 2015: 64)

The adoption of Stark’s terms has meant that agencies outside of the academy now understand
that domestic abuse is not made up of discrete, individualised incidents, rather it is a pattern
of behaviour. Such an acceptance has formed part of the legislation across the UK and filtered
down into the practice of statutory agencies (for example the police).
Chapter 2, by Lombard and Whiting, focuses upon how the women’s movement in Scotland
was instrumental in framing the issue within a gendered framework. While Stark’s chapter high-
lights how all of the countries in the UK have taken on board the non-physical aspects of coer-
cive control and moved away from an incident-based model, Lombard and Whiting point out
that Scotland remains the only country of the four to establish domestic abuse as a gender-based
problem. It is not only important in terms of defining the issue but also dictates how the issue
is tackled by the Scottish government – within a framework that seeks to eradicate gendered
inequality. However, although such a move is to be celebrated, Lombard and Whiting urge
caution. They argue that whilst Scotland leads in the way it addresses domestic abuse, its posi-
tion remains fragile in the face of UK-wide equality legislation that favours the de-gendering
of services rather than acknowledging the complex dynamics inherent in gendered violence.
Chapters 3 and 4, by Gadd and Corr and Williamson et al., look specifically at men. In the
former the focus is upon men as perpetrators, in the latter, as victims. Interestingly, and within
the context of gender violence, both chapters highlight how the frameworks of gender and mas-
culinity, in particular, have determined the responses of the male participants in their research.
Gadd and Corr’s chapter discusses work from their project ‘From Boys to Men’, examin-
ing the lives of young men who have become domestic abuse perpetrators. Using psychosocial
interpretive research techniques the authors relayed how the young men (focusing here on
‘Glen’) and their previous experiences of violence (bound up with gendered expectations of
masculinity and violence) impacted upon their current use of violence to (re)gain control. They
assert that there is a need for both structure and agency to work concurrently to produce posi-
tive outcomes for these men trapped in cultural and individual expectations of what it means
to be a man.
Williamson et al.’s chapter goes some way to identifying the differences between men and
women’s experiences of DVA and in particular the gendered narratives that enable men to make
sense of what has happened. The authors identified fear, escape, impact, intent and restriction
of space as key elements in how victims understand their experiences, but also that these are
gendered reactions, with men less likely to feel fear, more likely to laugh when relaying their
stories and present feelings of entitlement. As such they experience lesser impact than female
victims, findings which are consolidated by earlier research.
For example, Gadd et al. found that ‘men often do not report being victimised [by their
female partners] because the ‘incidents are trivial, non-criminal and/or inconsequential’
(Gadd et al., 2003: 112), leading to the conclusion that ‘men are less likely to live in fear
of violence against them and it does not impact upon their daily lives as it does with female
victims (Lombard, 2013: 188).

4
 Introduction to gender and violence

Research demonstrates that the ‘impact’ of abuse (all types of abuse) disproportionately
affects women as victims, particularly cumulative impacts caused by coercion and control as
patterns of abusive behaviours. When men say they experience abuse it is often in relation to
their own expectations of masculinity rather than, as Stark would argue, a deprivation of liberty.
They are still experiencing violence within the same gendered dynamics but it is the constructs
of masculinity that sustain the dynamics of power and not their female partners per se.
All of this is consolidated in Chapter 5, by Barnes and Donovan, which looks specifically at the
experiences of domestic abuse of people in gay, lesbian, bisexual and/or transgender relationships.
In her analysis of why a gendered framework can be used to analyse same-sex domestic abuse,
Whiting (2007: 12) states:

We need to see same sex domestic abuse as sitting within the gender order and shaped
by it, linked to violence against women in the way in which heteronormativity is a tool
of control for both gender and sexuality. It is important to understand that there will be
‘shared mutual experiences’ of survivors of heterosexual and same sex domestic abuse at an
individual level: but that we are looking at something unique. Intersectionality can allow
us to understand the way in which the multiple identities and discrimination combine to
make up an individual’s experiences of both oppression and privilege.

Barnes and Donovan look to enhance this view, outlining additional issues faced by those in the
LGB and/or T community which are specific to their sexualities, including abuse focused upon
the intersectional aspects of their identities and the help available. Again, visibility and silence
are key factors in the support available.

Specific representations, forms of, and responses to, gendered violence

The 2013 FRA (European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights) Report listed five types of
GBV: sexual assault, rape, sexual harassment, intimate partner violence and stalking. All types
are covered in Part II of this volume, including ‘new’ forms of harassment that have either been
under-researched – due perhaps to contentious issues around cultural relativism (see Rao, 1995) –
or incorporate ‘new’ methods in perpetration and victimisation, e.g. trolling on social media.
All chapters highlight the structural impact of gendered inequality and the differential responses
this can engender.

[I]t is, for the most part, women who suffer from torture and ill-treatment within the
home. In some states this intimate violence is not a criminal act; rather, it is perceived as
an acceptable form of social control within the family. . . . The overall picture is, at best
neglect, and at worst complicity on the part of the state and the international community
for approaching intimate violence not as a political and a human rights issue, but as a private
matter—a social or a cultural practice, sporadic and individualistic in nature.
(O’Hare, 1999)

Part II begins with Boyle’s examination of how pornography is represented – how can feminists
represent and theorise pornography as a form of violence against women when increasingly
those boundaries between pornography and popular culture are blurred and individualised?
To illustrate her point, Boyle draws upon the specific example of Fifty Shades of Grey, where
women’s consumption of a product provides what she terms ‘an alibi’ for men’s pornographic use
of women. The success of the franchise is seen by some commentators as women’s investment

5
Nancy Lombard

in the pornography industry where the issue becomes about consumption rather than exploi-
tation and violence. Boyle makes a compelling argument that women’s consumption of Fifty
Shades legitimises and normalises men’s role in the pornography industry and hence the porno-
graphic is increasingly discursively linked to sex. By individualising pornography to individual
taste and choice as opposed to a gendered structural concern we move away from theories that
challenge such representations (for example Mulvey’s male gaze (1975)) and in doing so are in
danger of overlooking the arguments that, according to Boyle, legitimate abusive pornographic
practices (of production, representation and consumption).
Two of the chapters in this volume deal specifically with rape culture – the idea that sexual
harassment, sexual assault and rape are connected to the culture as a whole, with women’s
behaviour at fault and men’s violence normalised. In Chapter 7, the statutory responses in four
countries are discussed in relation to high rates of attrition in rape cases. White and McMillan
present a case which highlights that doubt is the ‘default’ position when it comes to framing
women’s experiences of rape, with women positioned as dubious and men as more likely to be
subject to false allegations. White and McMillan’s statutory participants represent cultural con-
structions of how we understand gender and the expectations around sexuality, morality and the
binary these sustain: naturalising men’s sex drive as uncontrollable and women as embarrassed,
ashamed and therefore more likely to ‘cry rape’. In this way we can see how Romito’s typology
of society’s formulation of men’s violence is evident in terms of the denying of violence – deny-
ing that rape is violence and framing it instead as ‘seduction’ or ‘hot sex’ (2008: 95). This can be
linked back to Boyle’s chapter, which challenges the same idea: that of pornography not being
violence but sex.
Chapter 21 by Brooks (in the final part of the book) focuses upon campaigns to prevent rape.
It addresses how rape culture is insidious in such campaigns and highlights how young women
negotiate these ‘safety messages’. Brooks contests the gendered assumptions proliferated in these
campaigns, illustrating the different behaviours adopted by the women and demonstrating how
they challenge the confines of expected gender norms through their agency. Since Brooks first
released this research, there has been more awareness, by the police and other statutory agen-
cies, that the focus needs to be on the perpetrator rather than asking women to change their
behaviour, demonstrating the powerful impact research in this area can have.
This chapter and others in the book, although examining different aspects of the phenomenon
of rape, show how our culture has preconceptions about how women should act to either avoid
rape or to actively discourage sexual forms of harassment. This tells us much about how society
constructs masculinity and femininity and the assumptions it generates about how certain sections
of society should behave. It also consolidates Stanko’s (2006: 551) claim around gender and the
silencing that takes place around violence. It is not that the extent of violence is hidden, but that its
prevalence is denied through silence: ‘The mechanisms of silence are so embedded in the texture
of social and economic privilege. Gender thrives within this fluidity of privilege and exclusion.’
In Chapter 8, Proctor presents a compelling case for stalking to be labelled as gender-based
violence, moving away from the individual components of jealousy and obsession that have
been used to frame the debate. Using the context of fear, demonstrated so often in other forms
of violence against women, Proctor illustrates that stalking disproportionately affects women
and that the impact of the experience differs by gender.
Following on with other ‘new’ forms of gender-based violence, Lumsden and Morgan high-
light the gendered nature of stalking on the Internet – what they term ‘cyber-trolling’. Although
a relatively new phenomenon – coinciding with the proliferation of social media – it follows the
age-old route of gender-based abuse with trolling being identified here as part of the silencing
strategy with women being bullied into retreating from public space and public speaking.

6
 Introduction to gender and violence

The public spaces of the university are the focus of Phipps’ chapter. Phipps draws upon her
work with the National Union of Students (NUS) to illustrate the problems of sexual violence
among university students in the UK. In highlighting the connections between the gendered
language and interactions and the competitive environment of university culture, analogies can
be made with Connell’s gender regime model, where these institutions of learning are support-
ing and validating certain models of masculinity in embracing some behaviours and silencing
the experience of others.
Chapters 10 and 14 by Breckenridge and Bows highlight the multiple oppressions women
can experience through an intersectional lens. Manjoo (2011) illustrates how intersectionality is
a necessary tool within our analysis and actions against violence:

Even though all women are at risk of experiencing violence, not all women are equally
susceptible to acts of violence. Individual women’s productive and reproductive activities
are impacted by forms of interpersonal and structural violence which intersect with various
factors such as immigration, trade and economic policy, social and economic develop-
ment, civil and political development, legal protection, conflict and security concerns.
Discrimination based on race, ethnicity, national origin, ability, socio-economic class, sex-
ual orientation, gender identity, religion, culture, tradition and other realities often intensi-
fies acts of violence against women.
(Manjoo, 2011)

Breckenridge highlights how disabled women experience more severe and more frequent inci-
dents of abuse that continues over a longer period of time. Their disabilities often further impact
upon their access to support, with barriers to help being identified as a key area for development
in specialist services. As such there are commonalities with Bows’ chapter, which highlights that
both disabled women and those who are older may be being abused by a partner who is also a
carer, leading to a barrier to being able to access help in the first place and additional difficulties
around escape and subsequent concerns about how to survive without a carer. These chapters,
and that by Mackay (Chapter 11), highlight the complexities around care and caring relation-
ships and how these are further compounded by an abusive relationship. The care of children
and how contact can be used as a weapon in domestic abuse cases is examined by Mackay, a
lawyer with extensive experience in this field. Her research highlights how the instruments of
the state, in child abuse contact cases, can be used by an abusive father to continue to exert
control over his ex-partner. This is further compounded by discourses of the nuclear family and
the oft-quoted dichotomy of ‘abusive man but good enough father’ (see Hester, 2013). This is
particularly problematic as research highlights that it is when women leave abusive partners that
they are more likely to be killed (Women’s Aid Ireland, 2016).
Drawing upon her work with nia and her blog, ‘Counting Dead Women’, Ingala Smith
explores what she identifies as the deeply political act of femicide – the killing of women by
men. The scope of ‘dead women’ is deliberately broadened by Ingala Smith, who looks at the
murder of all women by men and not just those known to them (although this is the major-
ity). Again, a theme that links this to many of the other chapters in this volume is the silencing
around the issue – the lack of acknowledgement that women continue to die at the hands of
men (both known and unknown to them) and how the deaths of these women are represented
(or not) within the mainstream media.
In Chapter 15, Wasige and Jackson highlight the importance of intersectionality in their chap-
ter on FGM. Whilst some gains have been made in terms of highlighting the preponderance of
FGM around the world, they urge caution with the narratives put forward by Western (white)

7
Nancy Lombard

feminists, who they argue have demonised and infantilised African women and their cultures.
In reshaping the narrative, Wasige and Jackson maintain that the challenge needs to come from
women within communities where FGM is practised, with their experiences taking precedence.
The role of feminists defining discourses around issues is also explored by Mulvihill, who
presents a clear discussion of one of the most contentious areas within the feminist movement –
that of prostitution. The chapter seeks to present both sides of the arguments: that of prostitution
as violence against women or that of prostitution as sex work. Mulvihill, whilst not identifying
(or intending) to provide a clear-cut answer, suggests that we need to locate the systems of power
within prostitution. In doing this, she argues, the intersections and inequalities can be acknowl-
edged to enable the development of preventative social, cultural and economic policies to tackle
violence within prostitution/sex work.
Hynes presents her work on the trafficking of children. Whilst not commissioned specifically
to look at the area from an explicitly gendered perspective, through her chapter Hynes identifies
some of the same contentions that Mulvihill also explores. She also highlights that the destination
of boys and girls being trafficked is heavily gendered, with girls more likely to be intended for
domestic servitude and sexual exploitation, while boys are linked primarily to labour exploitation.

Conducting research on gendered violence

The final part of the book explores the dynamics of conducting research on gendered vio-
lence. The authors range from experienced academics to PhD students beginning their research
journeys. Although not explicitly labelled as such here, many of the authors follow a feminist
methodology where they have chosen to prioritise both gender and women’s experiences as
part of their research agenda. In the 1980s Stanley and Wise introduced the concept of lived
experiences as a form of knowledge. In doing so they highlighted how the research journey
could both empower women and raise political consciousness (Stanley and Wise, 1993 [1983]).
The epistemological grounding shared by Mills in his desire to cultivate our sociological imagi-
nations and feminist researchers’ prioritising of women and their experiences, extends to a
fusion of the political and personal. That is the development of correlations between the ‘inti-
mate realities of ourselves’ with ‘larger social realities’ (Mills, 1959: 15) which needs to be at the
forefront of any research we conduct in this area.
In Chapter 18, guizzo et al. discuss the pitfalls of choosing the right words for a particular
cultural context, showing how translation and interpretation can be culturally or regionally spe-
cific. For guizzo et al., it is important not to impose the English translation upon the words and
experiences of those in other cultural settings. This strikes parallels with Kelly’s (1988) idiom
that naming it makes it so – women need to have access to a language that they both understand
and which reflects their own experience rather than relying upon the definitions of the powerful
(or the state). As Ward insists:

This is a revolutionary power because in naming (describing) what is done to us (and

inevitably to children and men as well), we are also naming what must change. The act of
naming creates a new world view. The power of naming resides in the fact that we name
what we see from the basis of our own experience within and outside patriarchal culture
simultaneously.
(Ward, 1985: 212)

Taylor, in Chapter 19, illustrates the reluctance by some police officers to engage with research-
ers around the complex issues of child sexual abuse. Many practitioners and researchers working

8
 Introduction to gender and violence

alongside the police identify examples of good practice and reciprocal working relationships,
with the police keen to take on advice and suggestions and incorporate recommendations from
research. But Taylor wonders whether the hidden and emotive nature of child sexual exploi-
tation, coupled with an organisational culture of suspicion and secrecy, is responsible for this
reluctance. As it has been shown in recent high-profile media cases, it is often the insidious and
entrenched gendered assumptions around class and sexuality that impede upon statutory organi-
sations’ willingness to even think action should be taken (see also Skeggs, 1997).
Chantler’s chapter focuses upon questions raised earlier in the collection, examining the
challenges of undertaking sensitive research, specifically gender-based violence in minoritised
communities. In doing so she contests the assumptions that experiences, impact and service
availability of gender-based violence are similar for all women. She goes on to discuss how
gender-based violence in minoritised communities is either ignored or pathologised, drawing
parallels with the chapter by Wasige and Jackson.
The 23 chapters on gender and violence all demonstrate the gendered framework necessary
when examining the experiences of men and women in relation to violence. Although not
covered here, men are more likely to be assaulted and killed by another man (Soothill et al.,
1999). Women, as illustrated in this volume, are more likely to be assaulted, raped, killed, muti-
lated, stalked, controlled, isolated and harassed by men. Women’s experiences of violence are
intersected by multiple identities, age, sexuality, (dis)ability, ethnicity and class, which all impact
upon how women experience what is happening to them and the opportunities available to
them to escape or access help. All of the chapters highlight how women are disproportionately
affected by violence that is both a cause and consequence of gender inequality. Different types
of violence generate different responses depending upon existing legislation, its prominence in
the public narrative, gendered discourses and its visibility.
It is crucial in a volume such as this to first demonstrate the extent of the problem, but also
to offer some hope for resolution. Kelly talks about the need for society to be transformative
(Kelly, 1988; see also Lombard and McMillan, 2013; Lombard, 2015). Indeed we need to look
at all the social constructs within society to enable change to take place: the individual rela-
tions where we can challenge beliefs and behaviour as identified most succinctly here in the
final chapters (by Barter and Lombard and Renold et al.). In Chapter 22, Barter and Lombard
examine the consistent themes in their research with young people on researching understand-
ings and experiences of IPVA (interpersonal violence and abuse). They make a strong case
for preventative education to start in primary schools, with a clear and consistent focus upon
gender equality. This position has also been regularly promoted by Renold, in both her work
with young people and in advising the Welsh government. In her chapter, she hands control
of the creative process over to six schoolgirls who took part in research projects at their school
overseen by Renold. A clear example of child-centred research, with the girls talking about how
they worked creatively to bring about personal and political change.
The book therefore ends upon two very positive calls for action but is it helpful to suggest
that changes in behaviour need to come only from young people? Or that preventive work
should only take place in schools? We know that awareness-raising campaigns are important but
also that they are not always successful – in that people do not recognise themselves as the ones
being spoken to (see, for example, Gadd et al., 2014).
Scotland currently leads the way in promoting gender equality as a means to challenge and
eradicate violence, with education identified as a key site for intervention: ‘The earlier that
there is a shift in discriminatory cultures, attitudes and behaviours the better, and primary and
secondary schools are key settings for early intervention’ (Equally Safe: Scotland’s Strategy for
Preventing and Eradicating Violence against Women and Girls, 2014: 24). Whilst such progress

9
Nancy Lombard

is fragile, as highlighted by Lombard and Whiting (Chapter 2, this volume), it is still to be com-
mended. The recent changes in England and Wales (with the introduction of compulsory sex
education) have been a long time coming and go some way to addressing the need to discuss
sexual health and healthy relationships with all children and young people. Yet throughout the
UK this must be within the context of a ‘whole-school approach’ where the gender equality
and anti-violence ethos is embedded in the day-to-day life of the school rather than delivered as
one isolated lesson (see Stanley et al., 2015; Lombard and Harris, 2018).
Culturally we also need to look at how we can transform society’s popular beliefs and prac-
tices. A simple example is that offered by Boyle in her chapter on pornography. Women are so
used to viewing their own sexual desires and proclivities through a male gaze that it remains that
a book fetishizing male control and abuse becomes a best-seller and a symbol of female empow-
erment. The proliferation of rape culture and consistently low conviction rates (McMillan,
2013) also demonstrate that a sea change is needed in our culture.
Further areas ripe for transformation include institutional polices and practice. Many of the
chapters in this volume have made that ‘call’ either directly or indirectly. As with all these exam-
ples we can name many more but that would be a whole other book. Changes need to be made
so all women are equal. According to the World Health Organization:

Differences in gender roles and behaviours often create inequalities, whereby one gender
becomes empowered to the disadvantage of the other. Thus, in many societies, women are
viewed as subordinate to men and have a lower social status, allowing men control over,
and greater decision-making power than, women. Gender inequalities have a large and
wide-ranging impact on society. For example, they can contribute to gender inequities in
health and access to health care, opportunities for employment and promotion, levels of
income, political participation and representation and education.
(WHO, 2009: 3)

To end, I hope that this volume provides intellectual interest and generates much food for thought
as well as some anger. Yes, we have come a long way in certain areas where some examples of
gendered violence against some women are sometimes seen as abhorrent, challenged and pun-
ished. But we still face the naturalisation of masculinities, which are entwined with the promotion
of violence, the normalisation of men’s violence against women and justifications of such violence
based upon gendered assumptions about how women should and should not behave. All the nar-
ratives around gendered violence appear to follow the same cycle in how we learn to make sense
of them. This discursive narrative of gendered violence first identifies the violence as a private
(or cultural) matter in which we should not interfere (it is not our business). Then it is highlighted
that only certain kinds of women experience such violence (because of their behaviour, identity
or transgression), thus blaming individual women for their experiences. Then the onus is upon
the women to either leave or behave in a certain way to prove the violence is real. The sequence
of gendered violence – once identified as a societal issue – is framed in terms of the perpetrator and
then the wider structures of men’s power. Action (usually) is taken in terms of legislation, chal-
lenge, awareness-raising or punishment. As we can see in this collection, some forms of gendered
violence are further down the discursive narrative than others.

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 Part I
Theoretical discussions of
gender and violence
Q Taylor & Francis
Taylor & Francis Group
� http://taylorandfrancis.com
 1
Coercive control as a framework
for responding to male partner
abuse in the UK
Opportunities and challenges

Evan Stark

Introduction
The aim of this chapter is to contextualize a ‘new definition’ of domestic violence as ‘coercive
control’ adopted by the British Home Office in 2012 and the creation by Westminster in 2015 of
an offence of ‘coercive and controlling behaviour’ (s.76) covering England, Wales and Gibraltar.
England is the main focus of the analysis, though I touch on developments in Wales, Scotland and
elsewhere in Europe. Three contextual factors are described: the growing international consensus
that ‘gender violence’ be defined broadly and as a violation of human rights; the limited utility
of an assault model as a way to understand and/or manage partner abuse; and the emergence of
coercive control as a credible alternative framework. The conclusion identifies challenges posed
by an approach based on coercive control.

Background
With the opening of its first refuges in the early l970s, England became a pioneer in a burgeoning
international movement to ‘protect’ women from ‘violence’ by their partners. Within a decade,
it had also determined to hold abusive men ‘accountable’ by extending the reach of criminal
laws originally drawn to protect strangers from assaults to ‘domestic’ violence. Accompanying
these changes was the less formal propensity for practitioners to ration the scarce resources avail-
able for protection and accountability according to the level of violence and/or injury reported.
Supporting this approach were a grassroots movement of women; growing moral sentiment that
women’s ‘safety’ in relationships was a significant public concern; and a substantial scientific lit-
erature documenting the nature, extent, distribution, dynamics and consequences of ‘domestic
violence’ by men (Dobash and Dobash, 1992; Stark and Flitcraft, 1988).
Starting in the mid-1990s, serious deficiencies in the prevailing approach were exposed
by two bodies of literature: empirical research showing that abusive violence typically fol-
lowed a pattern that was not anticipated by its equation with discreet injurious assaults; and an
experience-based popular literature in which victimized women identified concurrent non-
violent tactics of ‘control’ as more oppressive than violence (Stark and Flitcraft, 1996; Jones and

15
Evan Stark

Schechter, 1992). Meanwhile, feminist-oriented NGOs pressured the UN and other interna-
tional organizations to broaden definitions of gender violence to include the multiple forms
of oppression in women’s personal lives and identify it as a violation of human rights. These
strands were gradually woven into a conceptualization in which partner abuse was variously
labelled ‘psychological maltreatment’ (Tolman, 1989), ‘gender violence’ (Wales), ‘violence against
women’ (Scotland), ‘patriarchal violence’ (Spain), ‘psychological abuse’ (France), ‘intimate terror-
ism’ (Johnson, 2008) and ‘coercive control’ (Stark, 2007).
In September 2012, England became the first country to explicitly identify ‘coercive con-
trol’ as the framework for its response to partner abuse. In contrast to previous definitions
that emphasized physical violence only, the ‘new definition’ by the Home Office defined
coercive control to include ‘Any incident or pattern of incidents of controlling, coercive
or threatening behaviour, violence or abuse between those aged 16 or over who are or
have been intimate partners or family members regardless of gender or sexuality’. Coercion
encompassed psychological, physical, sexual, financial and emotional abuse, while controlling
behaviour was defined as ‘making a person subordinate and/or dependent by isolating them
from sources of support, exploiting their resources and capacities for personal gain, depriving
them of the means needed for independence, resistance and escape and regulating their eve-
ryday lives’ (Gov.UK, 2013). The new definition implied that the significance of violence
derived from its contribution to fear-based subordination and associated male privileges
rather than from its physical valence.
The new definition superseded alternative definitions in other government departments,
but had no legal standing. On 29 December 2015, 800 years after the Magna Carta promised
the British peoples swift and equal justice for all, parliament made ‘coercive and controlling
behaviour in an intimate or family relationship’ a criminal offence (s.76) in England and Wales,
carrying a sentence of up to five years in prison.

Broadening the definition of partner abuse

Gender violence as a violation of human rights

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and various treaties passed by the
UN General Assembly included the right to liberty and security; the right to live free of
torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; freedom of thought,
conscience and religion; and freedom of association. These were initially treated only as
‘negative rights’ designed to counter state interference, but were gradually given an affirma-
tive interpretation, first to establish state responsibility where its agents committed rape or
other instances of violence against women (e.g. during wars) and then to assert women’s
right to state protection from abusive men where the ‘failure to protect’ could be traced
to discrimination. The most recent iterations of human rights theory adapt a notion of
gender violence that includes economic violence, isolation, limitations on autonomy and
liberty, and other prominent features which were identified in the new definition as facets
of coercive control.
An early as 1989, a literature review on Violence against Women in the Family by the UN
Commission on the Status of Women in Vienna noted that family violence involved ‘direct
violations of [women’s] . . . physical and mental autonomy’ and denied them ‘liberty and dig-
nity’, themes that are echoed in subsequent literature on coercive control (UN Report, 1989,
cited in Beasley and Thomas, 1993: 329). Another important step was the adaption of General
Recommendation No. 19 by the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination

16
 Coercive control as a framework

Against Women (CEDAW) in 1992. The CEDAW definition of gender violence as a violation
of human rights became the international standard applied to woman abuse. CEDAW linked
gender equality and the elimination of violence against women by recognizing that rape and
domestic violence are causes of women’s subordination rather than simply its consequences
and that, therefore, gender violence is a form of discrimination that ‘seriously inhibits women’s
ability to enjoy rights and freedoms on a basis of equality with men’ (CEDAW, 1992: n.p.).
These views were formalized by the UN in 1993, when the General Assembly (GA) adopted
the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women that explicitly rooted abuse
in unequal power, highlighted its role in reproducing male domination and female subordina-
tion, included ‘psychological violence’ and intimidation in community settings such as work
or school alongside the traditional forms of physical violence against women, and emphasized
‘arbitrary restrictions on liberty’, a phrase that captures the essence of coercive control and is
incorporated in the 2011 Istanbul Convention (see below). The GA Declaration also cited gov-
ernment inaction to protect women from these forms of violence as a human rights abuse. The
World Congress on Human Rights in Vienna added further status to CEDAW’s position by
declaring gender-based violence a human rights abuse, a position that was reiterated by the 1995
Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (PFA). In 1999, the World Organization against
Torture, an international coalition of NGOs, drew an extended analogy between the isolation,
detention and interrogation of torture victims and the predicament of battered women (Beasley
and Thomas, 1993).
In 2000, Scotland adopted the CEDAW definition as the basis for a national strategy, the only
country in the UK to do so. In 2001, following the lead of London Mayor Ken Livingstone (and
his domestic violence advisor, Davina James-Hanman), more than 80 local authorities across
England and Wales adopted a similar, gender-based definition as a guide to local programming.

The Istanbul Convention

Hoping to standardize laws and best practices throughout Europe based on the broadened
conception of partner abuse, the 47-member Council of Europe adopted the Convention on
Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (CETS No. 210)
in 2011,1 referred to as ‘The Istanbul Convention’ (IC). The IC defined violence against women
to mean ‘all acts of gender-based violence that result in . . . physical, psychological or economic
harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of
liberty’ (UN Women, 2015). The IC proceeded from this definition to mandate state action in
‘prevention’, ‘protection’ and ‘prosecution’; the development of ‘integrated policies’ at all levels
of society; and the creation of a two-level ‘monitoring’ mechanism to evaluate compliance.
The IC has significant weaknesses. Apart from recommending prevention strategies that
address masculinity and gender equality, it offers little specific guidance about how to address
the more elusive elements of abuse identified in its broad definition, such as sexual coercion,
economic violence or ‘psychological abuse’. Indeed, the protocols it outlines for Prosecution and
Protection are restricted solely to physical violence and ‘safety’ concerns. Thus, despite the intent
conveyed by the broad definition, in its programmatic mandates the IC replicates the normative
gap it set out to eliminate between the narrow state focus on violence and women’s experience
of abuse as a broad pattern of domination.
Until 2017, the UK was one of a number of signatories of the IC that had not formally agreed
to implement its requirements, almost certainly because doing so would have meant officially
endorsing the link of gender violence to discrimination and human rights and accepting periodic
audits by an international body of the government’s compliance with its protocols. Even as the

17
Evan Stark

Home Secretary (Teresa May) resisted pressure to adapt a gendered definition of partner abuse, her
decision to embrace ‘coercive control’ as the framework of reform was consistent with the initia-
tives in Scotland and London in other respects, tacitly acknowledging the European consensus
favouring a broad understanding and reflecting the IC recommendation that policy be guided by a
single ‘cross-governmental’ definition. Both the new definition and s.76 echo previous initiatives
in three other important respects: they recognize the historical and multi-faceted nature of male
partner abuse, including the role of ‘regulating . . . daily lives’; emphasize experiential and socio-
political outcomes (‘fear/distress’ and ‘domination/subordination’); and acknowledge that abusers
derive ‘personal gain’ from abuse, what feminists more aptly identify as ‘male privilege’.

The failure of the assault model

If external developments ‘pulled’ the Home Secretary towards the formulation of the new defi-
nition, a major ‘push’ to do so was the failure of the criminological model of assault to support
effective intervention. S.76 is the UK’s first specific domestic violence offence. But in other
respects, its policies mirrored the responses in the United States and many other countries,
including the provision of Restraining Orders, a preference for arrest over diversion, support
for emergency housing, the development of a specialized criminal justice response and the
promotion of local collaboration through a ‘coordinated community response’. As reports of
partner abuse escalated, police throughout Britain attempted to manage caseloads by adapting
the Domestic Abuse, Stalking, Harassment and Honour Based Violence Risk Identification
Checklist (DASH), a formal mechanism that separates ‘high risk’ women who require a case-
worker or ‘IDVA’ (Independent Domestic Violence Advisor) and a ‘coordinated safety plan’
honed at monthly Multi-agency Risk Assessment Conferences (MARACs) from the ‘moderate’
or ‘standard/low-risk’ cases who do not get these supports. While the DASH is weighted
towards past physical/sexual assaults, it also considers isolating and controlling behaviours.2
Ironically, the core assumptions underlying the ‘coordinated community response’ contra-
dict the conceit that partner abuse is best managed as assault. These interrelated assumptions
are that victim ‘safety’ remains an ongoing problem after police intervention; that ‘safety’ is best
achieved by a victim’s decision to ‘leave’ rather than by interdiction; and that ‘risk’ is a function
of historical rather than situational factors, such as the level of violence observed.

Limits of the assault model

There has been incontrovertible evidence since the mid-1980s that the hallmarks of male part-
ner violence are its frequency, generally low-level, duration and cumulative effects on particular
victims rather than isolated, injurious assaults (Stark and Flitcraft, l988). In both the United
States and Britain, violence is repeated in >75% of cases, is ‘frequent’ in a majority and involves
‘serial abuse’ in as many as 40% of cases, where assaults occur several times a week or more
(Stark and Flitcraft, 1988; 1996). Abusive relationships last an average of 5.5 years (Campbell
and Soeken, 1999). Frequent violence extended for this duration means that a large proportion
of abused women have been assaulted dozens, even hundreds, of times. First noted in the UK
by Mooney’s (1993) survey of London women, this reality was most clearly documented for
the United States by findings from a 2010 survey by the Centers of Disease Control that 38% of
abused women in the general population had been ‘beaten up’ between 11 and 50 times (22%)
or more than 50 times (16%) and had been strangled, kicked, hit with objects and slapped with
similar frequencies (Black et al., 2011). Walby et al. (2016) reported a similar finding by analys-
ing the data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW). Although the CSEW

18
 Coercive control as a framework

(formerly called the British Crime Survey) purports to measure the amount of crime in England
and Wales by questioning a panel of around 50,000 people about their victimization, it caps
individual reports at five incidents. By counting all assaults reported by women, the researchers
found that overall violence had increased in recent years, contrary to the government’s claims.
This increase was explained by the growing proportion of women reporting multiple assaults,
not by any change in the number of abused women. The gendered nature of this pattern is
also evident in police reports. Fifty-three per cent of the men arrested for domestic violence in
England had been previously reported to police for three or more offences compared to only
3% of women arrested (Hester and Westmarland, 2006). The sheer frequency with which men
were assaulting their partners should have sufficed to expose the administrative futility of treat-
ing each violent episode as a distinct offence.
The third problem with the assault model is its equation of seriousness with injury. A large
proportion of abused women are seriously injured, with 38% of a Refuge UK sample reporting
they had suffered ‘permanent damage’ from abuse (Rees et al., 2006). Even so, between 95%
and 98% of partner assaults are low-level and non-injurious, even among women who call the
police or use emergency medical services (Stark and Flitcraft, 1996). This means that >95% of
abuse is missed by screens that base intervention on injury. Applying a calculus of physical harms
to discrete assaults also masks the fourth defining characteristic of partner violence, that its effects
on victims, including their current level of fear, is the cumulative result of all previous abuse rather
than the physical valence of a proximate incident.
Another gap in the assault model is its failure to incorporate partner sexual assault (PSA). The
coincidence of domestic and sexual assault has been documented for decades (Stark and Flitcraft,
1988; 1996). Partners or former partners account for the majority of men reported for rape in
Britain and the United States (Stark, 2017). Conversely, 40% to 60% of the battered women
responding to the Refuge Survey had been sexually assaulted; and 24% reported being forced
to engage in anal sex at least once (Rees et al., 2006). Like partner physical violence, PSAs are
typically repeated (Stark, 2017). Thus, 27% of the women in the Refuge study reported being
‘forced to have sex against their will’ ‘often’ or ‘all the time’. As we will see momentarily,
attempting to understand/manage PSA and domestic violence as discrete and separate offences
has been disastrous for victims and justice professionals alike.

The failure of intervention

Until the enactment of s.76, partner offences in England/Wales were charged under the
Offences against Persons Act (designed to cover stranger assaults in 1861) and/or with breach
of the peace, criminal damage and/or with harassment and stalking if couples were separated.
Applying assault-related laws to partner abuse fragments, trivializes and normalizes the typical
pattern of physical/sexual violence and coercion. This effect is best illustrated by the extraor-
dinarily high case attrition from a police report of partner abuse to a conviction and custodial
sentence. A 2006 study of policing in Northumbria found that offenders were arrested, charged
and convicted in only 120 (5%) of 2,402 reported partner assaults, an attrition rate of >95%. For
convicted offenders, meanwhile, the typical punishment was a fine. At the time, victims were
reporting approxiamately 14% of partner assaults. This meant that out of the 17,000 partner
assaults in Northumbria during the study year, a mere 120 (>0.01%) resulted in a custodial sen-
tence, hardly a formula for ‘accountability’ or deterrence. Given the chronic nature of partner
violence and the small chance of punishment, offending men committed repeated assaults, with
half of 692 offenders followed in Northumbria re-arrested within the three-year study period
and many arrested multiple times. Because incidents were treated independently, however, and

19
Evan Stark

no injury occurred in the vast majority, there was no correlation between the likelihood that a
perpetrator would be arrested and either the number of his domestic violence offences or even
whether he was judged ‘high risk’ after a given assault. Interviews confirmed that offenders
recognized their assaults would not be taken seriously. The attrition rates were similar or even
higher for cases of reported sexual assaults by partners (Hester, 2006; Hester & Westmarland,
2006).3 HMIC reports (2014; 2015) have identified numerous shortcomings in domestic vio-
lence policing. But they failed to note how the episodic focus on assaults made it unlikely that
offenders would be held accountable even when the justice system responded as expected. The
HMIC reports ignore the stunning attrition rates in cases of domestic violence and PSA.
The Northumbrian findings with respect to attrition and repeat offences (Hester, 2006;
Hester and Westmarland, 2006) suggest that, prior to the enactment of s.76, the law enforce-
ment situation in England resembled a revolving door through which tens of thousands of abu-
sive men and victimized women passed annually. One corollary of this process is that partner
abuse came to comprise ever larger proportions of the time and resources expended by justice,
health and service professionals. The growing number of reported partner assaults leaves the
impression that domestic violence has increased (Guardian, 2017). As we’ve seen, it is the pro-
portion of victims reporting multiple assaults that has increased, not the number of domestic
violence victims. When Stark and Flitcraft (1996) set abuse in its historical context, they dis-
covered that 75 to 80 of every 100 partner assaults reported to health authorities were part of an
‘ongoing’ pattern rather than ‘new’, a proportion that appears to be also reflected in police data.
Such a high proportion of long-standing cases suggests the enormous potential for effective early
interventions to reduce the burden abuse places on the community. In lieu of such intervention,
new cases take their place alongside other long-standing abusive relationships, causing police to
be ‘overwhelmed’ (HMIC, 2015) and refuges and other specialist services to exhaust their budg-
ets on ‘safety work’ and ‘emergency’ housing for long-term residents rather than empowerment.
The police response documented in the HMIC reports echoed a pattern first identified by
Stark and Flitcraft (1996) in the Yale Trauma Studies. They showed that, over time, as the
unidentified battered women in the medical caseload returned repeatedly for help, a negative
feedback loop was created whereby health providers responded to women’s ever more desper-
ate help-seeking in ways that were increasingly perfunctory and even punitive. These responses
included applying pseudo-psychiatric and other pejorative labels to ‘repeaters’ that communi-
cated that it was the women who were ‘mental’ and that it was unnecessary to take these women
seriously. These labels helped relieve provider frustration at not being able to produce expected
‘cures’; shifted blame from medicine’s failure to comprehend the chronic nature of partner
abuse to the patient’s help-seeking; and created an implicit alliance with the abusive men who
were also calling their partners ‘crazy’. Anecdotal evidence recorded in the HMIC reports sug-
gests that, as arrest logs, CPS caseloads and court dockets are filled by the same victim/offend-
ers repeatedly, the response of the justice system overall becomes increasingly perfunctory and
victim-blaming, leading to the extraordinary attrition rates documented by the Northumbrian
research. Data collected from the DASH documented that the incidents to which police were
responding were mere fragments of a broad, historical pattern of oppression. In all likelihood,
documenting what police already knew intuitively from their repeated visits to the same house-
holds increased their frustration at lacking the tools to do something more effective.

Coercive control
The development of a new definition and legal tool required a new, more holistic conception
of male partner abuse as a complement to criminological assault. Ironically, conceptions akin to

20
 Coercive control as a framework

coercive control had been an integral part of refuge/shelter work at least since the first victim
reported ‘the violence wasn’t the worst part’ and the ‘Duluth Power and Control Wheel’ was
widely adapted by refuge/shelters as their principal graphic representation of abuse. However,
women’s historical, multi-faceted experience of male partner abuse was only formally schema-
tized as coercive control and offered as a paradigmatic alternative to the domestic violence or
assault model in the l990s (Jones and Schechter, 1992; Jones, 1994; Stark and Flitcraft, 1996).
Although the extent of coercive control within the population of abused women is not known
with certainty, most estimates suggest it characterizes the strategy used by up to 80% of abusive
men (Buzawa and Hotaling, 2003; Stark, 2007; Butterworth and Westmarland, 2015/2016).
In its general form, coercive control describes an authoritarian strategy in which non-
reciprocal constraints on rights and liberties, deprivations and punishments are used to exact
compliance/dependence. Coercive control is commonplace in a range of institutional, social
or interpersonal settings ranging from prisons, POW camps and religious cults to same-sex
relationships. The unique dynamic and significance of men’s use of coercive control to domi-
nate women in personal life arises from three inseparable realities: its political dimension due to
women’s vulnerability as a class because of sexual inequality; its resulting prevalence, scope,
sexual nature and devastating individual effects; and the socio-economic significance when the
capacities for self-direction of an estimated one woman in five internationally are quashed or
constrained, or co-opted, to support the privileges of individual men.
For heuristic purposes, Stark (2007) categorizes the elements of coercive control as violence,
sexual coercion, intimidation, isolation and ‘control,’ further subdividing control, as does the new
definition, into tactics designed to exploit victims, deprive them of basic resources and regulate
their everyday lives through what the CEDAW and IC termed ‘arbitrary violations of liberty’
(UN Women, 2015).

Coercion

Violence
The violence in coercive control is characterized by the aforementioned pattern of frequent,
typically low-level physical abuse punctuated by more severe assaults. Men using coercive con-
trol assaulted women six times more often on average than men who used physical violence
alone (Johnson, 2008). The women in the Refuge UK sample reported that their partners
‘often’ or ‘all the time,’ ‘shook’ or ‘roughly handled’ them (58%); pushed or shoved them
(65.5%); slapped or smacked them or twisted their arm (55.2%) or kicked, bit or punched them
(46.6%) (Rees et al., 2006). Violence is not a necessary condition for coercive control, however,
and may be absent or have ceased in an estimated 25% of cases which evidence high degrees of
abuse-related entrapment (Piispa, 2002; Lischick, 2009).

Partner sexual assault (PSA) and coercion

The concurrence of PSA with physical abuse, stalking and other coercive and controlling
behaviour justifies identifying it as a defining element of coercive control. While 85% of the
women who reported partner rape to the CDC population study had also been assaulted, 81%
of those who were stalked reported they were also physically and/or sexually abused (Black
et al., 2011). Like male partner violence and in contrast to stranger or acquaintance rapes, PSA
is typically repeated, is used as a means to subordinate and degrade partners, and is part of a
spectrum of sexual coercion that includes the forced anal sex reported by 24% of the Refuge

21
Evan Stark

sample (Rees et al., 2006), ‘reproductive coercion’ (forced pregnancies or abortions, sabotage of
birth control), sexual inspection, sex trafficking, unwanted exposure and pornography and what
Stark (2017) calls ‘rape as routine’, where women comply with their partner’s demands because
of the ‘or else’ proviso.

Intimidation
If violence raises the physical costs of resistance, intimidation deflates the will to resist or report
abuse by instilling fear, dependence, compliance, loyalty and shame. Offenders induce these
effects in three ways primarily, through threats, surveillance and degradation.
Literal ­threats run the gamut from threats to kill to threats that are only understood by the
victim and may seem caring to outsiders. In the UK Refuge study, 79.5% of the women reported
that their partner threatened to kill them at least once, and 43.8% did so ‘often’ or ‘all the time’.
In addition, 60% of the men threatened to have the children taken away at least once, 36% threat-
ened to hurt the children, 63% threatened their friends or family and 82% threatened to destroy
things they cared about (Rees et al., 2006). Other common threatening behaviours involve vio-
lence against others, including pets; the destruction of personal or family property; making cher-
ished items (including pets) ‘disappear’; the ‘silent treatment’; and using drugs or alcohol to ‘lose
control’. Credible threats are criminal offences, but few are reported (Stark, 2007). Threats often
involve passive-aggressive behaviour such as threatened suicide or ‘the silent treatment’, with its
overlay of seething anger whose ‘explosion’ becomes unpredictable without verbal cues. In the
Refuge UK sample, more than half of the men threatened to hurt or kill themselves if the woman
left, and 35% used the same threat to get her to obey (Rees et al., 2006).
Another class of threats involves anonymous acts whose authorship is never in doubt, such
as ‘gaslighting’, a form of psychological abuse named after a 1944 film in which the husband
orchestrates ‘mind games’ to make his wife think she’s crazy. In the UK Refuge sample, 75%
of the women reported that their partners had tried to make them feel crazy ‘often’ or ‘all the
time’ and 32% threatened to have them committed to a mental institution (Rees et al., 2006).
Surveillance describes a continuum of intimidating behaviours designed to demonstrate a part-
ner’s omnipresence as well as omnipotence by eviscerating what Stark (2007) terms women’s
‘safety zones’, the arenas of her life where she can consider her options. The continuum extends
from stalking, including proxy, cyber and internal-stalking, through activities designed to moni-
tor women’s movement through social space. Eight-five per cent of the women in the US study
by Tolman (l989) and over 90% of the Refuge UK sample (Rees et al., 2006) reported that their
abusive partners monitored their time.
The stalking used in coercive control is distinguished from stranger stalking by its longer
duration, its link to physical and sexual violence, and by the fact that, in fully 79% of cases, the
male abuser stalks his partner both during the relationship as well as during periods of separation,
with small minorities stalked only during the relationship (11%) or only post-separation (6%)
(Logan et al., 2007).
Degradation encompasses emotional abuse but extends to multiple forms of shaming to establish
the abusers’ moral superiority by denying dignity and self-respect to their partners. Virtually all
of the women in the Refuge UK sample reported that their partners called them names (96%),
swore at them (94%), brought up things from their past to hurt them (95%), ‘said something to
spite me’ (97%) and ‘ordered me around’ (93%), and this happened ‘often’ or ‘all the time’ in
more than 70% of cases (Rees et al., 2006). These insults target areas of gender identity from
which a particular woman draws esteem, such as her cooking or her career, or about which
she is self-conscious, such as a disability. Shaming tactics include being subjected to forms of

22
 Coercive control as a framework

discipline used with children; marking in ways that signify ownership (tattoos, bruises, burns and
bites); sexual inspections and other humiliating enactments involving hygiene, toileting, eating
or sleeping; and forced criminal or other activity (such as corporal punishment of children)
contrary to a woman’s will or nature.

Control
The new definition identifies isolation, exploitation, deprivation and regulation as elements of
coercion by creating structural constraints that affect subordination/dependence as an objective
rather than a strictly ‘psychological’ condition and which are ‘portable’, i.e. they continue to
operate regardless of physical proximity.

Isolation
Isolation tactics prevent disclosure, instil dependence and establish exclusive possession of a
woman’s time and resources by cutting her off from sources of support and monopolizing her
perceptions of reality. Over 60% of the women in the US sample and 48% in the UK Refuge
sample said their partners kept them from seeing their families (Tolman, 1989; Rees et al., 2006)
and more than half of the women in both samples were forbidden to work. Eighty-one per cent
of the Refuge UK sample reported they had been kept from leaving the house with almost half
(47%) reporting this happened ‘often’ or ‘all the time’ (Rees et al., 2006). Fifty-four per cent of
the US sample were denied access to a car and this happened ‘often’ or ‘all the time’ for 31% of
the Refuge sample. By inserting themselves between their victims and the world outside, con-
trollers become their primary source of information, interpretation and validation. Thirty-six
per cent of abused women in one study had not had a single supportive or recreational experi-
ence during the previous month (Forte et al., 1996). In addition to being denied access, abused
women are isolated within the workplace and at other social arenas by having to periodically
‘check in’, answer repeated texts or calls or defend any unapproved social contact during lengthy
interrogations. Abused women also withdraw voluntarily from relationships to placate a part-
ner’s jealousy, prove their loyalty or out of shame related to the abuse, decisions that often lead
to an escalation of coercive control.

Exploitation, deprivation and regulation

The ‘materiality’ of coercive control derives from the tangible benefits abusers garner from
exploiting a victim’s money, sexuality, time, energy and other resources for personal gain, typi-
cally by ‘treating me like a servant’; depriving her of, or rationing her access to, the necessities
for daily survival and living, including money, food, housing and transportation, sex, sleep,
toileting and licit and illicit drugs; and by micro-managing activities of daily living, with a
particular focus on how partners enact the roles of ‘wife’, homemaker and mother that women
inherit by default. Four out of five of the abused women in US and British samples were treated
like ‘servants’ and 63% of the Refuge group said this happened ‘often’ or ‘all the time’. Higher
proportions were ‘treated like an inferior’ or ‘ordered around’ ‘often’ or ‘all the time’. Seventy-
nine per cent of the UK Refuge sample and 58% of the US sample were denied access to money
or had it taken from them through threats, violence or theft (Rees et al., 2006; Tolman, l989).
Conversely, 54% of US men charged with assaulting partners acknowledged they had taken their
partner’s money (Buzawa and Hotaling, 2003). Financial exploitation extends from denying
victims credit cards or money for necessities to hostage-like interrogations about each expense.

23
Evan Stark

Thirty-eight per cent of British men and 29% of abusers in the United States kept partners from
getting medicine or treatment they needed.
The major subjective experience of coercive control is a condition of entrapment that can be
hostage-like. This is illustrated by demands that women comply with ‘rules’ laid down for daily
living backed by the ‘or else’ proviso. Although regulations most often target how women dress,
cook, clean, care for children and perform sexually, they often extend to seemingly trivial activi-
ties such as the temperature of the bath water or how long she spends on the toilet. Some rules
express principles to which a woman may have consented, though the abuser remains their final
arbiter (e.g. ‘you will keep the house clean’; ‘you will not make me jealous’). But the very arbi-
trariness of others make them terroristic, eliciting shame because there is not even the pretext that
compliance is pure submission. As Mrsevic and Hughes (l997: 123) put it, ‘As men’s control over
women increases, the infractions against men’s wishes get smaller, until women feel as if they are
being beaten for “nothing”’. Because ‘control’ disables women’s capacity for effective resistance
and escape, it significantly increases women’s risk of serious or fatal physical or sexual assault more
than the severity or frequency of assault (Beck and Raghavan, 2010; Glass et al., 2004).
Violence, sexual assault, threats and certain aspects of harassment are currently criminal
offences, though they are far less likely to be prosecuted when committed by partners than
by strangers. But the vast majority of controlling acts are not crimes and only take their full
significance in the process of entrapment when they are combined with collateral constraints
such as the ‘or else’ proviso. The new definition and s.76 represent the first official recognition
in England and Wales that these behaviours are part of a single course of oppressive conduct.
Income, employment status, culture, family and individual psychology contribute to a wom-
an’s vulnerability to abuse as well as to how she copes. However, an assumption that remains
implicit in the new definition and s.76 is that, when a class of persons who are already vulner-
able by virtue of inequality is deprived of money or other vital resources, isolated from support
and stalked, exploited sexually and/or physically abused, their dependence/subordination is
structural, not only physical or psychological, and is therefore a matter for state intervention.

Challenges ahead
As of 30 June 2016, out of thousands of conventional domestic violence cases, fewer than
100 men had been charged under the new offence of ‘coercive and controlling behaviour’
(s.76) (Hill, 2016). Importantly, however, although the law is degendered, all of those charged
and convicted have been male, with the vast majority receiving significant custodial sentences.
These results are a marked contrast to the results of previous law enforcement efforts. Moreover,
in addition to being charged with physical and mental abuse that occurred ‘daily’ in some
instances, the offending men were charged with behaviours that had not previously been identi-
fied with abuse by intimates. These behaviours included controlling a partner’s access to and use
of her money, phone, Facebook or to social media more generally; enforced dieting; prohibit-
ing contact with friends, family as well as health services; monitoring and/or constraining her
movements into and through social space (e.g. ‘never letting her go out alone’); continual belit-
tlement; regulating what she wore, her sleep, hairstyle and makeup; harming and/or threatening
children; and continual jealous accusations. These behaviours are deemed harmful under s.76
because they compromise women’s autonomy, cause them ‘fear’ and ‘distress’ and contributed
to their ‘subordination’.
It remains unclear whether the government will adequately resource training and enforce-
ment so that the use of s.76 becomes more than symbolic. Even so, simply giving public voice
to the experience-based ‘wrong’ of coercive control has already transformed the narrative

24
 Coercive control as a framework

representation of male partner abuse in the various media, signalling a major cultural shift in
public understanding of abuse and so in the normative acceptance of a broad range of oppressive
acts heretofore relegated to the misfortunes faced by women in personal life. Nothing better
illustrates this change than the development of a long-running theme involving ‘gaslighting’ and
other elements of the coercive control of Helen Titchener by her husband Rob on the long-
running radio soap, The Archers (2016).
Another challenge is to set the new definition and s.76 into a comprehensive government
response to coercive control. Many of the programmatic reforms outlined in the IC under ‘pro-
tection’ and ‘prosecution’ are already in place throughout much of the UK, including a little-
used provision for police to remove offenders on an ‘emergency’ basis without a court order.
More challenging are the IC’s Prevention mandates for public awareness campaigns; partnerships
with media to combat gender stereotypes; integrating education about gender equality, mascu-
linity and non-violent conflict resolution into school curricula; and involving men and boys in
combating misogyny at all levels. The IC also calls for the development of national and local
plans to combat partner abuse with measureable goals.
Wales is the only country in the UK to adapt the IC mandates for prevention, accountability
and transparency. Unlike s.76 and the new definition, the 2015 Wales Violence against Women,
Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence Bill (‘Wales Bill’) recognizes the gendered nature of coer-
cive control and covers victims living apart from a perpetrator.4 But its singular importance is
that it requires the national and local governments to develop collaborative strategies to combat
gender-based violence; details the responsibilities of each level of government to develop and
implement the strategies, including local councils and health boards; sets specific timelines for
establishing goals, gathering data, formulating the strategy and putting it into play; requires the
identification of quantitative and qualitative indicators of violence against women and girls;
and establishes a system of statutory guidance to ensure that local strategies conformed to the
national strategy. The Wales Bill also creates a new office of the National Adviser with broad
powers to propose additional measures, conduct research, prepare reports, including reports
soliciting support for underserved victim populations (such as lesbians or transgender persons)
and monitor the overall development and implementation of the strategy.
The most controversial feature of the new law is also taken from the IC, the development of
curriculum in all schools (from nurseries to universities) reflecting the goals of the Bill, including
providing education about masculinity and gender equality. Paralleling the role of the national
adviser are ‘champions’ in schools and other institutions whose leadership is deemed critical to
local strategies. Bills currently being considered in Scotland and Northern Ireland are likely to
mirror and possibly, in the case of Scotland, go beyond the examples set by the Home Office and
Westminster. For the time being, the combination of the new definition, s.76 and the ‘Wales
Bill’ comprise the ‘gold standard’ in the recognition and management of coercive control.

Notes
1 The full text of the IC is available at www.coe.int/t/dghl/standardsetting/convention-violence/about_
en.asp.
2 A copy of the DASH and the related training materials are available at www.safe-services.org.uk/
uploads/ADVA CAADA DASH RIC.doc.
3 Rates at which offenders are charged and convicted have increased since the Northumbrian studies
(CPS, 2016).The CPS Report does not answer two crucial questions, however, whether enhanced prose-
cution is a function of increased reporting or whether attrition from reports to a conviction or a custodial
sentence has improved.
4 The text of the Bill is at gov.wales/legislation/programme/assemblybills/domestic-abuse/?lang=en.

25
Evan Stark

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Hill, A. (2016). Police failing to use new law against coercive domestic abuse. Guardian, 31 August.
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Rees, A., Agnew-Davies, R. and Barkham, M. (2006, June). Outcomes for women escaping domestic
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 2
What’s in a name?
The Scottish government, feminism and the
gendered framing of domestic abuse

Nancy Lombard and Nel Whiting

Introduction
In this chapter,1 we argue that Scotland is unique, differing from the other countries in the UK
in that feminists have been the driving force not simply in placing the issue of domestic abuse
on the public and political agenda, but in successfully establishing the issue as a gender-based
problem. The adoption of the term ‘domestic abuse’ in Scotland in 2000 was intended to better
reflect the range of behaviours enacted by perpetrators to control their partners. It highlights
that such abuse need not be physical and includes emotional, psychological and financial tactics,
all of which are used to create compliance in a partner.
Those who deal directly with and experience the issues are often best placed to recommend,
initiate and enact change proposals, whilst the government can act as a vehicle for their distribu-
tion. Unsurprisingly then, in all societies it is women who have spoken out first about violence
against themselves and their children, both in the home and outside of it (Kelly, 1988). Yet
often the issue of violence and what to do about it is taken and given to those in authority, who
are afforded the ‘power of naming’ (see Foucault, 1980) and consequently positioned to define
the issue for others – historically the power of definition has been afforded to men (Dobash and
Dobash, 1979). Bacchi (1999: 165) argues that it is not simply the ‘definition’ or ‘definer’ that
is of most relevance but how these labels function in contextualising the issue further in terms
of the ‘problem representation’. Thus, we can see how the issue of power pervades not only
violence and its perpetration, but also its conceptualisation. Feminists in Scotland, we argue,
have achieved an unparalleled success (within the UK) in claiming some of that power to name.
Scotland is one of four countries that make up the United Kingdom (the others are England,
Wales and Northern Ireland). It forms the northern part of the island of Great Britain, sharing a
land border with England. Devolution in 1999 established separate legislative bodies in Scotland
and Wales, however Scotland (as part of the historical legacy predating union of the parliaments in
1707) operated with different criminal justice and education systems even before that time. The
majority of Scotland’s 5.5 million population live in the central area around the two main cities,
Glasgow and Edinburgh. In the year 2015/16, the police in Scotland recorded 58,104 domestic
incidents, 79 per cent of which involved a female victim with a male perpetrator. During this period,
the police in Scotland attended a domestic incident every nine minutes, which accounted for

28
 What’s in a name?

15 per cent of all violent crime in Scotland. Of these incidents, 51 per cent led to a criminal
investigation (Scottish Government Statistical Bulletin).2
This chapter will outline how Scotland came to adopt a gender-based approach to domestic
abuse and highlight some of the work that has been and is being undertaken to tackle the issue
within this gendered framework. It will illustrate the extraordinary achievements in addressing
domestic abuse but argue that these developments remain ‘fragile’ (Mackay, 2010). We argue
that for this work to be successful, domestic abuse needs to continue to be conceptualised as
a consequence of continuing gender inequality and that only in doing so can the discursive
parameters be set for effective legislation and action.

The feminist dilemma and the history of Scotland’s feminist struggle

At the very core of feminism is a desire to reshape society. In the 1970s, second-wave femi-
nists, through the Women’s Liberation Movement (WLM), aimed to force societal change
and push what had previously been considered private issues onto the public agenda. They
launched what Charles (1995: 624) terms a ‘collective and practical challenge to male domina-
tion’. Domestic abuse became a focus of feminist consciousness raising and then campaigning in
all three countries (in Great Britain). Women’s Aid groups grew out of the WLM and a desire to
do something practical to address the social injustices faced by women. On one level, this meant
the provision of refuge, but political, social and cultural change has always been, and continues
to be, the ultimate goal (Greenan, 2004; Mackay, 2010).
Browne (2014) argues that the WLM in Scotland was in some ways quite distinct from that in
England, partly because it felt that women in Scotland had even more inequality to overcome. For
example, legislatively – divorce reform (meaning there was no need for a guilty party) was passed in
England and Wales in 1969 but not until 1976 in Scotland; the Domestic Violence and Matrimonial
Proceedings Act 1976 gave enhanced police protection to women in England and Wales, but not in
Scotland. These disparities in legal protection were a real focus for feminists. Furthermore, Scottish
women did not always feel heard by the sisters in England and when local Women’s Aid groups
in Scotland were encouraged to affiliate with others from England, under an umbrella led by the
Chiswick refuge, representatives of the Scottish groups instead agreed to form their own umbrella
body in order to push forward the work in their country (Browne, 2014). Since these early begin-
nings, the women’s movement in Scotland has been central in shaping political response to issues of
gender representation and placing gender inequality squarely on the political map.
Feminists across the UK faced, and indeed continue to face, a dilemma in their work to
change society: should they be radical and explicit in their demands or should they be prag-
matic and ask for developments that could be achievable and thus effect change incrementally.
Often a two-pronged approach was taken: while feminists worked with the state (at local and
national levels) to provide shelter and support for women they also worked independently from
its ideologies, structures and ways of working. Within their own working practice they were
modelling alternative ways of working through, for example, collective working but they rec-
ognised that they needed to work with the state for resources. Browne (2014: 168) maintained
that Women’s Aid in Scotland was

influenced by revolutionary feminist thinking, and most of their actions were aligned to a
reformist agenda. Had they adopted the revolutionary feminist approach in its entirety then
they would have entered into direct conflict with the police, law courts and government.
Instead they lobbied local government.

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Nancy Lombard and Nel Whiting

While this dual approach also occurred in England, it has been argued (Cuthbert and Irving,
2001; Lovenduski and Randall, 1993) that where the WLM began to wane in England it
experienced a resurgence in Scotland in the 1980s and the radical spirit was sustained here
for longer.
That spirit in Scotland was in evidence not only in political lobbying and practical activism
but in engagement with the academy and research evidence to support the cause. Pioneer femi-
nist academics and activists worked together to theorise the issue. A significant landmark was the
publication of Violence Against Wives: A Case Against the Patriarchy (Dobash and Dobash, 1979),
a book which, for the first time, analysed police records and highlighted the extent of domes-
tic abuse experienced by women.3 The issue was explained both quantifiably and through the
development of a qualitative ‘thick description’ of the violence experienced. The study found
that a quarter of violent crime the police were dealing with in the geographical areas researched
was domestic. The empirical evidence provided a springboard for further campaigning around
police response, prosecution and the need for adequate housing. Furthermore, through the
interviews with women in Women’s Aid refuges the researchers identified the importance
of looking beyond physical violence to understand the emotional, psychological, sexual and
financial control that women were subjected to. This was innovative research: for the first time
academics were building an analysis of violence based on what they were told by victim/survi-
vors about their lived reality. From this time onwards, change happened, but was incremental
and piecemeal. Importantly, however, much of that change was predicated on the proposals
presented by the grassroots women’s movement (Abrar, 1996; Charles, 1995).
As time passed, feminists in Scotland continued to monitor political developments to identify
opportunities to promote radical change and improve the lives of women. Local government
reorganisation in the mid-1990s provided stimulus for an effort to tackle the issue in a more
strategic way (Greenan, 2004). Continued lobbying ensured that feminists won their place
at the strategic table, such as influencing and contributing to the publication of Scotland’s
first guidance on developing multi-agency partnerships to address the subject (COSLA, 1998).
Devolution from the rest of the UK in 1999 proved pivotal in changing Scotland’s political
landscape (Scott, 2005). Mackay argues that ‘the elections in 1999 resulted in a gender coup that
transformed the face of Scottish politics’ (2004: 1, emphasis in original).
Over 40 per cent of MSPs elected to the new Scottish Parliament were women. Following
sustained campaigning by a broad-based feminist alliance a significant shift in policy occurred.
It was not, however, simply that there were proportionately many more women politicians
than at Westminster or that the intake included those who had links to the refuge movement.
The Scottish Partnership on Domestic Abuse was established by the Scottish Office in 1998 in
preparation for devolution and a policy worker from Scottish Women’s Aid was seconded to
the Scottish Office to take the policy work forward. As such, the expertise of Women’s Aid
was recognised and they, and other feminist groups, had secured their voice at the policy table.
Domestic abuse moved from the periphery to become firmly established as a key policy priority.
A national partnership was formed, leading to the development of a domestic abuse strategy,
which was framed around the definition of domestic abuse outlined above. From this starting
point, multi-agency initiatives have been coordinated and training agendas promoted within
different local authority areas in Scotland (see Rummery, 2013; Whiting, 2013).
In Scotland the strategic focus broadened to incorporate all forms of violence against women
(The Scottish Government, 2009). With the publication in 2014 of ‘Equally Safe’, the govern-
ment announced ‘a step change in emphasis on preventing violence from occurring in the first
place, and where it does occur intervening at the earliest possible stage to minimise the harm
caused’ (Equally Safe, 2014: 14). While some activities coming out of the various iterations of

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 What’s in a name?

Scottish government strategy on domestic abuse have also occurred in England and Wales, it is
the framing as a gender-based issue which set Scotland apart.

Terminology: what’s in a name?

Definitions of violence against women are culturally, historically and spatially specific (Hester
and Westmarland, 2004), and in Scotland the phrase ‘domestic abuse’ is used. Hearn and McKie
(2009) argue the definition given to an issue provides the ‘parameters’ within which it is under-
stood and addressed. The adoption of the term was intended to better reflect the range of
behaviours enacted by perpetrators to control their partners. It highlights that such abuse need
not be physical and includes emotional, psychological and financial tactics, all of which are used
to create compliance in a partner.
Furthermore, Scotland has recognised the social problem of domestic abuse within the con-
tinuum of violence against women as a form of gender-based violence. In so doing, it explicitly
acknowledges domestic abuse as an issue which disproportionately affects women and is over-
whelmingly perpetrated by men and is associated with long-held cultural assumptions about the
roles of men and women in society (Gadd et al., 2002; Lombard, 2013; McFeely et al., 2013). In
the year 2000, the Scottish government published its National Strategy to Address Domestic Abuse
in Scotland, which states:

Domestic abuse (as gender based abuse) . . . is associated with broader gender inequality and
should be understood in its historical context, whereby societies have given greater status,
wealth, influence, control and power to men. It is part of a range of behaviours constituting
male abuse of power, and is linked to other forms of male violence.
(Scottish Executive, 2000: 5)

This continues to be the focus in Scotland with the most recent strategy to tackle violence
against women and girls, ‘Equally Safe’ (2014), stating:

The strategy recognises that women and girls are at risk of such abuse precisely because they
are female and it aligns with the UN definition of violence against women that includes
the girl child, reflecting that this risk is present throughout life. It is gender, rather than
age, that predicts an individual’s likelihood of experiencing inequality and the forms of
violence described above, with girls, young women and adult women all at risk because
they are female.

By locating such violence within the power structures inherent in our society, the Scottish
government adheres to a feminist definition which sees this violence as both a cause and con-
sequence of inequality. Scotland is significant in being the only country in the UK to do this.4
This is neither accidental nor incidental: the adoption of the feminist analysis of domestic abuse
in Scotland, as highlighted above, was the result of ongoing feminist political activism.

A comparison: Wales and the challenge of gender-neutral framings

Work around domestic violence in Wales really began in earnest during the second term of the
National Assembly (2003–2007) with the publication of a national strategy. While a national
strategy to address domestic violence cannot be understood as anything but encouraging in terms
of profile for the issue, in feminist terms the strategy was lacking. Most importantly, domestic

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Nancy Lombard and Nel Whiting

violence was defined in what is often described as ‘gender-neutral terms’. The phrase is, in fact,
a misnomer: if an issue so overwhelmingly affects one group in society (in this instance, women)
it is not neutral to define in a manner which implies that women and men experience it in the
same way and in the same numbers.
The strategy did acknowledge that ‘the great majority of domestic abuse is perpetrated against
women and their children’ (Tackling Domestic Abuse: An All Wales Strategy, p. 7) but, nonethe-
less, defined domestic violence as ‘The use of physical and/or emotional abuse or violence,
including undermining of self-confidence, sexual violence or the threat of violence, by a person
who is or has been in a close relationship’ (Tackling Domestic Abuse: An All Wales Strategy, p. 6).
A conflict is thus established between the acknowledgement that domestic violence is gendered
and the definitional denial of this reality. Furthermore, the acknowledgement that domestic
violence disproportionally affects women and children is indeed a very partial explanation of the
gendered nature of the issue. It overlooks the gendered nature of the abuse itself, abuse defined
by Evan Stark as ‘the microregulation of everyday behaviors associated with stereotypic female
roles, such as how women dress, cook, clean, socialize, care for their children, or perform sexu-
ally’. Stark also argues that it is gendered ‘because it is used to secure male privilege’ and that
‘there is no counterpart in men’s lives to women’s entrapment by men in personal life due to
coercive control’.
Furthermore, it ignores the structural gender inequalities which mean women are more
likely to earn less, have access to secure housing and be more likely to be living in poverty
(see, for example, Arber, 1991; McFeely et al., 2013) and thus that they are more likely to
feel and remain trapped in their situation. Nor does it take into account the gendered nature
of responses from society, responses which hold the woman accountable for the abuse she
experiences, especially if she has children and is seen to have ‘failed to protect’ her children
(see Hester, 2013). Finally, it fails to acknowledge the gendered reality of the law and crimi-
nal justice system, which misrecognises the nature of the abuse, focusing on discrete acts of
physical violence rather than coercive control. The gendered nature of domestic violence lies
not simply in the fact that men are more likely to perpetrate abuse than women, nor in the
gendered nature of what a perpetrator does to his victim, but equally in the gendered societal
and service responses to her situation, ranging from blame and hostility to an averted gaze to
the terrifying lived reality of her situation.
Equally problematically, the definition contained within the strategy is so broad that it
extends beyond partners and ex-partners to what would more usefully be described as family
violence, an umbrella term encompassing domestic abuse, child abuse, forced marriage and a
range of abuse that can occur in a domestic setting. This focus on the geographical space of the
home as the site of the abuse both misconveys the dynamics of the abuse and conflates forms
of abuse that, while similar tactics may be used by a perpetrator (physical, sexual, emotional,
psychological, financial) and impacts felt by the victims, in fact differ in terms of dynamics. As
Stark’s model of coercive control highlights, domestic violence is associated with the perpe-
trator’s expectations of his relationship with his partner, of how he will be serviced by her. It
is about the relationship not the space. And there are different expectations of a relationship
between a parent and child than of partners, thus the dynamics of abuse play out differently.
If a definition is stretched too wide, even with the good intention of not excluding potential
victims and perpetrators of abuse, its explanatory power diminishes. This was the case of the
Welsh strategy definition (Welsh Government, 2016). Unfortunately, the so-called gender-
neutral definition contained within the strategy led, perhaps predictably, to some local authori-
ties pressurising Women’s Aid services to open up their services to men. This has not as yet
occurred in Scotland.

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Implementing the gendered definition across Scotland

The original strategy (2001) identified three approaches necessary to address domestic abuse
holistically, known as the ‘3Ps, a concept introduced by the feminist organisation Zero
Tolerance’.5 Following on from the strategy publication in 2001 and the Equally Safe strategy in
2015, the (now) Scottish government has retained the gendered definition and this has been at
the forefront of all service design and delivery – what was known originally as the 3Ps; namely
‘protection’ (legal remedy), ‘provision’ (effective service response to women and children expe-
riencing domestic abuse) and ‘prevention’ (methods to try to stop domestic abuse, occurring or
to reduce reoffending). In Scotland the strategic focus has broadened to incorporate all forms of
violence against women (The Scottish Government, 2009), illustrating not only the gendered
definition but also how this is implemented in practice. Previous writing has discussed the
implementation and success of these in detail (see Lombard and Whiting, 2015); here we are
interested in how the elements of provision, protection and prevention can be highlighted as
prioritising gender as the main explanatory approach of these strategies. The next section will
discuss the extent to which Scotland’s services are framed by the gendered model and in doing
so will highlight the centrality of women’s experiences.

Provision: specialist services in Scotland

In Scotland, the Women’s Aid network continues as the main provider of specialist services
to women and children affected by domestic abuse. The network currently comprises Scottish
Women’s Aid (the national campaigning and lobbying organisation) and 35 local Women’s Aid
groups providing specialist domestic abuse services across the whole of Scotland from the Borders
to Shetland. The network also includes two groups, Shakti and Hemat Gryffe, set up to work
specifically with women from Black and minority ethnic communities. Their focus encompasses
work on forced marriage and other forms of ‘honour’ based violence in addition to domestic
abuse. Women’s Aid services range from crisis intervention – providing safe refuge accommoda-
tion – to supporting families as they rebuild their lives. Groups provide outreach services in the
community, supporting women and children in their own home or at drop-in services in local
health or community centres. Many also deliver training to professionals locally and carry out
prevention work in schools. In relation to other countries in the UK and beyond, Scotland is
comparatively well served by specialist services, with services more evenly distributed than else-
where (Coy et al., 2007). Evaluation work undertaken by Scottish Women’s Aid to establish the
impact of the network’s services highlights both the continuing need for these specialist services
and their value (Scottish Women’s Aid, 2011).
The greatest threat to specialist domestic abuse services for victims comes from calls to
‘de-gender’ services. Both the governments of England (Home Office, 2012) and Wales (Welsh
Assembly, 2005) caved to pressure from men’s rights activists (MRAs) investing in services for
male victims (helplines and refuges) and female perpetrators (cognitive behavioural therapy
group programmes) even though research highlighted that men did not experience fear in their
relationships and did not need the same channels of ‘escape’ made available to them (Gadd
et al., 2002; Harne, 2011; Hester, 2009; Respect, 2008). At the same time, women’s services
were either having their funding cut or being threatened with cuts if they did not extend their
services to ‘all’ (Cockcroft, 2009).
Women’s Aid groups in Scotland have not faced the same concerted pressure, largely due to
the success of feminist lobbying over the years as outlined above and the fact that MRA groups
have been less visible and vocal in Scotland than in England. A key example of this was the

33
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commissioning of a research study into the domestic abuse of men the year after the Scottish
Executive Strategy was delivered following men’s rights groups’ agitation and findings from the
Scottish Crime Survey that highlighted one in six men had experienced domestic abuse. The
research team followed up with the men, who were part of the original Scottish Crime Survey,
and interviewed them about their experiences. Gadd et al. found that the men’s accounts varied
between those who had experienced an altercation with another male in a domestic setting,
burglaries and those who had experienced an isolated incidence of violence with a partner.
There were also those who were what Gadd and his team termed ‘equal combatants’ and
‘primary instigators’. The significance of this study was that it highlighted that men did not
experience domestic abuse to the same extent, on the same scale or experience the same impact
as women. It highlighted the credibility of the then Scottish Executive to reference the gendered
differences in domestic abuse perpetration and victimisation. It also illustrated, and justified, the
need for a gendered definition.

Protection: the criminal justice system

Legal protection in Scotland falls under two branches: criminal and civil. In criminal law, the state
takes a case against a party. A civil case is one that is pursued by a private party against another. Both
are applicable to domestic abuse. Victims may engage with the law when they are called as wit-
nesses to give evidence in a criminal case, or they may apply to the courts for protective orders. In
Scotland, the decision to prosecute is made by the Procurator Fiscal. In 2013 a National Procurator
Fiscal for Domestic Abuse was appointed to review how such cases are handled, and encourage an
effective response. The development of such a post is evidence of key statutory agencies in Scotland
seeking to effectively engage with the issue and reflect on their own practice, and it also provided
opportunities for feminists to continue their engagement with institutions to effect change.
Nonetheless the prosecution of domestic abuse cases remains fraught with difficulty; there
is a mismatch between legislation and process, and what we know about domestic abuse as a
course of conduct crime which entraps victims through fear, coercion and control (Stark, 2007).
The Scottish Government is currently consulting on legislation to rectify this, following a simi-
lar move in England and Wales in 2015. It is an indication of the ‘fragile’ nature of embedded
change that in this area Scotland is not leading the way as it has in the past. However, it also
represents the culmination of ten years of lobbying by feminists for legal recognition of the lived
reality of domestic abuse as coercive control.

Definition used by the police

A pivotal moment in policing was in 2013 when Chief Constable Stephen House declared domes-
tic abuse to be one of the three priorities for Police Scotland, the new unitary Scottish force. The
re-framing of domestic abuse as a violent crime and not, as it had been, ‘a women’s issue’, pro-
vided recognition of the seriousness of the offence for both the general public and police officers.

Domestic abuse means tackling some of the most dangerous and difficult offenders across
Scotland. They will attempt to control victims by creating a culture of fear, perhaps starting
with controlling access to money, friends and family, even clothing. We want to transfer that
fear to the offender – by making it clear we will do everything within our power to target
offenders and bring them to justice. Every officer in Scotland now has a responsibility to
identify offenders, target their behaviour and ensure crimes are pursued through the courts.
(House, 2013)

34
 What’s in a name?

Alongside this focus upon criminalising offenders, activists and those working in the criminal
justice system recognised that there was a need for offenders to be treated efficiently and effec-
tively through the court systems. A joint protocol between the police and COPFS was first
launched at a Scottish Women’s Aid conference in 2005 and has undergone several iterations
to update it. Throughout this process feminists have been at the table, feeding information
and helping to shape the protocol. The most recent protocol was launched in March 2017 and
more accurately reflects the growing understanding of coercive control and the impact on chil-
dren and young people. The definition highlights the gendered nature of the problem, stating:

it is acknowledged that domestic abuse as a form of gender based violence is predomi-

nately perpetrated by men against women. This definition also acknowledges and includes
abuse of male victims by female perpetrators and includes abuse of lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people within relationships.
(Joint Protocol Between Police Scotland and the
Crown Office Procurator Fiscal Service: In Partnership
Challenging Domestic Abuse, 2017: 2)

While the definition seeks to include all possible victims, it holds to the gendered analysis in a
much more explicit and stronger way than the Home Office definition in England or the defini-
tion used in Wales, discussed earlier.
An important part of making the domestic abuse court work was effective support to victims.
As a result, ASSIST, a domestic abuse advocacy service that works alongside the police and the
domestic abuse courts, was established. ASSIST’s role is to reduce victimisation by assessing the risk
and increasing the safety of clients at risk of harm from partners or ex-partners. While the service
is open to all victims of domestic abuse, due to the gendered reality of the issue, the overwhelm-
ing majority of those supported are women. An evaluation of the system (Reid Howie Associates,
2007) concluded the outcomes for victims were greatly enhanced through the combination of
specialist advocacy, specially trained criminal justice practitioners and reduced waiting times in
getting to court. The report also noted a significantly greater number of early guilty pleas by the
accused. Subsequently, there have been efforts in other areas of Scotland to replicate the Glasgow
court, but this is by no means universal. ASSIST and other similar services that have grown up
where domestic abuse courts have been introduced are an example of feminist approaches to
domestic abuse becoming embedded in mainstream service provision. As such this represents a
positive step; at the same time it is important, as outlined above, that independent and third sector
feminist voices continue to hold the mainstream to account.

Prevention: awareness raising

Prevention is one of the core elements of the Scottish government’s strategy to address men’s
violence against women:

Our aim is to prevent and eradicate violence against women and girls, creating a strong and
flourishing Scotland where all individuals are equally safe and respected, and where women
and girls live free from such abuse – and the attitudes that help perpetuate it.
(Equally Safe, 2014)

Because domestic abuse (and violence against women in particular) is recognised as arising
from gendered inequality, violence cannot be prevented until women’s position within society

35
Nancy Lombard and Nel Whiting

changes (see also Kelly, 1999). In this way, Scotland differs significantly from other countries
in the UK. In Wales, for example, with its gender-neutral definition and framing of domes-
tic violence as a criminal justice issue, prevention work primarily focuses on reducing crime
(Charles and Mackay, 2013).
The current Scottish government approach to primary prevention has its roots in the
1992 Zero Tolerance campaign, the first significant attempt to tackle societal attitudes which
created a conducive context for domestic abuse. The brainchild of two feminists (Franki
Raffles and Evelyn Gillan) and an initiative of the Edinburgh District Council Women’s
Committee, the campaign deliberately sought to use mainstream marketing techniques
(high-profile media campaigns, slick adverts, engagement with the public and politicians),
adopting an approach of primary prevention to challenge attitudes, values and structures that
sustain inequality and men’s violence against women and children. It was an overtly feminist
initiative setting out to challenge stereotypes of violence against women in a way that empow-
ered women and challenged men but did so with ‘broad political, civic and church backing’
(Mackay, 1996: 206).
The campaign was immensely powerful. It continues to be used around the UK and is a
benchmark for the promotion of positive images of women who have experienced violence. Its
legacy lives on in the gendered focus on prevention outlined in current Scottish government
strategies such as that advocated in Equally Safe:

The earlier that there is a shift in discriminatory cultures, attitudes and behaviours the bet-
ter, and primary and secondary schools are key settings for early intervention . . . Education
professionals therefore have a huge opportunity to lead the way in attitudinal change, being
in a prime position to nurture the next generations on positive gender roles and healthy,
equal relationships from an early age.
(Equally Safe, 2014: 24)

Whilst schools have the potential to make a key contribution to achieving gender equality, in 2015
the UN Special Rapporteur Rashida Manjoo stated that, ‘shortcomings remain in ensuring the
promotion of gender equality and challenging harmful attitudes and behaviours, including among
children and teenagers, especially at schools’. More recently, the UK government’s Women and
Equalities Committee recommended that sexual harassment and violence should be tackled via
whole-school approaches.
A problem identified by Rape Crisis and Zero Tolerance in their ‘Whole Schools
Approach’ has been the piecemeal approach of intervention. This is not a new issue, with pre-
vention programmes and initiatives more likely to be encouraged in schools where teachers
had a specific interest in the area (see also Lombard, 2015). Currently Relationships, Sexual
Health and Parenthood Education (RSHPE) is part of Health and Wellbeing in Curriculum
for Excellence, and should be delivered by schools with all pupils aged 3–18. Health and
Wellbeing has the same importance, according to the Scottish government, as literacy and
numeracy. However, the learning experience of young people is still dependent upon local
authority provision, expertise within the school and sometimes the involvement of external
organisations whether they are statutory – such as the police (MVP programme) or voluntary
(such as Rape Crisis).
According to Lombard and Harris (2018) whilst violence prevention is important, it is also
critical that:

36
 What’s in a name?

all education programmes and awareness training should to be underpinned by solid under-
standings of gender and the need to understand gender (in)equality. Teachers can encourage
the promotion of positive, respectful relationships and the prevention of violence through
delivery of Curriculum for Excellence, in particular the experiences and outcomes around
healthy relationships, issues of control and sexual health and wellbeing.

Current initiatives in primary schools (Lombard and Harris, 2018) and those proposed by
Equally Safe place gender equality at the centre of prevention and education work in both
primary and secondary schools with youth initiatives leading the way before this (for example,
Under Pressure, 2011). The health sector has also been the site of a nationwide prevention ini-
tiative from 2007. The initiative introduced routine enquiry of domestic abuse in mental health,
maternity, addictions, sexual and reproductive health, accident and emergency, and primary care
settings. All female service users are asked about their experience of domestic abuse, regardless of
whether or not there are any signs of abuse or whether abuse is suspected. (Additionally all ser-
vice users in addictions, sexual and reproductive health were asked about experiences of sexual
abuse.) It was an ambitious programme and of mixed success. On the positive side, over 3,000
health staff throughout Scotland have been trained to undertake routine enquiry and excellent
resources have been produced. However, the initiative also faced scepticism, indifference and
sometimes hostility from managers and practitioners at a local level. This negative reaction was
framed variously as due to competing priorities and stretched resources, with a consequent
hesitance to take on ‘new’ work, a stated lack of understanding as to how domestic abuse is a
health issue, or difficulty with the ‘limited’ nature of the programme (i.e. its gendered nature).
This reaction confirms Mackay’s warning that, despite the progress in addressing domestic abuse
in Scotland, the issue is not yet ‘fully institutionalised or routinised as a mainstream policy area’
(2010: 383). The gains and progress made in Scotland are at once enormous and fragile.

Conclusion
Devolution, in particular, opened up opportunities to promote a gendered analysis of domestic
abuse, which had a noteworthy impact on policy and practice and which has set Scotland apart
from other jurisdictions within the UK. For example, unlike in other areas, there has not been
large-scale pressure on the refuge network to open up services to men. Furthermore, preven-
tion work undertaken in Scotland seeks to reduce the gender inequality that is seen as causing
domestic abuse. These differences can, in part, be attributed to the strength and influence of the
women’s movement in Scottish political activism and civic life prior to devolution. It can also
partly be explained by the active lobbying of ministers and parliamentarians, effective engage-
ment with the government’s legislative and policy consultation programme, including giving
evidence to parliamentary committees, and the strategic interventions of feminist parliamentar-
ians and ministers who drove policy post-devolution. As a result, Scotland has been identified
as an exemplar for its approach. Writing in 2007, Coy et al. argued that Scotland should be
‘recognised as a benchmark with respect to its strategic approach, its recognition that violence
is the cause and consequence of women’s inequality and its commitment to enhancing capacity
and diversity of provision’ (2007: 6).
Yet despite this praise, and the enormous achievements and developments outlined above, the
progress remains ‘fragile’. The gender analysis remains contested and initiatives often do not have
the impact they might, as they are driven in pockets by champions as opposed to being adopted

37
Nancy Lombard and Nel Whiting

unanimously or deeply embedded in organisational response. It is vital this unique approach is

not lost to what is often described as ‘gender-neutral terms’. The phrase is, in fact, a misnomer: if
an issue so overwhelmingly affects one group in society (in this instance, women) it is not neutral
to define in a way so as to imply that women and men experience it in the same way and in the
same numbers. While many who call for such so-called neutrality in policy statements may be
doing so for good intentions and in the name of equality, they fall into the trap of believing that
equality means treating everyone the same. This approach averts its gaze from structural inequali-
ties in society and thereby avoids addressing the very inequity that the initiative was seeking to
address. It is an approach detrimental to women and children but one that equally swerves from
engagement with the negative impact gender constructs can have on some men’s well-being and
ignores the gendered nature of domestic violence for the minority of men who do experience
it. Scotland’s next step must be to find a way to expand the support base of its lauded approach.

Notes
1 An earlier version of this chapter was originally published as Lombard, N. and Whiting, N. (2015)
Domestic Abuse: Feminism, the Government and the Unique Case of Scotland. In L. Goodmark and
R. Goel (eds), Comparative Perspectives on Domestic Violence: Lessons from Efforts Worldwide. Oxford University
Press. This version has been updated and changed
2 Official data however cannot provide a full analysis of the true extent of male violence against women.
Discrepancies also arise from the use of conflicting definitions, methodologies, measurements and con-
texts (Walby and Myhill, 2001). Some forms of abuse that women may experience are not labelled as
‘violence’ by legal codes or frameworks and thus are not classified as crimes (see Kelly, 1988).
3 This early example of the close collaboration between academics, activists and survivors remains an
important strength of Scotland’s approach to domestic abuse and is evidenced in the Gender Based
Violence Research Network, which brings together academics and practitioners which help ensure a
robust evidence base on the nature of the problem and evidence-driven service responses.
4 See Scottish Executive (2000; 2001).
5 This has since been amended to four to include ‘participation’.

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 3
On the limits of typologies
Understanding young men’s use of
violence in intimate relationships

David Gadd and Mary-Louise Corr

While much national and international policy on domestic violence points to the need to
tackle perpetrators as if they are a relatively homogenous group, there is relative consensus
among those who undertake practice interventions with men who use violence against women
that they are not all the same. Within the academic literature two approaches to recognising
heterogeneity have gained ascendency: one focused on the nature of the violence; the other
on the psychological profiles of perpetrators. The two approaches are not mutually exclusive,
though their emphases differ. The first approach has come to be closely associated with Michael
Johnson’s (2006) book, A Typology of Domestic Violence, and its re-elaboration in Kelly and
Johnson’s article (2008). The second approach begins, not with the categorisation of violent
incidents, but instead with the classification of the psychological characteristics found among
perpetrators in treatment programmes. Holtzworth-Munroe and Stuart’s (1994) typology is
currently the most well known of these.
Both approaches are founded upon distinctions that have been reproduced in numerous
studies using comparable data sets and can thus be deemed ‘reliable’ in the social-scientific sense
of the word. And there is thus good reason for exploring some conceptual synthesis between
the two approaches, as their exponents have argued (Holzworth-Munroe and Meehan, 2004;
Johnson, 2006). We wish, however, to caution against overstating the validity or meaningful-
ness of such distinctions, for categorisations that appear bold in aggregated data often look more
blurred at the individual level. Both models, we argue, capture snapshots that are undynamic
in their conceptualisations of perpetrator psychology and abusive relationships. This shortcom-
ing is perhaps beside the point in a policy debate that continues to assume that perpetrators are
mostly the same in terms of their personalities and motives, but in the world of practice, where
full knowledge of what has happened in a client’s past is rarely accessible and what is known is
open to contestation, there are dangers in suggesting that domestic violence generally takes one
of three or four forms.
One core danger is the potential to miss the specific meaning of domestic violence for
perpetrators. Missing this meaning, as we wish to illustrate in this chapter using a single case
study, makes two undesirable outcomes more likely: first, that danger signs will go unno-
ticed by those trying to support men who have used violence; and second, that opportunities

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David Gadd and Mary-Louise Corr

to perceive non-violent futures will be missed by former perpetrators whose violence has
damaged relationships upon which they were dependent. This is especially the case with
younger groups of adult men – the subsection of the population survey research consistently
shows to perpetrate the most disproportionate amount of domestic violence relative to other
age bands, as well as the age band most likely to report having been assaulted by a partner
themselves (ONS, 2014) – who perhaps have most opportunity to do things differently in
subsequent relationships.

Patterns of violence
Of course, it is the very need to find more responsive solutions to domestic violence that
has inspired efforts to differentiate patterns of domestic violence more precisely. As Kelly and
Johnson (2008: 477–478) explain it:

The value of differentiating among types of domestic violence is that appropriate screen-
ing instruments and processes can be developed that more accurately describe the central
dynamics of the partner violence, the context, and the consequences. This can lead to bet-
ter decision making, appropriate sanctions, and more effective treatment programs tailored
to the different characteristics of partner violence.

The risks of attempting such differentiation, as Kelly and Johnson also acknowledge, include the
‘the reification or misapplication’ of categories, with ‘potentially lethal results’ for women and
children as safeguarding decisions are made on evidence that is ‘too limited’ (p. 478). Through
a synthesis of the research literature Johnson (2006) has attempted to resolve a long-standing
disagreement between those family violence researchers, like Straus (1993), who perceive gen-
der symmetry in domestic violence, i.e. that men and women perpetrate it at roughly similar
rates, and those feminist researchers who point to the predominance of male to female violence
(e.g. Dobash et al., 1992). Johnson argues persuasively that the debate is largely a methodologi-
cal artefact – derivative of the sampling frames of community studies and national victimisation
surveys – and that, were the data to be synthesised, one would be able to delineate four broad
types of domestic violence: ‘Situational Couple Violence’, ‘Coercively Controlling Violence’
(sometimes also referred to as ‘intimate terrorism’ or ‘patriarchal terrorism’) ‘Violent Resistance’
and ‘Separation-Instigated Violence’. Critically, Johnson (2006) and Kelly and Johnson’s (2008)
position is that we should respond differently to violence that has ‘its basis in the dynamic
of power and control’ (p. 479) and that which does not. Like Stark (2007), they describe
Coercively Controlling Violence as entailing a ‘pattern of emotionally abusive intimidation,
coercion, and control coupled with physical violence against partners’ (p. 478). It is asymmetric
in its nature and often severe in its physical and psychological consequences for victims trapped
in relationships where they are perennially fearful for their own and/or their children’s safety.
Kelly and Johnson argue that ‘Situational Couple Violence’, by contrast, ‘is not based on a
relationship dynamic of coercion and control, is less severe, and mostly arises from conflicts
and arguments between the partners’ (2008: 481). In the family violence literature Situational
Couple Violence is sometimes conceived as ‘mutual combat’, done by both parties to each other
in some kind of complementary pattern. It includes the kind of verbal arguments that spill into
physical ‘fighting’ in times of crisis or conflict, that may cause one person, usually the man, to
respond to a push or a slap with more forceful violence or battery (Straus, 1993). Once such
escalation has occurred it is a moot point as to whether the violence can be characterised merely

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 On the limits of typologies

as ‘mutual’ or ‘reciprocal’ (Dobash et al., 1992), much hinging, it seems, on whether one party
becomes fearful of subsequent reprisals.

Fear of the partner is not characteristic of women or men in Situational Couple Violence,
whether perpetrator, mutual combatant, or victim. Unlike the misogynistic attitudes
toward women characteristic of men who use Coercive Controlling Violence, men who
are involved in Situational Couple Violence do not differ from nonviolent men on measures
of misogyny.
(Kelly and Johnson, 2008: 485)

Citing Holtzworth-Munroe et al. (2000), Kelly and Johnson (2008: 486) argue that violence and
jealousy ‘may also exist as a recurrent theme in Situational Couple Violence, with accusations
of infidelity expressed in conflicts’. Such violence, they say, is ‘initiated’ at similar rates by men
and women and is unlikely to ‘escalate’ over time (p. 486). Likewise, in cases where violence
is Separation-Instigated, Kelly and Johnson posit that it is often the trauma and or humiliation
of being left or losing one’s home or children that prompts acts of aggression. Although usually
limited to ‘one’ or ‘two’ episodes (p. 479) these aggressive acts can leave ‘partners . . . stunned
and frightened by the unaccustomed violence’ making it harder to resolve childcare issues.
By contrast, in Coercively Controlling relationships the threat of escalating violence is used
to intimidate partners into compliance. Where victims do use violence in these Coercively
Controlling relationships it can be conceived as Violent Resistance, geared towards thwart-
ing their entrapment. It is important, Kelly and Johnson suggest, that the predominantly male
perpetrators of Coercively Controlling Violence are monitored and exposed to programmes
that successfully ‘explore the destructiveness of such authoritarian relationships, and challenge
men’s assumptions that they have the right to control their partners’ (p. 491). By contrast, men
and women whose violence is Situational or Separation-Instigated might not be a continued
threat once the initial source of the conflict has passed or the relationship has concluded. Such
perpetrators are thus more likely to benefit from interventions that teach the ‘interpersonal
skills needed to prevent arguments from escalating to verbal aggression and ultimately to vio-
lence’: such as ‘anger management techniques’, like ‘taking timeouts’, ‘communication skills’
and learning to recognise ‘negative attributions’ (p. 491).

Personality types
A core question that Amy Holtzworth-Munroe and her colleagues have explored is whether
the nature and severity of domestic violence can be correlated with measurable personality
traits. Their answer, which Johnson (2006) endorses, is that it can. Taking account of the
severity and frequency of violence against spouses, whether or not the violence was exclusive
to the family context or something the offender was more pervasively engaged in, and meas-
ures of psychopathology and personality disorders, Holtzworth-Munroe and Stuart (1994)
identified three subtypes of ‘batterer’ with different styles of violence usage. They named
these (1) ‘Family-Only’, (2) ‘Dysphoric-Borderline’ and (3) ‘Generally Violent-Antisocial’.
The Family-Only batterers were regarded as the group of men most likely to be engaged in
Situational Couple Violence for, as Holtzworth-Munroe and Stuart’s research shows, they are
rarely violent outside the home, unlikely to engage in psychological and sexual abuse, and score
low on levels of psychopathology. The violence of this group of men tends to occur at times
of stress when low-level domestic conflicts escalate, but is short-lived in part because of the

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David Gadd and Mary-Louise Corr

offenders’ generally positive attitudes towards women and negative attitudes towards violence
(Holtzworth-Munroe, 2000).
The other two groups of men identified by Holtzworth-Munroe and Stuart were more likely
to be coercively controlling in the ways described by Johnson (2006), Kelly and Johnson (2008)
and Stark (2007). According to Holtzworth-Munroe and Stuart, the Dysphoric-Borderline
group engaged in violence that could be severe and occasionally extra-familial. These were, by
definition, men who could be intensely fearful of rejection and liable to sudden mood changes.
They suffered anxiety and depression, in what became intense, unstable interpersonal relation-
ships; relationships that they hoped would alleviate feelings of worthlessness that had often arisen
out of the absence of positively trusting relationships in their childhoods. Donald Dutton’s (2007)
research identifies a similar group who tend to go through cycles of loving and hating their
partners as their hopes of feeling more worthy are met and then dashed when their irrational
jealousies mobilise defences against feeling emotionally dependent. By contrast, Holtzworth-
Munroe’s and Stuart’s Generally Violent-Antisocial batterers are men who engage frequently
in severe forms of violence at home and in their work or social lives. This group tend to have
histories of arrest, involvement in crime and/or substance abuse, poor records of conform-
ity in school and employment, features which psychologists take – somewhat tautologically –
as indicators of antisocial personality disorder (Jones, 2008). They have quite conservative attitudes
towards women, though this may make them appear similar to jealous Dysphoric-Borderline
men. Consistent with the work of Johnson and Kelly and Johnson, Holtzworth-Munroe and
Meehan (2004) show that the violence of Family-Only batterers tends to be less intentionally
controlling and more contextually driven than that of domestic violence perpetrators with antiso-
cial or borderline personality disorders; a finding UK researchers have also replicated (Dixon and
Browne, 2003). Meanwhile, Stuart et al. (2006) provide some support for Kelly and Johnson’s
(2008) observations about the way in which Violent Resistance emerges as a response to coercive
control. Levels of physical and sexual victimisation among women arrested for assaulting their
partners tend to be comparable to those found among women in the refuge population.
In sum, one might merely conclude that there is Situational Couple Violence that arises out
of family conflicts in which gender, sexism and psychopathology play no or little part. And there
is Coercively Controlling Violence perpetrated by men with one of two core constellations of
sexist values, psychopathology and criminal involvement. However, the picture is rarely so neat
and tidy. UK-based research notes a substantial minority of men engaged in low-level abuse
who do not fit easily in Holtzworth-Munroe and Stuart’s threefold typology (Johnson et al.
2006). Indeed, Holtzworth-Munroe et al. (2000) consider whether there is a fourth group of
men, comprising up to a third of the perpetrator populace, whose use of violence falls between
the Family-Only and Generally Violent clusters. This fourth, understudied, group were more
likely to be ‘newly wed’ or at the early stages of long-term relationships and ‘not seeking
therapy’, engaged in low levels of domestic violence and antisocial behaviour, and unknown to
the police as domestic violence perpetrators. Expressed in the language of psychological research
one might ask if this unclassifiable section of the population are a discrete group, how hetero-
geneous they are, and how they might be better differentiated. But viewed more sociologically,
one might consider whether their existence reveals something of the limits of typological con-
ceptualisation. Might this fourth group comprise those men who, at the moment when the data
were gathered, were in relationships that were in a state of flux, whose mental well-being was
in a state of transition, or who realised that while their use of violence accrued them the power
to intimidate it also put them at risk of becoming defined as ‘perpetrators’ whose subsequent
violence can no longer be construed as a ‘one-off’ and is instead an unmanly abuse of power,
likely to lead to estrangement and criminalisation?

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 On the limits of typologies

Method
In what follows, we want to show how such contingencies matter using a case study pertain-
ing to a man – we call ‘Glen’ – who took part in our From Boys to Men Project.1 As with most
young men involved in domestic violence in the UK, the information we have about Glen
derived primarily from his own account of himself, elicited in an in-depth interview that lasted
over an hour and generated a 26-page transcript. The interview with Glen was just a small part
of a three-year, multi-method study which aimed to explore why some boys become domestic
abuse perpetrators when others do not and to establish what can be done to reduce the number
of young men who become perpetrators. The first two phases of the From Boys to Men Project
involved a survey of 1,203 13–14-year-olds measuring their experiences of and attitudes towards
domestic violence, an evaluation of a schools-based domestic violence prevention programme
and focus groups exploring the contingencies through which young people deem domestic abuse
acceptable and unacceptable (Gadd et al., 2015). The third phase of the project involved in-depth
interviews with 30 young men, aged 16–21, who had experienced domestic violence either as a
victim, perpetrator or witness. Although a range of national and local organisations working with
young people and families were contacted, it was youth offending teams and regional probation
services that provided the most access to these interview participants, producing a sample skewed
towards young men in trouble for their violence and with troubled backgrounds to match.
Young men were asked to participate in one in-depth interview, being invited at the outset
to tell their life-stories. Following this, interviews elicited stories from participants using nar-
rative-focused questions and active reflection to explore the opening ‘story’ and move beyond
defences and denials. The interviews focused on exploring how young men had come to under-
stand violence through the examples they recalled as well as their feelings towards family members
and partners, their expectations in relationships and experiences of seeking help in relation to
the violence they had experienced. Interviews were transcribed verbatim, after which a ‘pen
portrait’ of each participant was constructed, reflecting the complexity of the stories they told.
Glen was one of these participants. As we show, Glen’s story can be conceptualised as fitting
with many of the categorisations found in the literature about domestic violence perpetrators,
depending on what part of his story is focused on and how one connects those together.

Glen
Glen was a 21-year-old, white British man who was recruited to the research through a regional
probation project and interviewed by Mary-Louise Corr. None of his violence in relationships
had come to the attention of the courts – his three girlfriends not having reported any abuse by
him to the police – until Glen himself, after grabbing his girlfriend by the throat, sought to ‘get
help’ while on post-imprisonment probation. Glen had been in prison ‘about eight times’ since
he was 15 for a range of convictions which included carrying offensive weapons, assaulting a
police officer, affray, attempted robberies, assaults, burglary, arson and theft. At the time of the
interview, Glen had been engaged in a groupwork programme for perpetrators for a ‘couple of
weeks’, an Integrated Domestic Abuse Programme (IDAP) designed to reduce reoffending by
adult male domestic violence offenders.
Glen had been dating his current girlfriend – who we call ‘Michelle’ – for three years ‘on
and off’, a relationship ‘better than any’ he had previously been in, despite controlling and vio-
lent behaviour featuring. Elements of Glen’s account of this relationship could be construed as
Situational Couple Violence, Glen having been on the receiving end of assaults from Michelle
as well as having instigated some. On one occasion when they were arguing, for example, Glen

45
David Gadd and Mary-Louise Corr

‘took it out on the dog’ and ‘threw’ their puppy across the room, Michelle then ‘hitting’ him. A
second time, Michelle challenged Glen – ‘tell me what you’ve been up to’ – for having ‘got off’
with another woman. An argument followed and Michelle ‘started hitting’ Glen who insisted
that he did not hit her back, although he did restrain her in a highly intimidating way.

I would never hit her back. Even though I grabbed her by the throat that time . . . I never
hit her back . . . I just have to hold her down . . . put her where she couldn’t hit me so that
like restrain her really. But I have been tempted to [laughs].

When asked about sexual aggression, Glen ‘didn’t know’ whether it was an issue in his relation-
ships, but being ‘rough’ was something that he and Michelle apparently ‘liked’ in a reciprocal way.

I am rough. Both of us are rough . . . We like it [laughs] [MLC: yeah]. We grab each other
by the throat and pull each other by the hair but we like that.

Outside of what is portrayed here as consensual sexual aggression, Glen did think it was ‘sick
if someone’s done it like to force someone into sex’, something which Michelle had ‘been
through before’. When Glen was in prison a ‘smackhead’ who ‘lived downstairs’ ‘got Michelle
on to whizz’ and Michelle ‘kissed him’, ‘slept in the same bed but . . . done nowt’. Glen’s tell-
ing of the story, however, revealed some suspicion. He thought the relationship ‘weird’, and
having questioned Michelle, found out that ‘she did have sex’ with the ‘smackhead’ but that this
was only when he ‘raped her’. This sexual assault was part of a continuum of abuse Michelle
suffered at the hands of a man who had been ‘battering her, setting the dogs on her, taking
money off her’, keeping ‘her hostage in the flat’ and who ‘smashed her phone’ and ‘ripped’ up
the letters Glen had sent to her from prison. On hearing about the abuse, Glen ‘went mad’ and
did not know what to believe: ‘it fucked with my head because she had loads of chances to get
away . . . I don’t know if it was a relationship or not, if she was lying to me or not’. It baffled
Glen further that Michelle did not want him to challenge this man as he ‘can’t hurt’ her now,
which was ‘not the point’ for Glen.
In addition to physical and sexual aggression, Glen revealed that he engaged in controlling
behaviours both with Michelle and past girlfriends, and that he became ‘wound up’ if they wore
‘short skirts’ or received attention from other young men. He assuaged his ‘paranoia’ by keeping
a close watch over his girlfriends.

Always . . . be with them, like I wouldn’t let them out of my sight ’cos I used to get para-
noid and seeing, thinking what they’re fuckin’ up to or whatever . . . I used to force them
to change . . . Like say ‘you better flippin’ change or I’ll change you myself’.

Such challenges would ‘probably’ end in a physical row or Glen asserting ‘Fuck it. You won’t
be going out’. Controlling behaviours and violence on his part were often precipitated by
suspected or actual infidelity on the women’s parts or humiliation and threats to leave Glen.
Fearing that one girlfriend, ‘Hannah’, ‘fancied [his] stepbrother’, Glen challenged her – ‘You
fancy my stepbrother, don’t you?’ – before he ‘ended up hitting her . . . in the face’. Glen’s
abuse of another girlfriend, ‘Karen’, was ‘worse’ still, he having ‘headbutted’ her one night for
making him wait outside a nightclub, thrown food ‘in her face’ and pouring a drink over her
when she tried ‘to make [him] look a dickhead in front of [his] mates’. On another occasion
when Karen overheard Glen tell an ex-girlfriend that he still loved her, Karen threatened to
leave him. Glen responded by strangling her and keeping her hostage, threatening to kill her

46
 On the limits of typologies

and instructing his cousin to fetch some petrol; a threat which he said he was ‘intending to’ fulfil
‘at the time’.

I grabbed her by the throat, threw her on to the bed, like shut the door. And my cousin and
his girlfriend was in the room . . . Told them none of them were leaving. Then told my other
cousin to come round and get me. When he come round to the back of the house went to
the window and [I] said ‘get me some petrol . . . I’m going to kill them all’ . . . Then I just
remember hitting her and stuff. And then, because I have anxiety attacks as well when I get
stressed . . . I had an anxiety attack and . . . then I lashed out at the ambulance people as well.

Michelle was also the subject of life-threatening violence when she tried to leave Glen.

She was still saying she was going . . . And then she tried to leave so I grabbed her by the
throat. But obviously I was upset crying when I grabbed her by the throat so I sat back
down and tried speaking to her.

Though he ‘tried to speak’ to Michelle, they continued to argue so Glen ‘ran off, got drunk . . .
and got on to this girl’. Having then cheated on Michelle he started to feel ‘really guilty’.
Thinking that Michelle might be pregnant, Glen went back to her and ‘sorted it out that night’.
He explained his reaction as follows:

I’ve got paranoia and I end up thinking things and then if I think they’re true I end up
hurting them. Lashing out and stuff like that or when they try and take the mick out of me
I end up hurting them.

Glen expected his partners to be sensitive to his ‘paranoia’ and ‘anxiety’. On one occasion Glen
had challenged Michelle for not wanting to dance with him in a nightclub – ‘if a guy comes
over to you I’m going to go mad’. An argument followed which ended with Glen grabbing
Michelle, being kicked out of the club and, on the street, having ‘hold of her like that on her
two arms’. Michelle told the police who attended the scene that she did not want Glen ‘done’
for it. Glen also directed his anger towards those young men who gave his girlfriends attention.
With these men Glen had got into ‘loads of fights’, on one occasion, at least, ‘going mad’ at a
young man Michelle had ‘kissed’.
Glen’s paranoia intensified when in prison. During one sentence his mother revealed on a
visit that Glen’s girlfriend ‘Hannah’ had been unfaithful. Glen went ‘mad’ in his cell: ‘throw-
ing things around, going mad’. But sexual jealousies were not the only threats to Glen’s mental
well-being while in custody. While in prison he had twice tried to kill himself – once following
what sounded like a miscarriage – described as having ‘lost a child to a girl’ – and another time
on his grandad’s birthday – ‘I tried to kill myself thinking that I wanted to be with him’. On a
third suicide attempt, outside of prison, Glen had taken an overdose after arguing with Michelle,
presumably about her ‘sexual’ relationship with the ‘smackhead’ who was actually raping her
and had kept her hostage.
The history of Glen’s involvement in crime and subsequent imprisonment owed much to
his family life.

My brother used to take me out shoplifting . . . when I was younger. And violence and
stuff, and then just messing like with the wrong crowd as well. All my friends, when they
get in trouble, I get in trouble . . .

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David Gadd and Mary-Louise Corr

The boys’ parents had separated when Glen was aged two. Glen never ‘knew’ his dad, leave
alone ‘bonded’ with him, not least because his father was so often ‘in and out of jail’. Glen
wasn’t sure if his father had ever been violent towards his mum, but knew that his mum had
been ‘hit’ and ‘dragged by the hair’ by a later male partner. When Glen was 13 – or 16, he
wasn’t sure – his dad got back in contact. Glen was initially ‘excited’ about this, but his mother’s
boyfriend was ‘pissed off’ and wanted to ‘batter’ Glen’s dad for having ‘never been there’. Glen
saw his father for a while when he was ‘trying to make an improvement’, but never let go of his
bitterness for the years of absence: ‘I just think like he didn’t give a shit when I was younger, so
why should I give a shit now?’ Recently, Glen’s father had helped him by providing him with
a rented house on his release from prison, but Glen ‘blew it’, ‘messed up again’ and ‘ran off’,
abandoning the property and leaving his dad £250 in debt.
Violence and abuse in the family home seemed a recurrent feature in Glen’s life. In recent
times, Glen and his brother – seven years Glen’s senior – had directed violence towards his
mother, on one occasion his brother throwing ‘hot coffee’ over her while Glen ‘sort of hit’ his
mum and ‘bit her’. This incident started with Glen’s brother’s girlfriend calling Michelle ‘a dog’
(perhaps because his brother ‘used to like fancy Michelle’), a fight then erupting.

I heard her slagging my girlfriend off so I went down with a metal pole to her, threatened
her, said ‘what the fuck are you saying about my girlfriend?’ And then . . . my brother’s
woke up off the settee and started fighting with me. So . . . he bit my thumb. I pushed
my fingers into his eyes. I was dragging his girlfriend around by the hair. I had him, his
girlfriend and my mum on top of me. I bit my mum, but I can’t remember biting her. And
then the police come and took me and my girlfriend to my uncle’s.

The police subsequently dropped the case because both brothers were at fault. The tensions
between Glen and his brother had a long history, dating back to when Glen was ‘around six’.
Both boys were always ‘winding each other up’ and ‘fighting’ in attempts to seek attention from
their mother. Aged seven or eight, Glen needed his appendix removed because his brother had
hurt him so badly.

he kept punching me and kicking me and that and then I felt like all the pain in my
stomach . . . I got rushed to hospital and they said I was there five minutes before it burst
so it nearly killed me.

From the age of 13 Glen’s brother ‘tried to boss’ him about and ‘make’ him ‘do things’ to ‘make
[him] a tougher person’, his brother knowing that Glen would go ‘on a mad one’ due to his
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): ‘if we’re walking down the street and he
didn’t like someone or whatever he would point out someone and say “go and hit them” and
I would go over and just hit them’. It was only when Glen ‘flipped out’ after one fight – aged
somewhere between 16 and 18 – putting his brother unconscious did his brother stop trying to
boss Glen about.
Prior to this Glen had been put in care after he disclosed to a Youth Offending Team worker –
when he was aged between 14 and 16 – that his brother had masturbated in front of him years
earlier. Having been put into care following this disclosure Glen implied that he felt he was
punished for being honest – ‘I got put in foster care because of that’. He ran back home eight
weeks later after his brother was imprisoned. Glen was also the victim of sexual abuse when he
was six years old. This abuse was perpetrated by his grandad’s stepson who ‘used to touch [him]
while [he] was in the bath and mess about with [him]’. Glen told his mum who ‘went mad’ and

48
 On the limits of typologies

reported it to the police, but because Glen was ‘too young and scared’ to talk ‘no one believed’
him, including his mother.
At the time of his interview, Glen was ‘trying to get help’ through probation but was frus-
trated his behaviour and been taken ‘the wrong way’. His probation officer thought Glen
intended to ‘hurt’ Michelle – when he grabbed her by the throat – but Glen was insistent he did
not. Despite accusations of infidelity and what he presented as reciprocal aggression, Glen still
wanted to be in a relationship with Michelle. He had recently moved into Michelle’s mother’s
home to be with her after his own mother refused to have Michelle in her house.

Just ’cos we moved out of my mum’s because we kept like, my mum didn’t want us, well
didn’t want her being there, and I didn’t want to be there without her so we moved in
with her mum.

Whilst probation had helped him ‘think like which is the better way to go’ and to know what
he ‘wants in life’, like settling down, having a job and getting a house, Glen’s future did not
look particularly promising. He left school with no qualifications and his history of employment
amounted to little more than the four weeks prior, during which he had picked up causal work
as a cleaner. He nevertheless regarded the last two weeks on the perpetrator programme as hav-
ing been useful because: ‘When we argue now we talk about it . . . don’t run off or nothing’.
Together with a short spell of counselling in prison, engagement with his probation key worker
had helped Glen ‘open up’ about some of his problems. It had also helped that both Glen
and Michelle were now working, this providing them with more of their ‘own space’. Until
recently they had been ‘spending 24 hours a day with each other’, this generating the potential
for ‘arguments’, Glen thought, ‘because’ they had ‘nothing to say to each other’.

Interpretations
As is by now hopefully apparent, categorising a case like Glen’s is no easy task. Read only at
certain junctures – as any practitioner not previously acquainted with him might have to – and
interpreted in particular ways the violence in some of his relationships appeared highly con-
textual. Looked at with a sceptical eye through a wider lens that takes in incidents across many
relationships it begins to look more like a dangerous pattern of abusiveness for which he is pri-
marily responsible. Let us begin by considering how, then, one might be drawn to conclude that
Glen’s violence was merely Situational or Common Couple. As he remembers it, the first blow
was not always struck by him, but sometimes by Michelle in the course of a relationship that
has been ‘on and off’ for three years. Being on and off means that there have been other women
involved with Glen. Michelle hits him over suspected infidelities. He ‘restrains’ her, because he
thinks that men who are violent towards women are ‘sick’. But mostly they want to be together
and she, it would seem, benefits from some form of protection from him that she was lacking
when he was in prison. But like many a young couple they are struggling, both to find a place
of their own to exist, to find also their own space and to cope with the insecurities and sexual
jealousies that intimacy can entail, and which are inevitably raw for young people on the brink
of settling down. Finding that space and learning to be more open about problems seemed
to be helping, but sometimes the arguments spill over in what appears to be a fairly fraught
dynamic, leading to violence, not only between Glen and Michelle, but also between Glen
and his brother, mother, other men Michelle is acquainted with and professionals who come to
intervene. On some occasions, the police had clearly concluded this was merely ‘family-only’
violence, or just a ‘domestic’, mostly between Glen and his brother, meriting no further action.

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David Gadd and Mary-Louise Corr

Read with an eye to Glen’s trajectory over many relationships, however, there is no doubting
his potential to be both exceptionally controlling and dangerously out of control. His violence
is intimidating because of his potential to be lethal and because, as Glen himself concedes with a
curious laugh, when he has been restraining Michelle by the throat he has ‘been tempted’ to hit
her too, just as we know he was intent on holding a previous girlfriend hostage and threatening
to burn her alive. Routinely, it might be little things like telling his girlfriends what to wear or
when to dance – controlling the behaviours that are most likely fairly commonplace. But Glen’s
tendency to perpetrate strangling, headbutting, hostage-taking and death threats place him at
the most dangerous end of the spectrum and capable of behaviours that are hardly normal for
men his age. Moreover, Glen is a man with a reputation for violence dating a very vulnerable
woman previously subject to a form of modern slavery, though he is sceptical as to whether or
not the sex she experienced at the hands of the person who held her hostage was actually ‘rape’.
It is hard to imagine how they can talk things through without her becoming fearful, and hard
to imagine that a woman who has been raped previously and who knows Glen might throttle
her, understands his attempts to restrain her as merely containing attempts to calm a dispute. In
other words, Common Couple rows, with reciprocal elements, when strung together in a very
unequal context begin to look like intimate terrorism of the most coercive kind.
To Glen, however, this is not the full story for he does not mean to be – or perhaps more
likely does not want to have to be – controlling. He behaves that way because he gets anxious
and paranoid. These feelings – which for him should compel his partner to work around his
emotional needs – are never fully articulated, but if one looks closely they appear to be about
a fear of losing the relationship, being made to look a fool, and the sense of worthlessness that
might be exposed. Glen’s two most lethal-looking attacks on partners – threatening to burn
Karen alive and grabbing Michelle’s throat – were both preceded by threats to leave him. To
see these merely as separation-instigated violence would be to miss critical elements of Glen’s
character that are unlikely to rescind following break-ups with his partners. The insecurities of
intimacy are maddening to Glen. He does not trust his partners around other men, since he can-
not believe that they truly want to be with him. He is not willing to let his partners go, even
when he has been unfaithful or is declaring his love to previous partners. In his rage he strangles
them to stifle their words and keeps them hostage until they agree to take him back.
It is tempting then to read such ‘madness’ – a feature of his behaviour Glen referred to
nine times during the interview – as evidence of borderline personality, for he has a strong
fear of abandonment and appears to have many conflicted relationships. Glen was very uneasy
in himself – dysphoric – hence his history of suicides and self-harm. But one could easily
construct him also as being involved in generalised and serious violence, having a history of
antisocial tendencies and academic failure. By the age of 21 this was apparent from a criminal
record that included multiple assaults (on men who had looked at his girlfriends, police officers
and ambulance workers), attempted robberies, burglary, arson and theft. Before this, his poor
concentration – understandably given the physical violence and sexual abuse at home and the
confusing experience of being disbelieved and placed in care – was medicalised as ADHD. But
it is relatively easy to see why Glen struggled to concentrate, becomes paranoid easily, and has
problems with trust. His relationship with his father was marked by absence and insecurity; his
relationship with his brother is one of an abusive, life-threatening rivalry; his mother has lost
patience with him and has ‘slagged’ off his girlfriend; and behind all this Glen’s own sexual-
ity was forged in the context of early experiences of sexual abuse that once disclosed saw him
discredited and excluded from his family for telling the truth. His reaction to threats is one of
fight or flight. The fighting brought him numerous prison sentences before the age of 21. This
makes him look Generally Violent-Antisocial. But note also how many times Glen also ‘ran off’

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 On the limits of typologies

from problems he could not confront: running away from foster care, running away from the
home his father offered him, and running away to another woman before running back to his
girlfriend the same night in the heat of an argument. Glen takes his partners hostage so they
cannot run away from him, while imagining the real threats to come from other men – ‘sick’
smackheads – who do the same. However general his violence, his personality could easily be
cast as borderline and insecurely attached, perhaps predictably so, given the emotionally confusing
contexts in which he was variously abused as a child.

Conclusion
Such observations do not necessarily negate the need for typologies for they can, as we have
shown in our own analysis, illuminate aspects of domestic violence that might be missed if one
looks only for what is ‘normal’ or ‘pathological’, ‘coercive’ or ‘reciprocal’. But they should not
lead us to neglect the complexity of particular cases either, for as we have seen with Glen, his
state of mind and the network of relationships in which he was embedded, defy neat catego-
risation. Take, for example, Glen’s concern with what his girlfriends wear. This can be read as
sexism or about everyday insecurities in heterosexual intimacy. Alternatively, we might read it
as symptomatic of misogyny and coercive control, Glen expecting his girlfriends to be sensitive
to his paranoia. This paranoia, in turn, might be read as the product of his own guilty con-
science, the expectation that these women will be unfaithful to him as he has been to them.
But it might also be read as evidence of a complex psychopathology deriving from a childhood
in which relationships of trust were routinely breached and fault was often attributed to Glen’s
own failings. These explanations are not mutually exclusive nor are they an alternative to con-
sidering the role of masculinity in permitting some men to punish women for violations of
expectations conferred through offers of physical protection from other more dangerous men.
But they do underline the importance of interpretation in reading particular cases and the need
to get to the meaning of violence and control for particular men in particular relationships.
Perhaps most critically, it is important to recognise that even the most abusive of men – like
Glen – are not unchanging types. By his own account, Glen was recognising some common-
alities in his behaviour across different relationships; a recognition that, in the right hands, had
the potential to challenge him. Likewise the maddening doubts he had about whether or not
Michelle was lying to him when she claimed to have been raped are a window of opportunity
for the key worker in whom he trusts. The kind of situation Michelle described as entrapping
her was not all that different to the fear of violence – restraint, strangling and hostage-taking –
Glen had exposed Michelle to. If he could be made to see this, he would then have to confront
what it means to be the better man. Being open in academic theorising to such contingencies
can only make for better practice with men who are violent towards women. If typologies
remain necessary in this work and in the development of policy, they must surely also identify
the mechanisms through which men, especially those as young as Glen, might change, and what
kinds of types they might become along the way to relationships in which conflicts are more
peacefully resolved and a healthy sense of being in control can be maintained without the need
for coercion. The critique we offer of the main typological approaches is offered in this spirit:
not to negate the need for schematic thinking, but to use it to expose, wherever possible, the
potential for men who have used violence to leave it behind.

Note
1 ESRC funded project (RES-062-23-2678-A).

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David Gadd and Mary-Louise Corr

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 4
Male victims
Control, coercion and fear?

Emma Williamson, Karen Morgan and Marianne Hester

Introduction
This chapter will look at accounts of men, as both victims and perpetrators of domestic violence
and abuse (dva), in order to explore how they talk about restrictions on their freedom, and about
control within their relationships, and the intersections with masculine identities. In exploring
these accounts, this chapter will consider the implications of these wider understandings for
health practitioners and will also consider the way in which our understanding of coercive
control intersects with our perceptions of the gendered nature of dva. Where quotations have
been provided from the men’s accounts, names have been changed, and any identifying details
have been removed.
The experience and impacts of dva on both the physical and mental health of women have
been comparatively well-documented (see e.g. Howard et al., 2010). As yet, however, there
has been relatively little work looking at the impact of victimisation and perpetration on men,
and in particular at how men understand these experiences. This chapter seeks to redress that
imbalance by contributing to the wider debate about the impact of coercive control on men as
both victims and perpetrators.
The data on which this chapter is based comes from a qualitative study which was part of a
wider programme of research. The wider programme included a series of studies based on data
from men recruited from GP and sexual health clinics and examined their health and relationship
experiences (Hester et al., 2015; Williamson et al., 2015; Bacchus et al., 2016; Morgan et al., 2014).
The purpose of in-depth interviews in the wider programme was to allow men to explain in more
detail the impacts of the potentially abusive behaviours they had previously reported in a survey
and to provide a context within which we could then understand the quantitative data which
emerged from that study (Hester et al., 2015).
This chapter begins by describing the context in which men’s experiences of potentially abu-
sive behaviours takes place, before outlining different theoretical positions in relation to theories
of masculinity. The chapter then outlines the methodology of the research before reporting on the
qualitative data and the findings and emerging themes. To conclude, this chapter considers how
gender theory and in particular a broad understanding of theories of masculinities (Connell, 2005;
Hearn, 1998) can help in our health responses to male victims and perpetrators of dva.

53
Emma Williamson et al.

Background
Any research which is concerned with men and dva inevitably needs to contextualise that research
within the key debates about gendered violence (Hester, 2013). Of particular contention are
the reported differences and explanations given in relation to both prevalence and clinical data
(Williamson, 2012). Whilst some researchers claim that men’s experiences as victims are ignored
and undermined within the current literature (Graham-Kevan and Archer, 2003; George, 1994),
others have suggested that a more nuanced understanding of what population-based prevalence
surveys are measuring is needed (Johnson, 2005; Stark, 2007; Hester et al., 2010).
However, irrespective of the position taken in this debate what is striking about men’s
accounts of being victimised by their female partners, are the ways in which men’s understand-
ing of their own gendered self-identity impacts on their ability to act (Williamson et al., 2013;
Williamson, 2013). Rather than supporting a gender-neutral position, as does the more abstract
population-based prevalence data (Straus, 1999), focusing on the experiences of men as both
victims and as perpetrators of dva, facilitates a clearer understanding of how men’s experiences
are influenced by their own gendered self-expectations, by the expectations of other individuals,
and by wider society. This suggests that recognising that men, as well as women, can be victims
of dva, actually supports rather than undermines (as some might suggest) a gendered analysis of
the phenomenon of domestic violence.
If we accept therefore that a gendered analysis of the experiences of male victims and perpe-
trators is still relevant (as discussed below), it is important to consider how different theoretical
debates about the construction and perpetuation of masculinities and of gender itself might be
evident in the accounts of men experiencing dva in their lives.
Existing theories of dva have predominately focused on those victims (women) who have
traditionally been exposed (and in some contexts still are) to disenfranchisement in relation to
men within society (Htun and Weldon, 2012). Abuse is explained as a mechanism of those
wider underlying inequalities such as unequal pay, oppressive laws and restrictive gendered roles.
Critics (Bowen, 2011) suggest therefore that the fact that men may be victims of dva undermines
the theoretical assumption that dva exists as a gendered phenomenon. However, this perspec-
tive does not fully explain the ways in which masculinities operate in terms of hierarchy, with
some men positioned higher within the hierarchy in relation to other men. Within Connell’s
thesis of gender order, there is not a concept of hegemonic femininity as femininity is viewed as
‘other’ to masculinity. Drawing on Whiting’s (2007) summary of concepts of gender order and
gender regimes, we can see that theories of masculinities, in relation to individual and social level
interactions, are the key sites within which we learn to interpret our experiences of relationships,
including of abusive relationships. Indeed, for the men whose experiences are included in this
chapter, their experiences of gender were central to how they understand the potentially abusive
relationships they were in. Their own sense of masculinity was defined by gendered regimes, the
status received from other men because of having a ‘stunning’ girlfriend, for example, or because
of being ‘hyper-masculine’ in terms of an emphasis on physical prowess, bodily strength or tak-
ing part in risky sports. Equally, they may be impacted by those same gendered expectations; that
the power a woman might have from being ‘stunning’ might then be used in a bargaining way.
The power held by an individual woman in this scenario, whilst uncomfortable and distressing
for the male victim involved, comes from the power she gains in relation to his position to other
men. Her being ‘stunning’ only has credence through the eyes of other men.
The rest of this chapter examines the accounts of men who have experienced potentially
abusive behaviours in more detail, after first outlining the methodology of the research study.

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 Male victims

Methodology
This chapter is based on the analysis of data obtained from interviews with men about their
relationships. The participants were recruited from a wider sample, over 1,400, of male
patients in GP practices in the south-west of England who completed a survey about the
impact of relationships on health (Hester et al., 2015). Attached to the survey was a separate
form for men to complete if they were interested in taking part in a semi-structured inter-
view. This was completed by 78 patients. Attempts were subsequently made to contact all 78
men and to arrange an interview. Eventually, we were able to interview 31, with the remain-
der being either unobtainable, declining outright or unable to agree a mutually convenient
time and date.

Participants
The mean age of the interview sample (N=31) was 49, ranging from 19 to 85. This compares
to a mean age of 57.5 for those who completed the survey (ages ranged from 19 to 90). Almost
all of the participants were heterosexual, although a much more diverse sample was obtained in
the parallel project which took place in sexual health settings in London (Bacchus et al., 2016).
In the GP study sites, only two of the 31 interviewees identified as having had relationships with
men, both suggesting these involved abuse.

Analysis
The interview schedule was designed in conjunction with the research team conducting the
parallel interviews in sexual health clinics. By utilising a joint interview schedule and coding
framework, we were able during the final phase of the research programme to synthesise the
data from both sets of interviews (Morgan et al., 2016). All of the interviews were recorded,
transcribed and coded using NVivo 9. Ten of the interviews were co-coded by the research
team in order to ensure inter-rater reliability.

Telephone interviews
The majority of the interviews were conducted over the telephone. This was partly for
safety reasons and also due to our experience of interviewing male victims/perpetrators of
domestic violence and abuse in the past (Hester et al., 2012). Although telephone interviews
remove the opportunity to observe non-verbal clues within the research interaction (Carr
and Worth, 2001), it can also enable those who might otherwise feel uncomfortable talking
about their emotions to be more open, due to the perceived anonymity of talking over the
telephone (Greenfield et al., 2000, cited in Sturges and Hanrahan, 2004: 108). Telephone
interviews are also a useful way of involving those who may otherwise be reluctant to partici-
pate in research (Sturges and Hanrahan, 2004). Some of the men, for example, indicated that
although they would have been reluctant to take time out for a face-to-face interview, they
were willing to spend 30–40 minutes on the phone. In addition to the time factor involved,
this could have had something to do with the greater element of control that telephone
participants might feel they possess. It is easier to rearrange a telephone call or to terminate
it altogether if something unexpected turns up or the participant simply no longer wishes to
continue (Holt, 2010).

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Emma Williamson et al.

Findings and discussion

These research findings have been split into several key themes: intention to cause harm; fear and
control; triggers for abuse; and impacts. In some of the examples below, the research participants
defined themselves as both victim and perpetrator. In the other cases, the participants defined
themselves solely as victim or as perpetrator.

Intention to cause harm

Establishing intent to abuse or cause harm is difficult in relation to dva, however Johnson’s
control typology goes some way towards helping us to understand the different ways in which
dva might be manifested in relationships, and which indicate the impact of intent to control or
abuse. One form of relationship violence which Johnson originally referred to as ‘patriarchal
terrorism’, later as ‘intimate terrorism’, and more recently as ‘coercively controlling violence’
(Johnson, 1995; Johnson and Leone, 2005; Johnson et al., 2014), can be defined as attempting to
control and dominate one’s partner through the use of tactics including violence (Johnson and
Leone, 2005). A key element of intimate terrorism is that it is underpinned by coercive control,
to the extent that in the absence of physical violence, behaviours are given ‘violent meaning’
because of their connection with previous violence responses (Johnson and Leone, 2005: 324).
Situational couple violence, on the other hand, does not involve a pattern of controlling
behaviours, although specific incidents may escalate to violent conflict (Johnson and Leone,
2005). As Stark (2006) explains, whereas both men and women may engage equally in situ-
ational couple violence, it tends to be mostly men who commit intimate partner terrorism. A
key element of intimate terrorism, therefore, is the intention which transforms a single incident
into part of a wider pattern of controlling and abusive behaviours. This may be supported by Jeff
Hearn’s construction of violence, which takes into account the immanence of harmful intent in
violent actions (Hearn, 1998). One of our participants, however, turns the construction around
by suggesting that ‘intent’ is not only a key element of violence, but also may be suggestive of a
positive relationship. This participant, Dave, claimed that ‘one of the cornerstones of a healthful,
and happy relationship, is the presumption of good intent’, and he illustrated this with reference
to the way his wife sometimes spoke to him as if he was a ‘stupid child’.

Dave: . . . And it’s the kind of thing which one can quickly assume that the other person does
not have a good intent toward you. And then you think to yourself, ‘Well, this is a person
who says that she loves me. If she loves me why would she think that I’m a stupid child?’

Dave’s perception of dva was informed, in part, by experiences within his own family – for
example, he described having to help his daughter to escape from a ‘psychologically abusive
relationship’. Of his own relationship, he explained that there had been ‘aspects of [his] partner’s
behaviour’ (her high levels of anxiety) which had ‘upset’ him. As a consequence of her anxiety,
he felt constrained from doing certain things or going to certain places.
Dave’s focus on ‘intent’ is particularly interesting, because of an incident he describes from
an earlier relationship. He explained that at the time of getting married, he had realised that his
first wife had problems, but not that she was an alcoholic:

Dave: I was sort of in the position of being the white knight. This was a very unhappy
girl. . . . I saw myself as the one who would make everything right for her. . . . And
it took me four years before I had the courage to say to myself that I’d made a serious

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 Male victims

error. . . . And on a particular evening . . . she had come home at whatever time it was
after midnight, and wanted to engage in some sort of conversation, controversy, one
thing or another. And, in the course of that, I swung at her with the back of my hand.

We have no way of knowing how the recipient of the ‘back of [his] hand’ interpreted his intent,
or whether she was fearful, or if this was part of a pattern of behaviour. From his description, this
seems more an example of situational couple violence rather than intimate terrorism – however
incidents such as this indicate the complexity of differentiating between one-off incidents and
wider patterns of abusive behaviour. Dave’s actions towards his first wife, as described here, are
undeniably abusive, and yet by first positioning himself in terms of ‘good intent’ (the chivalric
‘white knight’), he simultaneously sidesteps accusations of ‘bad intent’ in hitting his wife.
Some participants drew attention to the issue of intent to cause harm by focusing on the trig-
gers for abuse and on consequent impacts. Many, for example, discussed the role of drugs and
alcohol in abuse. The accounts from our participants highlight the fact that the intent behind
potentially abusive behaviours and the impact of such behaviours are qualitatively different.
They also raise the issue that gendered expectations might affect how the two are experienced.
For the participant quoted below, for example, there appeared to be relatively little impact from
the one incident of physical abuse he experienced:

Interviewer: Y
 eah. Um, did you know, or can you remember if it had particular consequences
for you and your partner?
Iain: No I don’t think so. I think it was one of those things. She lost her temper, reacted,
uh, or acted (laugh).
Interviewer: Mm.
Iain: And that was it. Um, I have to be honest, I don’t think we held any great, you
know, judgement or whatever afterwards. It was just one of those things that hap-
pened quickly and went.

For him, there was no residual fear, no apparent intent on behalf of his partner to control, and
he simply perceived the incident as a reactive episode, rather than one of dva. This contrasts
with the ways in which female victims tend to talk about the dva they have experienced, where
the perpetrator’s loss of temper and reactions or actions can be seen as attempts to control and
to engender fear.

Fear and control

Men were asked in both the survey and their interviews whether they had experienced behav-
iours which might result in them altering their behaviour and/or being restricted in their daily
lives. Evan Stark notes that alongside physical abuse, coercive control incorporates ‘tactics to
intimidate, isolate, humiliate, exploit, regulate and micromanage’ (2007: 171). Whilst structural
inequalities render this form of control to be most often directed from male perpetrators towards
female victim/survivors, the comments from these participants indicated that they understood
the potential impact of such behaviour. As one of the participants who had experienced abuse
from his female (ex-)partner noted, the worst thing about her behaviour was ‘her ability to
command me’.
One participant, Roy, when asked if his partner’s behaviour had ever frightened him,
responded that ‘“frightened” is too strong a word’ but that he was ‘certainly worried and con-
cerned’ and that he ‘regularly’ felt the need to change his behaviour:

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Roy: . . . you’d have to save your energy for the point you’re gonna challenge because there
was no differentiation between a minor disagreement over something like not wanting
to go out to some event. . . . It often became easier going along with the smaller stuff.

This type of ‘cost benefit analysis’, which we often refer to within the female literature as dem-
onstrating victims’ survival mechanisms, does not take place, for Roy, in a context of fear. He
believed that his partner had ‘narcissistic personality disorder’. Although she never physically hit
him, she did get ‘very shouty and angry’. In his interview, Roy distinguished between ‘domestic
abuse’ and ‘domestic violence’, explaining that the former incorporated a ‘broader [definition]
to include psychological abuse’ and the latter being ‘more physical acts’. He had, he felt, expe-
rienced domestic abuse (rather than ‘violence’) and had experienced health problems which,
he said, dissipated when the relationship ended, however he did not indicate he had ever been
frightened in the relationship.
Other men we spoke to, when asked if they had been frightened by their female partners’
behaviour, sometimes responded in the affirmative, but often in a way that indicated that they
had not actually previously considered the issue. For example, Andrew explained that he’d
had to call the police because his partner had ‘totally lost the plot’. When asked if he had been
frightened by her behaviour, his response was somewhat reflective:

Interviewer: W
 ere you actually frightened by her behaviour or did you have to change your
behaviour at all?
Andrew: Uh yeee frightened, whew, I suppose yes. Yeah. Yeah I was.
Interviewer: Yeah?
Andrew: Although (sigh) frightened, yes, frightened. Yeah.

Nevertheless, some of the men who identified as being victims of dva had experienced a range of
potentially abusive behaviours, including aspects of coercion, which they did find frightening on
numerous levels. The participant quoted below, Tom, reported on his survey that he had been
frightened of his partner, felt he needed to ask permission, and was physically hit, all of which
resulted in him often having to alter his behaviour. He also reported that he had physically hurt
his partner (although none of the other forms of potentially abusive behaviours) but that this had
‘no effect’ on his partner. This example was one of the most complex in our sample of inter-
viewees where the participant felt controlled by his partner, was isolated from friends and family,
and where arguments regularly escalated to physical violence (although it was generally unclear
who prompted the physical violence, because in his description, Tom avoided attributing agency).

Tom: I ’d met a girl. She’s a very strong personality, good character, but she was totally over-
whelming, controlling. I didn’t even realise that half the things – and my friends would
just warn me all the time and they became more distant because they weren’t happy
being around her. . . . An argument would be right to the bitter end. There was no
backing out of it. There was no compromise . . . I couldn’t get away from an argument,
she’ll – I’ll be locked in a house or she physically put herself in the way. Up to the point
where it got violent.

One thing that was interesting across the different interviews was that in those cases where men
had felt controlled and restricted by their partners, there were often examples of contradictory
elements of gendered role expectations. This applied to their own expectations of what men

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should do, as well as views about appropriate behaviour from their partners. One participant
appeared particularly distressed at his lack of control and related several examples, such as not
being allowed to talk to other people (especially women). As he also told us:

Tom: I did change my behaviour. I did as I was told because I just wanted peace and quiet. . . . I
went from a guy that was – young wife, quite happy sociable life, to someone that instead
of workin’ hard all weekend and goin’, and doin’ my . . . sports, I was then, I went from
that to someone that had to go to the local garden centre for a fucking herb garden. That’s
what I was forced to do!

This is an interesting quote as it raises questions about fear (of lack of peace and quiet) and
control alongside impact. Whilst we, as outsiders, might perceive this simply as a change in his
responsibilities, this participant perceived these expectations as abusive. He saw himself as lack-
ing control in this circumstance, and thus unable to say ‘no’ to visiting the garden centre and
to do something else. This, to him, was emasculating, and represents a significant impact on his
life, especially as it represented a barrier on his entitlement to spend his spare time as he wished.
This particular participant referred several times to his wife’s age (she was several years younger
than him), to her occupation as a model and the fact that she was ‘exceptionally good looking’.
His ‘sports and his hobbies’ and a busy social life had been particularly important to him, but his
wife’s excessively controlling behaviour meant that he was no longer able to do as he wanted.
The disquiet indicated here (and throughout his interview) at being unable to participate in
what he saw as more gender-appropriate pastimes reflect the gendered impact of potentially
abusive behaviours experienced by some of our participants. On the one hand he appeared
gratified by the fact that his partner was someone who ‘to look at . . . was like every boy’s
dream’. He referred to her as a ‘head-turner’ and claimed that ‘Everybody, everybody would be
looking at her and I didn’t have a problem with that’. There was an element of contradiction in
his narrative, however. On the one hand, he was striving to portray the profound impact of this
relationship which was, he said, ‘absolutely soul destroying’ and ‘the worst situation I’ve ever
been in’. On the other hand, there was a degree of ‘impression management’ (Goffman, 1963).
For example, he described how his ex-partner’s father was verbally abused and controlled by
his wife (his partner’s mother) but asserted that ‘I was a touch different . . . I didn’t have that
weakness in me’. Nevertheless, despite apparently being told by his father-in-law ‘that’s the way
things are’ and relating his response as ‘it’s not the way things are . . . that isn’t the way things are
gonna be. It’s not gonna stay that way’, he had been unable or unwilling to end the relationship
and it was his partner who had ended things by leaving without warning.
This participant was someone who clearly took pride in his physical abilities and who, in
many respects, might have been said to have lived a hyper-masculine lifestyle (in terms of his
past and current work experiences and hobbies). He also took a great deal of pride in the fact
that his ex-partner was so attractive (‘Christ only knows how I ended up bein’ in a relationship
with her, but I did’). In describing the rare occasions on which he’d retaliate, this participant,
like Tom referred to above, defined himself in terms of a chivalric masculinity in which he
would never hit a woman:

Tom: I t it’s so difficult to, very rarely would I would I kick back. Very rarely. But occasionally
I did. I would, I would just go nuts. You know I wouldn’t obviously I wouldn’t get
physical, the l- the last thing I’d ever do. But I I’d just turn round and say, ‘Look I tell
you what. Just piss off and leave me alone. Le- let me be.’

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Emma Williamson et al.

His partner’s demands that he accompany her to garden centres rather than spending time partici-
pating in sports with friends was problematic for him because it was experienced as damaging to
his perception of his own masculinity. Bearing in mind Connell’s assertion that competing mascu-
linities are negotiated and reproduced through social interactions (2005), the restrictions placed on
this participant meant that he was unable to enact a masculinity that was meaningful to him. He
defines this experience as controlling, and indeed, from his wider descriptions, the relationship did
appear to be a very controlling one. Nevertheless, it cannot be ignored that his experience of being
controlled is very different to the curtailing of personal liberty described by Stark (2007). While
this participant described having to adjust his life in order to meet his partner’s demands, he did
not have to contend with the structural or economic inequalities experienced by women victims
of dva. Whilst undoubtedly a difficult and distressing relationship for him, his account highlights
the differing ways in which control is experienced within a gendered framework of expectations.

Triggers for abuse

Goffman (1971), drawing on Sykes and Matza’s work (1957), discussed ways in which ‘accounts’
of behaviour draw upon particular discursive tropes. These take particular forms, including out-
right denial, minimising, justifying, denial of responsibilities and ‘appeal to higher loyalties’.
These accounts can be seen throughout interviews with the men we spoke to, and particularly
in relation to those men who, it emerged, had perpetrated acts of violence. Triggers for abuse
and the ways in which victims describe their experiences often, as alluded to earlier, reveal issues
of intent. In this section of the chapter, we discuss the dva triggers discussed by participants in
their own relationships.

Jealousy
The two men who disclosed same-sex relationships in the interviews both claimed that violence was
triggered by their partner’s jealousy, and also for one of them, his ex-partner’s drug-use. This accords
with McClennen’s claim that for gay men, jealousy and substance abuse are amongst the highest cor-
relates of intimate partner violence (2005). Jealousy was also a feature in the accounts of some of the
heterosexual men we spoke to, and again here it was described in terms of their partners’ jealousy,
rather than their own feelings. When describing his female partner’s jealousy, Tom stated:

No, she she’d uh it it was normal. It was it she she just acted normally. You know she
would (sigh) how do I explain it? Um (pause) if I stood on the driveway for a cigarette in
the evening, um she would, when I walked in, she would demand to know who I’d spoken
to, where I’d been . . . and she knew where I was. I was on our driveway. Um and she’d
demand if I’d spoken to anyone. ‘Have you seen anyone?’ And and she would go mental.
And I’d say, ‘Well no, obviously.’ And and then she just she’d just just carry on.

Alcohol/drugs
Overall, dva was most commonly justified by describing alcohol as a trigger. Usually, the men
we interviewed referred to their partners’ drinking or drug habits rather than their own. One of
the men in a same-sex relationship, for example, explained how his partner had used the regular
drug comedowns he experienced as an excuse for abusive behaviour.

Interviewer: S o would he would he be apologetic or remorseful or pretend that nothing had

happened?

60
 Male victims

Jeff: I think it’d be more of a ‘pretend nothing happened’ and that his reaction was justi-
fied . . . He was very aware that he was on a comedown but that to me isn’t a justification.

Referring to alcohol as an excuse or justification for dva occurred both in cases where the man
was a victim and where he was a perpetrator, although most of the men referring to alcohol, did
tend to make the point that it was their partner who became abusive. This is interesting as there
is comparatively little research that specifically links alcohol consumption to women becoming
violent, within the context of controlling behaviours, although there is research that links alco-
hol to men’s abusive behaviour (Finney, 2003). Budd notes that despite increasing alcohol con-
sumption amongst women, there has been no commensurate increase in female violence (2003,
cited in Barnish, 2004), although Hester (2013) found that alcohol was a risk factor where both
parties were potentially abusive.
A few of the men who initially blamed their partner’s abusive behaviour on drinking, on
further discussion revealed that actually the situations were rather more complicated than first
indicated. Some admitted that, in fact, they had also perpetrated abusive behaviours. Dave,
discussed earlier and who had ‘swung’ at his wife with the ‘back of [his] hand’, both minimis-
ing his actions and justifying them because of her drinking, was one such example. Another,
who discussed his wife’s aggressive behaviour after she had been drinking, also admitted that
he ‘probably wasn’t as innocent as what I would have liked to think’. Using similar minimis-
ing language to Dave, and justifying his actions because of what he perceived as his wife’s
thoughtless behaviour towards their child, he disclosed that he had hit her because:

Lee: S he took the kid out and he [was ill], . . . I took a dim view of it . . . and I give her the
back o’ me hand. . . . And she took off. Well you know, like I said to you, I was like
quite powerful.

Men’s descriptions of their experiences therefore revealed a degree of ambiguity when they
attributed abusive behaviours to their partner’s drinking. Their accounts were entangled with
justifications, excuses and minimisation of their own behaviour and also illustrated ways in
which they enacted masculinities – for example as chivalric or stereotypically ‘powerful’.

Impacts
One of the most startling findings from the research was that for some of the male participants
it was only when prompted during the interviews that they claimed to remember having expe-
rienced potentially abusive behaviours.

Iain: B
 ut it was like, disagreement, and all of a sudden, umm she lost her rag, and started to
you know give me a bit of a punch sort of thing. Um, I think I just sort of put my arms,
or put hands you know flat towards towards her and sort of, ‘Come on let’s, you know
control control can you stop stop stop please’. And then it just sort of died down and fiz-
zled out and there was no more, just one (laugh) but it’s funny I should remember isn’t
it, one incident, one couple of minutes? And that was it.

Apparently therefore, for this participant, there were no long-term or short-term impacts of
abuse at all. This participant also describes this event as ‘one incident’ and not something which
might be described as a pattern of behaviours. This is something that we don’t find in interviews
with female victims. Even where women might minimise the behaviours they experience, they
do not easily forget it, often due to an associated fear and because it seems particularly rare for

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physical abuse from a male perpetrator to be a ‘one-off’. As such, there appears to be a difference
in responses from the men we interviewed and the impacts on women victims, as indicated in
the wider literature about impacts of abuse.

Health consequences
Importantly, however, although some men did not recognise or refer to impacts of abuse, others
did recognise that they may have experienced depression and anxiety as well as some minor
physical injuries, as a result of their relationships, which resonates with the broader research of
this study (Hester et al., 2015). Jeff, for example, discussed his sudden realisation that his weight
had been affected by his relationship.

Um I lost a lot of weight. Um, it wasn’t really conscious I don’t think . . . It was it was, it
just happened, and it wasn’t till afterwards that I really you know, ‘Shit, I’ve lost two stone
and (laugh) I look a mess.’

In fact, most, although not all, of the men interviewed felt that there was an impact on men who
experienced dva either as perpetrators or victims, with some suggesting that this could be physical
or emotional and that there could be positive or negative effects depending on the nature of the
relationship. Umberson and Montez suggest that ‘relationship stress undermines health through
behavioural, psychosocial and physiological pathways’ (2010: S57), whereas Howard et al. (2010)
list the various mental health disorders associated with dva (along with a number of gender-
specific physical impacts). Some of the participants in our study referred to physical issues, what
Allen-Collinson (2009) refers to as the ‘stigma of abuse’, such as stomach and bowel problems,
and several mentioned stress or depression (one telling us that he had once made an attempt on
his own life as a result of relationship issues). One participant talked about how stress might affect
eating patterns and therefore physical health and well-being whereas others discussed the fact that
as men, they might not be very good at recognising emotional forms of stress in their lives: ‘I sus-
pect men generally are not so good as at acknowledging ill health. There’s a kind of pride’ (Joe).
Where interviewees explicitly recognised that they had struggled at times with their emo-
tional well-being, they tended to externalise the problems and identify specific incidents which
were happening in their lives at the time including the ill health of a child, getting a new job,
moving house, and work (this applied particularly to those who had military experience and
whose stresses were, in part, related to those military experiences). The participant quoted
below, Lee, discussed consequences for men when a relationship ends and when the male leaves
the family house. The instability which follows can be difficult to deal with and can, as he
pointed out, impact on mental health:

Lee: . . . my mind certainly was all messed up anyway. So my mind was untidy. I left the ’ome.
And then you find somewhere temporary to go. You know if that goes wrong then you
find yourself strugglin’ for somewhere to live. You’re feckless. You’re movin’ around and
I think it all creates unmanageability. It can lead to alcoholism, drug addiction, all the bad
things in life. I mean unless you’ve got a strong mind and you can pull yourself together
and you can differentiate and deal with your emotions. But I think a lot o’ people find
it very difficult to deal with their emotions at that particular time. . . . And I think there
should be much more ’elp really.

62
 Male victims

Many of the participants identified bouts of depression related to wider issues going on in
their lives. Some had received counselling and others had been prescribed anti-depressants.
However, underlying the interviewees’ responses was a sense that admitting such mental health
impacts was a weakness and therefore ‘un-masculine’. In a similar way to the participant quoted
above who talked about being able to ‘pull yourself together’, men talked about ‘being strong-
minded’, or ‘just coping’ in contradictory ways which did not match their own experiences of
the health impacts of their personal lives.
More positively, Waite (1995, cited in Umberson and Montez, 2010: S56) notes that partners
might ‘monitor, inhibit, regulate or facilitate health behaviours in ways that promote . . . health’.
This also was backed up by some of our participants who commented on the positive benefits
of a relationship, mentioning how their partners would make sure that they had regular health
checks, eat healthy food and would encourage them to get more exercise. As one participant
noted: ‘I think if . . . you’re feeling good about the world you’re more inclined to be healthy
aren’t you?’ (Andrew).
A few suggested that they could see no link between relationship issues and effects on
health – with one commenting that ‘in a way I’d probably be too strong minded for that’ (Neil).
Another mentioned that the negative effect on health that he experienced were not necessarily
directly as a result of abusive behaviours from his partner, but because ‘the restrictions that were
put on me . . . affected my health in the sense that I didn’t get anywhere near the level of exercise
that I needed to maintain myself’ (Tom).
Given what we know about the potential links between anxiety and depression and dva in
male patients (Hester et al., 2015), whether those men are victims or perpetrators, it is important
to think about how those impacts are themselves understood in the wider context of the dva
itself. The men in this study presented the same gendered notions of masculinity when talking
about abuse as they did when talking about health, with both being contextualised as a form of
weakness.

Relationship consequences
All of the men we interviewed were no longer in the abusive relationships they were talking to
us about, although some were still in relationships they did not necessarily perceive as entirely
happy. There were, however, a range of different ways in which the relationships ended, and
in some cases it was the abusive female partner who had left. Strikingly, however, whereas
we know that often in an abusive relationship where the woman is the victim, she wants the
violence, but not necessarily the relationship itself to end, here the men all perceived the abuse
they experienced as victims (not necessarily as perpetrators) as a sign that the relationship was
failing. The violence described by these men was, therefore, a symptom rather than cause of a
bad relationship.

Criminal justice consequences

None of the abusive female partners of the men we interviewed were arrested for the incidents
and behaviours the men described to us within the research. In two cases the male partner had
been arrested. In another a male partner was sent to prison, although he claims to have done
nothing other than ‘accidentally’ kick his partner in his sleep. A further male perpetrator was
arrested but his partner chose not to press charges as he wanted to move on.

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Emma Williamson et al.

Participants’ reflections
At the end of the interviews all participants were asked if they had any specific thoughts, they
wanted to share about what might be important when thinking about ‘relationship problems’,
including dva – as either victims and/or as perpetrators. Generally, they felt that men were not
good at communicating their feelings, particularly as regards any of these issues. The major-
ity believed that ‘relationship problems’, which included dva, could have a negative effect on
men’s health including emotional, psychological and physical health consequences. There was
a view that men might focus on other aspects of their lives, for example work, when the real
problem and cause of their depression might be in their relationships and that asking men, and
encouraging them to talk about these problems, would be a good thing. There was a sense in
the interviews that men wanted things to change but that such change would need to come
from external forces such as health practitioners recognising when someone’s health was being
impacted by abusive behaviours within a relationship and asking about it. This view was sup-
ported by the participants’ overwhelmingly positive response to the idea of men being asked
about relationship issues by health practitioners, and also by their positive responses to being
asked about these issues in this research (Morgan et al., 2014).

Conclusion
This chapter has brought together the findings from the interviews conducted with men who
completed a survey in general practice about relationships and men’s health. Bearing in mind
that the interview sub-sample were self-selecting, as were the original sample who completed
the survey in GP practices, there are still some key themes which emerged in the responses to
our questions. Of interest in this chapter are the ways in which participants themselves talk
about gender and masculinities in their narratives of dva. Throughout, gender is central to the
ways in which men experience abuse, its impacts, and potential help-seeking. As such, drawing
theoretically from the masculinities literature is helpful in trying to better understand how men
experience dva and potentially controlling behaviours and how services can therefore respond
appropriately to them. From the outset, participants offered a broad definition of the types of
behaviours which might be considered abusive, and were clear that dva was not restricted to
physical abuses. They were also clear however, that men might not be particularly good at com-
municating ‘how they felt’ and that as a result they might focus on those physical symptoms.
Also of particular interest in this chapter are the ways in which ‘intent’ (Hearn, 1988) is
discussed by participants. Rather than being focused on ‘impacts’, as such discourses within
women’s testimonies often are, men’s talk of intent tends to be focused on concerns about
entitlement, and challenges to it, and perceived slights to normative notions of masculinity. For
example, when Tom talks about going to the garden centre or Lee’s justification of striking his
partner. Alongside a concern about how intent is being operationalised here, are considerations
of impression management in terms of that entitlement. This is particularly important where
participants talk about their help-seeking, or more commonly, lack of help-seeking. Female
victims have often talked about not wanting to disclose because of shame, but this has primarily
been about the shame of being in a relationship with someone who behaves in an abusive way.
For men, their shame is linked to a perception that experiencing abuse makes them weak or
less of a man. This is clear when participants talk about not being ‘commanded’ to do some-
thing, or presenting those who experience abuse in one category and themselves in another.
Undoubtedly these forms of hegemonic masculinities restrict the ways in which male victims of
dva are able to understand, experience and respond to dva.

64
 Male victims

Finally, one of the key objectives of this chapter was to consider the ways in which male
victims of abuse might experience coercive control and fear. Whilst participants did talk about
their partners ‘commanding them’ or ‘controlling’ behaviours by restricting what they chose to
do, none of the men we interviewed provided an account of being frightened by their partner
to the point of being at risk. Fear itself was not a controlling mechanism used by abusive part-
ners, and concerns about entitlement were more common than fear. As such, the findings from
this chapter, we believe, add yet further evidence of the different, and gendered ways, in which
male victims experience dva, how they seek help, and how services can ultimately respond
appropriately to them.

Acknowledgements
We would like to thank all of the interview participants (pseudonyms used in this chapter)
who took part in the research, the wider research team, and the project funders. This chapter is
based on some of the data from independent research commissioned by the National Institute
for Health Research (NIHR) under its Programme Grants for Applied Research scheme (RP-
PG-0108-10084). The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and not
necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR or the Department of Health. The study was approved
by the South West Research Ethics Committee (reference 10/H0106/22).

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 5
Domestic violence in
lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or
transgender relationships
Rebecca Barnes and Catherine Donovan

Introduction
This chapter charts the development of research into domestic violence and abuse (DVA) in
same-sex relationships, and more recently in bisexual and/or transgender relationships. First, we
offer a brief literature review to set the context with regard to the emergence of attention to
lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or transgender1 (LGB and/or T) partners’ experiences of DVA; and
note the historic reluctance to examine LGBT DVA for ideological, reputational and methodo-
logical reasons. We review what is known to date about the extent and nature of DVA in the
relationships of LGB and/or T people, focusing on the predominantly Western body of empiri-
cal research, but highlighting the gradual internationalisation of LGBT DVA research too. This
includes discussion of the key limitations that both shape and reflect the trajectory of research
in this area and drawing attention to some of the key lines of enquiry in the current literature:
a quantitative emphasis upon measuring prevalence; the psychological exploration of causation;
the development of qualitative research about LGBT DVA; and the more recent but growing
intersectional analysis of the issues.
Second, we present our research – the Coral Project – which has gathered the first substan-
tial body of empirical evidence in the UK about the use of (potentially) abusive behaviours in
LGB and/or T relationships, both from the perspective of LGB and/or T people and of practi-
tioners involved in designing or delivering interventions for perpetrators of DVA. We explain
how our sociological approach contrasts with the predominantly psychological basis of much of
the LGBT DVA literature, and present selected findings about minority stress and help-seeking
which speak to some of the limitations of the current literature. We conclude by reflecting on
how knowledge about LGBT DVA has developed to date and the extent to which policy and
practice for victims/survivors and perpetrators of DVA in LGB and/or T relationships have
developed accordingly. We argue that a preoccupation with causal explanations should not
overshadow the importance of meeting the immediate needs of LGB and/or T partners in
abusive relationships.

67
Rebecca Barnes and Catherine Donovan

LGBT DVA: the current state of knowledge

Bringing LGBT DVA out of the closet

Historically there has been a reluctance to examine LGBT DVA for ideological, reputational
and methodological reasons. Ideologically, there has been a resistance within parts of the
women’s movement and some lesbian communities to acknowledging that women might
perpetrate abuse in their intimate relationships. This has had consequences not only for the
development of research in this area but sometimes also for victim/survivors who have not
felt able to report their experiences or secure support from women’s domestic violence ser-
vices such as refuges (Renzetti, 1992; Ristock, 2002; Barnes, 2008; 2010; Donovan and
Hester, 2014). Moreover, there are and have been fears about fuelling homo/bi/transphobia
by providing evidence that DVA takes place in the relationships of LGB and/or T people
(Ristock, 2002). Indeed, some research participants that we interviewed explained how their
fears about reputational damage for LGB and/or T communities had prevented them from
seeking help (Donovan et al., 2014).
Methodologically, resistance has been evidenced in several ways. As Donovan and Hester
(2014) have argued, the DVA field has been dominated by research focusing on heterosexual
women’s experiences of DVA because they constitute the group most numerically affected by
this social problem. They go on to say that the focus turned to DVA in lesbian relationships
when lesbian survivors started to appear in women’s DVA services (see also Lobel, 1986, for the
first edited collection focused on what was then termed ‘lesbian battering’) and/or in counselling
and therapy. Early work, mostly originating from psychology, causally linked DVA in lesbian
relationships to apparent tendencies of lesbian relationships towards dependency and fusion –
tensions that are argued to arise from two women over-identifying with each other within an
intimate relationship (see Renzetti, 1992). Research on DVA in gay male relationships has been
even slower to develop, but a similar focus on the psychology, or psychopathology, motivating
DVA is found in the pioneering work of Island and Letellier (1991). Alongside early efforts to
explain DVA in same-sex relationships, another focus of early – and current – research has been
on prevalence rates.

How much? A review and critique of LGBT DVA prevalence research

Research seeking to establish the prevalence of DVA in same-sex relationships – and much
more recently, in bisexual and/or transgender relationships – has found vastly divergent rates of
prevalence. A recent meta-analysis of 14 US studies of the prevalence of DVA in lesbian rela-
tionships found prevalence rates for physical, psychological/emotional and sexual abuse were as
high as 58%, 64.5% and 56.8%, respectively (Badenes-Ribera et al., 2015). Attempts to ascertain
the prevalence of DVA in gay men’s relationships followed later, and Finneran and Stephenson’s
(2012) meta-analysis of 28 US studies recorded varying, but often high, rates of prevalence of
psychological/emotional abuse (5.4–73.2%), followed by physical violence (11.8–45.1%), fol-
lowed by sexual violence (5–30.7%). In the UK, Henderson’s (2003) study found that DVA had
occurred in 22% of female same-sex and 29% of male same-sex relationships, but inconsistent
findings within this literature mean that it is not possible to determine whether DVA occurs
more in female same-sex or male same-sex relationships (Donovan and Hester, 2014).
Despite the efforts of meta-analyses such as Finneran and Stephenson (2012), compar-
ing prevalence studies is inhibited by disparate definitions and indicators of DVA, along with
varying recall periods (e.g. from the last six months to lifetime prevalence). Moreover, other

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methodological issues call into question the validity of these generally high prevalence figures.
As Donovan and Hester (2014) explain, such findings derive from surveys that have drawn
almost exclusively on non-representative, self-selected samples and have asked questions that
allow a count of incidents of physical, sexual, emotional and (less often) financial violence and
abuse and/or a count and analysis of those self-identifying as having experienced DVA (e.g.
Renzetti, 1992; Henderson, 2003; Hunt and Fish, 2008; Bartholomew et al., 2008; Guasp,
2012; and the few random representative studies, Tjaden et al., 1999; Tjaden and Thoennes,
2000; Greenwood et al., 2002). However, what is being counted and the tool adopted to count
can themselves be contested, with contrasting approaches to measuring DVA resulting in con-
flicting and potentially misleading findings.
First, most prevalence studies count all of those who report experiencing or perpetrating at
least one incident of a particular behaviour as victims/survivors and/or perpetrators of DVA.
Yet, Johnson’s (2006) typology has challenged Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS)-based studies which
have crudely identified individuals as a victim and/or a perpetrator of DVA on this basis. DVA
is best understood as a pattern of controlling behaviours which may or may not involve physi-
cal violence (Stark, 2007). Consequently, we need to examine the different acts or behaviours
perpetrated in context, assessing the motives, dynamics and impacts of these behaviours (e.g.
whether they have been used in self-defence, as a punishment, or within conflicts that neither
party experiences as abusive).
Seeking to ascertain the motives behind the use of particular abusive behaviours is not an
attempt to excuse or minimise them, but rather is necessary for considering the different kinds
of interventions that might be required. Too often, prevalence studies conflate one-off incidents
of situational couple violence and patterns of non-controlling reciprocal violence in a volatile
relationship alongside sustained coercive control which induces intense fear and entrapment
(Johnson, 2006; Stark, 2007). Such conflation dilutes the meaning of DVA, thus rendering the
ensuing ‘prevalence’ figures less useful, as well as potentially misleading.
Second, alongside these measurement concerns, these prevalence studies have inevitably
relied on typically smaller, self-selected LGB and/or T samples, unlike the larger, random, rep-
resentative samples used to generate prevalence estimates for heterosexual DVA. This provides
a poor basis for comparison between LGB and/or T and heterosexual populations, with self-
selected samples leading to elevated figures of DVA prevalence in LGB and/or T relationships
(see also Donovan and Hester, 2014).
Finally, the failure of the quantitative prevalence data to account for context and impact
means that a binary approach to understanding violent/abusive relationship dynamics is reified
such that it becomes a ‘truth’ that intimate partners are either victim/survivors or perpetrators.
Ristock (2002) raises this issue and argues that qualitative research is most productive in under-
standing how and in what contexts – relationship and wider social contexts – violence and abuse
is enacted and experienced. Her pioneering qualitative study of over 100 lesbians in Canada
provides rich data which allows her to explore and challenge the victim/survivor/perpetrator
binary to reveal that rather than these roles being fixed, they can be fluid not just within a rela-
tionship but across different relationships.
It was these methodological concerns that led to the development of the COHSAR survey
methodology (see Donovan et al., 2006; Hester and Donovan, 2009; Hester et al., 2010) which
includes contextual questions and provides a more sophisticated identification of those whose
experiences reflect a DVA profile. Whilst most of these surveys have been conducted in the UK,
North America and Australia, in recent years there has been internationalisation of this evidence
base through surveys conducted in Hong Kong (Mak et al., 2010), China (Yu et al., 2013) and
Poland (Mizielinska et al., 2015).

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The qualitative turn in LGBT DVA research

Qualitative studies, whilst accounting for the minority of LGBT DVA research, have offered
a deeper exploration of individual relationship dynamics and factors that influence relationship
practices (Cruz, 2003; Ristock, 2002; Donovan and Hester, 2011a; Barnes, 2013a; Kanuha,
2013); the influence of the ‘public story’ of DVA (Donovan and Hester, 2011a; 2014) and
related issues surrounding language and recognition (Barnes, 2008; Donovan and Hester, 2010);
the impacts of abuse on survivors and ‘recovery’ from abusive relationships (Girshick, 2002;
Ristock, 2002; Barnes, 2013b); and experiences of help-seeking (Oswald et al., 2010; Donovan
and Hester, 2011a).
We next consider two recent developments in LGBT DVA research that have been heavily
influenced by qualitative research; first, Donovan and Hester’s (2011b; 2014) ‘public story’ of
DVA and, second, growing diversity and intersectionality in studies of LGBT DVA.

Recognition of LGBT DVA and the ‘public story’ of DVA

Issues of language are pivotal to how DVA is defined and perceived. This is both a methodolog-
ical issue, if we are to measure DVA appropriately, but also impacts upon LGB and/or T people,
where an inability to recognise and name one’s experiences inhibits, else entirely precludes,
opportunities for seeking help. In their pioneering work, Donovan and Hester (2011a; 2014)
have argued that this lack of recognition is an unintended consequence of the success of feminist
scholarship and activism in transforming DVA from a private trouble – a ‘domestic’ in colloquial
police language – to a serious public (health) problem. Drawing on Jamieson’s (1998) notion
of public stories, they argue that there has developed a dominant public story about DVA,
represented in the media, in policy and in practice that constructs DVA as: a problem of pre-
dominantly white heterosexual men for predominantly white heterosexual women; a problem
of physical violence; and a problem of a particular presentation of gender – the bigger ‘stronger’
embodied heterosexual man being physically violent towards the smaller ‘weaker’ embodied
heterosexual woman. This story makes it difficult for those who do not see themselves in that
story to recognise their experiences as DVA – in this context, LGB and/or T survivors of DVA –
as well as inhibiting those they turn to for help from recognising or hearing that what is being
told to them is an account of DVA.
The difficulties are compounded because the public story reinforces an understanding of
DVA that is gendered in particular ways, thus it becomes harder to understand that, on the
one hand, women can be violent/abusive and on the other that men can be victimised. This
has been evidenced by quantitative studies with practitioners which have found that scenarios
involving same-sex DVA are likely to be considered less serious and less in need of intervention
(Pattavina et al., 2007; Brown and Groscup, 2009).

Diversity and intersectionality in LGBT DVA research

Much of the early LGBT DVA research yielded rather one-dimensional samples which over-
represented white, middle-class, well-educated participants (Hill et al., 2012, Kanuha, 2013)
who typically identify as a lesbian or a gay man. Gradually, an intersectional turn has expanded
which sexualities and gender identities are included within research, as well as how those
identities intersect with other social positions. Early research (and still a considerable amount
of current research) focuses solely on ‘same-sex relationships’. As our constructs for gender
identity and sexuality have diversified, so too must the scope of our enquiry into DVA amongst

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non-heterosexual and/or non-cisgender populations. Consequently, we should not exclude

from LGBT DVA research participants who are in self-identified or presumed heterosexual
relationships. Rather than imposing limiting constructs of gender and sexuality on research
participants, a more inclusive strategy is to invite participants to self-define their sexuality and
gender identity in order to not inadvertently exclude or misrepresent particular individuals or
groups. It was with this broad outlook that we approached our research, the Coral Project,
which we return to later.
Quantitative and qualitative studies capturing greater diversity of gender identity and sexual-
ity are emerging. Roch et al.’s (2010) predominantly quantitative Scottish study was pioneering
in providing evidence of trans women and men’s experiences of DVA. Moreover, qualitative
research has documented the specific challenges which marginalised or neglected individuals and
groups experience. For example, Rogers’ (2016; 2017) qualitative study of trans survivors’ expe-
riences of DVA has explored transphobic forms of abuse and barriers to accessing services. Head
and Milton (2014) have conducted a small qualitative study of bisexual women and men explor-
ing their experiences of DVA, with all of these studies identifying nuances that would be missed
by focusing on cisgender, same-sex relationships alone. In addition, the construction of risk in
DVA, which has become central to practice responses, is also constructed heteronormatively with
consequences for how LGB and/or T survivors might be responded to (Donovan, 2013).
In addition to incorporating a wider range of sexualities and gender identities, there is simulta-
neously a need to move away from treating sexuality (and, as research progresses, gender identity),
as the only variable of concern. As has been well-established in relation to heterosexual DVA
(see Nixon and Humphreys, 2010), experiences of DVA cannot be examined in isolation from
the wider context of people’s lives, including their positions of privilege and/or disadvantage. An
intersectional analysis critically identifies how the totality of one’s overlapping identities shapes
how one experiences LGBT DVA, including whether or not one recognises oneself, or is recog-
nised by others, as a victim/survivor or perpetrator and specific social positionings which perpetra-
tors may exploit, such as a victim/survivor’s disability, age, socio-economic status or faith.
Where LGBT DVA research has shed light on minoritised experiences within a minority
group, it has become clear that multiple layers of marginalisation have implications for the types
of abuse that may be encountered, the impacts of the abuse and experiences of help-seeking.
For example, Ristock et al.’s (2017) qualitative research with Canadian indigenous Two-spirit/
LGBTQ survivors examined the enduring impacts of the violence of colonisation and the
interplay between ongoing structural violence and DVA. Moreover, Kanuha’s (2013) qualita-
tive study identified how homophobia and racism infuse Asian and Pacific Islander women’s
opportunities for help-seeking when experiencing DVA from a female partner, combined also
with culturally ingrained feelings of shame and gendered expectations about needing to adopt
a caring role towards abusive partners. Whilst such studies are emerging, vast gaps remain in
researching the intersections between LGBT DVA including ethnicity, disability, social class
and faith (see for example Te’llez Santaya and Walters, 2011).
Having examined some of the key themes within the LGBT DVA research, the final aspect of the
existing literature which we turn to is that which has sought to establish what causes LGBT DVA.

The aetiology of LGBT DVA

Arguably even more so than with heterosexual, cisgender DVA, the causes of LGBT DVA
have been fiercely debated. Principally, these discussions have focused on whether a feminist,
gendered analysis can be applied to LGB and/or T abusive relationship roles and dynamics;
whether individualised psycho-social factors which apply to victims/survivors and/or perpetrators

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in heterosexual, cisgender relationships have greater explanatory power; or finally whether the
causes of LGBT DVA are LGBT-specific; in particular, this has engendered an interest in the
concept of ‘minority stress’.

Gender and practices of love

The role of gender in understanding DVA in LGB and/or T relationships is much-contested.
Early researchers have suggested the feminist approach, that problematises abusive masculinity
and links this with an analysis of patriarchy which institutionalises unequal gender roles and
female dependency in both private and public spheres, is heterosexist and irrelevant for under-
standing DVA in the relationships of LGB and/or T people (e.g. Island and Letellier, 1991).
Others have argued that feminist analyses are only redundant if they fail to disentangle masculin-
ity and femininity from maleness and femaleness, thus inviting an exploration of how abusive
partners in LGB and/or T relationships ‘do gender’ (Barnes, 2013b) and how they exert power
and control (Ristock, 2002; Donovan and Hester, 2014).
Donovan and Hester (2011; 2014) have argued that, rather than gender being irrelevant in
the relationships of LGB and/or T people, it is an important factor in explaining how intimate
relationships, regardless of sexuality and gender, can be shaped by existing dominant narratives
about heteronormative practices of love. Such narratives construct intimate relationships as based
on binaries embodied in heterosexual masculinity and femininity in heterosexual relationships
but played out in, often less obviously embodied, gendered ways in the relationships of LGB
and/or T people (Donovan and Hester, 2011; 2014). Sexual jealousy, notions of possession and
loyalty, divisions of labour in domesticity, relationship finances and decision-making roles can
all be shaped and reflect dominant gendered narratives (see Barnes, 2013a). Furthermore, they
evidence that it is through practices of love that a violent/abusive dynamic can emerge in the
relationships of LGB and/or T people.

Psycho-social explanations and minority stress

Others have attempted to bridge the gap between sociological approaches and, conversely,
psychological approaches such as Island and Letellier’s (1991) focus on perpetrators’ psycho-
pathology. Merrill (1996) for example constructed a psycho-social explanatory model which
integrates individualistic factors such as inter-generational transmission of DVA and social learn-
ing. This social learning is, according to Merrill, influenced by social norms and values which
tolerate, penalise or reward certain (e.g. abusive) behaviours, and are shaped by social-structural
factors such homo/bi/transphobia, sexism and racism. It is the overlaying of these individualistic
and social-structural factors that is then considered to offer explanatory power.
More recently the focus has been on minority stress; a term used to describe the psychologi-
cal toll taken on individuals from minoritised groups of living in an oppressive society (Balsam,
2001). In this work, a (causal) connection is made between the discriminatory social-structural
context in which LGB and/or T people live and LGBT DVA victimisation and/or perpetration
(Balsam, 2001; Balsam and Szymanski, 2005; Mendoza, 2011; Lewis et al., 2012). This seems to
mirror feminist approaches that problematise patriarchal social systems that create and collude
with conditions for DVA to occur. Through identifying the homo/bi/transphobic contexts
in which LGB and/or T people live, these researchers explore the complex interplay between
macro and micro level contexts. However, as Donovan (2015) has argued, there is a key dif-
ference between these approaches and those of feminist theorists. Whilst feminists point to the

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wider social-structural factors that oppress women and position them such that they can be vic-
timised by men, those exploring minority stress assert that oppression might also result in violent
and/or abusive behaviour from those who are oppressed.
Quantitative research has measured indicators of minority stress, but the use of disparate indi-
cators across studies makes comparisons between them difficult. Degrees of being out, experi-
ences of discrimination and/or hate, measures of internal homophobia have all been correlated
with experiences or/and enactment of DVA (Balsam and Szymanski, 2005; Mendoza, 2011).
There is also a tendency to conflate correlations and causation with little clear delineation of
how such correlations can make sense of both victimisation and perpetration (see Donovan,
2015, for a fuller critique of these studies). In the Coral Project we explored this issue and we
return to this later.

Key findings of the LGBT DVA research to date

The growing LGBT DVA literature has made good, if tentative, progress in establishing that
DVA in LGB and/or T relationships bears many similarities to what we know about DVA more
broadly, particularly with regard to heterosexual, cisgender women. DVA indisputably occurs in
LGB and/or T relationships and physical, sexual, emotional and financial violence are all used
by abusive partners. Moreover, as Donovan and Hester (2014) argue, two key emotional types
of abuse seem prevalent across sexuality and gender: isolation and undermining the victim/
survivor’s confidence and self-esteem.
Yet, alongside various similarities, there are some key differences. In spite of our reserva-
tions about the concept of minority stress, LGB and/or T identities are undoubtedly implicated
in LGBT DVA victimisation. Abusive partners threaten to out the victim/survivor to their
family, workplace, faith community, or children’s services; they also denigrate local LGB and/or
T scenes or victim/survivors’ reputations within these scenes to keep them from accessing
potential sources of help (Renzetti, 1992; Ristock, 2002; Donovan and Hester, 2014). Trans
victims/survivors can be deliberately misgendered and have their access to hormone treatments
or other medical services controlled (Roch et al., 2010; Greenberg, 2012; Rogers, 2016; 2017).
Those in first relationships are controlled by more experienced abusive partners who insist
that the way they want the relationship to operate, including how the victim/survivor should
behave is how ‘real’ lesbians or gay men behave and live (Ristock, 2002; Donovan and Hester,
2008; 2014; Kanuha, 2013). Young LGB and/or T people also seem to be more at risk of
reporting DVA than their peers and this might be one consequence of the lack of any inclusive
sex and relationships education and/or role models of LGB and/or T living everyday intimate
lives (Donovan and Hester, 2008; Formby, 2011).
Second, LGB and/or T identities affect the accessibility and quality of appropriate support
for DVA. Findings echoed by various studies identify barriers such as actual or anticipated
homophobic or inappropriate responses from service providers; familial rejection or disapproval
meaning that family are not a viable source of emotional or practical support; and heteronorma-
tivity and the ‘public story’ of DVA deterring LGB and/or T people from approaching main-
stream agencies because they do not think that a service would be available, or fear that service
providers would not understand or might problematise their sexuality or gender identity rather
than the DVA (Renzetti, 1992; Ristock, 2002; Donovan and Hester, 2014). One of the key
findings of the Coral Project was that there is an even greater dearth of help-seeking avenues for
LGB and/or T partners who use ‘abusive’ behaviours in their relationships, and we move on to
present this and other key findings next.

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The Coral Project: researching the use of ‘abusive’ behaviours in

LGB and/or T relationships

Rationale
In the Coral Project we studied the enactment of violent and abusive behaviours in the relation-
ships of LGB and/or T people in the first study of its kind not only in the UK, but internationally
too. Our focus on the violent/abusive behaviours enacted by LGB and/or T people in their
intimate relationships marks a critical departure from other UK research which has focused on
measuring and understanding the experiences of victim/survivors.

Methods
A multi-method approach was adopted which involved a survey of LGB and/or T people
(n = 872); 36 follow-up in-depth interviews with survey respondents who indicated that they
had used ‘abusive’ behaviours but were no longer doing so; semi-structured interviews with 23
practitioners providing perpetrator interventions, mostly for heterosexual, cisgender men; and
eight focus groups with practitioners from varied practice settings (e.g. youth work, individual
and relationship counselling, probation, sex and relationships education). In this chapter we
focus on the components which elicited data from LGB and/or T participants about their rela-
tionship expectations, behaviours and help-seeking (see Barnes and Donovan, 2016; Donovan
and Barnes, 2017 for an analysis of some of our practitioner data).
Our efforts to identify LGB and/or T abusive partners required innovation: since those
who have been convicted for DVA related offences are almost invisible within the criminal
justice system and we found no evidence of any mandatory or voluntary bespoke programmes
for LGB and/or T perpetrators, we decided to survey a self-selected sample of the ‘general
population’ of LGB and/or T people about ‘what do you do when things go wrong’ in their
relationships (Donovan et al., 2014). The survey was distributed through a database of over 200
LGB and/or T organisations as well as DVA organisations and through Twitter, achieving 872
useable responses.
The questionnaire was based on the innovative COHSAR methodology (McCarry et al.,
2007; Hester et al., 2010) and included questions about physical, emotional, sexual and financial
violence/abuse participants had experienced and what they had enacted; why they had behaved
the way that had and what impact the experiences had for them; and whether and from where
they sought help. In addition, questions were asked about the degree to which respondents
were open about their sexuality and gender identities and about their experiences of homo/
bi/transphobia, homo/bi/transphobic bullying and homo/bi/transphobic hate. Help-seeking
was also explored. Questions were also asked about whether they or those close to them had
identified them as having problems with jealousy, anger, control and trust; and the extent to
which they identified a need to change their behaviour. Potential interview participants were
identified through a careful screening process which considered their use of violent/abusive
behaviours, their current relationship status (nobody who reported currently using potentially
abusive behaviours in their relationship was chosen) and their readiness to change (only those
indicating awareness of their need to change were chosen).2 Interviews explored the question-
naire topics in more detail, examining any patterns of DVA victimisation and/or perpetration
across participants’ intimate relationships and their views about gaps in relationships services for
LGB and/or T individuals and partners.

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Key findings
In this section, we focus on two areas of our findings which resonate with the previously dis-
cussed literature. First we return to the concept of minority stress, before revisiting help-seeking.

Minority stress
Most respondents had experienced at least one form of homo/bi/transphobia, hate crime and/
or bullying: 86% reported homo/bi/transphobia, 51% reported homo/bi/transphobic bullying
and 39% reported homo/bi/transphobic hate crime. ‘Strangers/the public’ were the group most
often reported as the perpetrators. However, the family was responsible for 42% of homo/bi/
transphobia, people at work (34%), school/college/university (28%) and friends (27%) (Donovan
et al., 2014). These findings in themselves make it difficult to ascertain whether these experi-
ences are associated with the enactment of DVA in the relationships of an LGB and/or T person
because such a large proportion of respondents report negative experiences of these kinds.
Findings about the use of violent/abusive behaviours show that 57% report enacting at least
one behaviour that, in context, could be seen as abusive in the last year of a relationship or in the
previous 12 months for those in a current relationship; and 51% of those reporting ever having
used at least one behaviour that, in context, could be seen as abusive.3 These proportions are
considerable, yet not as high as those reporting homo/bi/transphobia, hate crime or bullying.
The findings for different types of abuse are presented in Table 5.1.
These findings confirm our wariness about the focus on minority stress as a correlating factor
for enacting DVA in the relationships of LGB and/or T people. Far more respondents report a
range of factors associated with minority stress than go on to report a profile of behaviours that,
taken together, might be suggestive of an abusive partner – and this is similarly mirrored in our
findings about being victimised by such behaviours (see Donovan et al., 2014).
We also asked respondents to indicate from a list of possible reasons why they had enacted
the behaviours they had reported in the questionnaire. Of those who answered this ques-
tion, none indicated that it had been ‘because of trans/bi/homophobia you’ve experienced’.

Table 5.1 Use of potentially abusive behaviours in the last 12 months of a current or last relationship

Type of behaviour Number of behaviours used Percentage (%)

Physical 1 9
2–5 6
6 or more 0.3
Emotional 1 17
2–5 18
6 or more 2
Financial 1 15
2–5 4
6 or more n/a
Sexual 1 25a
2–5 9
6 or more 0.2
a
Whilst this figure appears to be very high, the most common behaviour reported was ‘withholding affection’. Whether
or not this is an abusive act (i.e. when it is used to punish or demean) is highly context-dependent.

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We suggest a number of explanations for this. LGB and/or T people might not be conscious
of the potentially negative impacts of homo/bi/transphobic experiences on the everyday ways
they behave in their intimate lives. Second, respondents might reject the problematisation of
their sexuality and/or gender identity that is inherent in the suggested link to their use of ‘abu-
sive’ behaviours. This might especially be the case for those whose behaviours were used in self-
defence or indeed in retaliation against a partner using violence or abusive behaviours. A further
explanation might lie in the fact that ‘relationship’ problems might be seen as unconnected and
irrelevant to ‘societal’ problems. The limitations of quantitative research are illustrated here as it
is not possible to be sure what motivated the behaviour respondents reported.
Thus, our findings indicate that there are problems with assuming that the undeniable harms
of structural oppression will manifest themselves in DVA victimisation or perpetration, not
least because the former is more common than the latter. Alternative, or at least, additional,
explanations are therefore required to determine why minority stress might be associated with
victimisation for some, perpetration for others, and neither victimisation nor perpetration for
many LGB and/or T partners. Nonetheless, we maintain that living as members of marginalised
communities will have an impact on experiences of DVA: in recognising relationship experi-
ences as DVA and in help-seeking (Donovan et al., 2014).

Recognising DVA and seeking help

Echoing previous research, the Coral Project found that those experiencing DVA in relation-
ships with LGB and/or T people do not, in the main, report their experiences either to statutory
services (the police, local authority housing services, children’s services, health providers) or
specialist domestic violence services (Hester and Westmarland, 2006; Donovan and Hester,
2008; 2014; LGBT Domestic Abuse Forum and Stonewall Housing, 2013; Hester et al., 2014).
Reporting to the police tends to be a last resort when physical violence escalates and/or when
the victim/survivor’s fear has escalated (Donovan and Hester, 2011b). Rather, the first source
of help for LGB and/or T victim/survivors of DVA is, consistently, friends and the first ‘formal’
source of help is, consistently, counsellors/therapists, both of which suggest an individualised,
privatised approach to help-seeking which Donovan and Hester (2014) concludes reflects the
impact of the public story of DVA as well as the wariness LGB and/or T people still have of
mainstream services.
In the Coral Project, we asked those who had indicated use of violent/‘abusive’ behaviours,
about their help-seeking in the previous five years and got very similar responses. Friends were
the first source of help (59%), then NHS mental health services (48%) and then private/third
sector counselling/mental health services (41%). However, most respondents had not sought
help from anybody and whilst the top two reasons reported for not seeking help suggest a
more agentic approach to their decision – it was not serious enough to seek help and/or it was
a private matter and nobody else’s business – five out of the top eight reasons given suggest an
ambivalence about help-seeking. Respondents commonly indicated that they did not: think
any support providers could help; think they would understand; know where to go because of
their sexuality or their gender identity; think they would be believed; and/or think it would be
confidential. Another response in the top three is that respondents felt too ashamed to seek help.
Smaller numbers of respondents expressed concern about the responses of agencies based on a
previous bad experience or concerning fears about the impacts on children.
There were significant differences in reasons given for not seeking help between those who
had ever identified as trans and the rest of the sample. The former were much more likely to give
the following reasons for not seeking help: ‘because of my gender identity’, fear of ‘not being

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believed’, thinking they ‘couldn’t help’ or ‘wouldn’t understand’, and ‘feeling too ashamed’.
Being wary about practitioners problematising their sexuality, but more importantly, their
gender identity, was expressed by several interviewees. Beth, a white, bisexual trans woman,
illustrates the kinds of concerns respondents had, whilst also underlining the importance of an
intersectional analysis:

Beth:  o, I’ve never really had, I’ve never really been to anybody for advice . . . with
N
them . . . being sort of BDSM relationships it’s not like I could go to my par-
ents because my parents are . . . in a purely vanilla (short laugh) relationship,
so they don’t understand that sort of thing. So it’s a case of, it’s all been off of
experience and talking to friends and friends of friends and things like that.
It’s, I’ve never actually talked to a professional or anything about anything.
Interviewer: . . . [Is] that because you, you don’t feel that it’s been necessary or because
you wouldn’t know who to go to?
Beth: I wouldn’t really know who to go to, it’s difficult enough to be taken seri-
ously with depression anyway, I mean when . . . throw in the fact you’re in a
BDSM relationship or a poly [polyamorous] relationship they sort of look at
you like you’ve grown another head (laughs) . . . It’s difficult to find sort of
people that can understand and relate to what . . . your experiences are when
you’re in that sort of relationship.
(Beth, white, bisexual, trans woman, 31 years old)

Several participants talked about a need for more LGBT-specific services because they hoped
these would provide appropriate help without problematising an individual’s sexuality and/or
gender identity. For example, Amber says:

It [an LGBT service] would have more of an insight into the things that we are facing
[pause] like you talked about that butch-femme dynamic – I don’t see many mainstream
therapists having much of an understanding of that.
(Amber, mixed ethnicity, lesbian, 41 years old)

Whilst both Beth and Amber explain why they had not used existing services, of those who
had sought help, counselling and therapeutic services and mental health services were the
most popular. This also raises concerns insofar as it is not clear whether the practitioners being
approached are able to identify that DVA is a possibility in the relationships being talked about,
undertaking a risk assessment and/or talking about safety plans and referring to mainstream
and/or specialist services with expertise in DVA as appropriate. The implications for policy
and practice are clear.

Conclusion
Donovan et al. (2014: 33) state: ‘[n]ot being able to see yourself and/or lives like yours repre-
sented in the service you consider approaching can present a barrier to using that service’. We
would argue that this, more than discussions about the relative impact of minority stress, is
the most pressing issue to address for those experiencing DVA in their relationships with LGB
and/or T people. Of course, exploring the causes of DVA in the relationships of LGB and/
or T people is also important, but we would argue that sociological rather than individualistic
and/or psychological approaches provide more fruitful ways of proceeding. Whilst there is

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some evidence that existing services are attempting to address their responses to LGB and/or T
people presenting with DVA, it is still the case that only very small numbers are coming forward
(see for example Hester et al., 2015).
The implications for policy and practice are manifold. Existing services, including mental
health, counselling and therapeutic services, are challenged to ensure that their services will
respond appropriately to LGB and/or T service users or clients, have an understanding about
the intimate relationships LGB and/or T people might have, have an awareness about DVA,
including how DVA might manifest in the relationships of LGB and/or T people, and have
positive partnerships with local LGB and/or T organisations. This is critical in order to ensure
that the public story about DVA does not continue to marginalise those whose identities and
experiences do not fit this story. Practitioners also need to become skilled in carefully assessing
the way power is being enacted through the relationship practices presented to determine who
the victim/survivor and abusive partner is, what kind of relationship violence is being described,
and what intervention is required.
However, currently, most LGB and/or T people who are being victimised by an abusive
partner or enacting violence or behaviours that, in context, could be ‘abusive’ are not seeking
help other than from mental health services, counsellors and therapists. Very small numbers of
people report to the police and this seems to be mostly when physical violence or fear has been
escalated. This suggests that much more work needs to be done to raise awareness about DVA
in the relationships of LGB and/or T people within LGB and/or T communities as well as
within organisations that offer what we call ‘relationships services’: these might be mainstream
statutory or third sector organisations that provide sex and relationships education or guidance,
youth work projects, domestic violence services, perpetrator intervention providers, as well
as LGB and/or T organisations. In turn, these organisations need to review their processes to
ensure that their language and marketing is LGBT-inclusive, with clear policies about monitor-
ing, confidentiality and trust.
Those offering mental health and/or counselling and therapeutic services across sectors
should also: be aware of the extent to which LGB and/or T people experiencing DVA are
using their services and ensure that they identify DVA as an issue when it presents and respond
appropriately (e.g. by undertaking risk assessments and safety planning and making referrals to
DVA specialists as appropriate); ensure that they are not problematising individuals’ sexuality
or gender identity/ies; and build positive partnership relationships with local LGB and/or T
organisations as well as multi-agency domestic violence partnerships such as Multi-Agency Risk
Assessment Conferences (MARACs) in the UK which coordinate actions to protect and sup-
port those victims considered at most risk of lethal harm.
More generally, it is also the case that government policy has largely overlooked the needs
of LGB and/or T people affected by DVA. Tokenistic references to DVA occurring in LGBT
relationships too are insufficient. The recent UK government strategy (HM Government, 2016:
10) acknowledges that LGB and/or T people ‘experience multiple forms of discrimination and
disadvantage or additional barriers to accessing support’ and that help would be provided to com-
missioners to ensure that ‘the needs of all victims are met’. However, there is very little detail
provided about how this might happen or who will be responsible to make sure this happens.
The landscape is very different to when the first pioneers were writing and talking about
DVA in the relationships of lesbian and gay relationships. Whilst Westernised countries have
taken the lead, there is now growing internationalisation of LGBT DVA research. Within
Western countries an intersectional approach is attempting to address the homogeneity of
research samples that have typically reflected the experiences and needs of white LG people who
are well educated and otherwise resourced, who are able-bodied and who have access to or are

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 Domestic violence in LGBT relationships

confident enough to be out and using LGB and/or T community networks, online and social
media platforms and organisations and be recruited by researchers. More needs to be done,
however, including, challenging the public story about DVA and developing a more sociologi-
cal approach to understanding DVA in the relationships of LGB and/or T people.

Notes
1 We use this term to acknowledge that not all individuals identifying as trans are necessarily LG or B but
instead might be heterosexual, asexual or pansexual.
2 These screens were felt important for ethical and safety reasons but the research team acknowledged the
limitations these decisions placed on the interview sample.
3 See Donovan et al. (2014) for further explanation of these proportions.

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Q Taylor & Francis
Taylor & Francis Group
� http://taylorandfrancis.com
 Part II
Specific forms, representations
of, and responses to,
gendered violence
Q Taylor & Francis
Taylor & Francis Group
� http://taylorandfrancis.com
 6
The implications of pornification
Pornography, the mainstream
and false equivalences

Karen Boyle

Introduction
This chapter is concerned with how contemporary understandings of pornography and pornifi-
cation limit the possibility and legitimacy of feminist critique. This comes from a long-standing
frustration that some feminist disagreement about pornography derives from scholars working
with different objects as pornography (Boyle 2000), and a newer frustration with the implications
of ‘pornification’ discourse, in particular the way in which it renders pornography synonymous
with ‘sex’ (Boyle 2014a, Tyler and Quek 2016).
My own research in this field has primarily focused on the discursive and generic construction
of pornography – in mainstream media texts, the industry’s accounts of itself and the academy. In
other words, I am more interested in pornography as a discursive than as a material object: what
pornography means – and can be made to mean – in a variety of non-pornographic contexts.
Within this, I am particularly interested in the ways in which relationships between pornography,
inequality and men’s violence against women and girls are made more or less visible. As such, my
focus is on the meanings ascribed to commercial audio-visual pornographies aimed at heterosexual
men: pornography’s most quotidian elements (Boyle 2010a).
Despite the mushrooming of porn studies in the last 10–15 years, the emphasis of most
porn-sympathetic scholarship has not been on porn’s mainstream but on its margins (Boyle
2006, Williams 2014). One of the implications of this has been to allow the mainstream of the
pornography industry – which commentators from all sides typically agree is largely misogynist,
racist and frequently explicitly abusive – and the heterosexual men who use its products, off the
hook (Boyle 2006, Williams 2014, Tyler and Quek 2016).
After a brief discussion of how the terms ‘pornography’ and ‘pornification’ have been defined
and operationalised, this chapter works through the implications of the pornification discourse
with reference to the Fifty Shades of Grey phenomenon. Fifty Shades1 is my focus not because
the representation of consensual BDSM experiences is necessarily of concern to feminists chal-
lenging gender-based violence. Rather, I argue that it offers a case study in how discourses
of pornification legitimate abusive pornographic practices (of production, representation and
consumption) more broadly, flattening important differences and suggesting false equivalences
in which women’s consumption of sexual products become an alibi for men’s pornographic

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use of women. This reduces everything to individual taste and uses Fifty Shades to make claims
about women’s investment in the sex industry in order to encourage wider consumption, and
normalise pornography per se.
In addition to drawing on the novels and film themselves, this chapter is based on an analysis
of the ‘pornification’ of Fifty Shades in the UK press over a three-year period from March 2012
to February 2015.2 A Nexis keyword search of UK national newspapers in this period for the
phrase Fifty Shades of Grey and the word ‘porn’ identified a total of 993 articles for analysis. This
represents 17 per cent of all articles in the UK press which mentioned Fifty Shades of Grey in this
period, and just over 7 per cent of all articles featuring the word ‘porn’. To give some sense of
the significance of this, consider that articles using the word ‘porn’ cover everything from use of
the term in a non-sexual context (e.g. ‘poverty porn’ to describe reality TV shows), to widely
reported crimes relating to child abuse images (‘child porn’), debates about legislation and regu-
lation, image-based sexual abuse (‘revenge porn’), sex scandals and the business of pornography.
The linkage of Fifty Shades of Grey and pornography is thus significant to understanding the
discursive construction of porn per se in this period.
In order to set the scene for this analysis, I begin with clarifying how key terms – pornography
and pornification – are used in this chapter, as well as gesturing towards some problems with their
wider usage in the field.

Definitions
Defining pornography is notoriously slippery. Its Greek origins are pornē (prostitute) and graphien
(write): writing about prostitutes. This points to the relationship to a wider sex industry but also
to a distinction: pornography is representation rather than the thing itself. Whilst the etymology
emphasises writing, it is (audio-)visual pornographies featuring live performers which have mostly
been of concern to anti-pornography feminists – in which category I include myself – and here
the distinction between prostitution and pornography breaks down (e.g. Banyard 2016, Tyler
2015, Whisnant 2004). The reasons for this are obvious: these kinds of (audio-)visual pornogra-
phies are defined by the presence of real bodies. This is not to say that film pornography does not
have a complex relationship with the real (Boyle 2014a): it is a genre simultaneously defined by
its promise to explicitly reveal real bodies and sexual practices, and by its evident narrative ‘fakery’
and hyperbolic excesses (Paasonen 2010). However, the focus on real bodies engaging in real
sexual acts defines this kind of (audio-)visual pornography unlike any other genre.
In the analysis of the Fifty Shades of Grey phenomenon to follow, I will argue that a series of
false equivalences are established in the broader discourse so that the novel is allied with audio-
visual pornography aimed at men and, indeed, with the sex industry more generally. ‘Porn’ is
used as a non-medium-specific umbrella term encapsulating any form of sexually explicit repre-
sentation. This usage of ‘porn’ is not restricted to popular debate and, indeed, both foundational
and contemporary feminist anti-pornography texts similarly emphasise message over medium
(e.g. Dworkin 1981, Dines 2010). One of the aims of this chapter is to consider the political and
conceptual value of insisting on the specificity of audio-visual pornography, even (and perhaps
especially) when we are interested in the ways in which the industry, its texts, performers, values
and practices are represented in other contexts.
This is not, however, to make an inherent value judgement about one medium over
another. Distinctions between erotica and pornography have often hinged on this kind of value
judgement and critics have long argued that this is a class-based distinction, with mass media
forms accessible to mass audiences being classified as ‘pornography’ whilst ‘erotica’ has a more

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rarefied, middle-class and even aristocratic bent, depending on cultural and educational capital.
Whilst arousal is key to both, pornography is widely defined as material which moves the body,
with erotica having an additional cerebral element. Despite the broader cultural association of
women with the body and men with the mind, in this context the male audience is typically
associated with (audio-)visual texts which move the body, whilst female audiences are thought
to be more aroused – physically and mentally – by written texts. Anne Snitow argued in 1979
that romance fiction serves a similar purpose for women as hard-core audio-visual pornogra-
phy does for men and, as we will see, these arguments are revisited in the discussion of Fifty
Shades in the UK press.
However, when radical feminists like Tyler (2015) define pornography as filmed prostitu-
tion, what they are defining is not (solely) a genre of representation but rather a practice: a prac-
tice of male supremacy, an industrial practice, and a practice of male violence against women
(Dworkin 1981, Cole 1989, Dines 2010, Banyard 2016). Thinking about pornography as a
practice means analysing not only the texts of pornography, but thinking about pornography as
a system whereby one group of people (predominately men) are solicited to buy sexual access to
the bodies of another group of people for their own sexual pleasure and regardless of the pleasure
of the performers. As such, it depends upon the creation of a group of people as commodities
for the sexual pleasure of others: a process which is profoundly gendered in its dominant form.
Notably, whilst the choice and agency of performers is not immaterial to feminist concerns,
individual choice is immaterial to the functioning of the system (Whisnant 2004, Boyle 2014a).
To draw on two different concepts from Liz Kelly’s influential work on men’s violence
against women, the practice of pornography is thus conceptualised as part of a ‘continuum’ of
women’s experiences of male violence (Kelly 1988), and the values of pornography become part
of the wider ‘conducive context’ which legitimates and supports male violence against women
(Kelly 2016). Whilst non (audio-)visual texts may be part of the ‘conducive context’ they are
less obviously part of the ‘continuum’ – they do not function in the system in the same way.
Before turning my attention to Fifty Shades, the term ‘pornification’ requires contextuali-
sation. Along with other terms such as ‘pornographication’ and ‘porno chic’, pornification –
although widely used both popularly and in scholarship since the late 1990s – is conceptually
ill-defined. It is largely used to refer to pornographic incursions into the mainstream, both the
increasingly easy access to pornography itself and the adoption of the values, practices and rep-
resentational norms of pornography in texts which are not made, marketed or widely recognised
as pornographic. Much of the academic literature on pornification has taken a celebratory per-
spective, with McNair (2013: 15) claiming that ‘As the public sphere is to democractic politics,
the pornosphere is to sexuality and sexual behaviour’. As Tyler and Quek (2016) note, such
conceptualisations lack any understanding of (or interest in) power. Also absent is any acknowl-
edgement of the pornography industry’s active involvement and investment in the process of
pornification: instead it is presented as an amorphous and almost naturalistic process, independent
of vested interests. Most damagingly, pornography and pornification are consistently conflated
with sex and sexualisation (also, Boyle 2014a).
This sematic conflation of pornography and sex, representation and desire, industrial practice
and individual sexual practice is borne out in the analysis of the Fifty Shades phenomenon which
follows. After a brief introduction to Fifty Shades, I discuss the categorisation of the novels as
‘mummy porn’ and ask what is at stake in the widespread usage of this term. I then go on to
consider ways in which Fifty Shades has been linked to other forms of sexual consumption,
before concluding with a discussion of the false equivalences established between ‘mummy
porn’ and ‘daddy porn’.

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Mummy (and) porn

It is difficult to write about the Fifty Shades phenomenon without slipping into hyperbole.
Emerging from Twilight fan fiction, the novels – by first-time novelist E.L. James – were pub-
lished as e-books and print-on-demand paperbacks in 2011, before being picked up by major
publishers globally. By August 2012, Fifty Shades of Grey (James 2012a) – the first novel in the
trilogy also comprising Fifty Shades Darker (James 2012b) and Fifty Shades Freed (James 2012c) –
had become the best-selling book in Britain since records began (Waugh 2012). By the time
‘companion’ novel Grey (James 2015) became ‘the fastest-selling adult title ever in the UK’ in
2015, the original trilogy had sold more than 125 million copies (Flood 2015). The first film
adaptation, directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson, was released for Valentine’s Day 2015; with Fifty
Shades Darker (Dir. James Foley, 2017) opening in the same slot two years later.
The excessive sales were matched only by the volume of commentary and discussion which
propagated the phenomenon and is my focus here. Given both the BDSM subject matter and
the female audience for the novels, what Fifty Shades revealed about women’s desires and their
sexual consumption practices was much debated. The term ‘mummy porn’ encapsulated some-
thing of the bemusement with which mainstream critics engaged with the book, its writer and
its readers. In this section I will analyse the usage of the term in the UK press to consider both
what it reveals and conceals – but first a short introduction to Fifty Shades is necessary.
Fifty Shades centres on a romantic and sexual relationship between a young, virginal, college
student (Anastasia Steele) and a slightly older billionaire with a history of childhood neglect
and abuse, and a taste for BDSM (Christian Grey). By the conclusion of the trilogy – despite
Ana’s reluctance to engage in BDSM practices and Christian’s stated aversion to emotional
relationships – they are married with children. James describes the books as romance (rather
than porn), and feminist commentators – myself included (Boyle 2015) – have been critical
of them on these grounds, arguing that the version of romance they proffer hinges on a male-
protection racket which legitimates Christian’s knowledgeable control of all aspects of Ana’s
life as evidence of his all-consuming love for her.
Of course, it is a sexually explicit romance with a specific emphasis on Christian’s greater
sexual knowledge and power: not only as the dom to Ana’s sub, but more fundamentally as
the sexually experienced partner who knows better than Ana herself what will bring her sexual
pleasure. The BDSM content becomes an alibi for this broader (sexual) control. As an established
dominant, Christian has a contract for Ana to sign, establishing limits and serving as a blanket
consent form for his sexual play. Importantly, not least given current discussions about the need
for enthusiastic consent to be a cornerstone of rape prevention messages (including within BDSM
communities, see Barker 2013), Grey endlessly reiterates Ana’s failure to say ‘no’ as the green light
for Christian’s behaviours.
Although my focus is on the wider discourse in which Fifty Shades is embedded rather than
in the content of the novels per se, it is worth reflecting on the way in which consent is repre-
sented here. Christian’s rationalisations of his behaviours – along with Ana’s typically sexually
ecstatic responses to his boundary-pushing – mirrors a wider heteronormative dynamic of male
activity and female passivity where anything other than saying no (or safewording) is assumed
to be consent (Barker 2013). There are parallels here with the way in which the porn industry
has integrated a narrative of performer consent into the framing of its product (Whisnant 2016).
In short filmed interviews, a woman’s one-off statement of consent can be used to legitimate
whatever happens on screen, as well as the consumer’s engagement with it (Antveska and Gavey
2015: 613–614). In my own work I have argued that, in the stories the heterosexual pornog-
raphy industry tells about itself, evidence of the abuse of female performers can be used as a

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marketing tool. Consent and pleasure perform as an alibi: yes, she was physically damaged by
this scene, but she agreed; yes, she was pushed beyond her stated boundaries, but she liked it
(Boyle 2011b). Violence becomes invisible when intertwined with sex (Price 2005: 18).
The link between these contexts and Fifty Shades is made explicit in an article in the Sun
focusing on women’s post-Fifty Shades porn use. Nichi Hodgson of Ethical Porn Partnership
describes the ‘super risqué, rough and ready’ pornography made by Joanna Angel, continuing:
‘On one website the models are interviewed about their fantasies then that video is made. It
might be extreme, but it is what women want, so it is fine’ (Daubney 2014). The point here is
not to argue that these female performers do not want extreme acts (something I cannot know),
nor to suggest that they are victims of false consciousness, but rather to note that this narrative
of consent negates the commercial and industrial imperative of pornography, recasting pornog-
raphy as an intimate sexual encounter rather than a staged, generic one. Although the stakes are
not as high in relation to Fifty Shades (which does not depend on real bodies), the way in which
Fifty Shades is repeatedly framed as providing access to women’s authentic desires similarly
writes out the generic and commercial functions of the text. However, the parallels which are
drawn with pornography and the sex industry also function to equate women’s readership with
men’s very different engagements as viewers and punters.
At the heart of this is the term ‘mummy porn’, a term rejected by James as a misogynist put-
down of women’s sexual fantasies (Newman 2012). It is hard to argue that this is not, at least in
part, how it has been used, although my argument here is that it has more far-reaching implica-
tions. The origins of the term are difficult to trace,3 but in the UK press it is rarely used without
qualification: it is ‘dubbed’, ‘so-called’, ‘described as’ mummy porn – but precisely where the
term comes from, or whose interests it serves, remains obscure. This recalls Tyler and Quek’s
(2016) arguments about the way pornification has become understood as an amorphous process,
one that no one owns or takes responsibility for, presented as independent of the porn industry
and its interests. At the same time, the notion that this term originates somewhere else (marked
by the persistent use of scare quotes), works to hold Fifty Shades and its readers at a distance. This
is a phenomenon which requires explanation precisely because it is feminised, strange, marked.
The conjunction of mummy and porn says something about the author, the readers and the
texts. ‘Mummy’ functions as an indicator of class as well as gender: ‘porn for people who shop
in Marks & Spencer’ (Edwards and Di Santo 2015), ‘Waitrose porn’ (Knight 2012). In these
accounts, the porn of Fifty Shades is rendered inauthentic because of its middle-class, gendered
associations and respectability: in contrast, porn for heterosexual men is constructed as the real
deal, the authentic other of ‘mummy porn’.
It is striking that the characterisation of James – and to an extent her readers – has parallels with
James’ characterisation of Ana. James’ sudden rise to fame and fortune with her first novel is rep-
resented as somewhat bewildering to the unworldly middle-aged, middle-England, middle-class
married mother-of-two (e.g. Newman 2012, Skidelsky 2012). In this mix of ordinary (housewife,
mum, romance, British) with the extraordinary (wealth, BDSM, porn, America) there are echoes
of arguments about female film stardom (Dyer 1986). In these accounts, James – and other female
writers profiled in the wake of the Fifty Shades phenomenon (e.g. O’Hara 2014, Blakely 2013,
Oliver 2013) – are presented as harbouring a secret life: as a sexual fantasist, writer, sexual subject.
Underpinning much of this commentary is an assumption that writing generic sexual fiction is –
when performed by women – an act which reveals something of the authentic sexual self. This
downplays the craft of writing and its debt to existing generic categories and tropes, whilst conflat-
ing fantasy, representation and action.
Notably, the stardom trope is also mobilised repeatedly in mainstream media accounts of
women’s involvement in the porn film industry (Boyle 2011a, 2011b, 2012). In both contexts,

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there is an equation of erotica, porn and the sex industry with women’s bodies and decisions. In
relation to mainstream accounts of the porn industry, this renders male demand uncontentious,
unproblematic and invisible: porn exists because of a category of women willing to perform
in it. In relation to Fifty Shades, this works differently as the women investigated are not per-
formers but a writer and her readers. Yet, the almost obsessive focus on ‘what women want’
produces a similar effect: women’s desires are rendered mysterious (and commercially illusive),
even to women themselves. That the success of Fifty Shades is widely linked to the discreet
reading opportunities offered by the Kindle and the tasteful design of the paperback underlines
this point: women’s desires are hidden. But it also implies that one of the reasons women are so
unknowable to men is that they are secretive, repressed, naive or duplicitous about their own
desires. This is coherent with a wider pornographic narrative which legitimates pornography’s
preoccupation with and investigation of women’s bodies (Williams 1989), whilst men, their
bodies and desires, are pornographically naturalised.
In contrast, readers of Fifty Shades are repeatedly figured as inexperienced. For example,
one fetish store owner comments that ‘Fifty Shades of Grey . . . brought play to a different level
for the ordinary person who didn’t know they had a kink’ (de Burca 2014). This suggests that
the book has activated something latent, but always already existing, in its readers. What is
important about this for my purposes is how Fifty Shades is naturalised as sex rather than – or
sometimes as well as – sexual representation. This is precisely the process which Tyler and
Quek observe in academic and popular discourse around pornification: by equating pornifica-
tion with sexualisation the particular forms of sexual representation which are of prime interest
in pornography (that aimed at heterosexual men especially) are reconstructed as the totality of
sex. In the wider discourse around Fifty Shades this functions at a further remove: a novel aimed
at heterosexual women is equated with audio-visual pornography aimed at heterosexual men.
In the next section, I will expand on this point.

‘Bondage book lifts sex sales’

In April 2012, the Sun described E.L. James as ‘just one of many women embracing the
21st-century sexual revolution to build a career in the sex industry, while keeping their clothes
on’: the other women featured in the article work in sex toy sales and sex blogging (Locke and
Wills 2012). Two months later, the same paper ran a story about the impact of Fifty Shades of
Grey on sales of erotic literature, porn magazines and sex toys with the headline ‘Bondage book
lifts sex sales’ (Millard 2012), and by August 2012 the Sun was profiling a sex worker ‘living real-
life 50 Shades of Grey’ (Anderson 2012). It is perhaps not surprising that a paper with affinities
to the sex industry was so quick to position Fifty Shades’ readers as sex buyers (whether buying
print, visual porn or sex toys) and equate Ana’s sexual awakening with sex work. But it is by no
means unique in this.
As the use of ‘mummy porn’ suggests, Fifty Shades is discursively positioned as porn but in
a qualified way. But it also serves as a portal to ‘real’ porn and the wider sex industry: a portal
for female readers to go through, as newly emboldened sexual consumers with a particular
penchant for sex toys (e.g. Campos 2012, De Burca 2013, 2014, Sylvester and Thomson 2013).
Prior to the Fifty Shades phenomenon – but in the wake of a similar sales spike for vibra-
tors attributed to the TV show Sex and the City – Clarissa Smith (2007: 167) argued that the
growth in the sex toy market was evidence of ‘the development of a sex industry for women’.
A similar argument circulates in coverage of Fifty Shades. However, the suggestion that wom-
en’s purchase of ‘designed elastomer with a battery pack’ (Boyle 2014b: 261) is in some way
equivalent to a man’s purchase of a woman is to insist on the primacy of the individualised

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sexual pleasure of consumption. This is at the expense of any analysis of the structures which
enable these practices, the contexts of production, or the meaning of consumption personally
and socially (Boyle 2014b: 267). For feminist analysis it is therefore important to maintain a
distinction between the ‘commercialization of sex’ – which would include Fifty Shades sex toy
merchandising – and ‘commercial sex’ in which the practice of pornography would be included
(alongside prostitution, strip clubs, live sex shows).
However, one of the interesting things about the press coverage of Fifty Shades is the way in
which sex toys and hard core are discursively linked as part of a narrative of women’s increasing
sexual consumerism. Moreover, sexual consumerism is equated with more adventurous sexual
practice. This is particularly notable in the reporting of sex surveys, such as the Daily Mirror’s
‘Irish people spicing things up in bedroom department with porn and gadgets’ (de Burca 2014),
or the Sun’s sex survey which links toys, anal sex and porn (Barr and Bains 2014). In these
instances, toys, porn and sexual practice are relatively interchangeable and, crucially, understood
relative to their capacity to produce individual sexual pleasure.
At the same time, the phenomenal success of the novels is used as evidence that women
already like hardcore pornography, and here Fifty Shades and hardcore BDSM pornography
are treated as synonymous on the basis of shared themes. For example, a feature article in The
Sunday Times (Ayres 2012) suggests that the success of the books shows that prior assumptions in
Hollywood that ‘porn was a turn-off for at least 50% of its audience – ie women’ were errone-
ous. This provides the hook for a lengthy interview with porn star James Deen, a performer well
known for extreme scenes, including BDSM and rape pornography.4 Similarly, the Independent
on Sunday (Duerden 2013) uses Fifty Shades as a hook for a feature interview with former porn
star Sasha Grey, also well-known for extreme scenes. Grey’s latest career move, presented here
as continuous with her porn work, is to produce her own ‘sex-riddled bestseller’, another
BDSM trilogy of erotic fiction. In these examples, Fifty Shades is used as evidence of women’s
engagement with particular kinds of hardcore scenarios, regardless of medium, an engagement
which (as argued above) is repeatedly suggested to extend into the bedroom.
If women are constructed as a homogenous category here, this is not only in relation to what
‘they’ want sexually, but also in relation to how they understand and engage with Fifty Shades.
Research with readers has suggested that women’s motivations are diverse and involve different
levels of (dis)engagement (Deller and Smith 2013). However, as I will argue in the final section,
the broader discourse around Fifty Shades hinges on using perceived gender binaries to unseat
the possibility of any (feminist) resistance to pornography.

The women alibi

I have already noted some of the ways in which Fifty Shades is both presented as (mummy)
porn, and as a gateway to porn. In this final section, I want to expand this by noting some of the
ways in which women’s consumption of Fifty Shades provides a legitimising discourse for men’s
consumption of different forms of commercial sex, primarily in the tabloid press.
Male commentators frequently suggest an equivalence between their/male readers’ porn con-
sumption and women’s enthusiasm for Fifty Shades, whilst also arguing that there is something
disingenuous about the way women readers – and mainstream commentators – have rationalised
women’s consumption practices whilst condemning men’s:

WHAT ABOUT DADDY PORN? At the height of the Fifty Shades of Grey hysteria,
I wondered if anyone could explain why pornography aimed at women is empowering,
yet any man who uses porn is vilified as a pervert. Women are free to write openly and

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explicitly about sex and the female orgasm. But a man who attempted to do the same from
a male perspective would be condemned as a filthy beast and would attract the attention of
the Obscene Publications Squad.
(Littlejohn 2012)

Yesterday I got into bed to find my wife reading Fifty Shades of Grey and asked why she’d
sneaked upstairs to read S&M bondage material while I was watching a Newsnight special
on the bankers (or Fifty Shades of Grab). ‘For God’s sake, don’t over-react. It’s what’s
known as mummy-porn,’ she replied, laughing.
Remember that, men. Next time you’re caught surfing adult cable channels, choosing
between Chitty Chitty Gang Bang or Jurassic Poke, laugh and say ‘For God’s sake, don’t
over-react. It’s what’s known as daddy-porn.’ Then film her reaction for your divorce lawyer.
(Reade 2012)

A NEW survey claims 90 per cent of British women are turned on by porn.
And good for them, too. Just one question, though. How come it’s always seen that
reading triple-X novels like Fifty Shades of Grey, above, makes a girl sexually empow-
ered . . . but looking for cheap thrills on the internet makes a man a perv?
(Leckie 2012)

In these examples, columnists address male readers and porn is assumed to be something they
share. There is a tension here between porn being recognised and normalised as a universal
male experience, yet having to be constructed defensively in a context in which (they claim)
men’s porn use is culturally stigmatised (Boyle 2010b). In his fallacious claim that men’s novels
of this kind would currently attract the interests of the ‘Obscene Publications Squad’, Littlejohn
seems invested in constructing a version of men’s sexual cultures as under attack at a time when
women’s are in the ascendance. This is filtered through class of course: men’s porn consump-
tion is figured as somewhat grubby but also bawdy and humorous, whilst Fifty Shades dresses
up similar sexual scenarios with elaborate descriptions of soft furnishings, expensive wine and
pretentious seriousness. Women – readers and writers – are figured as disingenuous about the
real nature of their sexual pleasures, in a way that men are not:

Talk about showing up our hypocritical instincts: apparently porn is great, liberating and
relationship-enhancing if it has a nice, inoffensive cover and is read by people who wear
Boden, and not great at all if it is watched online by people who don’t. Especially if they
are men, the brutes.
Poor old daddy porn. I prefer it myself, both because it’s sexier and because it doesn’t
make pleading eyes at you while going, ‘I’m okay, really. I’m the porn version of cupcakes
and Cath Kidston.’ . . . So read away, and hooray for EL James, the author of Fifty Shades:
more power to her elbow. But don’t kid yourself that you’re somehow a cut above porn’s
usual clientele, or that there’s a ‘them and us’ theme at play. Porn is porn, and giving it a
playful prefix alters nothing. It’s what you don’t like your husband looking at. Why not?
You’re looking at it too.
(Knight 2012)

One of the features of much of the commentary both on Fifty Shades and on broader debates in
which it became embroiled, is a ‘he said/she said’ structure in which male and female perspec-
tives on the book, film or debate are presented. Whilst, at one level, this naturalises a binary

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and oppositional way of thinking about gender, consumption and desire, these debates are often
exercises in accommodation. Everything is reduced to individual taste, within a context of
natural sexual differences, and Fifty Shades is the trump card to silence feminist critique: women,
after all, are ‘looking at it too’ and any critique is therefore shot through with ‘50 shades of bias’
(Flanagan 2012).

Conclusions
In this chapter, I have demonstrated that, for the UK press, Fifty Shades both functions as porn
and as a way into porn and other forms of sexual consumption. As such, it encapsulates two dif-
ferent ways in which ‘pornification’ has functioned in popular and academic discourse.
If Fifty Shades is porn, then this obviously expands the category of pornography, making its
boundaries more difficult to regulate. The expansion of the category also undercuts any politi-
cal concern about pornography. Instead porn is ubiquitous, which makes an analysis of porn
as a form of industrial practice premised on inequality difficult to imagine. Indeed, Fifty Shades
recasts porn as an equal opportunity pursuit for consumers.
If Fifty Shades is, instead, understood as a way into porn and other forms of commercial sex,
porn is preserved as a distinct category outside of the mainstream, part of a wider sex indus-
try. Women’s incursions into the sex industry – as producers and consumers, primarily of sex
toys – function as an alibi for men’s unchanging relationship to the sex industry as part of an
authentic masculinity (as buyers of women, for the purchaser’s sexual pleasure and immaterial
of the pleasure of the women involved). The pornification discourse empties out any possibility
of understanding this industrially or structurally – in relation to inequality and men’s violence
against women – because pornification is equated with sex and sex is understood solely in terms
of individual sexual pleasure (Tyler and Quek 2016). It is neoliberal discourse writ large, where
expanding consumption is necessarily a good thing and power disappears: a process strikingly
apparent in Brian McNair’s celebration of pornificaton in Porn? Chic! (2013). In the Fifty Shades
discourse, as in McNair’s book, porn is a free-floating force for sexual pleasure, untethered by
material inequalities, in which personal choice trumps all. Yet women’s involvement in porn
remains marked, legitimating the pornographic fascination with women by reinforcing its sense
of their instability, inauthenticity and duplicity.
In their discussion of the implications of the pornification discourse more broadly, Meagan
Tyler and Kate Quek argue:

In separating out the mainstreaming of pornography and pornographic imagery from any
analysis of actual pornography – that is an analysis of what is actually mainstreamed – other
definitions make pornography seem natural and inevitable. This separation also enables
researchers to overlook the importance of the social construction of heterosexuality and
the importance of gender.
(2016: 5)

Tyler and Quek are focused on academic texts (including McNair’s) and, whilst an analysis of
what is actually mainstreamed would hardly be expected from the press, I would nonetheless
argue that their discursive construction of Fifty Shades works similarly. In the period examined,
Fifty Shades became shorthand not only for porn but, more broadly, for ‘what women want’ –
as (sexual) consumers and desiring subjects. The Fifty Shades phenomenon is as much about the
sale of leather whips and nipple clamps as it is about the text itself. This female consumerism –
driven by the novels – is, however, discursively equated with a very different form of male

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sexual consumerism and this is only possible by making porn a discussion about women’s choices
and behaviours. Men’s choices and behaviours exist as a largely unexamined norm: indeed,
studies on male porn consumers have demonstrated that to be asked to reflect on their own porn
consumption is a challenging experience for men (Antevska and Gavey 2015, Garner 2016).
That Fifty Shades has, at its core, a relationship characterised by dominance and submission in
which consent is rigorously negotiated yet boundaries are consistently violated is certainly part
of the broader context in which my analysis has to be understood. Yet, what I have suggested
here is that it is not the BDSM relationship that makes the novels and film of significance to a
feminist analysis of pornography in the context of men’s violence against women. Instead, it is
the way in which it contributes to a wider discourse of pornification which obscures the every-
day of pornography, naturalises male demand, and negates the trade in human beings at the heart
of the sex industry. This is made possible as the pornification discourse so relentlessly centres the
question of individual sexual pleasure and choice – and, specifically, women’s sexual pleasures
and choices – as though these exist in a vacuum outside of industrial pressures and patriarchal
norms. Whilst an analysis of the pornification of Fifty Shades can open up these questions, it also
points to the importance of retaining an understanding of audio-visual pornographic practice as
distinct from sexually explicit writing and reading.

Notes
1 When I refer to Fifty Shades, I am referring collectively to the four E.L. James novels and Taylor-Johnson’s
film.
2 From 4 March 2012 (the first mention of Fifty Shades of Grey in the UK press) to 28 February 2015 (two
weeks after the release of the film adaptation).
3 A March 2012 article in the Observer attributes ‘mummy porn’ to the New York Times (Helmore 2012). The
New York Times used the term as early as 2006 in a review of Hollywood movie The Holiday (Warner 2006).
The New York Times’ first usage of this term in relation to Fifty Shades of Grey is to note that the phenom-
enally successful novel ‘has been described as “Mommy porn”’ (Bosman 2012) – by whom remains unclear.
4 Eight of Deen’s co-performers subsequently accused him of rape and sexual assault, on and off set. These
accusations pointed to the blurred boundaries around consent in the industry (Glionna 2016), echoing
Meg Barker’s (2013) work on how a simplistic notion of consent can facilitate men’s abuse of women
within BDSM communities. Notably, despite initial condemnation, the accusations do not seem to have
done long-term damage to Deen’s career: this is coherent with the way narratives of abuse and physical
harm are repurposed as marketing strategies by the porn industry (Boyle 2011b).

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Williams, L. (2014) Pornography, porno, porn: Thoughts on a weedy field, Porn Studies, 1(1–2): 24–40.
Williams, L. (1989) Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the Frenzy of the Visible, Berkeley: University of California
Press.

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 7
Statutory response to
sexual violence
Where doubt is always
considered reasonable

Deborah White and Lesley McMillan

Introduction
Sexual violence has traversed cultures and time. Today, rape and sexual assault remain a remark-
ably prevalent feature of most societies (Du Mont & White, 2013; Grubb & Turner, 2012;
Walby & Allen, 2004), with women facing a strong likelihood of experiencing it at some
point throughout their lifetimes (McMillan, 2013). The often devastating emotional, psycho-
logical, social and physical impacts of these crimes on women’s lives have been heavily studied
(see for example, Bachar & Koss, 2001; Campbell, 2008; Du Mont & White, 2013; Koss, Koss
& Woodruff, 1991; McMillan, 2007, 2013; Waigandt, Wallace, Phelps & Miller, 1990). Across
Western societies, the statutory response to rape and sexual assault has been located primarily
in the criminal justice system (McMillan, 2016), through which complaints are lodged, suspects
investigated and possibly charged, prosecution pursued, and plea bargains and court trials estab-
lished. Within such formal statutory mandates and processes, however, the realities of post-rape
institutional responses have long reflected a tradition of dismissing women’s complaints and
treating those who do manage to move through the criminal justice system as suspect them-
selves. Whilst years of feminist struggles against the deficient treatment of victims and strikingly
poor case outcomes have led to a number of notable legal, procedural and practice reforms (see
for example, Campbell, Patterson & Bybee, 2012; Corrigan, 2013; Daly & Bouhours, 2010;
Hohl & Stanko, 2015; McMillan, 2007, 2015; Smith & Skinner, 2012; Winfree & DeJong,
2015), ‘justice’ continues to be elusive for victims of sexual assault and rape.
It is important to establish at the outset that sexual violence against women is a notoriously
under-reported crime. In fact, it has been stated that it is the most under-reported crime (Jordan,
2011). Research suggests reporting rates as low as 5 per cent in the United States (Fisher, Cullen
& Turner, 2000; see also, Belknap, 2010), and between 6 and 18 per cent in England and Wales
(Hohl & Stanko, 2015; Venema, 2016). Of the small number of victimized women who do
report their violations, many subsequently remove themselves from the criminal justice sys-
tem during the investigation or prosecution process (Frazier & Haney, 1996; McMillan, 2010;
Spohn, Beichner & Davis-Frenzel, 2001), and many others have their cases dropped by criminal

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justice authorities. In England and Wales, this process of attrition is well documented (Hohl
& Stanko, 2015; McMillan, 2010), as it has been in other countries such as the United States
(Daly & Bouhours, 2010; Lonsway & Archambault, 2012; Spohn & Tellis, 2012). And, of the
limited number of cases that do progress as far as the courts, outcomes are rarely favourable for
victims. McMillan’s (2010, 2011) research in England found that only 6 per cent of reported
rapes ended in conviction, a finding similarly apparent in many other jurisdictions (see also, Daly
& Bouhours, 2010; Lonsway & Archambault, 2012). As Hohl and Stanko have pointedly stated,
‘with a conviction rate as low as 7 percent . . . one might argue that in England and Wales rape
is effectively “decriminalized”’ (2015, p. 325).
Why, despite many seemingly progressive changes aimed at better treatment for victims,
does justice continue to elude women through high rates of attrition and low rates of convic-
tion? Theoretical debates surrounding the nature and role of rape myths have furthered our
knowledge of problematic criminal justice interventions (see for example, Corrigan, 2013; Du
Mont, Miller & Myhr, 2003; Jordan, 2004; Rees, 2010; Waterhouse, Reynolds & Egan, 2016).
However what is empirically apparent is an even more complex process permeated by varying
and often troubling assumptions and understandings of rape. Problematic perceptions of mas-
culinity, femininity, and women, can all impact negatively not only on victim experiences, but
also on and policies, procedures and outcomes.
In this chapter, we build upon extant research and suggest that the key impediment to
improved judicial outcomes for women rests upon the fact that the entire institutional apparatus
surrounding sexual assault is imbued with the notion that ‘doubt’ is reasonable. Doubt of victims,
regardless of initiatives intended to improve responses to women, is normative within the crimi-
nal justice system. Outside of the standard judicial premise for conviction – ‘beyond a reasonable
doubt’ – we argue that doubting the claims of women who have been sexually assaulted is in fact
a default position embedded in the post-assault evidentiary assumptions and structures of practice,
and is central to case progression, or lack thereof. In this respect, we focus on two aspects of the
statutory response to sexual violence, police investigation and medico-legal evidence collection,
in order to illuminate this entrenchment of doubt within the criminal justice system. Through
three case studies drawn from our own research, we underscore certain of the biased behaviours
and requisite practices of those professionals who are tasked with investigating and determining
evidence that may support or refute a victim’s narrative.

Method
In critically analysing the criminal justice system in relation to rape and sexual assault, this chap-
ter sits at the intersection of sociology, criminology and social policy. Focusing primarily upon
the UK, Canada and the United States, we draw on a wide body of literature in the area of
statutory responses to sexual violence, and support our arguments through the use of case studies
from two recent and ongoing research projects from England, Scotland and Canada.
Case Studies 1 and 3 are drawn from McMillan’s ESRC project, Understanding Attrition in
Rape Cases (Res-061-23-0138-A). The case study research based in England used a wide range
of data collection methods and utilised both qualitative and quantitative analysis to explore the
factors that contribute to case loss within the criminal justice system. Full details of the project
methodology are available in McMillan (2010). Case study 1 uses data and analysis from indepth
interviews with 40 police officers who regularly dealt with rape cases in either an investiga-
tive role (detective) or as a specially trained officer. Specially trained officers are deployed to a
complainant on the report of a rape, liaise with the complainant throughout the investigative
process, act as a main point of contact, provide services directly to the victim, and support

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the investigation. In the force in question, they are called Sexual Offence Liaison Officers
(SOLOs). For a full description of this role see McMillan (2015). Case study 3 uses data and
analysis from in-depth interviews with 11 forensic medical examiners (FMEs) and nurses (FNPs)
who medically and forensically examined complainants following the report of a rape.
Case study 2 is drawn from our recent work funded by the Scottish Institute for Policing
Research (SIPR) which involved questioning police officers about their understandings of, and
engagement with, medico-legal evidence in sexual assault cases (McMillan & White, 2016).
Data were collected in in-depth interviews with police officers in both Scotland (10) and
Ontario, Canada (11). Each country has distinct institutional settings and structures of forensic
medical evidence collection and, as such, a comparative design allowed for exploration of dif-
ference. Interviews with officers explored their intersection with the medico-legal process, how
they understand medico-legal evidence such as injury documentation, biological samples and
DNA, the weight and value they place on such evidence, and their relationship to other profes-
sionals within the medico-legal process. Further details of the project are available in McMillan
and White (2016).

Investigating evidence of rape: the challenges of defeating doubt

Rape is socially constructed within criminal justice systems as a particular type of crime, requiring
distinctive evidentiary practices. Most broadly, despite laws indicating that corroboration is not
required for a case to move forward or to convict (Du Mont & White, 2007, 2013), in several
countries the ‘law in practice’ reflects the expectation of corroboration of a victim’s account of
having been sexually assaulted. In fact, evidence supporting a woman’s claim as credible is pivotal
to the post-assault process (see Alderden & Ullman, 2012; Campbell, Menaker & King, 2015;
McMillan, 2016; Venema, 2016). Unlike other crimes, the burden of proof is often placed upon
the victim throughout case processing. Indeed, the evidentiary process, from start to finish, is
circumscribed by presumptions of doubt and by particular notions of rape and women. In what
follows, we focus on two key loci of the post-assault criminal justice process wherein victim
doubt is reified. The first is the police investigation, in which officers’ decision-making pow-
ers both shape and are shaped by structures and practices of doubt. The second is related to the
production of medico-legal evidence. The nature of such evidence, we suggest, can reinforce the
culture of distrust of women, as well as particular understandings and assumptions regarding what
rape and sexual assault are, how they occur and how true victims should respond.

Police investigation
Given that, of reported cases, the majority do not reach the courts (see Barrett & Hamilton-
Giachritis, 2013; McMillan, 2010; Venema, 2016), the policing stage of the evidentiary process
is arguably the most significant within sexual assault intervention (Jordan, 2004; Taylor &
Gassner, 2010), and the one with which women are likely to have most contact (McMillan,
2016). Here, officers typically interview victims and suspects, collect preliminary information
and evidence, file reports, and investigate to see if a case might move forward to prosecutors
(Bouffard, 2000; Spohn, White & Tellis, 2014; Venema, 2016). As gatekeepers to the criminal
justice system, it is through the decision-making actions of police that most cases are dropped
(McMillan, 2010; see also, Barrett & Hamilton-Giachritsis, 2013; Daly & Bouhours, 2010),
and the point at which a victim is most likely to extricate herself from the post-assault process.
Indeed, McMillan’s (2010, 2011) ESRC study found that of those who withdrew, 88 per cent
did so at the policing stage (see also, Hohl & Stanko, 2015).

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Police decision-making centres largely on confirming or dispelling doubt regarding a com-

plainant’s account of sexual assault in order to determine whether or not to move her case
forward. This is in part a structural requirement of the criminal justice system, as prosecutors
will not prosecute a case that appears to lack evidence to counter the given doubt of a victim
(Brown, 2011; see also, Du Mont & White, 2007). It is also, however, reflective of the rou-
tinized and discretionary professional practices that tend to characterize police investigations.
A review of case attrition research shows that a constellation of indicators used to determine a
woman’s credibility lies at the heart of the investigative response to sexual violence. Numerous
studies have affirmed that police decision-making plays a very significant role in establishing the
(non)credibility of a victim (see for example, Bollingmo, Wessel, Eilertsen & Magnussen, 2008;
Campbell, Menaker, & King, 2015; Campbell, Patterson, Bybee & Dworkin, 2009; Corrigan,
2013; McMillan, 2016; McMillan & Thomas, 2009; Tasca, Rodriguez, Spohn & Koss, 2013;
Spohn & Tellis, 2010; Winfree & DeJong, 2015). Central to this activity are the character-
and behavioural-based criteria upon which victim credibility is determined including: having
reported the assault promptly, outward expressions of trauma and fear, cooperation with inves-
tigators, and completely consistent statements across all institutional interactions (Alderden &
Ullman, 2012; Hohl & Stanko, 2015; Kelley & Campbell, 2013; McMillan, 2016; McMillan &
Thomas, 2009; Venema, 2016). Whilst these criteria fall largely within the sphere of traditional
rape mythology, such decisions are tempered also by wider assumptions about masculinity,
femininity and responsibilization. What follows are two case studies that draw from our recent
and ongoing research and focus on the investigative dimensions of the statutory response to rape
and sexual assault and exemplify the ways in which presumptions of ‘doubt as reasonable’ are
evident in both the police investigative process and in their understandings of evidence.

Case study 1

The manifestation of doubt within the police process

Interviews with police officers conducted as part of an ESRC-funded study examining the
problem of attrition in rape and sexual assault cases highlight the pervasiveneess of doubt and
how this can manifest in attitudes, behaviours and institutitonal processes. Analysis of interview
data reveals that some police officers hold problematic views about the likely truthfulness of
rape and sexual assault allegations, and that detailed and complex typologies around supposedly
‘false’ allegations are evident (McMillan, 2016). At the outset, it is important to note that not all
police officers believe there are high rates of false allegations, and police attitudes may be one
of the areas where some successful in-roads have been made. In the research, police officers’
estimates of false reporting rates varied widely from 5 to 90 per cent of all rape reports, with
some believing only very few were false (McMillan, 2016). This contrast is evident in the fol-
lowing two responses:

I would say the small percentage would be the genuine ones. (P39 SOLO, female)
I think people often say that people cry rape but I haven’t heard of many . . . (P3 SOLO, female)
(McMillan, 2016, p. 4)

It is heartening that some officers perceive numbers to be very low. However, among those who
reported higher estimates, a central tenet was that women are deceitful and indicators of deceit,
largely consistent with prevailaing rape myths, included the amount of alcohol consumed, a lack

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of injury on the victim’s body, and failure to cooperate with criminal justice procedures like
forensic medical examinations (see McMillan, 2016). Police officers categorized false allegations
into ‘types’ which included allegations made out of malice, those made after a ‘regretful’ sexual
encounter, those where aspects of the victim’s story did not ‘add up’, where mental health issues
were present, where complainants withdrew cooperation with parts or all of the criminal justice
process, and lastly, where complainants could not remember what happened or where third
parties had reported the allegation (McMillan, 2016). What is clear is that where officers had
a tendency to doubt complainants, they found complex ways of explaining and justifying this
doubt, almost to the point where very few cases would not meet one of these criteria.
Doubt is also evident in procedural aspects of rape case processing, and the behaviour, expec-
tations and attitudes of officers within that process. For example, when officers discussed com-
plainant interviews – the process by which the victim’s narrative is produced, and a key aspect of
the evidence collection process for any case (Milne & Bull, 2006) – it was clear they did not see
it simply as a means to establish the facts of the case, but an opportunity to attempt to establish
her ‘veracity’ and ‘truth’ (McMillan & Thomas, 2009). There was an expectation among officers
that this would be evidenced by a detailed and consistent account of the events provided by the
complainant. As one officer noted:

I’m not a lie detector, I don’t know whether people are telling the truth or not, but what I
do, and how we interview is we get down to what we call ‘fine grained detail’, that’s what
Advanced Interviews do, they want to know the nuts and bolts of exactly what happened.
Now the more detail you try and get from someone, the more easy it is to prove whether
they are lying or not. (Senior detective, male).
(McMillan & Thomas, 2009, p. 262)

Where it was not possible to get ‘fine grained detail’ – which is often the case, and especially
so with traumatic events (Coffey, 1998; Lewis Herman, 1992) – officers could be sceptical, as
expressed in their concern about a complainant’s credibility and the truthfulness of the account
overall (McMillan & Thomas, 2009).
Further, interviews also revealed that the centrality of doubt within the investigative response
could lead to tensions and contradictions when police officers perform specialist duties in rela-
tion to rape and sexual assault. As noted above, there have been several procedural and practice
reforms in relation to sexual assult, one of which was the introduction of specialist officers for
rape cases. Sexual Offence Liaison Officers (SOLOs) are specially trained officers deployed to
a complainant following report of a rape (see McMillan, 2015). When discussing their perfor-
mance of this specialist role, officers highlighted role ambiguity with a key tension between sup-
porting the victim and being part of an investigative team that seeks to establish the veracity of
her account (McMillan, 2015). In fact, officers reported that performing the SOLO role, a key
aspect of which is supporting and believing a victim, ran counter to their basic police training
which encourages doubt and skepticism from the outset. One officer noted:

You’re trained as a SOLO that your victim’s story is your victim’s story, it needs investigat-
ing, you don’t doubt them, you kind of believe them. As police officers you’re trained that
you doubt everything you ever hear.
(McMillan, 2015, p. 12)

This specialist resource that has been developed to support complainers and counteract the cul-
ture of doubt that surrounds rape allegations is unlikely to be wholly successful when SOLOs are

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caught between investigating to seek to establish the veracity of her account, and supporting the
victim at the same time. This is then futher compounded by the general distrust of complainers
within police professional culture. Whilst reassuringly, some officers performing the SOLO role
clearly understood the importance of making sure victims feel their stories are believed, and felt
strongly about treating them with fairness and respect (McMillan, 2015), it is difficult to know
how this might be achieved within a system so infused with doubt. This is incredibly problem-
atic as women report that being disbelieved is very distressing for them (McMillan & Thomas,
2009). It is also likely to impact upon further disclosure to other support services (McMillan,
2013), which may compound the detrimental effects of rape and sexual assault outlined above.

Case study 2

Police understandings of evidence: victim narratives and beyond?

An ongoing comparative project exploring police understandings of evidence in rape and sexual
assault cases in both Scotland and Ontario, Canada, funded by the Scottish Institute for Policy
Research, has proven insightful with respect to how officers understand and pursue support of a
victim’s claim of sexual assault. In structural terms, there are differences in evidentiary require-
ments between police forces. The Scottish criminal justice system necessitates two forms of
corroborative evidence for a case to be considered for prosecution, whereas in Ontario, there
is no such formal prerequisite. This may account, in part, for the varying approaches to secur-
ing evidence. However, we found interesting differences between police forces with respect to
perceptions regarding the role of the victim’s narrative in the evidentiary process. It was notable
that several of the Scottish interviewees listed the complainant’s testimony as central, if not the
most important, evidence in a case. Moreover, when asked specifically about evidence in rape
and sexual assault cases, Scottish police almost uniformly spoke of it in broad terms, suggesting
an array of forms it might take including crime scene findings and those from a wide search of
the area, social media, possible witnesses, CCTV footage, forensic medical evidence, etc:

I think we always try to get . . . as much as possible and the best evidence we possibly can,
and we don’t stop when we think we’ve got enough. (Scotland 2)

There was, it seemed, an expressed sense of determination to prove, on behalf of the victim,
what they presumed had happened, rather than disproving her account:

This is where we’ve got, how do we help prove that this happened? (Scotland 6)

Thus, whilst the Scottish criminal justice system has structurally embedded victim doubt in its
evidentiary requirements compelling investigators to intensify searches, at the level of investiga-
tive activity, this pursuit of greater corroboration seems to translate to a desire to help the victim
attain justice.
In contrast, some of the police interviewed in Ontario appeared to operate from the position
of doubting victims from the outset:

So, they phone the police and say they have been sexually assaulted. We get a statement
from them, we want to know all about that person and why are they coming here to give
us the sexual assault complaint because did this really happen, did that happen, I don’t want
to call you a liar but we’ve got things to talk about and we need to know why. (Canada G)

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When further asked about what evidence is generally sought in rape and sexual assault cases,
police officers in the Canadian sample rarely indicated sweeping searches for multitudinous
forms. Instead, almost all focused on what was perceived as the single most important type of evi-
dence: forensic medical evidence in the form of biological samples (for DNA analysis) intended
for the identification of a suspect. ‘DNA appeared to be the most valued form of evidence for
Canadian officers, and for some its presence was seen as a “slam dunk” for a case’ (McMillan
and White, 2016; see also, Venema, 2016). We found this emphasis curious given that in reality
the vast majority of sexual assaults are perpetrated by someone known to the victim, not stran-
ger cases requiring identification (see, for example: Du Mont & White, 2007; McMillan, 2013;
Waterhouse, Reynolds & Egan, 2016), and that a number of research studies conducted globally
have shown that DNA does not have a statistically significant impact on criminal justice out-
comes (see, Du Mont & White, 2007, 2013). There is a disjuncture between the perceived and
real effects of this highly coveted form of evidence. To continue to venerate DNA through its
prominence in the routinization of evidence collection is to reify the myth that rapes are carried
out by strangers, when in fact it is most likely that a woman will be raped by someone known to
her, including current and former intimates, relatives, friends, colleagues and those encountered
at social gatherings (McMillan, 2013). In addition to undervaluing the victim’s narrative, this
singular focus also indicates a rather misplaced approach to effectively eliminating victim doubt.

Medico-legal evidence
A second locus of victim doubt within the criminal justice system is found in the structural
expectations and social production of medico-legal evidence. Collected from a raped or sexu-
ally assaulted woman’s body through a forensic medical examination, this form of evidence has
become thoroughly institutionalized and highly revered as a source of corroboration among many
criminal justice professionals (Du Mont & White, 2007; Kennedy, 2012). Victims themselves typi-
cally choose to undergo the voluntary invasive and lengthy medical examination in the hopes of
eliminating doubt for police and the courts (Corrigan, 2013; Du Mont & White, 2007). Research
has shown that, in some instances, they also do so to prove to friends and family that they were
assaulted (Du Mont, White & McGregor, 2009). In fact, the examination process itself, regardless
of what evidence it may or may not generate, has been likened to a ‘lie detector test’ for victims
(see for example, Du Mont, White & McGregor, 2009; Corrigan, 2013). In a Canadian project,
Parnis and Du Mont (2006) found that for some of the 51 police officers surveyed, the forensic
medical examination, even though voluntary, was a litmus test of a victim’s veracity: ‘29% stated
that a victim’s “unwillingness” to have . . . [the examination] . . . done had influenced the way
they felt about a case either “a few” or “several” times’ (p. 85). Some nurse examiners have sup-
ported this finding through their observations of police being more inclined to pursue a case if a
woman agreed to have this medical evidence collected (see for example, Corrigan, 2013; Parnis
& Du Mont, 2006). Kelly and Regan (2003) have observed in England that not having a ‘forensic
examination is often a factor in cases not being proceeded with’ (p. 12), and McMillan (2016) also
found in England that such refusal could be a factor in whether officers considered a case likely to
be a false allegation. In this regard, the routinized forensic medical examination itself is reflective
of structured and normative doubt in the criminal justice system.
Examinations for the collection of medico-legal evidence are often circumscribed by par-
ticular protocols (sometimes known by terms such as rape kits, Sexual Assault Evidence Kits or
Early Evidence Kits). The medical evidence sought generally includes biological samples and
specimens (e.g. semen, fingernail scrapings), observations of external and internal ‘marks’ on
the body, and documentation of a woman’s demeanour, all of which are taken as indicative of

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factors such as assailant identity, use of force, victim resistance and an objective assessment of
whether a woman appears to have been emotionally and psychologically traumatized (Du Mont
& White 2007, 2013). Despite normalized expectations of these forms of forensic medical evi-
dence, it has been shown that they reflect specious and potentially problematic assumptions that
often do not reflect the realities of real rapes and real victims: the majority of sexual assaults are
committed by someone known to the woman, thus not requiring DNA-based identification;
they commonly do not involve violence that would leave bodily marks; women frequently do
not physically resist acts of sexual violence (for fear of further harm); and, victims may often
appear outwardly calm upon presentation, a well-documented and common response to trauma
(Du Mont & White, 2007; Waterhouse, Reynolds & Egan, 2016). The disjuncture between the
structured expectations of ‘proof’ and what evidence is most likely to be produced can actually
hinder the ability of a victim to erase doubt regarding her claim.
Beyond the entrenchment of doubt in medico-legal technologies, research has shown that
the attitudes and opinions of some of those responsible for collecting medico-legal evidence can
be biased towards disbelief of particular victims. There are a range of professionals who conduct
forensic medical examinations including physicians with varying degrees of specialized training,
sexual assault nurse examiners (SANEs), police surgeons and other forensic medical examiners
often located in police suites or hospitals. Although some American research has suggested that
evidence collected by SANEs may lead to more positive criminal justice outcomes (Campbell,
Patterson & Lichty, 2005; see also, Corrigan, 2013), other studies have highlighted attitudes
and practices among medical professionals that align with negative stereotypical understandings
of rape, victims, and masculinity and femininity. For instance, in Canada, Parnis and Du Mont
(2006) found that certain SANEs and sexual assault nurses and physicians who conducted foren-
sic medical examinations at times deviated from standard procedures and protocols based on
their interpretations of a victim, the circumstances of the assault reported, and their understand-
ings of investigations and court proceedings. This included, at times encouraging or discour-
aging certain women with respect to having medico-legal evidence collected. In the United
States, Corrigan (2013) documented particular victims being denied an examination and, in
her ethnographic work in examination rooms, Mulla (2011) observed discretionary behaviours
based on nurses’ assessments of victim credibility. In our recent project involving interviews
with forensic medical examiners and forensic nurse practitioners in one part of England, we
found victim-doubting to be almost ubiquitous, as described in case study 3.

Case study 3

Medico-legal practitioners: animating structural doubt

The police behaviours based on assumptions of who and what might be a ‘good’ victim and
case were rooted in certain attitudes regarding what rape and victims are. These same attitudes,
along with particular perceptions of masculinity and feminity, were evident in the interviews
with those who collect forensic medical evidence from sexually assaulted women carried out
as part of the ESRC rape attrition study. Strikingly, many of the 11 medico-legal practitioners
interviewed expressed, often very explicitly, a tendency to not only doubt victims, but to vilify
them (McMillan & White, 2015). Victim doubt among these interviewees translated to particu-
lar perceptions and presumptions about what rape is. Despite research demonstrating that most
sexual assaults are committed by someone known to the victim and do not cause physical injury,
many of the medico-legal practitioners in this study appeared to believe that those criteria were
the bases of ‘legitimate rape’ (McMillan & White, 2015). Those victims whose accounts of

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sexual violence aligned with these notions were more likely to be believed by those conducting
forensic medical examinations on their bodies:

we couldn’t put a proctoscope in she was so tender . . . and that was a stranger assault, and
I felt she was genuine. (FNP1)
In all the time that I did rape examinations, I think I saw three that were what I would
consider real rape allegations. (FNP6)
I remember one . . . and she had injuries, and she was very believable. (FNP2)
(McMillan & White, 2015).

Beyond what appeared as a pervasive culture of doubt among the medico-legal practitioners in
this study was a tendency towards a distrust so deep that at times it bordered on contempt for
many of the women they forensically examined:

they’ve put themselves in the situation and quite often . . . woke up the next morning . . .
how can I get round this, I know, I’ll say I was raped . . . I would say probably half . . .
have put themselves [in this]. (FNP2)
silly little girls that have been caught . . . out by daddy, or caught out by a boyfriend, so I
think they were consensual sexual episodes and the rape was a cover. (FNP4)
[the women] . . . they go out to get drunk . . . and yet they want all their rights, but they
made themselves more vulnerable. (FME1)
Sometimes they [the victims] have a tendency to minimize their part in the case, perhaps
their behavior led to the offence. (FME4)
(McMillan & White, 2015).

Compounding the biases structured within the institutionalization of medico-legal evidence col-
lection, such pronounced expressions of doubt by professionals in this study, we speculate, could
further negatively impact victim experiences and case outcomes. Such distrust can influence what
evidence is or is not gathered, and it is reasonable to assume that such intense opinions of doubt
regarding claims of rape could colour a victim’s feelings about the evidentiary process, perhaps
tipping an already fragile commitment to the statutory intervention towards withdrawal from the
criminal justice system for fear of not being believed further into the investigative and judicial stages.

Conclusions
Rape and sexual assault have been historically characterized by high rates of case attrition and
low rates of conviction. Despite widespread legislative changes and progressive programme
and policy initiatives, and in the face of all that has been written on the insidiousness of rape
mythology in criminal justice systems, the outcomes for victims are essentially unchanged. It
is our argument that justice remains elusive because doubt of a victim’s credibility is normal-
ized, institutionalized and always considered reasonable – from the starting to the end points of
the post-assault statutory intervention. Unlike other crimes wherein the crime itself is generally
accepted, the criminal justice apparatus surrounding rape and sexual assault is centred on inter-
rogation of victim experiences and narratives. Through our focus on police investigation and
medico-legal evidence, the case studies presented illustrate primary sites wherein doubt of a
woman’s narrative is either buttressed or diminished. Whether embedded in structural require-
ments or the attitudes and discretionary activities of the police and medico-legal professionals,

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investigative and evidentiary processes are imbued with uncertainty about the veracity of wom-
en’s claims of rape. The expectations of a woman’s character and behaviour, and those of what
rape is and what evidence should be available as proof, all reflect and reinforce an insidious cul-
ture of doubt. It is apparent that as long as the biases of doubt remain entrenched within criminal
justice structures and professional cultures, victims will continue to drop and be dropped out
of the system. This is a fatal flaw of the statutory response to rape, and how to remedy what
is problematic is not easily determined. At the level of practice, it would seem that person-
nel sensitivity-training intended to counter-balance this culture of distrust would be effective.
However, the reality is that despite such initiatives in particular jurisdictions, judicial outcomes
have not changed. We would suggest that given the centrality of these processes, the state
response to rape and sexual assault will always be, at best, of minimal value for victims and, at
worst, damaging to those who engage with the system as it undermines women’s cases and lives.

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 8
Stalking as a
gender-based violence
Katy Proctor

Introduction
Reviewing the current stalking literature, this chapter will discuss what we already know about
stalking and how it is experienced by men and women. Referring to the author’s recent research
conducted in Scotland and key research from the field of violence against women, the discussion
will highlight the context and aspects of stalking that illustrate its gendered nature. The chapter
concludes that stalking is a gender-based violence and discusses the merits of framing it as such.

What is stalking?
It is widely acknowledged that there is a lack of consistency in definitions of stalking – in law and
academic research (Logan and Walker, 2009; Mullen et al., 2009; Owens, 2016; Sheridan et al.,
2003; Tjaden, 2009). Mullen et al. (2009, p. 10) state that, in general terms, stalking is repeated
behaviours which ‘could be expected to cause distress and/or fear in any reasonable person’.
These two elements, repetitive behaviours and causing fear, are common to most definitions.
How each of those elements are defined legally or academically, however, varies considerably
(Logan and Walker, 2009; Mullen et al., 2009; Owens, 2016; Tjaden, 2009). These definitional
variations combined with differing research methodologies (in particular, participant sampling
methods) mean that the body of stalking research is difficult to compare and generalizable con-
clusions are rare (Logan and Walker, 2009). This lack of consistency, however, doesn’t stop at
research operationalization. Within academia there is a lack of consensus, or even consideration,
on whether or not stalking is a gender-based violence (GBV).
Despite multiple studies concluding that women are stalked significantly more often than men
(Bjorklund et al., 2010; Morris et al., 2002; Mullen et al., 2009; Tjaden and Theonnes, 1998),
stalking is not consistently considered GBV. In fact, authors such as Tjaden and Theonnes
(1998) and Purcell et al. (2001) go so far as to state that stalking is a gender-neutral act. Other
researchers, however, take different approaches. The gendered nature of stalking is explicitly
addressed and discussed by some (Davis et al., 2012; Duntley and Buss, 2012; Langhinrichsen-
Rohling, 2012; Lyndon et al., 2012; Reyns et al., 2016; Yanowitz and Yanowitz, 2012) and
many others closely align stalking to domestic abuse or sample from female only stalking victims

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(Amar, 2006; Buhi et al., 2009; Coleman, 1997; Fisher et al., 2002; Jordan et al., 2007; Logan
et al., 2006; Mechanic et al., 2000; Melton, 2007) which could allude to the study of a GBV. No
research, however, has framed stalking definitively as GBV.
Article 3d of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence
against women and domestic violence states that ‘[G]ender-based violence against women shall
mean violence that is directed against a woman because she is a woman or that affects women
disproportionately’. As there is substantial evidence showing that women are targeted consider-
ably more often than men by stalkers, by applying this definition to stalking it would appear to
be GBV. Similarly, stalking is often (although not consistently) incorporated into organizational
policy as a gender-based violence or included in non-academic descriptions of what constitutes
violence against women (VAW). For example, the European Institute for Gender Equality
(2016) website lists ‘legal definitions of different types of gender-based violence used in EU
member states’ in which stalking is mentioned alongside legislation for rape, sexual assault, inti-
mate partner violence and female genital mutilation.
Tjaden and Theonnes (1998) and Purcell et al. (2001) don’t stipulate why they make the
claim that stalking is a gender-neutral abuse, however, they both stress that men are stalked in
large numbers and that often the impact can be just as devastating for male victims as it is for
females. In particular, Purcell et al. (2001) conclude from their research into female perpetrators
of stalking that although ‘the contexts for stalking may differ by gender, the intrusiveness of the
behaviours and potential for harms does not’ (p. 2056). This conclusion is difficult to argue with
and highlights that labelling stalking as GBV is not necessarily as simple as indicating the propor-
tion of women versus men victimized. It is important to stress that taking a gendered approach
to defining stalking does not mean that men cannot be acknowledged as victims of stalking. It
merely provides a framework to help us understand the differences between men’s and women’s
lived experiences of the abuse and consequent impact in the context of a society founded on
gender inequality (Lombard, 2013). It is, therefore, the thesis of this chapter that the influence
of context on stalking experiences, which Purcell et al. (2001) identify as differing between
genders, is in fact the very thing that makes stalking a gender-based violence.

Making the case for stalking as gender-based violence

It is perhaps because the dynamics of stalking are so complex with elements that are bespoke to
individual victims and perpetrators that a ‘one size fits all’ definition has never been agreed upon.
The issue of definition, however, is extremely important in trying to establish a clear picture
of the rates at which stalking is experienced. Differing definitions between studies can lead to
contrasting results which can be confusing or misleading. This is clearly illustrated when com-
paring the results of the Scottish Crime and Justice Surveys (SCJS) (Scottish Government Social
Research, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2014, 2016) on stalking and Morris et al.’s (2002) study on stalking
and harassment in Scotland. The studies define stalking differently and operationalize their survey
questions accordingly. Morris et al. (2002) ask if respondents have experienced ‘persistent and
unwanted behaviour’ (alludes to stalking experienced as an ongoing course of conduct) and the
SCJS surveys ask if respondents have experienced at least one of a limited set of behaviours on
more than one occasion (alludes to stalking being experienced as a set of individual and discrete
events). Consequently Morris et al. and the SCJS conclude with very different results – most
noticeably, perhaps, with regard to gender. Despite all the studies being carried out in Scotland,
by survey, and on behalf of the Scottish Government, all the SCJS surveys show no significant
difference between gender and victimization rates but Morris et al. (2002) find that over the
course of a lifetime 17% of women and 7% of men are victimized – a statistically significant

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difference (see Table 8.1). (It is worth noting that the results of Morris et al. (2002), with regard to
the gender and victimization rates, are more typical when compared with most stalking research
other than the SCJS findings.) When looking at Morris et al.’s (2002) measurements for the
previous 12 months only, granted, they are much smaller and closer to the SCJS results yet they
still reflect a gender difference in victimization (see Table 8.1).
Comparing the SCJS (2008–2015) and Morris et al. (2002) studies, the differences between
the frequencies in which men and women are stalked suggest that there are components to the
experience which differ between genders and that the behaviours employed by the stalker are
not necessarily the sole defining aspect.
Core to the Morris et al. (2002) question are the words ‘persistent and unwanted’ which
contrasts with the SCJS (2008–2015) questions which refer to numbers of incidents and do not
explore the sentiments of the respondents. The Oxford English Dictionary (2016) defines persistent
as ‘Continuing firmly or obstinately in an opinion or course of action in spite of difficulty or
opposition’, which in itself, within the context of stalking, alludes to behaviour that is conducted
against the target’s will. By extrapolation this suggests a concerning or potentially frightening
experience for anyone victimized. It could be taken for granted that ‘threatening’, ‘obscene’ and
‘nuisance’ behaviours, as used by the SCJS survey questions, may allude to ‘unwanted’ events
but this is an assumption. The terms are undefined and left open to interpretation by each survey

Table 8.1 Table showing the variations in research definitions and results of the key studies of stalking
in Scotland

Study Operationalized definition Number of females Number of males

of stalking experiencing stalking experiencing stalking

SCJS 2008/09 At least 1 of 4 specific 6%a 6%a

behaviours*
SCJS 2009/10 At least 1 of 4 specific 6%a 5%a
behaviours*
SCJS 2010/11 At least 1 of 4 specific 6%a 5%a
behaviours*
SCJS 2012/13 At least 1 of 6 specific 6%a 6%a
behaviours**
SCJS 2014/15 At least 1 of 6 specific 6.8%a 5.9%a
behaviours**
Morris et al., Persistent and unwanted 17%b (5%a) 7%b (2%a)
2002 behaviour

* 1 Obscene or threatening unwanted letters, e-mail, text messages or cards.

2 Obscene, threatening nuisance or silent telephone calls.
3 Waiting or loitering outside the home or workplace on more than one occasion.
4 Being followed or watched on more than one occasion.
** 1 Being sent unwanted letters or cards that were either obscene or threatening on a number of occasions.
  2 Being sent unwanted emails or text messages that were either obscene or threatening on a number of occasions.
  3 Receiving a number of unwanted approaches via social networking sites that were either obscene or threatening.
  4 Receiving a number of obscene, threatening, nuisance or silent phone calls.
  5 Having someone waiting outside your home or workplace on more than one occasion.
  6 Being followed around and watched on more than one occasion.
a
Over the last 12 months.
b
In their lifetime.

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Katy Proctor

participant and answers given may not reflect the intention of the question. For example, some
may interpret ‘obscene’ experiences as consensual sexual experiences and responding in the
affirmative may not mean they have been subjected to such an act within an abusive or even
criminal context. The definition is blurred further by the fact that multiple options are given
within the same question. The responder needs only to feel they have experienced one ele-
ment (albeit more than once) to be categorized as a victim of stalking regardless of how they felt
about it. Consequently it could be argued that when the elements of ‘persistent and unwanted’
are added, gender parity is no longer found in the numbers of those who are stalked. This is
particularly evident over the course of a lifetime (see Table 8.1). The gender differences illu-
minated by including a phrase such as ‘persistent and unwanted’ suggests that in defining and
operationalizing the term stalking, the context of the experience becomes as important, if not
more so, than the specific behaviours employed by the stalker.
The importance of context and not just behaviours has long been recognized in the vio-
lence against women (VAW) literature and in particular domestic abuse research. Straus’ (1979)
Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS), for example, developed to measure conflict and violence in the
home has been criticized for ignoring the context of violence and abuse (Dekeseredy and
Schwartz, 1998; Dobash et al., 1992; Hoyle, 2007). These critiques explain that without con-
sidering the background to violent incidents the CTS finds false gender equity in the numbers
of men and women experiencing domestic violence. The original CTS asked women ‘tell me
for each one [listed behaviour] how often you did it in the past year [to your partner]’. Examples of the
physically violent behaviours in the questions were ‘slapped the other one [partner] . . . kicked, bit,
or hit with a fist . . . hit or tried to hit with something’. The women were then asked how often
their male partners had done the same to them. Results from this survey have suggested that a
man and a woman can legitimately claim they have both suffered incidents of physical violence.
Johnson (1995, 2006) and Stark (2007), however, describe that the implications of such vio-
lence can differ dramatically. They explain that within the context of domestic abuse men and
women experience intimate violence very differently because of the context in which it occurs.
They go on to explain that intimate violence perpetrated by women against men is most often
self-defence and in addition the consequences of that violence are generally far less serious for
male victims than female victims.
Dobash and Dobash (2004) suggest that although both men and women can be physi-
cally violent in their relationships, the way in which that physical violence is conducted differs
between genders. In particular they state that ‘women’s violence does not equate to men’s in terms
of frequency, severity, consequences and the victim’s sense of safety and wellbeing’ (p. 324). Breiding
et al. (2014) found that as a direct consequence of being a victim of intimate partner violence,
women were more likely than men to be injured physically (13.4% and 3.5% respectively), miss
at least one day of work or school (9.1% and 4.8%), need medical services (6.9% and 1.6%), need
legal services (8.8% and 4.0%) and need housing services (3.6% and 1.0%) in their lifetimes. In
addition to this, Johnson (1995, 2006) highlights that domestic abuse or intimate terrorism is
characterized by ‘patterns’ of behaviour, rather than individual incidents of physical violence,
that reflect the motivation (and ultimate outcome) to control an individual. Stark (2007) refers
to this course of conduct as ‘coercive control’. Hester’s (2009) study looking at police records of
male and female reports of violence within the home support these theories. She found that not
only was male violence against women generally more serious than women’s violence against
men but that ‘men and women appeared to experience and use violent/abusive behaviour
in different ways, with violence by men more likely to involve fear by and control of victims’
(p. 19). This shows that by considering the context when measuring abuse, significant differences
between genders are often illuminated.

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When stalking is measured holistically, similar gendered patterns appear. Bjerregaard (2000)
found that women were more likely than men to be threatened by their stalker, to believe their
stalker was capable of carrying out those threats, that only females reported having their families
threatened, that, for female victims only, if threats were made then there was a higher risk of the
stalker engaging in ‘approaching behaviours’, women were more likely to report being physi-
cally harmed, women were more likely to move house, seek counselling and call the police.
(Not all of these correlations were found to be statistically significant; however, this could be
explained by sample size and a smaller number of men taking part than women.)
Similarly Menard and Cox (2016) found that women were more likely to seek support and
report to the police than men. Whether or not an individual reports violence or abuse is signifi-
cant as Logan et al. (2007) found that women who reported stalking by their partners were expe-
riencing greater distress, fear and severe violence than those who didn’t report. This is reflected
in the Leone et al.’s (2007) study looking at help seeking behaviour of women experiencing
different types of abusive relationships as defined by Johnson (1995) – intimate terrorism (a course
of conduct designed to exert power and control) and situational couple violence (a mutually
abusive relationship but without the use of power and control to dominate one by the other).
Leone et al. (2007) found that those subjected to intimate terrorism were more likely to seek help
from formal agencies such as police than those experiencing situational couple violence. These
studies suggest that, in general, women suffer a greater impact to their everyday lives than men
when victimized by a stalker.
We also know from multiple studies that levels of fear experienced as a result of stalking dif-
fer for men and women. In fact it has been shown consistently that women experience more
fear than men as a consequence of being victimized by a stalker (Bjerregaard, 2000; Podaná and
Imríšková, 2016; Reyns and Englebrecht, 2013; Sheridan and Lyndon, 2012; Slashinski et al.,
2003; Winkleman and Winstead, 2011) and that women were more likely to report fear than
men (Owens, 2015). In addition it has been found that where a stalkers behaviour facilitates an
increase in levels of fear for both male and female victims, relatively speaking that increase was
greater for women (Bjerregaard, 2000; Podaná and Imríšková, 2016).
Gendered patterns are so uniform in the stalking literature that Owens (2016) and Podaná
and Imríšková (2016) recommend that the term ‘fear’ is removed from legal definitions of stalk-
ing. They argue that because men report less fear, if any, when being stalked they are less likely
to meet the ‘has been caused fear’ criteria stipulated in the majority of stalking laws worldwide.
Consequently they reason its inclusion is discriminatory against male victims of stalking. It has
been argued that men report less fear because to admit to being frightened is an ‘un-masculine’
thing to do, however, this is yet to be substantiated.
Gender differences are not only seen in the way victims experience stalking but also in the
way that stalkers perpetrate their crimes. Studies on perpetrators of stalking are few in compari-
son to victim studies and those looking at differences between the gender of the perpetrator are
fewer still. From the studies that are available, however, gendered patterns appear to emerge.
Langhinrichsen-Rohling et al. (2000) conducted a study on college students who had experi-
enced a significant relationship break-up and then engaged in ‘unwanted pursuit behaviours’
(UPB). UPB is defined by Langhinrichsen-Rohling et al. (2000) as ‘Activities that constitute
ongoing and unwanted pursuit of a romantic relationship between individuals who are not
currently involved in a consensual relationship with each other . . . [there is] the potential for
two quite different outcomes for the perpetrator: 1. Relationship reconciliation or 2. Stalking’
(pp. 1–2). Of those who perpetrated UPB, men were significantly more likely to physically
approach their ex-partner by, for example, visiting their ex-partner’s home. Female perpetra-
tors, however, were more likely to leave phone messages. When thinking about context and

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impact it could be argued that physically approaching someone is potentially a more threatening
or fear-inducing act than leaving a phone message, especially if carried out within the context
of other abusive behaviours. The study did not uncover any other significant gendered patterns
and, as a consequence, concluded that unwanted pursuit behaviours after a break-up are gener-
ally gender-neutral. Their methods, however, asked about specific acts occurring (incidents) and
did not consider the acts occurring within a course of conduct or the impact that the acts had
which is reminiscent of the CTS. Incorporating questions to reflect context may have generated
a more gendered picture.
Purcell et al. (2001) and Meloy and Boyd (2003) conducted research on female stalkers.
Although they too did not ask about impact on victims they still found the following patterns.
Similar to Langhinrichsen-Rohling et al. (2000), Purcell et al. (2001) found that female stalk-
ers were more likely than male stalkers to employ telephone calls in their tactics and less likely
follow their targets. Meloy and Boyd (2003) did not make comparisons between genders but
found that making telephone calls was the most frequent behaviour displayed (83%, n = 82)
but only half physically followed their target (49%, n = 81). Purcell et al. (2001) also found that
female stalkers were less likely to physically assault their victims and, although there appeared to
be little difference in making threats, female perpetrators were less likely to escalate their threats
to physical assaults. Violent acts were recorded in 25% (n = 20) of Meloy and Boyd’s (2003)
sample, however, they state that where injury was caused it rarely required medical care and
was not considered serious.
Mullen et al. (2009) stated that considering the impact of the stalking on their victim was not
of importance as ‘there is no reason to presume that being stalked by a female would be any less
devastating than being stalked by a man’ (p. 139). For reasons discussed earlier in this chapter
it could be argued that this is an injudicious assumption and although the word ‘devastating’ is
undefined their statement appears to be contradicted by Sheridan et al.’s (2014) research.
Sheridan et al. (2014) compared the experiences of victims allocated to four dyads by their
own and their stalker’s gender; male stalker/female victim, female stalker/male victim, male
stalker/male victim, female stalker/female victim. They found that male victims of female stalk-
ers were significantly less likely to give up social activities and less likely to be left feeling
distrustful of others as a result of being stalked, suggesting less of an impact when stalked by a
female. Male and female victims of male stalkers were more likely to report feelings of weak-
ness and suffering threats of sexual violence than those stalked by a female, suggesting a greater
impact when stalked by a male. In addition to this, male stalkers of females were most likely
to cause injuries requiring medical attention and engage in serious violence. All suggesting that
there may well be reasons to presume that being stalked by a female may be less devastating in
general than being stalked by a man, especially if a woman is victimized.
Podaná and Imríšková (2016) looked at coping strategies and discovered that, although not
significantly different (which they put down to a small sample size), gendered patterns could
be seen. Two of the coping strategies they looked at were ‘active strategies’ and ‘passive strate-
gies’, which they defined as follows. Strategies that were considered ‘active’ ‘were active in
attempting to solve their situation, or changed their behavior to a great extent’ (pp. 801/802).
For example, ‘meeting the offender face to face, reporting stalking to the police, seeking pro-
fessional or informal help, and a change of address’. Passive strategies were ‘victims who chose
passivity as a response to stalking; they either changed nothing about their behavior, or they just
ignored the offender’ (p. 802). Women were more likely to take an active approach to coping
with being stalked whereas men were more likely to choose a passive strategy. When comparing
the levels of fear and coping mechanisms an active approach to coping was associated with greater
levels of fear in women only. Podaná and Imríšková (2016) suggest that this may indicate gender

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 Stalking as a gender-based violence

differences in decision-making regarding responding to a stalker. It could be argued also that

reacting to being stalked passively or actively reflects an individual’s level of fear and perception
of danger or threat.

My study
Many of these patterns (such as) were found in the author’s own research (Proctor, 2012). An
online survey was sent out to all Glasgow Caledonian University students (postgraduate and
undergraduate). The survey was based on questionnaires used originally in Sheridan et al. (2001)
and modified by Bjorklund et al. (2010) for use in a stalking prevalence study of students and
McMillan and Robertson’s (2012) survey used to research student victimization. My research
(Proctor, 2012) used the same question and consequent definition of stalking as Sheridan et al.
(2001) and Bjorklund et al. (2010) – ‘Stalking can be defined as persistent unwanted behaviour
consisting of several attempts to approach, contact, or communicate that the recipient didn’t
want and did not encourage’. Having been able to read the definition, students were then asked
whether or not they had experienced this. Respondents were asked whether or not their expe-
rience of persistent and unwanted behaviour (PUB) had caused them fear. Respondents were
asked about lifetime experiences and experiences whilst at university. All the results discussed
here represent the responses for lifetime experiences.
In total, 900 students responded to the survey. Fifty-three of these responded to only the first
question so were excluded, giving a total sample size of 847 students. The total sample had an
age range which spanned 45 years with a minimum age of 17 years and a maximum age of 62
years old. The average age of respondents was 26 years old with a median age of 22 years. Of
those who answered 67.9% (n = 572) were female and 32.1% (n = 270) were male. The majority
of students who answered were based in the UK and studying full-time (78.5%, n = 661).
A variety of perpetrator/victim relationships were identified. The majority of victims were
stalked by an acquaintance (49.1%, n = 113) and the next largest category represented ex-partner
perpetrators (31.7%, n = 73). Only 15.2% (n = 35) were victimized by strangers and 1.7% (n = 4)
didn’t know who the perpetrator was (see Figure 8.1).
Of those who answered, 31.2% (n = 241) experienced PUB. Of those, 64.4% (n = 143)
had felt fear from their experience. A significant association was found between gender and

60%

49%
Percentage of perpetrators

50%

40%
32%
30%

20% 15%

10%
2% 0%
0%
Stranger Aquaintance Ex-partner Current partner Don't know
Relationship of victim to perpetrator

Figure 8.1 Bar chart illustrating the relationship of victims to perpetrator

115
Katy Proctor

victimization (X2 = 13.58, p = 0.000, ø = 0.13). Women were more often victimized than men
(35.4%, n = 189, and 22%, n = 52, respectively). Similarly, a significant association was found
between being frightened by their experience and gender (X2 = 19.82, p = 0.000, ø = −0.30). Of
the women who indicated they had been victims of PUB, 72.1% (n = 129) were frightened by
their experience, whereas 37.5% (n = 18) of men had been frightened. Of all those who had
experienced fear from an episode of PUB during their lifetime 87.8% (n = 129) were women.
There was a clear gender bias when it came to perpetrators of PUB. Of the perpetrators
whose gender was known to the victims, 78.3% (n = 177) were male and 21.7% (n = 49) were
female. For both genders the most common frequency of events was at least once a week.
Almost 70% (n = 26) of the men fell into this category but only 45.6% (n = 73) of the women
did. A similar proportion of women, however, experienced events at least once a day (43.1%,
n = 69) whereas only 23.7% (n = 9) of the men experienced the same frequency. In each of the
categories females represented a higher proportion than men. A significant but weak association
between gender of victim and frequency of incidents was found (X2 = 6.46, p = 0.041, V = 0.18).
This result is consistent with the theory that stalking is gender-based violence.
My research asked also about the impact that the stalking had had and again the results
showed a clear gendered pattern (Proctor, 2012). Significantly more women than men felt
feelings of anxiety (X2 = 7.92, p = 0.013, ø = −0.31), fear (X2 = 8.48, p = 0.006, ø = −0.32),
unsafe (X2 = 9.62, p = 0.003, ø = −0.34), isolated (X2 = 7.42, p = 0.01, ø = −0.30) and as if they
were going mad (X2 = 4.85, p = 0.035, ø = −0.24).
To build a more detailed picture of victim impact respondents were asked what safety measures
they adopted as a result of the stalking. Five safety precautions were significantly associated with
gender (see Table 8.2), ten showed no significant association (see Table 8.2) and the rest gener-
ated unreliable results. All safety measures that showed a significant association with their use and
gender (changing privacy features on social media accounts, changing phone numbers, warning
friends and family not to give out contact details, locking the door of their residence when they
leave, and stopped talking to mutual friends of theirs and the perpetrators) indicated that women
were most likely to use them. Not taking any safety precautions was significantly associated with
gender, showing men less likely to use safety precautions (X2 = 3.98, p = 0.045, ø = −0.22).
Options without a significant association, however, reflected the same gendered patterns as those
with significance (see Table 8.3). Only moving house was employed more by men than women
although the difference in proportion was marginal.

Table 8.2 T
 able showing the use of safety precautions which had a significant association with gender
and the percentages of male and female victims who use them

Safety precaution Statistical significance Percentage of Percentage of

women men

Changed privacy features on social media X2 = 3.63, p = 0.048, 50.8% (n = 31) 27.3% (n = 6)
accounts, e.g. Facebook, Twitter ø = 0.21
Changed phone number X2 = 5.41, p = 0.034, 41.0% (n = 25) 13.6% (n = 3)
ø = 0.255
Warned friends/family not to give out X2 = 6.82, p = 0.006, 32.8% (n = 20) 4.5% (n = 1)
your contact details ø = 0.287
Lock the door of your residence when you X2 = 4.57, p = 0.026, 18.0% (n = 11) 0.0% (n = 0)
leave, even if only for a few minutes ø = 0.24
Stopped talking to mutual friends of theirs X2 = 4.18, p = 0.034, 24.6% (n = 15) 4.5% (n = 1)
and the perpetrator ø = 0.22

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 Stalking as a gender-based violence

Table 8.3 T
 able showing the use of safety precautions which were non-significant in association with
gender and the percentages of male and female victims who use them

Safety precaution Statistical value Percentage of Percentage of

women men

Mail redirected X2 = 0.37, p = 1.000 1.6% (n = 1) 0% (n = 0)

Changed e-mail address X2 = 2.80, p = 0.085 19.7% (n = 12) 4.5% (n = 1)
Changed or sold car X2 = 0.739, p = 0.538 3.3% (n = 2) 0% (n = 0)
Avoided going out after dark X2 = 0.12, p = 0.600 6.6% (n = 4) 4.5% (n = 1)
Telling someone where they X2 = 3.19, p = 0.075 13.1% (n = 8) 0.0% (n = 0)
going and when they
would be back
Leaving residence light on X2 = 2.76, p = 0.105 11.5% (n = 7) 0.0% (n = 0)
at night when leaving it
unoccupied
Refused to let unknown X2 = 3.19, p = 0.075 13.1% (n = 8) 0.0% (n = 0)
people into their
building/house
Installed caller ID on their X2 = 0.25, p = 0.474 13.1% (n = 8) 9.1% (n = 2)
phone
Move house X2 = 0.02, p = 1.000 8.2% (n = 5) 9.0% (n = 2)
Change jobs X2 = 0.59, p = 0.399 9.8% (n = 6) 4.5% (n = 1)
Stopped going to some X2 = 1.45, p = 0.531 26.2% (n = 16) 13.6% (n = 3)
places
Stopped going out as much X2 = 4.18, p = 0.034 14.8% (n = 9) 0% (n = 0)

Respondents were asked whether or not the stalking had had a negative impact on a number
of areas in their lives. Although none of them were significantly associated with gender, a greater
proportion of women suffered a negative impact than men in all the options (see Table 8.4). The
lack of statistical significance may have been a result of the relatively small number of respondents
completing this part of the survey and further research may help to clarify this.

Conclusion
The results from my research (Proctor, 2012) support the thesis that stalking is gender-based
violence – regardless of perpetrator/victim relationship. Not only were women more likely to
be victims of stalking than men but they were more likely to experience a negative impact and
use safety measures. Mullen et al. (2009) claim that classifying stalking as a form of domestic abuse
implies it is a ‘women’s issue’ and by extension one may assume they might make the same claim
regarding classifying stalking as GBV. As with domestic abuse and all other types of gender-based
violence, the fact that women are victimized significantly more often (or even solely in the
case of female genital mutilation, enforced pregnancy, etc.) does not make it a ‘women’s issue’.
Even if discounting the proportion of men who do experience these types of abuse, it is widely
acknowledged that men are most often the perpetrators of such abuse therefore it could equally
be framed as a ‘men’s issue’. As perpetrators are the only people responsible for their violence and
abuse it could be argued that identifying gender-based violence as a ‘men’s issue’ is in fact a far
more appropriate classification. As recognized by many researchers in the field, however, GBV
is a product of gender inequality (Dobash and Dobash, 1979; Stanko, 1990; Stark, 2007) and
consequently gender-based violence is everybody’s issue regardless of gender.

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Katy Proctor

Table 8.4 T
 able showing the percentage of victims who experienced each negative impact and the
percentage of each gender

Area of life Statistical results Percentage Percentage of Percentage of

experiencing when tested against experiencing a victims who victims who
negative impact gender negative impact were women were men
from stalking

Academic work X2 = 1.35, p = 0.375 22.9% (n = 19) 14.5% (n = 12) 8.4% (n = 7)

Family relationships X2 = 0.34, p = 0.724 14.5% (n = 12) 9.6% (n = 8) 4.8% (n = 4)
Social life X2 = 0.96, p = 0.427 32.5% (n = 27) 21.7% (n = 18) 10.8% (n = 9)
Friendships X2 = 0.123, p = 0.786 28.9% (n = 24) 20.5% (n = 17) 8.4% (n = 7)
Sexual relationships X2 = 0.02, p = 1.000 21.7% (n = 18) 15.7% (n = 13) 6.0% (n = 5)
Confidence X2 = 0.469, p = 0.603 34.9% (n = 29) 24.1% (n = 20) 10.8% (n = 9)
Finances X2 = 0.02, p = 1.000 8.4% (n = 7) 6.0% (n = 5) 2.4% (n = 2)
Emotional health X2 = 0.027, p = 1.000 34.9% (n = 29) 25.3% (n = 21) 9.6% (n = 8)
Physical health X2 = 1.05, p = 0.375 8.4% (n = 7) 4.8% (n = 4) 3.6% (n = 3)
Paid/voluntary work X2 = 0.16, p = 1.000 7.2% (n = 6) 4.8% (n = 4) 2.4% (n = 2)

As with domestic abuse, understanding the context in which stalking takes place is para-
mount. Modifying our interpretation of stalking as a series of incidents to instead understanding
it as a course of conduct is of paramount importance in recognizing the significance of gender.
Framing stalking as gender-based violence is not an attempt to minimize the experiences of
men or divert resources to women-only organizations. Stanko (2006) tells us that ignoring the
gendered nature of violence and abuse undermines our comprehension of the true dynam-
ics involved and consequently how we support those who are victimized. Understanding the
gendered nature of stalking and the subsequent issues and implications for everybody can only
enhance our responses to those who are stalked as well as those who stalk.

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 9
Cyber-trolling as symbolic
violence
Deconstructing gendered abuse online

Karen Lumsden and Heather M. Morgan

Introduction: cyber-trolling
Media reports and public debates concerning the ‘dark side’ of the web focus on various forms
of online abuse, such as trolling (Phillips, 2015), RIP trolling1 (Marwick and Ellison, 2012), hate
crime (Citron, 2016), cyber-bulling, e-bile (Jane, 2014a), revenge porn, stalking and sexting.
Police and criminal justice agencies report difficulties in keeping up with the rise in the number
of reports of online crime and abuse, while there are currently ineffective means of legislating
against and/or investigating and prosecuting cases (Bishop, 2013). Social media corporations,
such as Twitter, have been called to task for their slow responses to dealing with online abuse.
In 2015 the Chief Executive Officer of Twitter, Dick Costolo, was quoted as stating in a leaked
memo that ‘We lose core user after core user by not addressing simple trolling issues that they
face everyday . . . I’m frankly ashamed of how poorly we’ve dealt with this issue during my
tenure as CEO. It’s absurd’ (Griffin, 2015).
This chapter considers trolling as a form of gendered abuse and symbolic violence (Bourdieu
and Wacquant, 1992) as it is performed in relation to women on social media platforms, such
as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Trolling can be likened to a form of cyber-bullying and
involves the sending or submission of provocative emails, social media posts or ‘tweets’ (Twitter
messages), with the intention of inciting an angry or upsetting response from its intended target,
or victim. In contrast to visibility, anonymity has been deemed important for making trolling
possible in a variety of online spaces (Hardaker, 2010; Hardaker and McGlashan, 2016) and this
form of online bullying is often committed incognito. Trolling can also attempt to hijack and
disrupt the normal interactions and communication practices and also to ‘oust’ the victim from
participation in public forums of debate. As Williams (2012) writes:

Trolls aren’t necessarily any more pleasant than haters, but their agenda is different – they
don’t just want to insult a particular person, they want to start a fight – hopefully one that
has a broader application, and brings in more people than just the object of their original
trolling. The term derives from a fishing technique – say your stupid thing, watch the
world bite.

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Karen Lumsden and Heather M. Morgan

Different categories of trolls have been identified. According to Bishop (2013: 302), those
‘transgressive messages designed to harm others for the sender’s gratification and others’ discom-
fort are called “flame trolls”, and those designed to entertain others for their gratification are
called “kudos trolls”’. Mantilla (2015) identifies ‘gendertrolling’ as distinct from forms of trolling
which more generally attempt to disrupt or hijack online interactions. ‘Gendertrolls’ have a dif-
ferent motivation and ‘gendertrolling is exponentially more vicious, virulent, aggressive, threat-
ening, pervasive, and enduring than generic trolling . . . gendertrolls take their cause seriously,
so they are therefore able to rally others who share in their convictions . . . [and] are devoted to
targeting the designated person’ (Mantilla, 2015: 11). New forms of media can also ‘exacerbate
issues surrounding sexual violence by creating digital spaces wherein the perpetration and legiti-
mization of sexual violence takes on new qualities’ (Dodge, 2015: 67). The most prominent
reported form of abuse or ‘gendertrolling’ targeted at women online involves rape threats and/
or death threats. ‘Rape culture’ can be seen as re-emerging within popular discourses over the
past five years and is ‘a socio-cultural context in which an aggressive male sexuality is eroticized
and seen as a “healthy”, “normal”, and “desired” part of sexual relations’ (Keller et al., 2015: 5;
Herman, 1978). It can be defined as:

A complex set of beliefs that encourage male sexual aggression and supports violence against
women . . . condones physical and emotional terrorism against women and presents it as
the norm . . . In a rape culture, both men and women assume that sexual violence is a fact
of life, as inevitable as death or taxes.
(Buchwald et al., 2005: xi)

Jane (2014a: 535; 2014b) notes that ‘such discourse has become normalized to the extent that
threatening rape has become the modus operandi for those wishing to critique female commenta-
tors’. Online abuse both redeploys existing manifestations of ‘rape culture’ and intensifies them
due to the speed at which images and written communications can be shared online (Shariff and
DeMartini, 2015). In this chapter, we are concerned with those instances where trolling crossed
the boundary from an exchange of teasing remarks or humour, to sustained abuse by one or
more individuals, and which can be viewed as a form of gendered and/or ‘symbolic violence’.
Advice to victims on how to respond to trolling includes such statements as: ‘do not feed
the troll’ (Binns, 2012) and ‘ignore the troll’. The implications implicit in this advice for dealing
with trolls is that victims should be silenced. This is particularly a problem in relation to women,
whom, we argue, have become particularly susceptible to online gendered and symbolic vio-
lence by cyber-trolls and whom are being advised, implicitly or explicitly, to ‘put up and shut
up’, reminiscent of advice given about responses to physical and mental, especially domestic,
violence, in the past.

Chapter overview
In this chapter we discuss key themes identified within a recent literature review and ethnographic
content analysis (Altheide, 1987) of 175 British newspaper reports on of trolling (Lumsden and
Morgan, 2017). We focus on how the themes we identified fit with wider discourses around
trolling and their implications in deconstructing gendered abuse online. The core of the discussion
focuses on ‘gendertrolling’ and gendered ‘symbolic violence’ in the form of rape and death threats,
body shaming and female incompetence, the framing of women in online spaces, the advice
given to victims of trolling and the responses to it so far. We draw on Bourdieu’s (2001) concept
of ‘symbolic violence’ and the work of feminists to deconstruct gendered/deviant interactions

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on Twitter. We argue that greater social scientific attention must be paid to the social aspects of
information and communication technologies in terms of (gendered and other) social inequali-
ties and communications and interactions online, which act as ‘symbolic violence’, to address the
growing ‘dark side’ of the web and social media and to inform the policy and practice develop-
ments required to address this form of abuse. We consider that the same old everyday feminist
problems are manifested in different, but just as damaging, ways in which women again appear as
somehow complicit, but also as victims of gendered online abuse, hence lacking power in online
spaces just as women previously (and still) often lack power in offline spaces.

Gendered and symbolic violence

Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of ‘symbolic violence’ (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992), and the
work of feminist writers including Angela McRobbie (2004) and others (Adkins, 2004; Skeggs,
2004), are useful for analysing the ways in which ‘symbolic violence’ is enacted upon women
(and minority groups) on social media. Bourdieu’s work has relevance for feminism and analysis
of gender relations, although as Adkins (2004: 3; Moi, 1999) points out his social theory itself
had ‘relatively little to say about women or gender . . . with most of his writings framed pre-
eminently in terms of issues of class’ (although an exception is found in Bourdieu (2001)). His
work, however, offers ‘explanatory power’ that is not provided elsewhere (Skeggs, 2004: 21).
This includes linking objective structures to subjective will; his ‘metaphoric model of social
space’; and his methodological insights, including his focus on reflexivity (Skeggs, 2004: 21).
By drawing on Bourdieu’s work, we can ‘re-cast symbolic violence as a process of social
reproduction’ (McRobbie, 2004: 103). Social inequalities (classed, racialized and gendered) are
thus ‘perpetuated as power relations directed towards [online] bodies and the “dispositions of
individuals”’ (McRobbie, 2004: 103). These dispositions also reflect Bourdieu’s theorization of
‘taste’. ‘Symbolic violence’ denotes more than a form of violence operating symbolically. It is
‘the violence which is exercised upon a social agent with his or her complicity’ (Bourdieu and
Wacquant, 1992: 167). Examples of the exercise of ‘symbolic violence’ include gender relations
in which both men and women agree that women are weaker, less intelligent, more unreliable,
and so forth (and for Bourdieu gender relations are the paradigm case of the operation of ‘sym-
bolic violence’). Hence, what we also want to explore is the complicity of online agents. The
advice given to victims of online abuse and/or trolling involve complicity with the ‘symbolic
violence’ enacted on them by the villain/troll, and therefore by entering into these online spaces,
or ‘fields’ to use Bourdieu’s term, we can argue that ‘corporeal inculcation’ of ‘symbolic violence’
is ‘exercised with the complicity’ of the individual (McNay, 1999; McRobbie, 2004). For example,
as we will show below, the presence of the ‘male gaze’ (Mulvey, 1975 [1992]) is evident via
social media scrutiny of the female body by both men and women online, with women deemed
to be deviant for attempting to reverse the ‘gaze’ onto the watchers. Therefore, violence against
women in the digital realm reinforces established gender roles (as they emerge in offline spaces).

Examples of trolling and gendered abuse online

Rape and death threats

As noted above, trolling most commonly involves rape and death threats directed at women
who are in the public eye, such as politicians, television presenters, musicians, and feminist blog-
gers and activists. These examples demonstrate the increasingly prevalent ‘rape culture’ which
incorporates aspects of popular misogyny and which entails anti-female violent expression via

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the threats of rape and death directed at women online. Expressions of aggressive male sexual-
ity are therefore eroticized in the online sphere (Keller et al., 2015: 5; Herman, 1978). These
instances were often related to the posting of visual images online. For instance, one report
referred to the Australian DJ Alison Wonderland who:

received the abuse alongside a photo of herself sitting on the ground with her legs
apart . . . Instagram trolls said they wanted to ‘roofie’2 and ‘rape’ her . . . Thousands of people
had ‘liked’ the photograph . . . before the first of the offenders commented: ‘Can we rape her
or something please,’ tagging the other with the Instagram handle . . . The second responded
by looping in another follower, seemingly alleging him to say: ‘I would roofie her’.
(Soldani, 2015)

Social media trolls’ responses to an alleged rape and assault offline, including the utilization of
the #JadaPose described below, further demonstrates the blurred lines between the offline and
online worlds, and those actions which are deemed by the troll to have consequences for a
victim of trolling:

A teenage girl, who discovered she had been drugged and raped at a party . . . after images
of the alleged assault appeared online, has become a victim of online trolling . . . since
Jada’s story made international headlines, online bullies on social media, or so-called trolls,
have shared photos of themselves imitating how the teenager appears in the pictures of her
alleged attack, alongside #JadaPose.
(Gander, 2014)

The stereotype of women as ‘gossipy’ and deviant, which draws upon (antiquated) negative
images of women found throughout history and still feeds into narrow definitions of feminin-
ity that promote hegemonic masculinity and undermine women, is also evident via the use of
terms such as ‘witch’ alongside rape and/or death threats, as the below trolling of the Labour
MP Stella Creasy and the feminist campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez, in relation to a campaign
for a woman to appear on UK currency (£10 bank notes). The troll in this instance was jailed
for 18 weeks and had:

threatened to assault . . . [and] called her a witch in a ‘campaign of hatred’. He retweeted a

threatening message . . . which read: ‘You better watch your back, I’m going to rape your
a**e at 8pm and put the video all over’ . . . In his next message he posted: ‘Best way to
rape a witch, try and drown her first then just when she’s gagging for air that’s when you
enter’ . . . Later that evening he wrote: ‘If you can’t threaten to rape a celebrity, what is the
point in having them?’ . . . He called the Labour MP an ‘evil witch’ and wrote: ‘What’s the
odds of Criado and Creasy snuggling and cuddling under a duvet checking their tweets and
cackling like witches (rape me says Caroline)’.
(Williams, 2014)

‘Naked trolling’, where men send women explicit images of themselves via social media, can
also be viewed as a form of digital rape:

Mum-of-two Laura Allen received graphic naked images of strangers on her Facebook
account. The 28-year-old therapist explains: ‘The first time I logged on and saw the mes-
sages was three years ago. I only went online to see friends and was shocked when a series of

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naked pictures came up on my screen from a complete stranger. I tried to click off them as
quickly as I could. I was humiliated by what I had seen . . . Then I received another graphic
picture message from this stranger with a message saying if I wanted sex I should reply to
him. I deleted it but worried about who this guy was. I felt violated that he’d made me
see him naked . . . I received another private message, from a different man, with a picture
of his penis and a message saying if I wanted to see more pictures I could email him . . . It
made me feel vulnerable . . .’.
(Unknown, 2013)

Body shaming and ‘feminine’ expectations

Body shaming was also a prominent form of trolling, linked especially to the posting of images
on the social media application Instagram, and also with victims receiving negative comments
linked to their appearance in addition to, or instead of the aforementioned rape and death
threats. The presence of the ‘male gaze’ (Mulvey, 1975 [1992]) is evident via social media
scrutiny of the female body by both men and women online. For instance, the musician Nicki
Minaj was reported to have been ‘mocked for her appearance’ on Instagram. However, in this
instance, the report highlights her response to the trolls as a form of ‘public shaming’, making
implicit the underlying advice that she should instead have ignored or ‘not fed the trolls’. Her
strategy of re-posting pictures of those trolling involved the reversal of the ‘gaze’ to give ‘fans a
taste of their own medicine’:

Minaj has never been one to take verbal abuse lying down, and after a string of cruel com-
ments about her appearance on her Instagram page the rapper decided to give fans a taste
of their own medicine. She had been Instagramming pictures from her brother Jelani’s
wedding, which she allegedly paid for in full, when someone made comments about her
hair, telling her she needed to get rid of her ponytail. Minaj retaliated by going onto the
Instagram accounts of people who were rude to her and posting their selfies on her account
to see how they liked being scrutinised . . . But following complaints she was ‘bullying’
people, Minaj took to Twitter to justify her actions, and hit out at the double standards she
gets when she tries standing up for herself:
Lol can I just be on my own page minding my business in peace? Lmao. When I post a pic
of a person dissin me I’m a bully? Lol this world . . . – NICKI MINAJ (@NICKIMINAJ)
August, 23 2015.
(Mandle, 2015)

Like Minaj, the boss of Uber Car UK, Jo Bertram, also received comments about her appearance,
and this time the report highlights that offenders are female, as well as male:

Female cabbies have also joined the attacks. One, who uses the Twitter handle ‘claire bear’
has sent more than 40 tweets in which she has criticised Bertram’s looks and compared her
to Jimmy Savile, the disgraced BBC DJ and presenter.
(Henry, 2015)

Women as incapable or incompetent in relation to their profession

In addition, comments from trolls also included links to what is viewed as normative expecta-
tions for displays of femininity in the public sphere. For instance, this report below demonstrates

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how women are viewed as ‘incapable’ in relation to various professions, and how femininity is
incompatible with capability:

Apprentice finalist Leah Totton has been ‘devastated’ by internet trolls claiming she is not
a real doctor . . . The stunning 25-year-old has also suffered online abuse about her looks
as well as creepy demands to expose herself for the cameras. Vile trolls have accused the
ex-model of misleading Lord Sugar about her medical qualifications – leaving her dis-
traught . . . And others have gone on her Facebook fan-page to claim her medical degree
gives her nothing more than the ‘courtesy title’ of doctor. The hate-fuelled postings include
one from Andrew Miller, who wrote: ‘You won’t win. You’re showing off too much pink lip-
stick, not enough competence and skills . . . dying to know how on earth you have become a qualified
Dr by the age of 24 . . .’ She has also been subject to a torrent of taunts about her looks from
bullying men. Micky McGinnis said: ‘Go on Leah, get your t**ts out’. And Rakin Islam
wrote: ‘*cough eye candy *cough*’.
(Hill, 2013)

Women as ‘doubly deviant’

The examples given above also indicate the sexist and misogynist abuse directed at a woman
who is viewed as ‘incompetent’ by men in terms of her occupation and gender, and partici-
pating in a field typically associated with men and masculinity. In this sense, women who
entered spaces typically deemed to be a ‘man’s domain’ were viewed as ‘doubly deviant’
(for instance deviant for being online and deviant for daring to partake in a male-dominated
field or occupation). Often, it was women’s lives in the offline context which then were uti-
lised as a rationale for trolling as online abuse via Twitter. This was the case for the television
presenter Sue Perkins who received abuse after rumours (later confirmed as untrue) spread
that she would be taking over from Jeremy Clarkson as the presenter of BBC’s Top Gear
programme:

Sue revealed to fans on her social media account earlier this week Top Gear fans had been
‘wishing me dead’ after it was rumoured she was being lined up to take a leading role in
the motoring show. She wrote: ‘Guys, post the utterly fabricated story about me & Top
Gear, my timeline has been full of blokes wishing me dead . . .’ ‘This morning someone
suggested they’d like to see me burn to death.’
(Thistlethwaite, 2015)

Responses to trolling: silence, public shaming and ‘pitchfork democracy’

Media discussions tended to centre on how the victim and/or their supporters responded to
incidents of trolling and online abuse. In many cases, reports indicated that the victims had
opted to leave Twitter permanently or temporarily in order to avoid abuse. Implicit in this
approach to dealing with cyber-trolling is a kind of blame, which encourages victims to accept
responsibility for and act on the abuse by removing themselves from the online space in which
the attack occurred, perhaps denying them opportunities to use social media platforms for infor-
mation sharing, networking, engaging in social discourses. This is reflected in movements to
address abuse on social media, for instance the campaign #TwitterSilence:

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Celebrities went into Twitter lockdown yesterday to protest against vile trolls on the web-
site. Thousands of users observed a 24-hour silence yesterday in a backlash against bomb
threats sent to women. The move came after TV historian, Mary Beard, 58, called police
when she became the latest victim of the hate campaign.
(Jorsh, 2013)

Moreover, as highlighted above the adage of ‘do not feed the troll’ has been employed as a
form of advice for anyone at the receiving end of online abuse. This ‘silencing strategy’ can
be viewed as encouraging the complicity of victims in the act of ‘symbolic violence’. As the
feminist activist Caroline Criado-Perez notes, if they attempt to respond to trolls, women are
viewed as ‘seeking victimhood’:

‘Don’t feed the trolls’. So tenacious is this mantra’s grip on our collective conscious that any
deviation from the one true anti-trolling path results in a barrage of advice which basically
amounts to two words: ‘shut up’. The theory, like that strange childhood belief in the invis-
ibility of those who close their eyes, being that if you don’t react, the troll can’t hurt you –
or at least the troll will get bored and go away . . . To some perhaps, this response proves
the adage; by talking about abuse we were ‘feeding’ the trolls, so we got what we deserved.
(Criado-Perez, 2014)

A satirical blogger, described in this article as a troll, also highlights the response that offend-
ing trolls receive is akin to being pursued by an ‘angry mob’ who are out to reap justice.
The instance of Brenda Leyland that he refers to involved her committing suicide after being
confronted by a Sky news reporter with regards to her trolling of the parents of missing child
Madeleine McCann:

now his name is public, Ambridge receives death threats every day. He says: ‘They say they’re
going to come round with baseball bats in the middle of the night or rape my wife . . .’. ‘It’s
not satirical bloggers like me we should be scared of – it’s the screeching, hysterical mob.
When these people descend it is brutal and in Brenda Leyland’s case it was fatal. It’s pitchfork
democracy by the mob and it’s a dangerous thing. It is grim, unchartered territory. It’s like the mid-
dle ages again – burn the witch, kill the heretic. If you just happen to be in the wrong place,
at the wrong time, with the wrong comment, then you can pay dearly for it . . .’.
(Daubney, 2015)

Challenging the actions of the troll is portrayed negatively in media reports. This was hinted at
above in the response of Nicki Minaj to body shaming on Instagram. It is also reflected below
when fans of the blogger Kat Blaque opted to challenge the trolls directly:

Against Kat’s wishes, fans began posting negative reviews and comments on Kenneth’s
personal and work pages, which only caused him to escalate his abuse.
(Bolton, 2015)

‘Victim blaming’ was also prominent, particularly with those who opted to publicly engage with
the public on social media, or display their body (or parts of it), being advised that the response
received was not unsurprising and was part of normal interactions between a celebrity and their
audiences as another example in the exchange below demonstrates. The exchange between

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Lena Dunham and Whoopi Goldberg was prompted by The View’s Candace Cameron Bure’s
public comment which compared internet trolling to being raped:

Dunham announced earlier this week that she received hateful comments after shar-
ing a photo of herself in her boyfriend’s underwear, labeling the response as ‘verbal
violence’ . . . Moderator Whoopi Goldberg did not share her opinion about Duhnam’s
assessment, however, she did say that people should know what they’re facing on the
Internet in this day and age. ‘The minute you put yourself out there in someone’s underwear,
you can’t be surprised,’ Goldberg said.
(Graham, 2015)

Feminist activism online: challenging the trolls

It is important to note that recent work also highlights how feminists and women have utilized
social media to respond to sexist treatment and discrimination. Most notable examples include
the #EverydaySexism Project which includes a website (set up by Laura Bates in 2012) and
Twitter page, both of which catalogue instances of sexism experienced on an everyday basis
across the globe. Keller et al. (2015) focus on the ways in which girls and women use digital
media platforms to challenge the rape culture, sexism and misogyny they experience in everyday
life. A special issue of Feminist Media Studies (2015) also highlights the use of feminist hashtags
to ‘expose the transnational pervasiveness of gendered violence, creating a space for women and
girls to share their own experiences and, through doing so, challenge “commonsense” under-
standings of this abuse and promote gendered solidarity’ (Berridge and Portwood-Stacer, 2015:
341). Examples include black feminists’ use of social media to fill the gap in national media
coverage of black women’s issues, including ‘the ways that race and gender affect the wage
gap to the disproportionate amount of violence committed against black transgender women’
(Williams, 2015: 343). Khoja-Moolji (2015) highlights the use of ‘hashtagging’ (#) as a form of
activism which is encouraged by campaigns for girls’ empowerment, while Eagle (2015) focuses
on their use as part of a campaign to improve women’s use of transport and public space, with-
out the fear of sexual harassment.
However, the dangers feminists can encounter in relation to the ‘threats of gendered violence
that occur within online spaces themselves’ are also highlighted (Berridge and Portwood-Stacer,
2015: 341). Thus, for women utilizing the public space of the internet, there is a double-edged
sword in that it promotes freedom of expression and provides a space for feminist activism,
while it also presents the risk of a backlash from potential trolls as a means of curtailing women’s
appropriation of, and participation in, online spaces. As Keller et al. (2015: 5) note, ‘anyone who
challenges popular misogyny puts themselves at risk of becoming the subject of sexist attacks
and abuse’.

Discussion: trolling, online violence and complicity

In the media discourses of trolling presented above, the denigration of the female victim
is viewed as a form of ‘self-conscious irony’ (McRobbie, 2004), and victims are advised to
remember that ‘no harm is intended’ and not to provoke the ‘troll’ further – ‘do not feed the
troll’. However, these strategies do not address the issue of abuse, misogyny and sexism (not
to mention in other instances racism and Islamophobia), but instead require the women to be
complicit in the exercise of ‘symbolic violence’ (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992). Bourdieu’s
work is therefore useful for analysing how ‘social arrangement along gender lines takes shape

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within . . . media . . . by means of habitus adjustment to ensure conformity with the contem-
porary requirements’ of the field of Twitter or other social media sites/platforms (McRobbie,
2004: 108). We can view social inequalities on Twitter, epitomized in communicative interac-
tions/relations such as trolling, as a further example of the ‘feminization’ of the post-feminist
production and reproduction of social divisions (Adkins, 2004: 7). New forms of social media
and online media, such as Twitter, thus play a key role in these new forms of social classification.
Trolling also sits within the wider social and cultural context of the rise of ‘lad culture’ (see
Phipps and Young, 2015), where sexist and misogynistic language and treatment of women is
lauded and admired by peers, flagrantly displayed online in sites such as Lad Bible, and forms of
racist and sexist trolling on Twitter and other social media sites. Trolling must be viewed within
this wider context, as a means of silencing women’s voices online and their participation in ‘vir-
tual public space’, resulting in the heteronormative masculinization of virtual space. We see this
in relation to women and technology throughout history, for instance female cyclists and then
in women’s adoption of the motor car (the stereotype of the incompetent ‘woman driver’ still
exists), and like the online abuse faced by women, this misogyny and sexism can be viewed in
the vein of attempts to curtail female participation and presence in the public democratic sphere,
and women’s mobility – whether physical travel in the case of the bicycle or car, or virtual travel
vis-à-vis online communication and messages. We see the virtual becoming reality.
Therefore, the time has come for media framing of trolling to stop promoting virtual space as
something separate and detached from the ‘real world’. Given how closely it is now intertwined
with our everyday social lives and social relationships, the ‘virtual’ is ‘real’, and has ‘real’ implica-
tions for women, ethnic minorities and vulnerable groups who more often than not are the victims
of various forms of cyber abuse. This is echoed in work by feminists on women’s participation
in other online spaces, such as Braithwaite’s (2014) study of World of Warcraft online forums, in
which she argues that ‘the digital and the virtual are not independent spaces’ (Braithwaite, 2014:
703). Instead these are experienced as part of the everyday, and hence ‘feminists and feminism are
treated as threats to these virtual spaces’ (Braithwaite, 2014: 703). Moreover, as Jane (2014b: 559)
notes: ‘E-bile’s self-generative properties will also become apparent, as we see that women who
speak publically about being targeted by online invective often receive more of it.’
In addition, the largest and most systematic study of Violence Against Women (VaW), which
covers up to 2005 (Htun and Weldon, 2012), does not account for today’s trolling or the imple-
mentation of social policy by governments to address this. It is therefore important to recognise
the likelihood of the under-reporting of online violence and abuse and also the link between
online and offline violence for instance in cases of domestic abuse and stalking. For instance, a
report by Women’s Aid (2014) indicated that 41 per cent of domestic violence victims whom
they helped were tracked or harassed using electronic devices.
Online abuse, such as trolling, thus victimizes women in particular and in gendered ways.
Whilst there is a developing spectrum of policing responses, online abuse contexts and settings
mean that they are usually perceived as ‘different’ – in fact, less serious. As reports of online abuse
and offences increase, there is a need for more open discussion of the policing and regulation
of online space. For instance, it is now estimated that half of all calls received by police relate to
online offences such as threats on social media. Twitter crimes are said to have doubled in the
last three years (Moore, 2014). As the Head of the College of Policing, Alex Marshall, explained:
‘it will not be long before pretty much every investigation that the police conduct will have an
online element to it’ (Moore, 2014). With the privacy and anonymity the internet can afford
users, we see traditional offences conducted from the comfort of people’s own homes, and often
by strangers. In addition, in many instances ‘trolls’ are targeting those who are already vulnerable
(for instance the example of RIP trolling, racism, sexism, Islamophobia, homophobia).

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The combined effects of these shades of victimization and discrimination call for action and
further (feminist) research and theorizing in order to explore the myriad ways in which both
female and feminist voices are constructed, received, and responded to online, and of means of
tackling cyber abuse. For women, a ‘geography of fear’ (Mehta and Bondi, 1999) can be said
to extend from the offline world to online spaces such as Twitter, comment feeds, blogs, etc.
Trolling is therefore a form of ‘symbolic violence’ against women and a means of attempting
to silence women and their participation in these online fields. We call for greater academic,
particularly social scientific, attention to this problem, with the aim not only of understanding
and making sense of the issues, but also informing the development of policy and guidelines for
practice, for example in the same ways that legislation on revenge porn has been developed, and
perhaps drawing on this new response to online violence to move towards and shape prosecu-
tions for trolling.

Conclusions
This chapter considered cyber-trolling as a ‘silencing strategy’ and a form of gendered ‘symbolic
violence’ (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992; McRobbie, 2004) enacted against women in online
spaces, such as Twitter. Cyber-trolling mainly targets women, and is therefore gendered, but
often involves intersectionality, particularly with ethnicity, religion and sexuality, which we
have acknowledged in places, but do not explore in detail in this chapter. Recent research also
indicates that the majority of victims of online Islamophobia tend to be female (Feldman and
Littler, 2014). Reasons given for this include women being more likely to report online abuse,
and also in offline cases the greater visibility which is related to items of clothing (such as the
hijab) (Gerard and Whitfield, 2016).
We drew attention to the media discourses on trolling via analysis of British newspaper
reports. The very nature and structure of social media sites, both in terms of their design and
the related discourses and communications they facilitate, reflect the normalization of online
violence against women as an extension of or proxy for gendered violence. The act of public
shaming and/or offending (vis-à-vis trolling) also leaves the victim and/or target of the troll in a
powerless position. This position of powerlessness relates to the irony of the freedom of expres-
sion promised by social media, apparently embedded within ideologies and a logic of providing
a democratizing space, but which in practice creates space for the percolation of misogynist, sex-
ist, racist and/or homophobic attitudes. For victims to abide by the message that is propagated
in media and popular discourses: ‘do not feed the troll’, the ‘corporeal inculcation’ of symbolic
violence is exercised not only against the victim, but also makes them complicit (McNay, 1999;
McRobbie, 2004). This encourages old versions of the gendered and symbolic violence rela-
tionship to be established and upheld in online spaces, while the focus on addressing them in
offline spaces continues, which essentially displaces rather than eliminates gendered violence in
modern society.

Notes
1 RIP trolling consists of anonymous individuals posting offensive comments on tribute pages (set up by
the bereaved) on Facebook. In this form of abuse, the identity and memory of the victim, which has been
immortalized via the Facebook tribute page, is attacked or desecrated by the ‘troll’. Metaphorically and
symbolically this cyber-act resonated with instances of the physical desecration of gravestones.
2 ‘Roofie’ is a slang term for Rohypnol, a sedative often used by perpetrators to incapacitate potential rape
victims in advance of committing a rape.

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 10
The relationship between
disability and domestic abuse
Jenna P. Breckenridge

Introduction
There are over 1 billion disabled people worldwide, making up approximately 15% of the world
population. Women are more likely to be disabled than men, with a prevalence of 19% compared
to 12% (World Health Organization, 2011). Disability is defined in the UN Convention on the
Rights of People with Disabilities (CRPD) (2007) as the presence of ‘long-term physical, mental,
intellectual or sensory impairments which in interaction with various barriers may hinder . . . full
and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others’. In this chapter, disability is
understood through an interactional model; although individuals’ impairments can contribute to
their difficulties participating in activities of daily life, disability occurs when social and attitudinal
barriers in society fail to take account of disabled people’s needs (Shakespeare, 2014). The term
‘disabled people’ is therefore used within this chapter rather than ‘people with disabilities’ in order
to recognise that people are predominantly disabled by external factors. The CRPD has outlined
disability specific rights to life, liberty and security, independent living as part of a community and
equitable access to social protection. The CRPD also stipulates that disabled people should have
freedom from exploitation, violence and abuse.
Domestic abuse (also known as domestic violence) is a serious violation of human rights.
It is defined by the Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and
Domestic Violence (2011, Article 3b) as ‘all acts of physical, sexual, psychological or economic
violence that occur within the family or domestic unit or between former or current spouses
or partners, whether or not the perpetrator shares or has shared the same residence with the
victim’. Several factors are associated with increased risk of domestic abuse, including age,
educational status, poverty, pregnancy and gender (European Union Agency for Fundamental
Rights, 2014). Disabled people (both men and women) are more likely to experience violence
than non-disabled people (Hughes et al., 2012); however, disabled women are at much higher
risk of more frequent and prolonged domestic abuse than both non-disabled women and disa-
bled men (Brownridge et al., 2008).
Disabled women find themselves at the intersection between gender discrimination and
the widespread oppression of disabled people, known as disablism (Hague et al., 2010). In a
review of the international and regional policy approaches to domestic violence across the UN

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member states, Ortoleva and Lewis (2012: 114) concluded that: ‘there is limited comprehen-
sive and global research and data collection by the international community, governments and
non-governmental organizations and academic institutions, especially with respect to multiple
identity issues.’ The intersectionality of disability and domestic abuse is hugely under-explored
in the research literature, having serious implications for the development of research informed
policies and interventions to best support disabled women who experience domestic abuse.
This chapter brings to light the unique experiences of disabled women affected by domestic
abuse, outlining the prevalence and severity of abuse against disabled women and exploring
the reasons why disabled women experience more frequent, more prolonged and more severe
domestic abuse than non-disabled women. Drawing on a range of literature from gender, health
and disability studies, the chapter discusses the barriers and facilitators to providing appropriate
domestic abuse support for disabled women. It discusses the challenges and pitfalls in exist-
ing research, and posits recommendations and implications for researchers and policy makers
through an intersectional lens.

The prevalence and severity of domestic abuse perpetrated against

disabled women
Over 50% of disabled women have experienced some form of domestic abuse in their lifetime
(European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2014). A systematic review of the empirical
literature on violence against disabled people found that the lifetime prevalence for domestic
abuse amongst disabled women ranged from 26% to 90% (Hughes et al., 2011). In a study of
women attending family practice clinics (n = 1,152), women who reported current physical,
sexual and/or emotional abuse were more than twice as likely to have a disability (Coker et al.,
2005). Meta-analysis of 41 studies shows that, in comparison to women without a mental
health condition, women with depressive disorders are 2.77 times more likely to experience
abuse in their lifetime, with the risk quadrupling for women with anxiety disorders (Trevillion
et al., 2012). According to Martin et al. (2006), disabled women are four times more likely to
experience sexual abuse than non-disabled women. This is echoed by Balderston (2014), who
similarly found that disabled women are 2–5 times more likely to experience sexual violence
than men and non-disabled women.

Explaining the higher rates of domestic abuse

Within the existing literature from health, gender studies and disability rights, it is possible
to identify several potential risk factors that make disabled women more susceptible to abuse.
These relate to two inter-related, broad themes: disablist attitudes towards women with impair-
ments; and exposure to a wider range of potential perpetrators.

Disablist attitudes towards women with impairments

Disablist attitudes in society prioritise able-bodied people as the optimum norm and reduce indi-
viduals with a health condition or impairment to being ‘abnormal’ or ‘other’ (Thomas, 2006).
Disablist attitudes account for the discrimination of disabled people, limiting their abilities to
participate meaningfully in their physical and human environments. Perceptions of disabled
women as dependent, weak or inferior may account for their increased exposure to domestic
abuse. Perpetrators may purposefully seek out disabled partners in the belief that they will be

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easier to dominate than non-disabled women (Brownridge, 2006). For instance, perpetrators
may perceive that women with a physical impairment will be less able to resist a physical assault
(Martin et al., 2006). Similarly, women with cognitive impairments or learning difficulties may
be perceived as easy to manipulate, and those with communication impairments less able to
report abusive behaviour to the authorities (Martin et al., 2006).
Disablist attitudes commonly view disabled women as asexual. As a result, disabled girls are
not afforded the same opportunities to sex education as their non-disabled peers (Shakespeare,
2014). They are more likely to be excluded from the social and cultural spaces where many teen-
agers explore new sexual behaviours; meaning that they miss out on opportunities to develop
a sound sense of appropriate and inappropriate sexual activity and are thus at increased risk of
sexual abuse (Thiara et al., 2012). This may be compounded by experiences of personal care at
home, at school or in clinical settings where formal and informal caregivers perform intimate
tasks of washing, dressing or clinical examinations. For disabled women, the body may not be
experienced as ‘private’ in the same way as it is for non-disabled women. The desexualisation of
women’s bodies creates opportunities for abuse (as discussed in the next section) but may also be
internalised, affecting women’s sense of acceptable and inacceptable contact. From childhood,
disabled women and girls are required to be compliant with care and, what may be considered
uncomfortable or inappropriate for non-disabled people, may be considered ‘normal’ for disabled
people (Shah et al., 2016; Ballan & Freyer, 2012).
Disablist attitudes that disabled people are helpless, dependent and a burden to society can
prevent both disabled women themselves as well as onlookers from recognising issues of domes-
tic abuse. To be in a relationship with a disabled partner is considered altruistic, kind or saintly
(Ballan & Freyer, 2012). Non-disabled partners in romantic relationships with disabled people
have been referred to as ‘Florence Nightingales’, casting one spouse as the charitable carer and
the other as a needy patient (Harpur & Douglas, 2014). This can obscure family and friends’
perceptions of disabled women’s relationships, leaving them less likely to believe women’s dis-
closures. Moreover, internalising these negative stereotypes can suppress disabled women’s sense
of self-worth, making them more willing to stay with an abuser. In a qualitative study of 25 disa-
bled women (Copel, 2006), none of the participants described their partners expressing remorse
following violence; which is contrary to the documented experiences of non-disabled women.
Instead, women in the study interpreted that, because they were ‘physically “different from” or
“less than” other women, there was no compelling reason for the male partner to be remorseful’
(Copel, 2006: 124).
Associated with the desexualisation of disabled women and the perception that they are
cared-for rather than care-givers, disablist attitudes often portray disabled women as unable to
fulfil the ‘normal’ gender roles of mother and wife (Shah et al., 2016). In Ballan et al.’s (2014)
large scale survey of 886 women with physical (n = 499), psychiatric (n = 636), developmental
(n = 74) and sensory (n = 120) impairments, two-thirds of their participants had children.
Counter to prevailing stereotypes, this statistic highlights the need to look beyond the disabil-
ity label and see women holistically within the contexts of their lives. There is a considerable
research evidence that fear of losing custody of children is a significant barrier to domestic abuse
disclosure. Disabled women, however, face a double fear of disclosure (Bradbury-Jones et al.,
2015a). Their parenting skills are not only scrutinised on the basis of domestic abuse, but also
their ability as ‘disabled’ parents. Women fear that disablist attitudes within social work or legal
systems may find them unfit to care for their children, resulting in their children being removed
into care or custody being granted to the abusive partner (Ortoleva & Lewis, 2012). As a result,
disabled women may remain in abusive relationships as a means of protecting the family unit.

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Exposure to a wider range of potential perpetrators

Like non-disabled women, domestic abuse is most often perpetrated against disabled women
by their current or former intimate partners (Young et al., 1997; Ballan et al., 2014). However,
disabled women also face exposure to abuse by informal or formal caregivers, such as family
members, health professionals and care staff (Curry et al., 2009). Women with health conditions
or impairments that require frequent medical interventions come into contact with several dif-
ferent professionals and institutions in their lifetime (Young et al., 1997). Many disabled women
receive daily care, either in their own homes or in residential institutions, from multiple dif-
ferent care providers who provide assistance with toileting, bathing and dressing (Curry et al.,
2009). The intimate nature of these services can lead to ‘boundary confusion’ that conflates the
social or professional relationship with a private and intimate one, creating increased oppor-
tunity for abusive situations to arise (Saxton et al., 2001). Moreover, the imbalance of power
between a professional carer and patient may make it difficult for women to speak out against
abuse (Saxton et al., 2001). For many disabled women, their intimate partner will also be their
main caregiver, which not only creates increased opportunity for abusive behaviour, but also
isolates women from external care agencies as a potential source of help and support.

The unique nature of impairment related domestic abuse

In addition to the other forms of domestic abuse (physical, sexual, psychological, economic),
disabled women experience a particular form of disability related abuse (Thiara et al., 2011;
Young et al., 1997). These abusive behaviours exploit the challenges presented by women’s
impairments and seek to ‘simultaneously increase the powerfulness of the perpetrators and the
powerlessness of the disabled women’ (Shah et al., 2016: 4). As described by one of the par-
ticipants in a study by Cramer et al. (2003: 192), this form of abuse makes women feel ‘more
disabled than I have to be’. There are numerous examples in the literature of perpetrators abus-
ing women on the basis of their impairments. Women with learning disabilities have described
their partners taking ‘the piss out of me because of my learning disability’ (McCarthy et al.,
2015: 6). Perpetrators have moved furniture to purposely cause injury to women with a visual
impairment and have exploited their limited vision to plan unanticipated attacks (Hague et al.,
2010; Ballan & Freyer, 2012). Following the onset of an acquired impairment, women in
Copel’s (2006) study described their partners taunting them about ‘better times’ before the loss
of functional ability, contributing to feelings of guilt, shame and a belief abuse was justified.
Abuse against disabled women is often situated within the context of a ‘caring’ relationship.
When women are reliant upon their perpetrator to fulfil basic care needs, abuse takes advantage
of the increased vulnerability of women within personal care situations. Personal assistance may
be provided in a rough or aggressive manner (Young et al., 1997), perpetrators may demand
sexual or personal ‘favours’ in return for personal care, and women may be left in physically
uncomfortable or degrading body positions (Saxton et al., 2001). Often, the nature of the abuse
is subtle and women may be unsure about whether or not their carer’s behaviour is intention-
ally cruel. For example, has the carer who incorrectly fastened a woman’s underwear done so
because they are in a hurry, or because they wanted to leave her feeling uncomfortable all day
on purpose (Saxton et al., 2001)? Abuse that is ‘dressed up’ as caring (Thiara et al., 2011: 763)
can make it harder for women to disclose and be believed. Partners may do everything for
women under a caring guise – providing personal care, making all the meals, driving women to
medical appointments, managing their money, administering medication – whilst all the time
using this as a tactic to control women and prevent them from exerting any independence.

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Impairment specific abuse intentionally disables women further by limiting their daily func-
tion. Saxton et al. (2001) describe perpetrators mismanaging medications (either under or over
administering) and removing batteries from power wheelchairs in order to restrict women’s
opportunities for independence. Removal of assistive devices such as wheelchairs or hearing
aids is commonly reported within the literature (Radford et al., 2006; Nosek et al., 2006; Kroll
et al., 2006). Perpetrators have sabotaged communication devices in order to prevent women
from socialising with friends and family, and as a means of silencing women to avoid disclosure
(Nosek et al., 2001). Shah et al. (2016) recounted one woman’s experience of being drugged
by her partner so that she would be too drowsy to visit with relatives and friends. Women have
also reported abuse of their assistance animals. While it is common for perpetrators of domestic
abuse to threaten family pets, this takes on an even greater significance when the pet provides an
important role in facilitating independent living, for example guide dogs, hearing dogs for deaf
people or medical detection dogs (Harpur & Douglas, 2014).
Disabled women are likely to experience more prolonged periods of abuse than non-disabled
women (McCarthy et al., 2015; Young et al., 1997). For severely disabled women who are fully
dependent on care, the abuse can be lifelong (Thiara et al., 2011). Women who rely on their
perpetrators for assistance with mobility, transportation and finances may be in an impossible situ-
ation, where, ironically, they cannot leave without the perpetrator’s help. This is captured aptly by
one of the women interviewed by Saxton et al. (2001: 402): ‘by the way, can you bring me my
scooter so I can leave you?’ Ending the relationship potentially leaves women without the essential
assistance they need to live independently (Martin et al., 2006). Recognising that women lack
alternatives, perpetrators may threaten women with institutionalisation if they leave (Hassouneh-
Phillips & Curry, 2002). Moreover, women may be reluctant to leave their own home environ-
ment, especially if it has been adapted to meet their unique needs (Hague et al., 2010).

Accessing services and support: barriers and facilitators

Disabled women often have a greater need for services based on the nature and extent of the
abuse they experience, but are often less able to access support (Hague et al., 2010). Although
some research has addressed this issue, there is still an insufficient understanding of the barriers
that disabled women face when accessing services and how these can be overcome. In a study
of 305 deaf and disabled women experiencing domestic abuse, only 30% of women accessed
domestic abuse organisations for support, whilst only 17% contacted national helpline numbers
(Powers et al., 2009). These findings are a stark indication that domestic abuse services are not
reaching disabled women adequately. The reasons for this relate broadly to two interconnected
issues: professionals’ awareness and recognition of domestic abuse against disabled women; and
the (in)accessibility of domestic abuse support services.

Awareness
According to Plummer and Findley (2012), health services have a crucial role to play in identi-
fying disabled women who are experiencing domestic abuse and referring them to appropriate
support services. They recommend that a universal domestic abuse screening process for disabled
women is implemented and tested across mainstream healthcare. At present, however, there exist
several barriers to implementing such an approach. Current screening tools do not ask about
disability-related abuse targeted at women’s impairments, or include perpetrators other than inti-
mate partners (Martin et al., 2006). Moreover, universal screening of all disabled women requires
that health professionals are able to identify the presence of a disability. Certain health conditions

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and impairments are ‘invisible’ unless women disclose them, for instance, epilepsy, chronic pain,
mental health conditions or brain injury (Ballan & Freyer, 2012). Also, women with certain
conditions or impairments (such as mental health conditions or dyslexia) may not self-identify
as being ‘disabled’ (Hoog, 2010). If ‘disability’ is not recognised, professionals may not know to
screen for impairment specific indicators of domestic abuse.
Disabled women have reported a reluctance to disclose domestic abuse to health profession-
als for fear that they will be judged differently because of their impairment (Bradbury-Jones
et al., 2015b). Harpur and Douglas (2014) give an example of disabled women’s concerns about
domestic abuse being reframed by medical professionals as a mental health symptom rather than
a ‘real’ experience. If health professionals view women only through the lens of their impair-
ment, as opposed to considering the multiple, complex, intersectional factors shaping women’s
lives, they may be blinded to issues of domestic abuse (Ballan & Freyer, 2012). Shah et al. (2016)
provide examples of impairment specific abuse (e.g. partners their controlling medication) being
misconstrued by health professionals as necessary, acceptable and in women’s best interests.
Without understanding the unique nature of abuse perpetrated against disabled women, health
professionals are ill-prepared to identify and respond appropriately to women.
Even if they are indirectly aware of the signs of domestic abuse, there is evidence that health
professionals often take little or no action unless women explicitly ask for help (McCarthy et al.,
2015). For disabled women who attend hospital with their main ‘carer’, perpetrators can explain
away signs of pain or physical injury, for example, claiming bruises were caused by a fall resulting
from poor mobility rather than abuse (Ballan & Freyer, 2012; Thiara et al., 2012). The tendency
to privilege the authoritative voice of the ‘carer’ rather than the ‘cared for’ means that disabled
women are frequently disbelieved by health and care professionals when they disclose domestic
abuse (Findley et al., 2015). Bradbury-Jones et al. (2015b) describe women with dyslexia being
advised that their partners should read information leaflets to them if they are having difficulty
understanding the content. Putting information about domestic abuse services in the hands of
the perpetrator not only restricts women’s access to important information, but also puts them at
increased risk and reinforces disablist attitudes that partners are ‘carers’ not possible perpetrators.
Finally, a cautious approach is warranted when considering the implementation of any
domestic abuse screening programme. Despite being mandated that health professionals enquire
about domestic abuse in all service contexts (NICE, 2014), a recent Cochrane review found
insufficient evidence to definitively support the implementation of this recommendation
(O’Doherty et al., 2015). There is a crucial lack of robust research evidence that disclosure
resulting from routine enquiry practices in healthcare settings actually results in positive out-
comes for women. Very little is known about whether disclosure leads to referral and uptake of
specialist support services, reduces violence exposure and improves women’s health and well-
being. This is especially the case for disabled women, who are vastly under-represented in the
domestic abuse literature generally. Moreover, even if health and social care professionals have
a sound understanding of the complex relationship between disability and domestic abuse, to
ensure continuity of support, this understanding must also be matched – if not exceeded – by
support staff within domestic abuse organisations.

Accessibility
Domestic abuse organisations must be accessible to disabled women with a range of impairments
and different life circumstances. The European Disability Strategy for 2010–2020 defines acces-
sibility for disabled people as ‘access, on an equal basis with others, to the physical environment,
transportation, information and communications technologies and systems, and other facilities

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and services’ (European Commission, 2010: 5). There are various pieces of legislation (such
as the Disability Discrimination Act (2005) in the United Kingdom, and other similar policies
worldwide) which mandate service providers to ensure accessibility. A recent European, four-
country comparative study identified that there are still barriers to putting this legislation into
place within domestic abuse agencies (Shah et al., 2016). Whilst the Disability Discrimination
Act (2005) requires services to provide reasonable adjustments and ensure environmental acces-
sibility, many charities are exempt from some of these requirements. This is a significant barrier
to the provision of equitable specialist domestic abuse services for disabled women, given that
much of this specialist support comes from within the voluntary sector. In a study of women
with learning disabilities (n = 15), 11 women did not know the term ‘refuge’ or know what help
it could provide, highlighting that domestic abuse agencies may also be falling short on provid-
ing accessible information about their services (McCarthy et al., 2015).
Accessibility is multi-faceted, complex and extends beyond the physical environment. In
recent study of disabled women affected by domestic abuse during pregnancy (Breckenridge
et al., 2014; Bradbury-Jones et al., 2015a, 2015b), it became apparent that some staff within
domestic abuse organisations had a narrow view of accessibility as relating only to wheelchair
accessible accommodation. Although it is essential to consider physical accessibility, this must
not be at the expense of considering the intersectionality of disabled women’s lives. Disabled
people cannot, and should not, be defined solely by their impairment. Shah et al. (2016: 15)
identified that domestic abuse refuges do not necessarily accommodate for disabled women with
children in the same way as they do for other families: ‘there was only a provision for either me
as a disabled person or for the kids; there wasn’t provision for a disabled woman that had kids’.
Similarly, other studies have reported experiences of refuges being unable to accommodate car-
ers or assistance animals within their shelters (Ballan & Freyer, 2012).
To be accessible, domestic abuse services require knowledge about how to support disabled
women in refuges with basic care needs (Ballan et al., 2014). Powers et al. (2009) identified
sourcing alternative care provision as the highest priority for deaf and disabled women leaving
an abusive relationship. However, domestic abuse agencies may not be sufficiently equipped to
provide this assistance, or have the knowledge about how to access and arrange care support.
McCarthy et al. (2015) highlighted the experience of a young woman with a learning disabil-
ity being placed in care home for elderly people with physical impairments because there was
no suitable refuge accommodation available. This is troubling because institutions such as care
homes may not have sufficient knowledge and insight into the dynamics of domestic abuse
to ensure that women are protected from abusive partners (for example, permitting visits or
sharing information about women) (McCarthy et al., 2015) and cannot offer the same level of
professional support and expertise as specialist domestic abuse organisations. Moreover, denying
disabled women access to refuges means that they are excluded from the woman-to-woman
peer support which forms a pivotal foundation of the refuge movement.
Domestic abuse agencies are skilled in recognising women’s strengths and empowering them
to make informed choices about how to proceed after disclosure (Powers et al., 2009). When
working with disabled women, domestic abuse support staff should be mindful that the oppor-
tunities, resources and sources of support available to disabled women are likely to be lim-
ited (Young et al., 1997). Disabled women are disproportionally less financially independent
than non-disabled women, making it harder for them to leave their abusive partner (Ballan &
Freyer, 2012). Safety planning is more complicated; many self-defence or risk avoidance strate-
gies developed for non-disabled women do not transfer easily to women whose impairment
makes it impossible for them to move themselves to a relative place of safety (Ballan & Freyer,
2012). Different women, with different impairments, will have different needs and safety plans

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should take account of this (Powers et al., 2012). The best way to do this is to develop plans in
close collaboration with disabled women themselves and services need to ensure that they are
inclusive and accessible, without making assumptions about disabled women’s capabilities based
on disablist attitudes (Hoog, 2010).

Researching disabled women’s experiences of domestic abuse

To fully address the intersection between disability and domestic abuse, it is crucial that
researchers overcome the limitations of traditional research designs. For example, many of the
studies cited within this chapter set study inclusion/exclusion criteria that omitted women who
were unable to provide informed consent or express themselves verbally because of severe com-
munication or cognitive impairments. Whilst there are examples in the literature of researchers
adapting the research process to promote a degree of inclusivity (e.g. Bradbury-Jones et al.,
2015a; McCarthy et al., 2015; Shah et al., 2016), these studies only go so far. Failure to ensure
the ‘accessibility’ of research designs means that much of the research on disabled women’s
experiences of domestic abuse does not sufficiently represent women with the most severe dis-
abilities (Hughes et al., 2012). This is not to criticise existing studies, which have gone a long
way in contributing to knowledge generation within an under-researched field. Instead, it is
a challenge to all researchers conducting studies on disability and domestic abuse to develop
inclusive methods and work hard to ensure we do not fail to reach these as yet silenced voices.
Offering a variety of formats for data collection, with further adaptations to promote acces-
sibility for people with different impairments, may facilitate a more inclusive research approach.
Computer surveys are popular within general domestic abuse research, and there is great potential
to innovate technology to accommodate different user needs (Oschwald et al., 2009). Plummer
and Findley (2012) have also recommended that all future prevalence studies of domestic abuse
include disability as a variable, by including specific questions about impairment specific abuse
and extending the scope to include formal and informal carers as possible perpetrators. Although
some standardised measures of impairment specific abuse have been developed to date, see for
example McFarlane et al. (2001), Curry et al. (2004) and Curry et al. (2009), there has been
insufficient empirical testing of the reliability and validity of these tools to support their use.
Furthermore, researchers must not continue to treat disabled people as a homogenous group. It
is important to differentiate between women with different types of impairments, who experience
different types of abuse, and whose lives are affected by different social, financial and educational
backgrounds in order to ensure research can inform suitably tailored policies and interventions
(Breckenridge et al., 2014; Mikton & Shakespeare, 2014).
Of the research that has examined the complexities at the intersection of disability and domestic
abuse to date, there are concerns regarding representativeness. Women with physical and sensory
impairments are most frequently represented, whilst women with learning disabilities have received
far less attention (McCarthy et al., 2015). Moreover, despite approximately 80% of the world’s
disabled population living in low income countries, the majority of research has been conducted
in high income countries, predominantly the United States (Hughes et al., 2012). This is concern-
ing, particularly because in countries with high levels of poverty, limited formal health and social
care infrastructure and high levels of oppression for both women and disabled people, access to
appropriate domestic abuse support may be very difficult if not impossible. Redressing this balance
will ensure that research, and subsequent evidence informed interventions and support services, are
cognisant of the cultural and contextual factors shaping women’s lives (Astbury & Walji, 2014).
Ultimately, failure to explore the heterogeneity and intersectionality of the experiences of
disabled women affected by domestic abuse is unethical. As long as there is limited knowledge

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about disabled women and domestic abuse, there is a continued risk that the provision of
domestic abuse services will fail to meet their unique needs (Ballan et al., 2014). Ironically,
ethical approval procedures are one of the biggest barriers to intersectional research, particularly
when ethics committees classify all domestic abuse research as ‘sensitive’ and all disabled partici-
pants as ‘vulnerable’. Researchers may be reluctant to submit research proposals in anticipation
of a lengthy process of scrutiny or because studies may not be approved at all (McCarthy et al.,
2015). Whilst ethics committees have a crucial role in protecting vulnerable people and uphold-
ing safe and ethical research practices, it is important to be wary of overly ‘protectionist’ views
that are rooted in disablist attitudes (Breckenridge et al., 2017). Haines and Devaney (2004: 329)
have argued that,

it would be a perverse consequence if, in trying to protect the rights of vulnerable individu-
als, that their lived experiences were lost, and those responsible for formulating policy and
delivering services knew less, rather than more, about the needs and views of the marginal-
ized in society.

Excluding disabled people from research contributes to their continued marginalization in soci-
ety, and it is important that ethical approval processes do not obscure people’s opportunities to
talk about the important issues that affect their lives (Breckenridge et al., 2017).

Policy implications
There remain critical gaps in the policy provision for reducing the impact of violence on disabled
women (Shah et al., 2016). Despite growing evidence that disabled women regularly experience
impairment specific abuse, it is notable that state definitions of domestic abuse do not include
this explicitly as a unique type of violence. Naming inequalities and identifying intersectional-
ity more explicitly within policy is a crucial step towards achieving equality (Strid et al., 2013)
and a change in definition may go some way towards increasing societal understanding. Policy
recognition can challenge the stereotypes about disability which shape the ways in which legal,
social and health services respond to disabled women reporting domestic violence (Harpur &
Douglas, 2014). This can also be achieved through public health messaging, for example, better
representation of disabled women in media campaigns about domestic abuse (Ortoleva & Lewis,
2012). Naming the problem within society may challenge and change prevailing misconceptions
of disabled women ‘unlikely victims’ and perpetrators as ‘unassuming heroes’.
Strid et al. (2013) conducted a policy review to assess the extent to which intersectionality is
woven into UK domestic abuse policy (2001–2011), examining the representation of age, class,
disability, ethnicity/race, gender, immigrant status, religion/belief and sexual orientation. The
review identified that domestic abuse services are currently ill-equipped to support the unique
needs of ‘non-norm’ groups and highlighted a lack of dialogue with these groups in develop-
ing policy initiatives. Ultimately, the best way to ensure that intersectionality is recognised is
to ensure that marginalised groups have an active voice in shaping policy (Strid et al., 2013).
Thus, it is crucial that disabled women are more actively represented in the organisational poli-
cies of specialist domestic abuse services (Shah et al., 2016). This could involve domestic abuse
agencies working more closely with disability organisations (Ortoleva & Lewis, 2012) who can
provide a wealth of expertise in the disability-related barriers women face when accessing and
utilising services and the provision of accessible information. Likewise, domestic abuse agencies
can advise disability organisations on recognising and responding to domestic abuse and building
gender into their policies and practices (Hughes et al., 2011).

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Jenna P. Breckenridge

To date, however, disability organisations have been criticised for shying away from issues of
domestic abuse (Thiara et al., 2011; Young et al., 1997). The majority of disability organisations
in Thiara et al.’s (2011) survey did not consider domestic abuse within their remit; with 83%
(n = 105) of organisations failing to offer domestic abuse support and only 6% (n = 7) of organi-
sations sending their staff on specialist domestic abuse training. Thiara et al. (2011) also identified
several disability organisations with male-only staff; thereby limiting women’s opportunities to
disclose domestic abuse. As such, they have called for disability and domestic abuse organisa-
tions to cease working in silos (Thiara et al., 2011). Whilst more strategic collaboration between
disability and domestic abuse services is ideal, it is crucial to recognise the financial and practical
struggles facing both sectors within the context of government imposed austerity measures. In
the face of such financial crisis, researchers, campaigners and lobbyists have a responsibility to
advocate for specialist services as a matter of priority in order to ensure the delivery of a com-
prehensive, integrated and inclusive support service.

Conclusion
Violence against disabled women is not simply a subset of gender-based violence, but an issue
of ‘intersectionality’ whereby women are doubly compounded by both gender and disability
related violence (Astbury & Walji, 2014; Ballan & Freyer, 2012). Disablist attitudes can result
in women with health conditions and impairments falling through the gaps in policy, practice
and research (Strid et al., 2013). There is a dearth of adequate data on the frequency and co-
factors of violence against disabled women both nationally and internationally, resulting in a
poor understanding of the demographic profile of disabled women experiencing abuse and
the relationship between domestic abuse and different types of impairment (Ballan et al., 2014;
Ortoleva & Lewis, 2012). In order to understand the unique experiences and needs of disabled
women and ensure that policy and services can be tailored towards providing the right support,
it is essential to explore more fully the antecedents, contexts and consequences of domestic
abuse. Researchers must improve and extend the current scope of data collection to ensure
that research, and the policies it influences, are truly inclusive. Researchers are challenged to be
methodologically innovative in ways that promote the inclusion and empowerment of disabled
women in driving policies and practices that understand and address the intersectional relation-
ship between disability and domestic abuse.

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 11
Child contact as a weapon
of control
Kirsteen Mackay

Introduction
Within the United Kingdom disputes over the residence of children have only come before the
courts within the last 150 years or so because, historically, children were the subjects of the will
of the husband and father (Fraser, 1866; Muirhead, 1947), and married women had no rights to
the custody of their children upon formal separation or divorce (Norrie, 1999).
It was only recently in the Guardianship Act 1973 that the law stated, ‘a mother shall have the
same rights and authority as the law allows to a father’. This was the same time that Women’s
Aid shelters came into being, as somewhere women could go to escape an abusive husband, with
Erin Pizzey establishing Chiswick Women’s Aid in 1971. It was also at this point that mothers
in Britain, who were living alone with dependent children, could receive financial support from
the state, without there being a requirement that they should undertake paid labour (Gray, 2001).
For the first time in known history, women were poised to be able to thrive independent of men,
where desired or where necessary for their safety, and to be able to raise their children.
Immediately following mothers being afforded the same rights in law as fathers (1973), the
UK fathers’ rights group ‘Families Need Fathers’ was founded (1974).1 Fathers’ groups such as
this have actively influenced changes to family law in the UK, founding on an individual’s right
to a ‘family life’ as enshrined in the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR). The UK
is a signatory to the ECHR and it was made a part of the domestic law of the UK via the Human
Rights Act 1998. It is now the case that all fathers in the UK benefit from automatic parental
rights in respect of their children as long as they are named on the birth certificate (previously
these were automatic only for fathers who were married to the mother of the child, and for all
birth mothers). The terms ‘custody’ and ‘access’ have been replaced with those of ‘residence’
and ‘contact’ as the former terms were thought to inflame hostility and to imply that one parent
‘won’ a dispute over child residence – leaving the other with the limited right to ‘access’ only.
Importantly, both parents retain all parental responsibilities and rights in respect of their child
when they separate or divorce and it is generally assumed that the involvement of both parents
in the life of the child concerned will further the child’s welfare.2
Fathers’ rights groups continue to push for a presumption of ‘shared parenting’ when couples
separate – so that children will be required to spend equal time in the homes of each parent.

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This is despite a growing body of research evidence from jurisdictions such as Australia, that this
is a particularly disruptive pattern of contact for children, especially young children, impacting
negatively on both their development and their attachment to either parent (McIntosh et al.,
2010; Rhoades, 2011).
This chapter reports findings from research undertaken in Scotland. The majority of separat-
ing couples in Scotland make their own arrangements for the care of children post-separation,
with most agreeing that the mother will continue as the primary carer, with the father exercis-
ing regular contact at least once a week (Scottish Government, 2008, 2009; Mair et al., 2013).
Only a minority of separating couples (around 5%) take a dispute over contact to court (Scottish
Government, 2008, 2009). The focus of this chapter is the ways in which pursuit of residence
or contact with children through the courts can be used by abusive men as a means of continu-
ing control over the lives of women and children. Based on an analysis of my study of over 200
child contact disputes going through the Sheriff Courts of Scotland, the array of tools of abuse,
or tactics, that a formal child contact dispute affords an abusive father is illustrated. These are
categorised as ‘documentary tactics’, ‘formal hearing tactics’ and ‘contact tactics’. The residual
nature of many of the harms caused are also identified.
It is important to point out, however, that court actions can serve vital protective functions –
enabling a women to gain a protective court order for example, as well as the protection of
arm’s-length negotiation that a legal representative can afford (as opposed to say, mediation)
(see Geffner and Daley Pagelow, 1990). The residence of the children of women fleeing abuse,
who are unable to access legal representation, may be determined by brute force rather than
litigation. In England and Wales, it is the case that access to court for private family actions has
recently been severely restricted by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders
Act 2012. Women fleeing abuse are now only able to receive financial aid for legal representa-
tion and access to the courts where they can satisfy a high evidential requirement (see Mackay,
2013b, for a detailed discussion of these restrictions and the advantages of legal representation
in family actions).
This chapter proceeds by exploring existing research literature addressing the issue of child
contact where there is a background of domestic abuse. This literature identifies the intersec-
tions between partner abuse and child abuse and the use of child contact as an opportunity
for abuse. The research methods and key findings are then set out, highlighting gender dif-
ference in the parenting history of women and how they may become separated from their
children by coercive partners. The discussion then proceeds to unpack the tactical categories
legal process affords an abusive individual, before the chapter closes with the implications for
law in action.

Current research literature on domestic abuse and child contact

Women may separate from their abusive partner in an attempt to escape abuse of themselves
and to protect their children (e.g. Wallerstein and Kelly, 1980; Mullender et al., 2002; Mackay,
2012). Separation is a time of high risk for violence, including an increased risk of fatalities of
both women and children (Saunders, 2004; Women’s Aid, 2016). Statistics in Scotland record
that 42% of victims of domestic abuse who are reported to the police were victimised after
separation (Scottish Government, 2013).
Raising an action for contact with children is one way a man can seek to gain access to
his ex-partner and children (e.g. Radford et al., 1997; Humphreys and Thiara, 2003, Harne,
2011). As long ago as 1980, Wallerstein and Kelly commented that men who are angry at being
rejected by their female partner frequently become violent, threaten to remove the children

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from their mother’s care, and try to alienate both the children and the courts against the mother
of the children. Kidnappings of children by fathers were reported as being ‘not uncommon’
(1980: 28–29) A significant research literature has accrued in the intervening years voicing con-
cern over child contact in the context of domestic abuse.
The presence of domestic abuse is known to be a risk factor for direct physical abuse of the
child (see for example Holt et al., 2008). Even when children are not direct victims of physical
abuse themselves, the fact that children living in a domestically violent home see and hear vio-
lent physical and sexual assaults of their mother, led researchers to assert that exposure to domes-
tic abuse should be considered a form of emotional abuse of the child (e.g. Brandon and Lewis,
1996; Mullender et al., 2002). Abusive treatment of a mother is also known to undermine her
parenting ability, depleting her resources for the nurture of her child and negatively impacting
on the protective attachment between the mother and child.
As well as bullying and insulting the mother in front of child, many domestically abusive
fathers encourage the child to do the same, as well as purposively making the children watch
physical assaults of their mother (Coy et al., 2015). They are also known to limit the time that
children and mothers spend together and to become angry when the child receives attention
from their mother (Katz, 2016); as well as using surveillance tactics and socially isolating their
victim(s) (e.g. Coy et al., 2015; Katz, 2016).
Actual violence need only be used occasionally, if at all, by a domestically abusive individual,
as the threat of violence may be sufficient to ensure compliance. By contrast, the coercively
controlling behavior of threats, intimidation, name calling, isolation and rules governing domes-
tic duties and parenting can be ongoing (Stark, 2009). Some of the most recent research has
honed in on the nature of the coercive and controlling behaviors, and has found that children
also may be verbally denigrated and deliberately frightened by fathers (such as being locked in
a room in the dark), and may be threatened by him (including threats to harm pets). Children
also may be forced to conform to rigid rules limiting their self-expression, play, movement and
social interactions (Harne, 2011; Overlien, 2013; Callaghan et al., 2015; Katz, 2016). This can
be particularly disturbing as fathers may oscillate between violence and tenderness (Overlien,
2013). Children taking part in the studies cited here described a significantly different home
environment when their father was out of the house, with an oppressive change in atmosphere
when his return was imminent.
The existing research literature in this area has long called into question the assumption that
contact between a father and a child promotes the welfare of a child, without informed con-
sideration of the quality of the relationship between that father and their child. The assumption
of ongoing contact is underpinned by the belief that children with two parents do better in life
than those raised by one (see Rodgers and Pryor, 1998). However, this overlooks the impor-
tance of the nature of the relationships between family members. Children of divorce who live
in low-conflict environments have actually been found to be better adjusted than the children
of high-conflict couples who continue to live together (Booth and Edwards, 1990; Kelly, 1993).
Indeed the quality of the relationship between the child and father pre-separation has been
found to predict the quality of that relationship thereafter – with forced contact being counter-
productive (Fortin et al., 2012). Studies have found children can bitterly resent being trapped
into ridged contact regimes that intrude on their friendships and social lives, and which they felt
they had no say in. Such children generally reject the parent that insisted on such contact, as
soon as they reach ‘majority’ (Wallerstein, 2005). By contrast, research has found that in order
for contact to work, it is necessary that both parents are sensitive to the views and changing
needs of the child, and willing to be flexible and accommodating of those views (Wallerstein
and Kelly, 1980; Rodgers and Pryor, 1998; Neale and Smart, 2001; Fortin et al., 2012).

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However, research undertaken with known domestic abuse perpetrators has found that they
lack insight into how their behaviour impacts on their child (see Holt, 2015, for an overview of
this literature). Instead they are dismissive of children’s express fear – perceiving it to be an idea
placed in the child’s head by their mother, for whom they feel intense resentment (Holt, 2015).
This is a particularly important finding as behaviour change is dependent on acknowledgement
of past behaviour and its impact, as well as acknowledgement of the need to change. Harne’s
study (2011) found domestically abusive fathers are dismissive of the idea of their children being
individuals in their own right, capable of formulating and expressing their own view, or indeed
that a child’s views are relevant to the issue of contact – at least not until they reach their teens.
Research has consistently found that those cases which go before the courts have a high
prevalence of allegations of domestic abuse, as well as allegations of substance addictions and
mental health problems (e.g. Brown et al., 2000; McGuckin and McGuckin, 2004; Hunt and
Macleod, 2008; Mackay, 2012). These welfare concerns comprise a reason for a non-abusive
parent to resist the contact sought.
Yet the assumption that ongoing contact will promote the welfare of a child actually acts as a bar-
rier to allegations of abuse impacting on the outcome of a case, even when evidenced and accepted
by a court (e.g. Parkinson et al., 2007; Harrison, 2008; Harne, 2011; Hester, 2011; Mackay, 2013a).
Rather, even a domestically abusive father may generally be assumed to be a ‘good enough’ father
(Holt, 2015); with courts preferring to assume the parents before them were once a functioning
couple who have simply lost their capacity for resolving disputes. Stark (2009) suggests that this
narrative acts to disguise cases where the dispute is over ‘the illegitimate exercise of power and
control to hurt and subjugate’ (p. 297). Rather, if and when abuse is taken into account by a court,
this is usually limited to incidents of physical or sexual abuse, with no recognition afforded to the
significance of a pattern of coercive and controlling behaviour to the issue of ongoing child con-
tact. While the courts of Scotland are required to have regard to the need to protect a child from
abuse,3 at present, there is no routine risk assessment for the presence of coercive control within
family actions (as recommended by Stark, 2009; Beck and Raghavan, 2010). Even when incidents
of physical abuse are evidenced and accepted by a court, this may not always impact on the amount
and nature (e.g. overnight) of the contact between the child and the domestically abusive parent.
Rather women may be chastised for failing to protect their child from a domestically abusive part-
ner by social workers, only to be reprimanded by a court for not encouraging that same child to
spend time with the abusive father (Hester, 2011; Mackay, 2012).
As well as informing some of the key points listed above, findings from my research into
private law contact disputes in Scotland illustrate the myriad ways in which a court action for
contact can be used by an abusive man to re-assert control of his ex-partner and child. It is to
this research that we now turn.

Methods
My study used mixed methods and included the quantitative analysis of data extracted from
court cases, two questionnaires – one of solicitors and one of parents with experience of a court
action over contract, and 33 interviews with judges (called sheriffs), solicitors, parents, children,
and professionals from family support services.
The objective was to process all cases raised in the one calendar year – 2007. This year
was chosen as it was after the Family Law (Scotland) Act 2006 introduced the requirement
on a court to consider the need to protect a child from the risk of abuse when deciding

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contact cases. All cases in which there was a crave for contact by either party were included.
Over the 12-week data collection period it was possible to include all cases fitting the above
criteria that had been raised in Court A (82 cases) and all cases fitting this criteria that were
raised between 1 January and 14 September 2007 in Court B (126 cases), a total of 208 cases
concerning 299 children.
In addition, 96 completed questionnaires from solicitors were analysed along with 28 com-
pleted questionnaires from parents. A total of eight of these parents (six mothers and two fathers)
were subsequently interviewed (Mackay, 2012).

The cases in the court dataset

There were a number of notable gender differences between the mothers and the fathers of the
children comprising the court dataset. To begin with, all the mothers in the dataset had lived
with their child at some point, while a third of fathers had never lived with the child or with the
mother of the child at any point. This is contrary to the assumption of a previously functioning
family unit that has broken down.
It was particularly surprising therefore to discover that, at the time the action was raised,
almost a quarter of children were living with their fathers. However, the court papers revealed
that 39% of these children had (allegedly) been retained by their father following a contact visit;
while in respect of a further 27% of these children, their mothers had either been ejected from
the family home or had fled violence and had not been permitted or able to take the children.
Many of these mothers said they had been told by the father of their children that they would
have to reconcile with him if they wanted to see their children.
By contrast, no fathers claimed they had been ejected from the family home; no women were
alleged to have told the father of their children that he would have to continue to live with her
should he wish to see his children, and there were also no fathers in the dataset who alleged they
had fled violence at the hands of their female partner – either with or without their children.
Allegations of domestic abuse were made in half the cases and a quarter of all the children
were known to social services. In those cases where allegations of abuse were made, 19% of
fathers were the subject of concurrent criminal proceedings for domestic abuse and 10% were
the subject of a civil interdict (such as a non-molestation interdict). One in six of the children in
the dataset were living in a refuge with their mothers at the time the case came to court.
In virtually all cases, fathers denied domestic or child abuse even when they had criminal
convictions for this abuse (being 17% of cases in which allegations of abuse were made).
A significant percentage of children (42%) had their views taken as part of the court process.4
Just over half of all children living with their mothers, whose views were taken, expressed a
wish not to be made to have contact with their non-resident parent. Almost all of these children
(96%) described abuse perpetrated by their fathers. Another gender difference was that in those
cases where a child’s mother was the non-resident parent, the most prevalent view expressed by
a child was a wish to return to live with her.
The contact outcomes at the last hearing in the case were discernible for 244 of the 299
children. Consistent with the assumption that ongoing contact with both parents is likely to
promote the best interests of the child, the most prevalent contact outcome was that the amount
of contact the child/ren had with their non-resident parent increased (48% of all children). This
included a third of the children who said they did not want to be made to have contact with
their non-resident parent, being ordered to have contact.

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Using a dispute over child contact to (re-)assert control over a former

partner and over children
Harnes’ (2011) research with men attending programmes for perpetrators of domestic violence
found that men admitted using child contact as an opportunity to abuse former partners, includ-
ing using abduction of the child as a means of coercing reconciliation, and they also spoke
of threatening mothers through children accessed via contact visits (2011). Other researchers
have also referred to ways in which the actual attendance at court can be an opportunity for
continued abuse (e.g. Trinder et al., 2010; Coy et al., 2015). Women and children who have
participated in research have also recounted their fear of being in the same space as a former
abuser (e.g. Douglas et al., 2006; Coy et al., 2015).
From my analysis of the 208 court processes, augmented by interview data, three different
categories of ‘tool’ or tactics available to a person intent on dominance of a former partner via a
formal dispute over contact were identified. These are ‘documentary’ tactics (using the written
word); ‘formal hearing’ tactics, linked to court attendance (where the perpetrator of abuse will
once again be in the same space as his victim); and ‘contact tactics’ which can be exercised when
the perpetrator is exercising contact with his child. These tactics result in harms inflicted on the
mother and/or child. Table 11.1 presents a list of some of the key harms which can be inflicted
by the tactics of an abusive ex-partner’s pursuit of contact.

Table 11.1 Tactics of control: some of the ways in which a child contact dispute may be experienced
as abusive by women and children fleeing abuse (from n = 208 court cases and n = 7
interviews with mothers)

Documentary harms Formal hearing harms Contact harms

Court papers contain slurs on
the mother’s parenting
ability
Court papers present the
ex-partner as a loving
father and asserts children
will be damaged without
regular overnight contact
Court papers contain denials
of abusive incidents
Legal Aid Board will not assist
in funding the mother’s
action
The child’s mother is in the
same space as her former
abusive partner
The child’s mother is
subjected to ‘eyeballing’
and gestures from former
partner
The child’s mother may
be followed by former
partner within the court
building and outside
The child’s mother may be
assaulted by her former
partner
Fear of abduction (especially if
ex-partner refuses to say where
he is taking the children/where
he lives)
Child and/or mother of the child
may be physically, sexually or
verbally/emotionally abused
during contact/at handovers
Mother has to support children
who may be bed-wetting;
hitting out; telling mum they
hate her as she tells them they
have to go to contact. Includes
time, energy and money taking
children to support services
Child’s mother may be subjected
to direct contact by abuser
(including texts/emails/
phone calls) under the guise
of discussing ‘the children’
(schooling, health care,
holidays, etc.)

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The child’s mother is
informed that a child
welfare report will cost
thousands of pounds
which she cannot afford
The mother’s solicitor
withdraws from acting
for the women due to her
lack of funds
Papers lodged in court
assert that the child/
ren’s reluctance to attend
contact is due to mother
‘alienating the children’
Court reporter/CAFCASS
officers report states
they do not believe
the woman’s version
of events or consider it
irrelevant to the issue
of contact and they
recommend contact
Ex-partner craves the court to
imprison the mother for
failure to comply with the
court order for contact
Woman and children are
subjected to repeat
motions to the court for
ever increasing amounts
of contact (over many
years sometimes)
Where she has not secured
legal representation,
the child’s mother may
be questioned and
challenged by her former
partner**
The child’s mother may
be reprimanded by the
court for her failure to
tell her children they will
be safe with/to go with
their father
The court may order the
mother’s address/
children’s school to be
disclosed to the abusive
partner
The court may tell the
mother that her
allegations of abuse are
false or not relevant to
the issue of contact
The mother may be
imprisoned for her failure
to comply with the court
order for contact
The court may order
residence to the father
as the mother is resisting
contact and the father
claims he will not
Child’s mother may be unable to
work/work longer hours as she
supports child/ren to deal with
trauma from abuse/abusive
contact
Child’s mother may be unable
to move away or take job
elsewhere (as contact to
be maintained) so career
progression is limited
Children will be traumatised if
their mother is imprisoned
for failure to comply with a
contact order and thereafter be
hypervigilant
If the child’s father is awarded
residence of the child – both
mother and child/ren lose the
society of the other and the
mother loses her primary carer
role
The mother may experience
financial hardship paying off
legal costs or debt to Scottish
Legal Aid Board
The child’s mother may reconcile
as she thinks it is safer for the
children

** The research was undertaken in Scotland and all mothers had legal representation. However the issue of a victim
of abuse being questioned by her abuser is too important to leave off the list and is particularly significant in other
jurisdictions such as in England and Wales (see Coy et al., 2015).

In addition, even in those cases where a perpetrator is unsuccessful in securing contact, years
of living with the potential ‘threat’ of renewed legal action, can have a lingering impact on the
mother and children – the ‘residual impacts.’

Documentary tactics
The first indication a mother may receive that her ex-partner is seeking contact (or increased
contact or residence) is a copy of court papers. In Scotland these will be delivered to her home
address by Sheriff Officers and will contain a copy of the Initial Writ lodged with the court by

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her former partner or spouse. As the legal system in Scotland is adversarial, this will contain his
version of events as told to his legal advisor. From the perspective of the mother, as defender in
the action, the Initial Writ is likely to contain mistruths, false allegations and denials of abuse.
The Initial Writs in the cases reviewed, regularly asserted the importance to a child’s self-
esteem of having regular contact with their natural father. The following extract gives an example
of the primacy attached to contact between the biological father and his child and the positioning
of the mother as the barrier to the promotion of this important aspect of a child’s best interests:

As a natural father of the said child, the pursuer has a positive contribution to make to the
said child’s upbringing. . . . It is important for the child’s self-esteem and development
to know the identity of the natural father. The Pursuer is able to provide the child with
emotional, practical and financial support. The said child will become alienated form the
Pursuer in the absence of a regular pattern of contact. The Defender has refused to offer
the Pursuer regular contact. The Defender’s reluctance to permit regular contact will have a
negative impact on the child. The lack of regular contact between the Pursuer and the said
child has had an adverse effect on the relationship between the Pursuer and the said child.
The Pursuer and the said child have not been able to establish a bond due to the Defenders
persistent failure to adhere to any pattern of regular contact.

In this particular case, it later emerged the father was attending a court mandated Domestic
Violence Perpetrator Programme and that social workers involved with the family stated the
child in question was out of control due to ‘the violence he has witnessed and to the disrespect
which he has seen directed at his mother, both of which [the boy] emulates’. When spoken to,
the child stated he did not enjoy contact with his father as he got drunk, shouted at him and hit
him. While the court process in this case resulted in the child not having to see his father, the
documentary praise of the father, and the disapproval of the actions of the mother, represent a
continuation of abusive behaviour using formal processes.
Solicitors appointed by the court to undertake background reports into all the circumstances
of the child did not always grasp the impact on children of witnessing the abuse of their primary
carer, and their comments within their reports could be distressing.5 In one case two children
had witnessed their father punch their mother in the head. The girls told the reporter that ‘they
do not want to see their father and will run away if they are made to see him’. However, the
reporter in this case concluded:

There appear to be no child welfare based reasons why contact should not operate . . . I
do not feel that either of the girls are sufficiently mature to be able to evaluate their feel-
ings objectively. . . . The girls are obviously fearful of their father, but I do suspect this is
a result of the perception of their mother’s reaction rather than a genuine fear of spending
time with the pursuer.

In blaming the mother for the children’s fear, and not the father who caused it, the narrative of
the reporter echoes that of the abusive father.

Formal hearing tactics

The court hearing is particularly stressful for mothers fleeing an abusive partner as they will
come face to face with their former abuser. Mothers interviewed in my study spoke of how
stressful this could be:

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Even in the court, their dad continues to harass me. If I go up the stairs he will then go up
the stairs behind me . . . I don’t think they realise how intimidating it is to go up to the court
when he will be there. They need to have a camera so that they can watch the behaviour.
(Mother, Interviewee)

Within the papers of three of the cases, reference was made to the mother of the child being
assaulted outside the court after the child contact hearing. Women who do not have, or become
separated from, their legal representative are particularly vulnerable and it was observed first hand
one mother’s former partner make the motion of a gun – shooting at her head with his fingers –
whilst her legal representative was speaking outside the court room with another solicitor.
It is also within the court hearing that a mother may face the risk of being imprisoned for
contempt of court if the child does not go for contact. Three of the mothers in the court dataset
faced contempt hearings, as did three of the mothers interviewed, although none were actually
imprisoned. The ‘potential’ for imprisonment appears to serve a similar purpose to the ‘poten-
tial’ for violence in a coercively controlling relationship. It does not have to be exercised – or
only rarely – it is enough that it is exists and that it is known.

Contact tactics
Child contact poses a risk that a father may fail to return the child to his or her mother. Fear of
this happening is heightened when a father refuses to tell the mother where he will be taking
the child. Children can also find this particularly frightening – even if the ‘activity’ is one that
should be, on the face of it, enjoyable:

When they went out he would never tell me where they went and on the return he refused
to tell me where they had been. This happened in front of [the child]. She was five and
was desperate for me to know where it was she had been and could not understand how I
could not know.
(Mother, Interviewee)

The other key fear mothers have in respect of contact between their child and a domestically
abusive father is the high risk that the child will be treated in an abusive manner during contact.
Children from court dataset cases described violence at the hands of their fathers – either in let-
ters to the court or recounted to a social worker or court reporter. One reporter wrote:

Both children told their present social worker that they did not enjoy their last visit with
their dad because he got drunk and was shouting and because he smacked them. View of
boy, aged 6 and girl, aged 4.

One boy who had been retained by his father, who then successfully sought residence, stated:

I have been hit more times in the last six weeks than my mum hit me in the last six years.
Boy, aged 10.

This boy also described how, when his mother had come to visit them to exercise contact, his
father had knocked her to the ground and dragged her from the home. However, as the mother
did not attend the next court hearing (understandably in the present author’s view), the father
was awarded residence of the two children. It is unclear how the mother was to exercise contact
in these circumstances.

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Kirsteen Mackay

As well as descriptions of physical violence, the abusive behaviour children referred to was
often that of overbearing dominance and control, which took no account of the likely impact
of the behaviour on the child.

Our dad is very competitive but he takes it too far. He tells us we are fat and makes us go
for runs which we hate . . . he shouts at us and swears and calls us bastards . . . I feel sad and
powerless that we don’t get our say. Boy, age 13.
Dad . . . made me do all the chores and if I didn’t he hit me. He treats the other children
[step siblings] like they are number one and I am invisible. They wouldn’t let me phone
home and would not let me go home. This makes me really sad. Girl, age 10.
She does not want to see her dad. He shouts, slams doors, and threatens to throw out
her toys and to stop her seeing her best friend. She was adamant she does not want to see
him. Court appointed official giving the view of a girl, aged 8.

Mothers taking part in the study reported physical assault at the time of drop off and collection
and reported that fathers also purportedly used contact as an opportunity to verbally denigrate
the mother to the child and to issue threats intended to be passed to the mother. They also
used children during contact to control their mother – such as one putting his daughter on the
phone, distressed, during contact and begging her mother not to go out.
Contact tactics were often part of a bigger picture of control and surveillance behaviours.
Mothers also reported their ex-partners sitting in their car outside either their home or their
work. One woman’s partner took up a job in the same building as her. Another reported that
flowers were delivered to her home address from her ex-partner, clearly intended to make her
aware that her ‘undisclosed’ address was now known to him.

Residual impacts
Children who are forced to attend contact with a non-resident parent against their will can be
distraught – not only because of the behaviours they are exposed to, but also because they feel
let down by their resident parent who has failed to protect them from the abuse. Mothers can
find themselves having to deal with their child’s anger and distress on a daily basis. The child
may develop physical symptoms such as bed-wetting, soiling, elective mutism (when a child
ceases speaking) and even very young children may self-harm. While an extreme case, one
8-year-old child in the court dataset was reported by professionals as standing with a knife to
her chest and threatening to kill herself.
The long-term impact on the physical and mental health of mother and child may linger long
beyond the abusive experiences. As one boy explained in his letter to the court, the impact of
contact in which he had been subjected to days of verbal abuse followed by an enraged father
driving him home at high speed, swearing all the time, was that:

I found it hard to stay overnight with friends or go on the school trip. I was so scared to
leave the comfort of my room. I have started to get better now but it was a terrifying thing
to go through. Boy, aged 12. Letter to court.

For mothers and their dependent children, the long-term financial cost of legal process may also
impact on the remainder of the child’s childhood. One mother, a professional, who was still
engrossed in a dispute said it had cost her £17,000 ‘so far’ ‘just to protect my child from abuse’.

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She had already sold her family home and moved to a smaller home but was bleak about the
future, with the threat of continued legal action ever hanging over her.

Implications for law and policy

My research highlights the highly conflicted nature of the cases before the courts, as well as their
gendered nature. As I have argued elsewhere (Mackay, 2013b), protective parents need to be
able to access legal representation and court process, as only a court has the power to limit the
exercise of parental rights and responsibilities, and only a court can make protective orders. In
Scotland, where legal aid remains available for family actions, the income level of the majority of
lone mothers is such that they may benefit from the arm’s distance negotiation that legal repre-
sentation affords. However, it is also necessary that those legal representatives are well grounded
in the nature of the multiple impacts of domestic abuse on primary carers and their child/ren
and understand that it is not limited to incidents of violence only. They should also be equipped
to routinely screen for factors that can and should be brought to the attention of the court.
Within an adversarial system, documentary tactics are perhaps inevitable and, of course, a
court should be made aware of behaviours which are relevant to a child’s welfare, if true (even
though this opens up the possibility of false allegations which may cause distress). However,
reassuring guidance should be issued along with the initial court papers, advising individuals
that the court does not automatically accept statements put to it at face value, and informing
the recipient of their right to defend the action, how to go about finding a family lawyer, and
encouraging them to do so.
Methods for addressing formal hearing tactics were suggested by some of the interviewees
in the study and include having separate waiting areas (for pursuers and for defenders) which
should be CCTV-monitored. Ideally, each should have its own dispenser of drinks and food-
stuffs, and toilets, as public areas within the court are experienced as a key place for stalking and
harassment. Litigants should not be left alone with the other party by their legal representatives,
and pursuers could be required to wait at least 15 minutes at the end of their hearing to give the
defender time to make a get away from the court building.
Most crucially, contact tactics for inflicting harm, and their residual impacts, can be prevented
if a court refrains from making an order for contact where there is evidence of coercive and
controlling behaviour or violence. Courts may also exercise their exclusive power to remove
parental rights from an abusive parent where this is necessary for the protection of the child.

Notes
1 The founders were two fathers whose contact with their children had been restricted by the family
justice system.
2 In England and Wales a statutory presumption to this effect can now be found at s1(2A) Children Act
1989. In Scotland, this is not a statutory presumption but an assumption to this effect has been opined
in case law (e.g. White v. White 2001, S.L.T. 485; ASM (Iraq) v. Secretary of State for the Home Department
[2013] CSIH 74).
3 Under the Children (Scotland) Act, 1995 at Sections 7A to 7E. In England and Wales, the court has to
consider any harm the child is suffering, or is at risk of suffering, under the Children Act 1989, s1(3)(e).
4 The child’s views can be taken by a solicitor acting as a child welfare reporter for the court or through
the child writing to the court or instructing their own solicitor.
5 Solicitors acting as Child Welfare Reporters were appointed in 58% of cases of cases where abuse was
alleged and 35% where it was not. The court ordered contact in line with their recommendations in all
but one case in the court dataset.

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Kirsteen Mackay

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Rodgers, B. and Pryor, J., (1998) Divorce and Separation: The Outcomes for Children. York: Joseph Rowntree
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Saunders, H. (2004) Twenty-Nine Child Homicides: Lessons for Domestic Violence and Child Protection. Women’s
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Scottish Government (2008) 2007 Scottish Child Contact Survey. Edinburgh: Scottish Government Social
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6, 287–321.
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 12
Femicide
Karen Ingala Smith

Introduction
This chapter explores femicide, the killing of women by men. It looks at the critical importance
of a feminist analysis making connections between killings of women and different forms of
men’s fatal violence against women over time and across cultural and geographic boundaries. It
also emphasises the importance in remembering the individuality of each woman killed whilst
maintaining a structural analysis of men’s violence against women (as opposed to viewing them as
isolated incidents). In doing so, the creation of the ‘Counting Dead Women project’ is detailed.

Counting Dead Women

Late on New Year’s Day, 2012, 20-year-old Kirsty Treloar received a text message from Myles
Williams, the father of her three-week-old daughter. It read:

Okay wer all gud now and my new yrs ressy is that I aint going to hit u again and I won’t
hit u 4 this yr next yr the yr after that the next yr after that [sic].

Only days earlier, Williams had been charged with threatening behaviour towards Kirsty and
his bail conditions prevented him from seeing her. Kirsty refused to see him, and around eight
hours after sending the text, he broke into her family’s home through the kitchen window and
made his way to her bedroom. Williams stabbed Kirsty 29 times, he also stabbed her sister twice
and her brother three times as they tried to protect her and prevent him from dragging her into
a car. Williams told a bystander ‘she needs to die’ before driving away with her. Kirsty’s body
was found shortly afterwards, dumped in a bin area less than two miles away.
Kirsty Treloar had lived and died in Hackney, East London, an area in which the charity I
work for has supported women, girls and children who have been subjected to men’s sexual and
domestic violence since 1975. Searching the internet for news of her murder, I found multiple
reports of women who had been killed by men in recent days. It was the start of a new year and
I wanted to know how many women in the UK had already been killed by men, so I made a
list of their names to help me count. I found that on 1 January, Michael Atherton, 42, had shot

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his partner Susan McGoldrick, 47, her sister Alison Turnbull, 44, and Alison’s daughter Tanya,
24, before shooting himself; 31-year-old Aaron Mann had repeatedly hit Claire O’Connor, 38,
with a blunt object before smothering her with a pillow. Her body was found wrapped in dirty
bedding in the boot of her car. On 2 January, in addition to Myles Williams’ murder of Kirsty
Treloar, 48-year-old Stephen Farrow had stabbed 77-year-old Betty Yates in the head and neck
and beat her with her own walking stick. The next day John McGrory, 46, had used a dog lead
to strangle 39-year-old Marie McGrory, and Garry Kane, 40, inflicted at least 26 injuries upon
his 87-year-old grandmother Kathleen Milward, including fifteen ‘blunt force trauma’ injuries
to her head and neck.
In the first three days of 2012, eight women in the UK had suffered violent deaths at the hands
of six men: three shot, two stabbed, one strangled, one smothered and one beaten to death. Eight
women, aged between 20 and 87, all white, all UK-born, from a range of socio-economic back-
grounds; their killers were men aged between 19 and 48 years old and included their husbands,
partners, boyfriends or exes; sister’s partner, aunt’s partner, a robber and a grandson.
Since then, I have continued to keep the record of the names of women in the UK, or UK
women abroad, who have been killed by men. It didn’t feel right to stop, because that would
have implied that the next woman was less worthy of commemoration. My list became a
campaign that I called Counting Dead Women, an attempt to capture the simultaneous horror
and banality of the killing of women by men and remind people of the humanity of the taken
women behind the statistics. Counting Dead Women led to the development of the Femicide
Census, on which I have been working in partnership with Women’s Aid Federation England,
supported by Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP and Deloitte LLP.
The Femicide Census is a sophisticated electronic database that allows data to be collated and
disaggregated for analysis to identify patterns. It contains a wide range of information on over
900 women who have been killed by fatal male violence from 2009 to 2014. Data from 2015 is
currently being collated and data for 2016 is being collected. The data is collected from Freedom
of Information Act requests and public and private sources and includes the relationship between
the killer and the victim, the method of killing and detailed demographic information.

Isolated incidents
Between the murder of Kirsty Treloar in January 2012 and the end of June 2016, I had recorded
the names of over 600 UK women who had been killed by men or, where court cases were still
pending, where men were the principal suspect (Ingala, Counting Dead Women), yet still, police
forces routinely describe the murders of women by men as isolated incidents. In reference to the
killing of 58-year-old Judith Ege, whose throat had been cut from ear to ear by Barach Bandavad,
38, in June 2012, Inspector Simon Crisp of Avon and Somerset Police said of her death: ‘This
was a tragic and isolated incident in which a woman has needlessly lost her life.’ Sasha Marsden,
16, was found dead in an alleyway in Blackpool in January 2013. She had been stabbed 58 times
in the head, face and neck and sexually assaulted. David Minton had wrapped her body in a bin
bag, carpet and duvet before setting it on fire. Shortly after her murder, Superintendent Eddie
Newton of Lancashire Police said: ‘We believe that this is an isolated incident and that there is
no risk to the public.’ Mother and daughter Christine Lee, 66, and Lucy Lee, 40, were shot dead
by 82-year-old John Lowe in February 2014. A Detective Chief Inspector speaking on behalf
of Surrey police said: ‘We believe this is an isolated incident and there is no further risk to the
wider community.’ Less than two weeks earlier, 20-year-old Hollie Gazzard had been stabbed to
death. A police Chief Inspector said: ‘I would like to reassure members of this community, both
residents and local businesses, that this is an isolated incident.’

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The deaths of over 600 UK women killed by men, or where a man is the principle sus-
pect, in less than five years are not ‘isolated incidents’. Clearly the term has an application in
police usage, but whether used by police or more widely, the use of this language encourages
us to take a perspective that individualises and steers us away from a cultural perspective. The
concept of ‘femicide’ takes ‘isolated incidents’ and looks at them as a collective phenomenon,
in doing so allows us to see men’s fatal violence against women, not as a matter of individual
pathology, but as a social problem, and one that extends beyond the most commonly identified
form, intimate partner homicide. This does not mean that men should not be held individu-
ally accountable for their actions nor that we should ignore the individuality of each woman
killed, but recognising men’s fatal violence as a social problem, and part of the continuum of
sexual violence (Kelly, 1988), is a crucial step in identifying the changes needed to reduce
men’s violence against women in a way that focusing on the motivations of a single abusive
male could never do.

Femicide: the global context

Femicide is a global issue. About 66,000 women and girls are violently killed every year (Small
Arms Survey, 2012). Comparing country-by-country data is challenging, partly because there
isn’t a globally accepted definition, or even a globally agreed need for a definition, so different
interpretations are reflected in any data available, but also because most countries’ data-collection
systems do not record the necessary information, whether that is the sex of the victim and per-
petrator, their relationship or any known motives for the killing. Across the world women are at
greater risk than men of intimate partner homicides and overwhelmingly killed by males, with
countries recording that between 40 and 70% of women homicide victims are killed by male
partners or ex-partners (Krug et al., 2002). Across everything that divides societies globally, they
share in common that men’s violence against women is normalised, tolerated and justified, and
that there are a lack of truly proactive and deeply rooted state initiatives to protect women’s right
to life (Garcia-Moreno, 2013; Heise et al., 1999).
The data that is available suggests that countries with the highest femicide levels perhaps
unsurprisingly correspond to those with the highest rates of fatal violence. El Salvador has
the highest femicide rate (12.0 per 100,000 female population), followed by Jamaica (10.9),
Guatemala (9.7) and South Africa (9.6). Half of the countries with the top highest estimated
femicide rates are in Latin America, with South Africa and Russian and Eastern European coun-
tries having disproportionately high rates. High rates of female infanticide, sex-selective and
forced abortion suggest that if data were available, countries including India and China would
be contenders for inclusion in those countries with high rates. England and Wales’ femicide
rate, by comparison, was 0.63 per 100,000 female population for the year ending March 2015.1
When we look at any contemporaneous form of male violence against women in a global
context, it is important to recognise the connections and similarities across culturally and geo-
graphically disparate countries, as well as the differences. Femicide, like any other form of men’s
violence, reflects macro-level socio-political and economic institutions and formal and informal
ideologies. Heise and Kotsadam (2015) compiled data on rates of intimate partner violence from
44 countries. They found that intimate partner violence is related to women’s status, gender
inequality and male violence against/control of women. They also found that for every log
increase in gross national product, the prevalence of intimate partner violence decreased by
5.5% but that the correlation became non-existent if norms around ‘wife-beating’ and male
authority/control did not accompany the economic development. This trilateral nature of the
relationship between economic development, economic equality between the sexes and norms

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around violence against women illustrates the breadth of actions that need to be tackled to
reduce men’s violence against women.
However, Gracia and Merlo (2016) found apparently contradictory relationships between
high levels of gender equality and high incidence of intimate partner violence against women in
Nordic countries (Sweden, Finland and Denmark), referred to as the ‘Nordic paradox’. Theories
posited to explain this have included a backlash against women, increased conflict because
of increased equality, the clash of individually held sexist beliefs and egalitarian social norms
and increased disclosure due to decreased inequality and a societally agreed condemnation of
men’s violence against women. An earlier study (Yllö, 1984) in the United States had also
found ‘wife abuse’ did not have a linear relationship with women’s status, but was curvilinear,
in that ‘wife abuse’ was high in states where women had lower status, declined as women’s status
increased but then increased again in states where women’s status was highest relative to men.

The need for the word ‘femicide’

The words homicide – from homo ‘man’ and cidium ‘act of killing’ – and manslaughter – ‘man’
and ‘slæht or slieht’ ‘the act of killing’ – are identical in their makeup though they are not
legally synonymous. In England and Wales homicide is made up of two offences: murder and
manslaughter. Murder is committed when a person (or persons) of sound mind unlawfully kills
someone and had the intention to kill or cause grievous bodily harm. There are three exceptions
which can make a killing manslaughter rather than murder. These are: that there was intent to
murder or cause grievous bodily harm but a partial defence applies; that there was not intent (to
kill or cause grievous bodily harm) but the person committing the offence engaged in conduct
that was grossly negligent and risked and caused death; or third, that there was no intent but the
person committing the offence engaged in conduct that was an unlawful act which involved
danger and resulted in death. Both the words murder and manslaughter could be described as
being ‘gender neutral’ but this would be a mistake. Both render the killing of women invisible
and making something invisible is not a neutral act but serves a purpose. The word femicide
addresses the bias that renders the killings of women and girls invisible and brings fatal violence
against women into view. Unlike other forms of violence and abuse that are overwhelmingly
perpetrated by men against women – including domestic violence, intimate partner violence,
sexual violence, rape and coercive control – femicide is unique in that it identifies the victimisa-
tion of women. The law in England and Wales does not recognise femicide as a specific crime,
nor is there a formal national (UK) or internationally agreed definition.
Femicide is a specific and extreme form of men’s violence against women, but it is connected
to all forms of men’s violence against women on a continuum of violence and abuse (Kelly, 1988).
In radical feminist analysis, men’s violence against women, including femicide, is both a cause
and consequence of sex inequality in patriarchal societies, serving to control women as a sex class
(Radford and Russell, 1992). From this perspective, femicide can be seen to be coercive control
in its most extreme expression, where women are controlled not just as individuals in the context
of relationships with men but collectively as a class.

Second-wave feminism and politicising woman-killing: the case for a

politicised term for women killing rather than simply female homicide
The term femicide did not become part of feminist or academic language for the analysis of men’s
violence against women until the 1990s. Prior to this, Mary Daly had used the term gynocide
in 1973 to describe ‘the killing of the female spirit’. Like its linguistic and political counterpart

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genocide, Daly used gynocide to describe not only the literal deliberate killing of a group or
class of people (in the case of gynocide the sex class women) but also the intentional and sys-
temic destruction of that people’s language, traditions, morale, sense of unity and culture (cited
in McLellan, 1983).
Daly cited historical and global examples which included Chinese foot-binding, widow
burning, witch burning and female genital mutilation. By including examples from American
harmful cultural practices such as ‘wife beating’, rape, child abuse, pornography and gynaecol-
ogy she demonstrated an ability to see harmful practices within the culture she inhabited as well
as outside it. She recognised that within a culture, norms and standards may permit gynocide to
be ‘masked’. For Daly, gynocide was unavoidable in patriarchal society, identifying patriarchy
as ‘the prevailing religion of the entire planet and its essential message is necrophilia’ (1999).
Diana Russell is widely acknowledged as bringing the term femicide into modern usage,
or at least usage in modern feminism. She used the word publicly for the first time at the first
Tribunal on Crimes Against Women, in Brussels, in 1976. She defined femicide, she later stated,
though did not do so in her speech at the time, as ‘a hate killing of females perpetrated by males’
(Russell, 2011).
The year 1992 saw the publication of Radford and Russell’s ground-breaking and still unpar-
alleled Femicide: The Politics of Woman Killing, a co-edited anthology of women’s writing on
men’s fatal violence in Europe, India and the United States. The book offered the first known
written and explicitly feminist definition of femicide as ‘the misogynistic killing of women by
men’ in its introduction by Jill Radford. In her introductory chapter, Radford placed femi-
cide as occurring within the framework of sexual violence, itself within ‘the context of the
overall oppression of women in a patriarchal society’ (Radford and Russell, 1992: 3). Radford
expanded the application of the concept of femicide in its patriarchal context to encompass the
radical feminist analysis of the law, the media and social policy. The media – as it does still – was
identified as all but ignoring the misogynistic motivations of men who killed women, therefore
overlooking the sexual politics of femicide and contributing to the maintenance of patriarchy
and simultaneously that of men’s violence against women. For Radford and Russell, naming
and defining femicide was crucial in order to promote awareness and generate resistance.

History and politics of the term femicide

As Radford states, ‘Femicide is as old as patriarchy’, but historical evidence, and detailed infor-
mation about prevalence, is difficult if not impossible to find. History rarely affords attention to
women’s experiences, making generalisations difficult to substantiate because they lack refer-
ences. We can neither prove nor disprove that men have historically killed women and that
femicide existed before there was a term for it (Radford and Russell, 1992, 24–26). However,
we know and can evidence that femicide currently exists across the world regardless of whether
the term is widely used or not and regardless of how it is defined (Small Arms Survey, 2012).
Early known and acknowledged examples of femicide in Europe include lesbicide (specifi-
cally the killings of women known or suspected to be lesbians in ancient Rome) (Robinson, in
Radford and Russell, 1992) and so-called ‘witch’ hunting in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century
England (Hester, in Radford and Russell, 1992). The earliest referenced written version of the
term femicide is in J. Corry’s ‘A Satirical View of London’, 1801: ‘This species of delinquency
may be denominated femicide; for the monster who betrays a credulous virgin and consigns her
to infamy, in reality is a most relentless murderer’ (Corry, 1801, cited in Russell, 2008). The
term appears again in 1848 in Wharton’s Law Lexicon, suggesting that some awareness of sex-
specific murder was recognised in a legal context, if not as a specific crime. However, the earlier

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absence of a word referring to the sex-specific killing of women, or lack of written reference to
it, cannot be assumed to indicate that sex-specific killings of women were not recognised. Fatal
intimate partner violence, usually the most widely recognised and perpetrated form of modern
femicide, is not a recent phenomenon, and despite a lack of records doubtlessly existed long
before it was written about in 1878 by Frances Power-Cobbe who, in a piece written as part
of the campaign for the Matrimonial Causes Act, included the following examples which could
equally have been written contemporarily:

Edward Deacon, shoemaker, murdered his wife by cutting her head with a chopper
John Thomas Green, painter, shot his wife, with a pistol
John Eblethrift, labourer, murdered his wife by stabbing
Charles O’Donnell, labourer, murdered his wife by beating
Henry Webster, labourer, murdered his wife by cutting her throat.
(Cited in Russell, 2008)

Femicide and the media

The media continues to shape responses to femicide and is itself shaped by social values and
norms (Adoni and Mane, 1984). According to the data collected through Counting Dead
Women, in the four-year period between January 2012 and December 2015, at least 550 UK
women and women in the UK were killed by men, an average of one woman dead at the hands
of a man every 2.65 days. These killings are rarely big news stories and the word femicide is con-
spicuously absent as identified at the start of the chapter. The regularity of men’s fatal violence
against women, which could and should be a reason for urgent attention and analysis, appears to
have the opposite effect, instead making it unremarkable and accepted.
Occasionally, some killings of women do receive more substantial media interest. Alice Gross
was a 14-year-old girl who went missing on 14 August 2014. Her body was found six weeks
later, on 30 September. Between Alice’s disappearance and the discovery of her body, at least
14 other UK women2 had been killed by men, including on 4 September 82-year-old Palmira
Silva, who was beheaded in her garden in London; and on 15 September 23-year-old Hannah
Witheridge (along with David Miller, 24), who were murdered whilst backpacking in Thailand.
Like the murder of Alice Gross, the killings of Palmira Silva and Hannah Witheridge gener-
ated significant media attention, including front-page coverage, whilst the killings of 11 other
women were given comparatively little.
Palmira Silva was the third woman to have been beheaded in London in less than six months.
On the 3 June 2014, Tahira Ahmed, 38, had been decapitated by her husband Naveed Ahmed.
In April, Judith Nibbs, 60, had been decapitated by her estranged husband Demsey Nibbs. The
beheadings of the other women hadn’t generated nearly so much interest; however, in August
and September, a number of men, including two American journalists and a British aid worker,
had been beheaded by members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. The beheadings of
UK women by men had not been big news stories; but in August and September 2014, due to
interest generated by terrorism, beheadings were highly topical news issues. The police made this
connection explicit by stating that there was no reason to suspect a terrorist motive, as had the
media through making links between Nicholas Salvador, the killer of Palmira Silva, and Islam.
The critical factors that contribute to some murders being newsworthy are ‘perfect’ victims
(young, white, middle-class females, particularly if they could be considered attractive as
they also then serves a visual role in the newspaper), statistical deviance, killers remaining at
larger, the sensational, serial killers and unpredictable/zeitgeist factors (Gekoski et al., 2012).

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Homicides involving a ‘domestic element’, the most prevalent form of men’s fatal violence against
women, are rarely considered newsworthy unless there is some particular element of interest.
Alice Gross, 14, and Hannah Witheridge, 23, were the youngest two of the 14 women
killed in the six-and-a-half weeks between Alice’s disappearance and the discovery of her body.
Palmira Silva was the oldest. Alice and Hannah were not only young, they were both white and
could be considered pretty, both murdered by strangers and by men who were from outside
the UK. Alice Gross was killed by Arnis Zalkans, a Lithuanian immigrant who had previously
killed his wife; two Burmese men living in Thailand were convicted of the murders of Hannah
Witheridge and David Miller, though they are currently appealing their sentences. Seven of the
remaining 11 women were killed by husbands, boyfriends, partners or exes.
The 14 women killed between 14 August and 28 September 2014 illustrate the media hierar-
chy of victims of fatal male violence. Alice Gross and Hannah Witheridge were ‘perfect’ victims,
their murders were in the statistical minority of man-on-woman killings that were not intimate
partner or domestic violence, for some days their killers were at large; sexual violence and exotic
travel added sensationalism, immigration an element of zeitgeist and the opportunity to imply
an ‘otherness’ in their killers that implicated different cultures. In the same period, killed by a
neighbour, not a partner, the death of Palmira Silva occurred when beheadings in the name of
terrorism were high profile. The killing of women by their partners and ex-partners were simply
not deemed newsworthy.

Depoliticisation through the policy framework: femicide in European

policy and the United Nations
The concept of femicide has begun to receive international state attention and the problems of
the lack of an agreed definition are recognised. In 2012 Rashida Manjoo (Special Rapporteur
on Violence Against Women to the United Nations) reported to the Human Rights Council,
in the first UN document to focus on the issue, and noted that:

the different frameworks, definitions and classifications used in the conceptualization of

femicide often complicate the collection of data from different sources and could lead
to documentation that may not be comparable across communities or regions [also that]
weakness in information systems and poor data are major barriers to investigating femicides,
developing prevention strategies and advocating for improved policies.
(Manjoo, 2012)

Manjoo also acknowledged the importance of the wider social context of men’s violence against
women, of which ‘gender-related killings are the extreme manifestation of existing forms of
violence against women’, stating that the elimination of all forms of violence against women
requires that ‘systemic discrimination, oppression and marginalization of women [must] be
addressed at the political, operative, judicial and administrative levels’. This echoes Jill Radford’s
reference in her introduction to Femicide (1992) to femicide as occurring within the ‘context of
the overall oppression of women in a patriarchal society’.
Manjoo presented her report and spoke at the Vienna Symposium on Femicide at the United
Nations Office in Vienna, November 2012. The symposium produced the Vienna Declaration
on Femicide, which included the following definition (ACUNS, 2013):

Femicide is the killing of women and girls because of their gender, which can take the form
of, inter alia:

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1) the murder of women as a result of intimate partner violence

2) the torture and misogynist slaying of women
3) killing of women and girls in the name of ‘honour’
4) targeted killing of women and girls in the context of armed conflict
5) dowry-related killings of women
6) killing of women and girls because of their sexual orientation and gender identity
7) the killing of Aboriginal and indigenous women and girls because of their gender
8) female infanticide and gender-based sex selection foeticide
9) genital mutilation related femicide
10) accusations of witchcraft, and
11) other femicides connected with gangs, organized crime, drug dealers, human traffick-
ing, and the proliferation of small arms.

On first reading, the Vienna symposium definition may appear to be comprehensive, but with
the exception of the references to organised crime and human trafficking, it omits the inclusion
of women killed through involvement in commercial sexual exploitation. The omission of the
killing of women in the sex trade, save for the reference to trafficking, indicates the normalisa-
tion and acceptance of the commodification of women The definition including examples is
123 words long and the words ‘man’, ‘men’ or ‘male’ do not appear once. The full declaration
is over 800 words long. It mentions men and boys once, in reference to ‘sensitising education
programmes’ as a preventative measure. The argument that femicide can also include the kill-
ings of women by women because of the influence of patriarchal values is valid (though not
presented in the declaration) but not to the exclusion of identifying men as overwhelmingly the
perpetrators of femicide. The vast majority of women who are killed are killed by men. Failing
to recognise men as agents seriously undermines any preventative intent of policy initiatives.
Feminist activism and academia has brought male violence against women into the main-
stream and onto the policy agenda. The journey of the word femicide from Russell and Radford’s
early use to its adoption by the United Nations at the Vienna Symposium is an example of how
mainstreaming can be at the loss or dilution of feminist analysis. It is absolutely essential that any
definition or conception of femicide includes men as the primary agent and/or beneficiary, with
more sophisticated versions managing to include women acting under the influence of patriar-
chal values. As Mary Daly in her book Quintessence stated: ‘Naming the agent is required for an
adequate analysis of atrocities’ (Daly, 1999, cited in Charkowski, 2013). The erosion of feminist
theories and principles from the definition of femicide echoes Daly’s previously cited use of the
word gynocide, as the intentional and systematic destruction of a people’s (feminists’) language,
traditions, morale, sense of unity and culture, or in this case their knowledge, and in particular
their identification of and resistance to male violence.

Domestic homicide and intimate partner homicide

The ONS defines domestic homicide as including the following: spouse, cohabiting partner,
boyfriend/girlfriend, ex-spouse/ex-cohabiting partner, ex-boyfriend/girlfriend, adulterous
relationship, lover’s spouse and emotional-rival as well as son/daughter, parent (including step
and adopted relationships), which is broader than the generally understood partner or ex-partner
to more closely align with the Westminster government definition of domestic violence (Home
Office, 2012). However, the data for family members (parents, daughters, sons, siblings and
other family members) is separated out in statistical analysis, though homicides committed by a
lover’s spouse or emotional-rival are retained in the category partner/ex-partner.

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Nineteen men and 81 women (6% of male victims and 44% of female victims) were killed
in circumstances described as partner/ex-partner homicides (that is, they were killed by spouse,
cohabiting partner, boyfriend/girlfriend, ex-spouse/ex-cohabiting partner, ex-boyfriend/girl-
friend, adulterous relationship, lover’s spouse and emotional-rival). This was described as being
consistent with previous years. For the previous year, 7% of all male victims and 47% of all
female victims were killed in ‘partner/ex-partner homicides’.
In total, seven people were killed by a lover’s spouse or love-rival, all of whom were males
killed by males, leaving 81 women and 12 men killed directly by a partner or ex-partner. Eighty
of the women were killed by a male and one by a woman. Of the 12 male victims, eight were
killed by a woman and four by a man. In other words 99% (80/81) of women killed in so-called
domestic homicides were killed by men and 42% (8/19) of men killed in ‘partner/ex-partner
homicides’ were killed by women. Women made up 81% of partner/ex-partner victims, 91% of
perpetrators were men.
In order to address the problem of annual variability in relatively small populations, the
report also looks at the above data amalgamated for the three years including the year under
analysis and the two prior to it. The patterns described above are maintained:

•• More women than men are killed in the context of ‘domestic homicide’, 315 women in
three years compared to 117 men. Women were 73% of all victims of domestic violence
homicide, men were 27% of all victims of domestic violence homicide.
•• Women killed in the context of ‘domestic homicide’ are more likely than men to be killed
by members of the opposite sex. Of the 315 female victims of ‘domestic homicide’, 304
(97%) were killed by men. Of the 117 male victims of ‘domestic homicide’, 37 (32%) were
killed by women.
•• More women than men are killed by a partner/ex-partner, 243 women in three years com-
pared to 60 men. Women were 80% of all victims of intimate partner homicide (243/303),
men were 20% of all victims of intimate partner homicide (60/303).
•• Men killed by current or ex-intimate partners are more likely than women to have been
killed by someone of the same sex. Of the 60 male victims of intimate partner homicide, 27
(45%) were killed by men, 33 (55%) were killed by women. Of the 243 female victims of
intimate partner homicide, 2 (1%) were killed by women, 241 (99%) were killed by men.

Why we need the broader approach of femicide rather than intimate

partner or domestic homicide
The focus on domestic or intimate partner homicide obscures the full extent of men’s fatal vio-
lence against women. It is clear that women are hugely over-represented as victims of domestic
or intimate partner homicide and men are hugely over-represented as perpetrators, but wom-
en’s disproportionate victimhood remains greater than their perpetration outside the domestic
sphere. A focus on domestic homicide or intimate partner homicide also creates a false equiva-
lence between the sexes across these homicide contexts because of the histories of abuse prior
to the homicide in heterosexual relationships. When men kill women partners or ex-partners,
this usually follows months or years of them abusing her, when women kill male partners or ex-
partners, it is usually after months or years of having been abused by the man they have killed
(Dugan et al., 2003). Finally, looking at women killed by male intimate partners outside the
context of femicide obscures the impact and context of structural sex inequality.
Kelly (2016) applied the concept of a ‘conducive context’ to men’s violence against women,
asking what makes and connects spaces in which men are entitled to abuse women and girls,

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from the family where ‘the convergence of layers of power and authority’ is accorded to men
creating an ‘expectation of control over women and children’ to institutionalised gendered
power relations in educational, faith and workplace institutions where ‘men’s status and author-
ity ‘can be used . . . by abusive men to intimate and silence’. The concept has wider application,
to the context of patriarchal society where the killings of women by men who are not current
or former partners, have more in common with those of women by current or ex-partners than
the killings of men by female partners; and where sex inequality is maintained and reinforced by
the objectification of women, pornography, prostitution, factors which influence the manner
of men’s violence against women. Considering the conducive context that patriarchal society
presents for men’s violence against women highlights the extent of change required if men’s
violence against women is to be ended or reduced. Male entitlement is a deadly seam running
through male violence against women. If we look at the patriarchal conducive context of men’s
violence against women, it becomes clear that interventions restricted to statutory agencies,
from the policing, the law and primary health and social care services, will not end men’s vio-
lence against women unless the unequal and sexist wider social context in which that violence
occurs is fundamentally changed.
Dobash and Dobash (2015) led one of the biggest UK studies into men who commit fatal
violence against women, analysing data from 1980 to 2000. They compared men who murder
men to men who murder women, and found that men who murder men tended to ‘specialise
in’ (have histories of) violence against men, whilst men who murder women seemed to ‘special-
ise in’ violence against women, with the woman-killers having had life backgrounds that could
be described as more mainstream/average than men who kill men. Taking this a step further and
identifying three main sets of circumstances in which men murder women: murder of female
current or former intimate partners, sexually motivated murders and murders of older women,
they looked for and found a number of differences in the murder event itself, the men’s adult life
circumstances, their early lives/childhoods and their assessments in prison. Dobash and Dobash
rarely use the term femicide and, in older women, their work reveals a group of women often
overlooked in examples of femicide. However, by looking at sexually motivated murders and
murders of older women by men and not restricting their analysis to intimate partners or family
members, they make an important contribution to the understanding of men’s fatal violence
against women as a social problem that goes beyond intimate partner violence.
Men with long histories of violence against women who committed sexually motivated
murders of women with whom they had never had an intimate relationship feature repeat-
edly in Counting Dead Women and the Femicide Census; and, as identified by Dobash and
Dobash (2015), those who commit sexually motivated murders frequently have histories featur-
ing misogyny and violence against women. This supports the argument for an inclusive analysis
of men’s fatal violence against women regardless of relationship, rather than a conceptualisation
of intimate partner homicide that traverses sex differences. Thirty-seven-year-old veterinarian
Catherine Gowing was murdered by Clive Sharpe, 46, in October 2012. Sharpe had a long
criminal record of sexual harassment and violence against women. Aged 16, he had been found
guilty of sending and making indecent letters and telephone calls, a year later he was convicted
of rape. Eleven years later, in 1984, he was convicted of sexual assault and trying to strangle a
women. In 1996 Sharpe was found guilty of the false imprisonment and unlawful wounding
of a woman whom he had paid for sex, for which he served eight years in prison. In October
2012, he left a woman he was seeing tied to a bed because she would not engage in the sexual
acts that he wanted and entered the home of Catherine Gowing, where he tied her to the bed
and repeatedly raped her. He dismembered her body and disposed of her remains in several areas
of rural Cheshire and north Wales. In November 2012, security guard Clive Carter murdered

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Khanokporn Satjawat in a women’s toilet at a conference. She was killed through blunt force
trauma after he battered her with a fire extinguisher, breaking her neck and every bone on the
left side of her face. Eight days previously he had ‘scared’ a young woman at a hotel where he
was working, when he turned up at her room with a fire extinguisher. At his trial the court
heard that he had ‘anger management issues’ and had left specialist counselling after ‘becom-
ing enraged’ in response to the counsellor; he was described as having a ‘hair-trigger temper
with women’ and a history of violence against his wife. Glen Nelson, 30, attempted to rape
and murdered Krishnamaya Mabo, 39, in June 2012. He’d approached another woman earlier
that day and already had two previous convictions for attempted rape. In May 2013, Jamie
Reynolds, 22, hanged 17-year-old Georgia Williams, taking ‘before, during and after’ photos.
He had was found to have 16,800 images and 72 videos of extreme pornography, described as
having an obsession with ‘torture porn’ and had tried to strangle another young woman five
years earlier. These are just four amongst many examples of men with long histories of violence
against women who committed sexually motivated murders of women with whom they had
never had an intimate relationship. Their actions are perfectly framed by patriarchal society and
the sexual objectification of women; and, like murders by men of intimate partners, they reek
of male entitlement.
Similarly, both Counting Dead Women and the Femicide Census find many of examples of
older women who have been killed, and who fall into four main categories: women killed by
elderly intimate partners, women killed by their sons, sexually motivated murders and murders
of women in the context of burglaries or muggings, often where the killers have chosen to
target women or where the extreme brutality used in the murder goes beyond that which was
necessary to kill and suggests violent hatred and cruelty.

Conclusion
Corradi and Stockl (2014) looked at the relationship between femicide, feminist activism and
government policy in European countries since the 1970s. They found a relationship between
the collection of data and policy activity and feminist activism and argued that the women’s
movement is a crucial catalyst of political change and is most effective when it is independent
of government. However, they also found there was no evident link between rates of intimate
partner violence and government policies to address intimate partner violence. Their findings
support the call for structural responses to sex inequality and men’s violence against women,
suggesting that current policy initiatives either do not go far enough or are too exclusively
focused on criminal justice and/or individual behavioural factors.
Across the world, the vast majority of women who are killed, are killed by men. Whilst it
is also true that the vast majority of killers of men are also men, this cannot warrant the failure
to name men as the killers of women. Across the world governments are not doing everything
possible to reduce men’s violence against women and girls and proactively protect women and
girls’ right to life. To do so would require tackling the root cause of that violence: sex inequality
in patriarchal societies. Recognising the structural basis of sex inequality underpinning men’s
violence against women does not mean that individual men should not be held accountable for
their actions, but that a structural response is needed to end or even substantially reduce men’s
violence against women.
One of the most significant achievements of feminism is getting male violence against women
into the mainstream and onto policy agendas, but one of the threats against this achievement is
that those with power take the concepts and, under the auspices of dealing with the problem,
shake some of the most basic elements of feminist analysis and praxis right out of them. Femicide is

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not synonymous with ‘female homicide’. It is a feminist political term informing us that in
patriarchal society, a man killing a woman is never an apolitical act; it is rarely, if ever, free from
the influence of the objectification, exploitation, degradation and oppression of women and
rarely, if ever, free from the trappings of socially constructed gender. When men kill women,
whether they are intimate partners, family members or not, they do so in the context of a society
in which objectification of women and misogyny are entrenched and systematic and in which
men’s violence against women is a cause and consequence of structural inequality.
When, as feminists, we call for a recognition of femicide – which I have defined as the killing
of women, girls and female infants and foetuses, predominantly but not always committed by
men, in order to maintain individual and/or collective male dominant status, or as a reflection
of the lower status of females – we do so on the understanding that the personal is political, and
in commemoration of every woman killed by men.

Notes
1 Based on a population of 58,307,456, comprised of 50.8% females and 186 female victims of homicide.
2 UK women killed by men or where a man was the primary suspect between 28 August and 30 September
2014: Alice Gross, 14; Meryl Parry, 81; Leighann Duffy, 26; Pennie Davis, 47; Glynis Bensley, 48; Palmira
Silva, 82; Serena Hickey, 42; Karen Catherall, 45; Hannah Witheridge, 23; Rosemary Broadwell, 76;
Dorothy Brown, 66; Nicola McKenzie, 37; Davinia Loynton, 59; Lorna McCarthy, 50; Catherine
McDonald, 57 (Ingala Smith, 2016).

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Corradi, C. and Stockl, H. (2014). Intimate partner homicide in 10 European countries: statistical data
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 13
‘Lad culture’ and sexual violence
against students
Alison Phipps

Introduction
This chapter addresses the issue of sexual violence against students and the concept of ‘lad
culture’, which has been used to frame this phenomenon in the UK and has connections to
similar debates around masculinities in other countries. This issue is much-researched and
debated but under-theorised, and due to a lack of intersectionality, radical feminist frame-
works around violence against women are useful but incomplete. The chapter sketches a more
nuanced approach to the understanding of campus sexual violence and the masculine cultures
which frame it, which also engages with the intersecting structures of patriarchy and neoliberal-
ism. It argues that framing these issues structurally and institutionally is necessary, in order to
avoid individualistic and punitive approaches to tackling them which may seem feminist but are
embedded in neoliberal rationalities.

Background
From concerns about ‘eve teasing’, or gendered and sexual harassment on South Asian campuses,
to debates about ‘lad culture’ and freedom of speech in the UK, to Lady Gaga’s performance
at the 2016 Oscars, when dozens of US survivors joined her silently on stage, the issue of
sexual violence against students has recently been high on the international agenda. Starting
in the 1980s, the sexual victimisation of women students has been studied in many countries
including Japan, China (Nguyen et al. 2013), South Korea (Jennings et al. 2011), Haiti, South
Africa, Tanzania (Gage 2015), Jordan (Takash et al. 2013), Chile (Lehrer et al. 2013), Canada
(Osborne 1995), Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain (Feltes et al. 2012), Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka
(Chudasama et al. 2013, Nahar et al. 2013), the United States and the UK (Phipps and Smith
2012). Beginning in the United States, initial studies were often psychological and individual-
istic, focused on motivations of male perpetrators, acceptance of ‘rape myths’ and experiences
of post-traumatic stress. This orientation, as well as a largely positivist slant, continues in much
academic and policy work, as the ‘problem’ is established and explorations begin in new inter-
national contexts. However, there has also been a strong thread of feminist analysis which has
contributed the concept of patriarchy, and the idea of a continuum between more ‘everyday’

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forms of sexual harassment and more ‘serious’ manifestations of sexual violence. More recently,
there have been attempts to contextualise campus violence within theories of masculinity, shap-
ing discussions of ‘lad culture’ in the UK, ‘bro culture’ in the United States and a new/renewed
interest in ‘rape culture’ internationally.

Our study
In the UK, the first major study of women students’ experiences of harassment and violence
was released by the National Union of Students (NUS) in 2010. This found that one in seven
women students had experienced a serious physical or sexual assault during their studies, and
68 per cent had been sexually harassed (NUS 2010). Following this, Isabel Young and I were
commissioned by NUS to explore the links between sexual violence and ‘laddish’ masculinities
characterised by competitive displays of sexism and misogyny.
Our research (NUS 2013) was a qualitative interview study with 40 female students at British
universities, exploring their experiences of and feelings about ‘lad culture’ in their communi-
ties. We defined ‘lad culture’ as a group mentality residing in behaviours such as sport, heavy
alcohol consumption, casual sex and sexist/discriminatory ‘banter’, and found that many of the
behaviours collected under this banner actually constituted sexual harassment. We also found that
much of this was normalised within student communities, with ‘casual’ non-consensual groping
being commonplace at parties and in social venues, and expectations around sexual activity which
required young women to be constantly available yet almost entirely passive. This, we suggested,
created the conditions in which potentially serious boundary violations, including sexual assault,
could occur. The release of our report was met by a wave of grassroots activism and policy con-
versation, and a deluge of media stories which incorporated both genuine concern and moral
panic (Phipps and Young 2015a, 2015b).
These debates in the UK echoed similar ones around ‘bro cultures’ (Chrisler et al. 2012),
‘hookup cultures’ (Sweeney 2014) and ‘rape culture’ (Heldman and Brown 2014) in the United
States and internationally. In many countries there has tended to be a sensationalisation of the
issue amidst calls for retaliatory and punitive responses, exemplified in the 2015 film The Hunting
Ground, for which Lady Gaga’s song provided the soundtrack. However, as yet there is little
useful theorisation of why and how particular types of masculinities might shape and produce
sexual violence amongst students, which means that the evidence base for prevention is thin.
Radical feminist work on violence against women, in which anti-violence policy in Western
countries tends to be grounded (Phillips 2006, Jones and Cook 2008, Bumiller 2009), lacks
nuance and does not give insight into why particular types of men perpetrate sexual violence in
specific contexts for different reasons. Similarly, the term ‘lad culture’ is not helpful analytically,
as it tends to collapse a variety of behaviours and motivations together (Phipps 2016). There is
a need, then, to (re-)theorise ‘laddish’ masculinities and revisit theoretical frameworks around
violence against women. To do this properly, we need to take an intersectional approach.

Theorising sexual violence

Radical feminists were not the first to politicise rape. As McGuire (2010) documents, the US
Civil Rights movement was rooted in a powerful (and now largely obscured) strand of anti-
rape resistance, which prefigured many of the insights of second-wave feminism. Generations
of activists such as Ida B. Wells (McGuire 2010, xviii) and Rosa Parks, who was an anti-rape
campaigner ‘long before she became the patron saint of the bus boycott’ (McGuire 2010, xvii),
situated both the sexual abuse of black women and allegations of rape against black men within

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a broader analysis of the dynamics of racist oppression (see also Davis 1981). ‘Decades later’,
McGuire (2010, 46) writes, ‘when radical feminists finally made rape and sexual assault political
issues, they walked in the footsteps of [these] black women’. Radical feminists appeared bliss-
fully unaware of this, instead believing that anti-rape organising was a Women’s Liberation
Movement invention (see, for example, Brownmiller 1975, 397). The fact that the huge histori-
cal contribution of black women was erased (and the work of feminists of colour continues to
be so) speaks to dynamics of racism and privilege within the feminist movement. These have
also shaped the production of rather one-dimensional theory.
‘I have never been free of the fear of rape’, wrote Susan Griffin in 1971 (26). Today, it is
often taken for granted within feminist circles that rape is everyday, rather than uncommon,
and more often committed by someone the victim knows, than a stranger. However, this
idea has a relatively short life in the political and cultural mainstream. In the 1970s and 1980s,
radical feminist theorising and empirical research (see, for example, Russell 1983, Hall 1985)
helped give the lie to the widely held idea that rape was both rare and necessarily graphically
violent (Jones and Cook 2008, 5). Like those of the black activists preceding them (McGuire
2010), radical feminist definitions of rape were expansive, reflecting women’s experiences and
refusing to let spouses and family members off the hook. This centring of lived realities defined
rape as a violation of women’s bodies, not men’s property rights: both the testimonial poli-
tics of black women within Civil Rights movements (dating back to slavery) and subsequent
radical feminist activism based on the slogan ‘the personal is political’ (Hanisch 1970) focused
on women helping women through sharing, healing and politicising trauma (Jones and Cook
2008, McGuire 2010).
Brownmiller (1975) and others focused on the ‘violence’ in sexual violence, conceptualis-
ing it as a tool of gender oppression which functioned to preserve male dominance rather than
express uncontrolled sexuality (which was the popular belief). The threat of the ‘stranger rapist’
was seen as key to maintaining structural relations of patriarchal power: this created general-
ised fear and also caused women to look to specific men for protection, which often put them
at greater risk of abuse (Brownmiller 1975, MacKinnon 1989). This structural interpretation
echoed (without credit) the black feminist politics of the Civil Rights Movement in its concep-
tualisation of sexual violence as a strategy of oppression and terror, albeit focusing only on the
dimension of gender rather than the interconnections between gender and race.1 Kelly’s (1988)
continuum of violence defined a collection of behaviours, from sexual harassment to sexualised
murder, all with the social and political function of keeping women in their place. Radical femi-
nists argued that a range of acts (some which had been normalised or defined as ‘minor’) could
be harmful, and that this was not adequately reflected in legal codes.
Important legislative gains were made from this conceptualisation of rape as violence rather
than sex, including prohibitions on the use of sexual history evidence in court, although in prac-
tice this continued to happen (Kelly et al. 2006). In contrast, other radical feminists centred the
‘sexual’ in sexual violence, examining in particular the institution and practice of heterosexu-
ality. For Dworkin (1976) and MacKinnon (1989), heterosexuality constituted the gendered
eroticisation of dominance and submission, with the latter regarded as consent. This meant
that coercion and violence were a constitutive part of ‘normal’ sexual relations, and defined
rape as committed by men who exemplified, rather than deviated from, extant social norms.
The conceptualisation of femininity as a socialised state of embodied submission has since been
rightly criticised for both playing into misogynist tropes and for being a specific representa-
tion of the identities and experiences of middle-class white women (hooks 1981, Skeggs 1997,
Serano 2009, Phipps 2009). However, it provided a useful critical analysis of the construction of
consent in conditions of inequality, and allowed for an appreciation of the conditioned reality

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in which many women did not fight back against assaults, challenging prevailing myths which
defined ‘real rape’ as being one in which there was evidence of a struggle (Lees 1996).
Radical feminist ideas were important in understanding the co-constitution of gender, sexu-
ality and violence and were responsible for a number of legislative and political achievements
(Cahill 2001). However, from the 1980s onwards they came under increasing critique from black
feminists and others, for their lack of appreciation of differences between women which shaped
experiences of gender, sexuality and violence in divergent and often directly contradictory ways
(Davis 1981, Carby 1982, Crenshaw 1991, Skeggs 1997). Furthermore, the meanings of structures
such as the family and the state taken for granted within radical feminist theorising were exposed
as largely specific to the white middle classes, erasing the often completely different experiences of
other women (Carby 1982, Crenshaw 1991). Radical feminist work had largely failed to explore
how sexual violence was central to relations of power other than gender, for instance colonial and
racist systems (see, for example, Ahmed 1992, Mohanty 1988). The space for thinking through
issues connected to class, race or colonialism was limited within radical feminist frameworks in
which, as MacKinnon (1989, 12) maintained, the ‘woman question’ was the question.
The concept of intersectionality, codified within black feminist thought from the 1980s
onwards partly in response to these debates (Crenshaw 1991, Hill Collins 1998), is invaluable in
its exhortation to move away from one-dimensional notions towards ideas of a co-constitution
of social categories, positions and encounters which produces important differences in sub-
jectivity, experience and practice. In relation to sexual violence, an intersectional perspective
allows for an understanding of why particular types of men may be violent in specific situations,
and how violence is experienced by victims and survivors in different social locations. It also
encourages us to examine how both acts and allegations of sexual violence are part of gendered
and other oppressive systems, including the oppressive power of the state wielded against some
groups of citizens more than (or for the protection of) others. When applied to discussions of
‘lad culture’ and sexual violence in universities, an intersectional framework raises important
questions around how performances of classed and racialised, as well as gendered and hetero-
sexualised, superiority are at play, as well as the influence of broader intersecting structures such
as patriarchy and neoliberalism. It also raises issues with the carceral solutions currently being
proposed and implemented, in terms of which men they may construct and target as ‘violent’,
and how these men may be dealt with.

Theorising laddish masculinities

Laddism in the UK has long been associated with the white working classes, at least since Paul
Willis’ iconic study Learning to Labour (1977), which focused on rebellions against academia and
authority performed by young men who had been constructed as ‘failures’ in a hostile educa-
tion system and job market. This type of laddish rebellion is still at work in many school and
university classrooms, in higher education particularly within institutions with a more diverse
social class intake (see, for example, Barnes 2012, Jackson et al. 2015, Jackson and Sundaram
2015).2 Interpretations of laddism in schools have largely followed the Willis framework, and
‘laddish’ behaviours in university classrooms could similarly be positioned as an expression of
alienation from neoliberal, middle-class (and allegedly feminised) higher education. However,
when laddism has been reported in the classrooms of more elite universities, this has tended to
be a more domineering behaviour which has been defined as intimidating rather than disrup-
tive, and which also appears more likely to be overtly sexist (NUS 2013).
Also in contrast to the mainly lower-middle and working-class framing of classroom disrup-
tion, the sexist ‘lad culture’ which has been identified recently in the social and sexual spheres

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of university life appears to be largely (although not exclusively) the preserve of privileged men.
This is reflected in our research findings and in recent media reports (NUS 2013, Phipps and
Young 2015a, 2015b), although more research is needed, especially on the differences between
‘new’ and ‘old’ universities and those in campus and more urban settings. Recent discussion
of university laddism brings to mind the ‘new lad’ of the 1990s, a more middle-class version
incorporating binge-drinking, drug-taking, casual sex and extreme sports (Phipps and Young
2015a). There are also associations with masculinities which would not historically have been
granted the epithet ‘laddish’, due to its working-class connotations. The rugby players, drinking
and debating society members from elite universities who exemplify contemporary UK laddism
(Phipps and Young 2015b) bring to mind the men and masculinities typified by the Bullingdon
Club, a centuries-old all-male exclusive dining club at Oxford University which boasts high-
profile former members including former British prime minister David Cameron.
This class profile is mirrored in the debate around ‘rape culture’ in the United States, where
elite white fraternities have been singled out (Valenti 2014). In one high-profile story, Delta
Kappa Epsilon at Yale was suspended en masse for an incident in which pledges chanted ‘No
means yes! Yes means anal!’ around campus (Burgoyne 2011). Elite men have been the focus of
concerns around sexism and sexual harassment and violence in other Anglo-Western countries: in
2013, students at the prestigious church-run Wesley College at Sydney University won the annual
‘Ernie’ award for sexism for distributing beer holders branded ‘It’s not rape if it’s my birthday’
(AFP 2013). Within an intersectional analysis, behaviours such as these cannot and should not be
interpreted using the same ideas of alienation and resistance which are pertinent to discussions of
working-class laddism. The aggressive sexism of more privileged men can be seen as an attempt
to preserve or reclaim territory, contextualised in relation to the patriarchal backlash against femi-
nism, and attempts to diversify the UK student population along gender, race and class lines.

Intersections of power and privilege

Laddism cannot be theorised by a framework which only names gender and the patriarchal
construction of men’s violence against women: this does not appreciate the motivations and
contexts informing different performances of masculinity. There is a distinction between being
dominated as a working-class young man navigating a middle-class education system, and
feeling dominated as a middle- or upper-class young man dealing with a loss of privilege (Phipps
2016). Both can be seen in relation to the construction of white middle-class young women as
ideal neoliberal educational subjects, but there are also classed relations between these masculinities
which warrant investigation. This means that an analysis of laddism as a reassertion of traditional
gender binaries, which accords well with the radical feminist conception of sexual harassment and
violence as tools to keep women in their place (Kelly 1988), is ultimately incomplete.
There are strong currents of classism and racism in contemporary middle-class ‘lad culture’,
perhaps linked to the growth of widening participation agendas focused on increasing the num-
bers of working-class and black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) students. In the classroom,
it could be argued that the domineering behaviour of more privileged men (NUS 2013, Jackson
and Dempster 2009) is both an attempt to intimidate women and a way to position middle-
class ‘lads’ as the intellectually superior counterparts of their ‘disruptive’ working-class peers.
Similarly, the jokiness and self-conscious irony of this laddism could be viewed as a counter-
poise to the construction of black masculinity as dangerously sexual (Williams et al. 2008), both
invisibilising white men as perpetrators and preserving the idea of black men as inherently more
threatening (Phipps 2016). Its postfeminist ‘raunchiness’ could also be examined as it relates to
perceptions of Asian men as fragile and sexually inadequate (Wong et al. 2014). In racialised

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terms, then, white middle-class laddism may be an assertion of superior virility which nevertheless
positions itself as less threatening than (and therefore also superior to) the black hyper-masculine
Other (Phipps 2016).
Homophobia is also a central component of laddish cultures and behaviours (Muir and
Seitz 2004, NUS 2013), which can be seen in relation to ideas about ‘inclusive masculinity’ or
‘hybrid masculinity’ as a new middle-class norm (Anderson and McGuire 2010, Bridges 2014).
Retro-sexist performances may reply to this softening of masculinity, as well as the potential
blurring of gender lines which has accompanied the greater visibility of trans, genderqueer, non-
binary people and others, especially within student communities (Dugan et al. 2012, Rankin
and Beemyn 2012). Inclusive masculinities may be more style than substance, and thus obscure
continued gender oppressions (Sweeney 2014). Celebrations of these masculinities should also
be related to geopolitical discourses constructing Western men as evolved and Other cultures as
inherently misogynistic and homophobic (Bhattacharyya 2008). Nevertheless, the representa-
tion, if not the reality, of these masculinities may be significant in understanding contemporary
laddism in social and sexual spaces.
All these intersecting issues complicate interpretations of contemporary middle-class white lad-
dism as solely an anti-feminist backlash. Of course, this is also at work: white middle-class girls and
young women now frequently outperform boys and young men and embody the confident adapt-
ability which is a contemporary employment requirement (Skelton 2002, Williams et al. 2008).
The idea that women are winning the ‘battle of the sexes’, popular in many Western countries, is a
key framing factor in relation to ‘lad culture’ (Phipps and Young 2015b). Within this narrative the
successful white middle-class woman becomes universal, disregarding evidence that many gendered
inequalities remain and that women from minoritised groups continue to struggle (Karamessini and
Rubery 2013). Furthermore, there is no acknowledgement of the fact that the masculinised values
and power structures of education persist (Skelton 2002, Leathwood and Read 2009). Such sen-
sationalist notions of a ‘crisis of masculinity’ thought to have been prompted by gains in women’s
rights have had a significant purchase on policy and popular debate (Francis and Archer 2005,
Skelton 2002, Phipps 2016), and in the context of these ideas, there is evidence that white middle-
class boys are being hothoused by parents who see them as frail and imperilled (Williams et al. 2008).
Viewed more sympathetically, performances of laddism could be seen as a pressure release
for white, middle-class young men who may be struggling to occupy neoliberal educational
subjectivities, or a reaction against being cossetted by over-protective parents. This potential
element of rebellion provides continuity with working-class forms: however, a sense of victimi-
sation on the part of the privileged does not mean victimisation has occurred. Furthermore,
this oppression narrative has recently been used to great political advantage by the dominat-
ing classes, in debates about ‘free speech’ on campuses in both the United States and the UK
which have featured defenses of ‘lad culture’ as a form of sexual self-expression in a repressive
and repressed society (see, for example, Hayes 2013, O’Neill 2014, Palmer 2015). It should be
acknowledged that radical feminist initiatives around sexual violence have been co-opted in the
past by moralistic and carceral agendas: this will be discussed later in the chapter (Phipps 2014,
Bumiller 2009). However, to note this is not to position laddism as progressive when it is in fact
a reactionary phenomenon.

Intersections of patriarchy, neoliberalism and carceral feminism

Also challenging the generalised ‘crisis of masculinity’ narrative is the fact that white middle-class
and elite masculinities are often seen as harmonious with the contemporary context of corporate
neoliberalism (Connell 2005, McGuire et al. 2014). In our work on laddism, and drawing on

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research exploring how norms of individualism, competition and consumerism are shaping and
reshaping sexualities (Gill and Donahue 2013), Isabel Young and I have argued that it embodies
neoliberal rationalities through its characteristic modes of sexualised audit (Phipps and Young
2015b). Many of the elements of student ‘lad cultures’ are not new: however, conventional
patriarchal modes of misogyny and one-upmanship (Jackson 2010) have been reshaped by neo-
liberal values in the university environment. We argue that the market-political rationality of
neoliberalism (Brown 2006), which has come to predominate in the academy (Lynch 2006, Ball
2012), can be observed in laddish performative regimes.
Within contemporary middle-class laddism, older practices such as the legendary ‘fuck
a fresher’ race exist alongside more neoliberalised systems of monitoring and measurement
such as charting sexual conquests and giving women grades for their sex appeal. Our research
highlighted a variety of sexual scoring matrices and practices by which men appraise women.
These were widely exposed in May 2013 when a number of Facebook pages entitled ‘Rate
Your Shag’ appeared, linked to various universities, which were ‘liked’ by over 20,000 users
of the social network in 72 hours before being deleted by administrators (Datoo 2013).
Similarly, more traditional modes of male entitlement have been reframed within these youth
cultures, with ideas about ‘having’ women augmented by the notion of maximising sexual
capital. This, in turn, reflects the idea of maximum outcomes for minimal effort which now
underpins educational consumption (Brady 2012, Molesworth et al. 2009). It can be sug-
gested that the domineering ‘effortless achievement’ which characterises middle-class laddism
in educational contexts (Jackson 2003, Jackson and Dempster 2009) also animates the quest
for an ‘easy’ lay.
As well as framing contemporary student laddism, neoliberal and patriarchal universities are
complicit in overlooking the harassment and violence which can result from it. In the United
States, where higher education markets are well established and despite a legislative framework
mandating the publication of campus crime statistics (Phipps and Smith 2012), institutions have
been criticised for covering these up, or encouraging students to drop complaints, in order to
preserve reputation in a competitive field (Sack 2012). There have also been reports of this in
the UK (Younis 2014), and it is likely that the privatisation of essential services such as campus
security and student support and counselling (Williams 2011) will threaten student safety and the
quality of pastoral care. The developing ‘pressure-cooker culture’ amongst academics (Grove
2012) and fears about casualisation (Lynch 2006) are also creating an individualism which may
mean that academics turn a blind eye while trying to keep our jobs (at best) and advance our
careers (at worst).
When universities do take action, it is usually in an individualistic and punitive fashion which
both fails to address the roots of problems and has tremendous potential to exacerbate additional
inequalities. Calls for such measures in the United States, exemplified in the 2015 film The Hunting
Ground, are based on the research of Lisak (2008), who argues that campus offences are serial
crimes committed by a handful of violent sociopaths who ‘groom’ their targets and coerce and
terrify them into submission. These claims, however, have been challenged: Lisak’s initial paper
(Lisak and Miller 2002) was based on four different student dissertations, none on campus sexual
assault specifically. It also did not distinguish between assaults committed on different victims and
multiple assaults on the same person (LeFauve 2015), meaning that its data on serial offences are
imprecise. In contrast to this picture of the violent serial rapist, the theorisation in this chapter
suggests that many acts of sexual violence at university stem from a variety of more spontaneous
boundary-crossings shaped by intersectional cultures of masculinity and scaffolded by the patri-
archal and neoliberal rationalities of the institution. A retribution-restitution approach which is
itself embedded in these frameworks may be entirely inappropriate in this context.

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Furthermore, there are important intersectional questions about appealing to carceral systems,
either within or outside institutions, which may be riddled with racism, classism and other injus-
tices. It is here that radical feminist and neoliberal models meet, and from the 1980s onwards,
radical feminist theorisations of sexual violence were critiqued by black feminists for mounting
uncritical appeals to state apparatuses which were deeply implicated in racist oppression (see, for
example, Davis 1981, Carby 1982, Crenshaw 1991). Radical feminist-inspired service provi-
sion has also been challenged on its co-optation by, or in some cases active collaboration with,
neoliberal agendas around crime control, which have been focused on criminalising particular
groups of men (usually black and working class) in the service of protecting particular types of
women (usually white and middle class) (Bumiller 2009).
Elizabeth Bernstein (2010) has coined the phrase ‘carceral feminism’ to describe the relation-
ship between a rather one-dimensional gender theory and neoliberal projects which, in protect-
ing white middle-class women, exacerbate the domination of others. Such an intersectional
analysis also needs to be applied to policy frameworks and interventions in higher education:
questions need to be asked about who may be defined as violent within these and targeted for
surveillance and punishment, and who will be considered worthy of protection. Just as black and
working-class boys and young men are more likely to be labelled ‘disruptive’ in the classroom
(Monroe 2005, McDowell 2007), the construction of these men as inherently more aggressively
sexual than their white, middle-class counterparts (see, for example, Phipps 2009, Roberts 2013,
McGuire et al. 2014) may be reflected in the application of disciplinary codes. There are also
questions to be asked in light of other higher education agendas such as Prevent in the UK, the
controversial counter-extremism strategy which both reflects and perpetuates a definition of
Muslim students as violent and has led to multiple instances of discrimination against them. It is
possible that the intersection of agendas such as Prevent with punitive interventions around sex-
ual violence could serve to compound Islamophobic and racist oppression. Punitive approaches
also lack pedagogy, reflecting the callousness of the neoliberal institution which is not conducive
to student welfare or the creation of healthy and positive communities. Intersectionality, then,
needs to be embedded in our theorisations of laddism and in attempts to tackle it.

Conclusion
Contemporary student laddism can be seen as an enactment of power and privilege over mul-
tiple intersecting lines. This means that radical feminist frameworks around violence against
women are useful but incomplete: we also need to explore the differences which produce par-
ticular masculine cultures and forms and experiences of violence in specific contexts. Student
‘lad culture’ also reflects the intersections between patriarchy and neoliberalism, and attempts
to address it need to take account of how it is institutionally and structurally framed rather
than resorting to individualistic approaches which are embedded in neoliberal rationalities and
are punitive rather than pedagogic. Indeed, the carceral solutions favoured by both neoliberal
institutions and radical feminists detract from addressing the intersecting hegemonies in higher
education which shape, produce and conceal a variety of forms of bullying and violence.

Notes
1 As Davis (1981, 180) pointed out, the prevailing construction of the ‘police-blotter rapist’ as black, and
the function of this within structures of racist oppression, was generally ignored.
2 Research conducted by Jackson and Sundaram (2015) found that classroom laddism was more common
in universities with lower entry grades, which tend to be those with a more diverse class intake (Sutton
Trust 2000).

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 14
Violence against older women
Hannah Bows

Introduction
Despite more than four decades of domestic violence and sexual violence research, there
remains an important gap in relation to older women, who have been almost entirely absent
from research, policy and practice developments. Self-report surveys, for example the Crime
Survey for England and Wales (CSEW), report young women aged between 16 and 30 are the
most common victims of both domestic and sexual violence. However, the CSEW does not
currently capture the experience of people aged 60 and over (although this is currently under
review – see Office for National Statistics, 2017). For older women, domestic and sexual vio-
lence have usually been considered under the ‘elder abuse’ paradigm (Penhale and Porritt, 2010;
Jones and Powell, 2006) and have lacked a thorough gender-based analysis.
Elder abuse is an umbrella term encapsulating a range of violent and abusive behaviours,
namely physical, emotional, sexual and financial. While it shares some obvious overlaps with
domestic violence definitions, elder abuse research has often focused on caregivers as perpetra-
tors and some surveys have excluded specific forms of violence, in particular sexual violence.
Consequently, little is known about the prevalence, impacts and challenges of domestic and sex-
ual violence against people aged 60 and over (so ‘older’ rather than ‘old’), as the intersections of
gender and age have been largely ignored in the existing research. This chapter will draw on the
existing domestic and sexual violence against older people research and make the links between
three fields of inquiry: elder abuse; domestic violence; and sexual violence. Drawing on our own
empirical research, this chapter examines the evidence in relation to both victims and perpetrators
of domestic and sexual violence and uses a number of case studies to highlight the overlaps and
gaps in existing knowledge. The focus is on older women, as the research shows they continue
to be at increased risk of experiencing domestic or sexual violence compared to men.

Existing definitions and approaches

There now exists a series of widely accepted definitions of domestic and sexual violence, and
violence against women as a whole (for example, both the World Health Organization and
United Nations have their own definitions). In the UK, the government has an official definition

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of violence, which is ‘any incident or pattern of incidents of controlling, coercive, threatening

behaviour, violence or abuse between those aged 16 or over who are, or have been, intimate
partners or family members regardless of gender or sexuality’ (Home Office, 2013b).
However, where these acts are perpetrated against someone over the age of 60, rather than
being defined as domestic violence, sexual violence or violence against women they are typi-
cally defined as elder abuse. The older the women gets the more likely this seems to be the case.
There is no unified definition of elder abuse, however it typically includes the same abusive
behaviours included in domestic violence definitions and can be perpetrated by an intimate
partner, family member or someone in a ‘relationship of trust’, such as a carer. The majority
of research in this area has evolved from gerontological and social care/health disciplines and
the focus has been on age as a risk factor or predictor for experiencing abuse and the key vari-
able in responding to both victims and perpetrators (Penhale, 2003; Whittaker, 1995; Brandl
and Horan, 2002). This has been criticised for ignoring the importance of gender and power
in understanding abuse, as the vast majority of victims are female and perpetrators are male
(Aitken and Griffin, 1996; Penhale, 1999; Lombard and Scott, 2013). It suggests that elder abuse
is a type of abuse specific to older women and thus distinguishes it from abuse experienced by
younger women. Furthermore, Mowlam et al. (2007) argue that the current definition does not
effectively distinguish between elder mistreatment and other forms of conflict and dispute. They
argue that the definition excludes certain similar experiences and experiences where age plays a
key part, and also argue that the categories of perpetrators do not accurately reflect the full possi-
ble range. Ultimately, the lack of an official definition is problematic and affects the reliability of
research conducted into elder abuse (O’Brien et al., 2011). Desmarais and Reeves (2007) argue
that the decontextualisation associated with the overarching term of ‘elder abuse’ has arguably
contributed to an ‘overemphasis on types of abuse and perpetrators unique to elder, such as
abuse by adult children, disregarding abuse occurring between partners’ (p. 381). Likewise, it
has been argued that with ‘a problem as complex as elder abuse, it is unlikely that any single
theoretical perspective could explain all forms and situations’ (Anetzberger, 2005, p. 10).
The intersecting areas of age and gender, elder abuse and domestic/sexual violence have
remained largely un-researched and in terms of practice it has been described as an ‘ideological
gulf’ between those working in domestic violence services and those in aged care (Scott et al.,
2004, p. 7). This creates a gap in knowledge and practice, for example Harris (1996) points out
that when violence against older people is viewed as elder abuse rather than domestic abuse,
public services are largely health-based and such interventions may prioritise prescribing anti-
depressants or sedatives, recommending couples or family counselling or providing help for
the abuser (Brandl and Horan, 2002), which are the opposite responses to those as identified as
best practice with domestic or sexual violence victims. Furthermore, one of the major limita-
tions with the existing domestic and sexual violence research is a lack of a unified definition of
‘older’. As Lea et al. (2011) have pointed out, the terms ‘old’, ‘older’ and ‘elderly’ are inconsist-
ently applied in the existing research, with all of these terms being variously applied to people
aged anything from 45 years and over by different researchers, policy makers and practitioners.
However, for most of post-war Britain, old age (insofar as it is socially constructed) has been
based around, and informed by, social policy and is often defined by an age of 60 or 65 and
above, the traditional age for (male) eligibility for the state pension.
Throughout this chapter, the terms ‘domestic violence’ and ‘sexual violence’ will be used
interchangeably with domestic abuse and sexual abuse to situate these behaviours against older
women as a form of gender-based violence (Lombard and Scott, 2013). ‘Older’ is used to refer
in general to people aged 60 and over, but where research has adopted other starting ages, this
will be acknowledged.

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Older victims of domestic and sexual violence

Extent
It is difficult to gain accurate data on the prevalence of domestic and sexual violence against
older women, as both crimes are significantly under-reported to the police and, in England
and Wales, the main crime victimisation survey excludes respondents aged 60 and over. Other
forms of violence against women, for example ‘honour’ based violence, are even more invis-
ible. Internationally, a small number of studies have emerged over the last decade which have
attempted to measure the prevalence of domestic violence against older women and fewer still
which have examined sexual violence against people aged 60 and over.
A European-wide study examining the prevalence of violence against older women in inti-
mate relationships across six countries found that 23% of cases dealt with by relevant organisations
involved sexual abuse (Nägele et al., 2010). More recently, a study examining domestic violence
amongst older people based on case files drawn from police, prosecutions and courts found an
overall average sexual abuse prevalence rate of 2% across Austria, Germany, Hungary, Poland,
Portugal and the UK (Amesberger et al., 2013). Stöckl et al.’s (2012) analysis of domestic vio-
lence against older people in Germany focused on both physical and sexual abuse and reported
a lifetime prevalence of physical and sexual partner violence of 23% among women aged 50 to
65 and 10% among women aged 66 to 86. When restricting the sample to those currently in a
relationship, 14% of 50- to 65-year-olds and 5% of women aged 66 to 86 reported physical or
sexual violence by their current partner. Four per cent of the 50- to 65-year-olds reported only
sexual violence, with none in the older group.
Internationally, a study on intimate partner violence among community-dwelling older adult
couples living in Hong Kong reported that past-12-month abuse rates by form of abuse reported
by older female subjects were: 1.37% physical abuse, 0.8% sexual abuse and 33.7% psychologi-
cal abuse (Yan and Chan, 2012). In the United States, Lundy and Grossman (2005) examined
the experiences of 1,057 victims of domestic violence aged 65 and older who sought refuge
and support services from domestic violence programmes between 1990 and 1995 in a large
mid-western state. They highlight 4.9% of women reported experiencing sexual abuse. A more
recent study by Lazenbatt and Devaney (2014) conducted qualitative interviews with older
women who were currently, or had in the past in their relationship, experienced domestic
violence. Out of the sample of 18 women, only one was currently experiencing sexual abuse,
however 12 had experienced sexual violence at some point in their relationship.
Outside of intimate partner relationships, there is a paucity of research examining preva-
lence of sexual violence in later life. From the DAPHNE III (AVOW Project) initiative in
the European Union, overall sexual abuse prevalence rates for older women aged 60 years and
above reported by countries that participated in the prevalence study (Austria, Belgium, Finland,
Lithuania and Portugal) was 3.1%. Internationally, only a small number of studies attempt-
ing to measure the prevalence of sexual violence against older women have been conducted,
mainly in the United States. In 1971, MacDonald analysed 200 consecutive cases in Denver
and found that 7% of victims were aged over 50. Ramin et al. (1992) report that approximately
2% of victims of rape in Dallas County in 1991 were women aged 50 years or older. In 1997,
Fletcher reported that 5.2% of victims referred to a rape crisis centre in Syracuse were aged over
55 years. The majority of these studies are based on small samples drawn from single source
(typically institutions, police force or a rape crisis centre). As such, these prevalence estimates
should be approached with caution. In a larger, more recent study, Cannell et al. (2014) found
0.9% of older adults reported experiencing sexual abuse in the previous year. This represents

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Hannah Bows

approximately 90,289. However, this study was limited to community-dwelling older people
only, excluding those living in care or nursing homes.
In the UK, only three studies have previously examined the extent of sexual violence against
older women (Ball and Fowler, 2008; Jeary, 2005; Lea et al., 2011). Ball and Fowler’s (2008)
study was the only research to specifically focus on prevalence and was based on all recorded
sexual offences within a semi-rural English county with a population of approximately 800,000.
They analysed all recorded sexual offences over a five-year period (n = 1,061) and found 3.1%
involved victims aged 55 years or more. Our research examined the extent of reported ‘seri-
ous sexual offences’ involving a victim aged 60 or over (Bows and Westmarland, 2015). The
aim of this research was to investigate the nature and extent of serious sexual offences reported
to the police by older victims. ‘Serious sexual violence’ was defined as sections one (rape) and
two (assault by penetration) of the 2003 Sexual Offences Act. ‘Older victims’ were defined as
aged 60 or over. Hence, as with this chapter, the research is not one on ‘elderly victims’ or of
‘elder abuse’ – but rather fills a gap by starting where the CSEW ends. The study used Freedom
of Information requests to collect data on the number of police recorded offences between 1
January 2009 and 31 December 2013. Responses were obtained from 45 out of the 46 UK
forces (Scotland was not able to provide the necessary data).
The overall number of reported offences involving an older victim was low when compared
with younger age groups. Table 14.1 shows the overall number of recorded rape and sexual
assault by penetration forces and the proportion involving an older victim.

Nature of the abuse

Few studies have examined the characteristics of older victims of domestic violence. Stöckl et al.
(2012) examined the factors associated with physical and sexual violence by a current partner
according to age and found women aged 50–65 were less likely than younger women to have
secondary education. The percentage reduced further in the 66–86 age group. Interestingly,
however, women aged 66–86 were more likely to have a university education compared to
those aged 50–65. Unsurprisingly, given the nature of the study, few of the women in either age
group were divorced and the vast majority were married. Thirteen per cent of 50–65-year-olds
admitted to heavy drinking compared to 4% of 66–86, however when asked if both the women
and partners were heavy drinkers, 18% of 50–65-year-olds and 28% of 66–86-year-olds indi-
cated they were. The odds of experiencing current partner violence were much higher in the
66–86 group if both the partner and woman were heavy drinkers than if only the partner was a
heavy drinker. The majority of women in both age categories lived in urban areas.
The research exploring sexual violence against older people has almost exclusively found
the victims are female. Ball and Fowler’s (2008) analysis of reported police data in a semi-rural
county in the east of England found not a single recorded sexual offence involving a male vic-
tim. The remaining UK and Ireland studies have looked exclusively at cases involving female
victims (Jeary, 2005; Lea et al., 2011; Scriver et al., 2013) and the majority of studies outside the

Table 14.1 Serious sexual violence recorded by the police

Rape Assault by penetration Total

All ages 74,036 13,194 87,230

Victims 60+ 474 181 655
Proportion 0.6% 1.4% 0.75%

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 Violence against older women

UK have also focused on female victims. Only one study has looked specifically at sexual vio-
lence against older men (Teaster et al., 2007). The authors report that, out of 430 investigations
of sexual violence cases of adults aged 18 and over living in facilities, 229 involved someone
aged over 50, the majority of whom were women.
The existing studies have reported a number of common victim characteristics. Generally,
women are white and are attacked in their own home, regardless of whether the perpetrator
was known to the victim (Baker et al., 2009; Cartwright and Moore, 1989; Lea et al., 2011;
Muram et al., 1992). Some studies have suggested that women who live alone are at higher risk
(Mann et al., 2014; Del Bove et al., 2005) and those with a disability and/or learning impair-
ment (Baker et al., 2009; Scriver et al., 2013; Del Bove et al., 2005) and less likely to have
post-secondary education than younger women (Scriver et al., 2013). In Roberto and Teaster’s
(2005) study, the majority of women aged 60 and over could not manage their finances and
most needed help to be ambulatory. In the context of care homes, those at the oldest end of the
spectrum (79–99 years) appear to be more frequently subjected to sexual abuse (Baker et al.,
2009; Teaster and Roberto, 2004; Teaster et al., 2007; Ramsey-Klawsnik et al., 2008; Burgess
et al., 2000).

Impact of the abuse

A range of impacts of domestic and sexual violence have been observed in the existing studies.
For victims of domestic violence, these include bone problems, arthritis, hearing problems, cuts,
welts, broken bones and bruises, sleeping problems and urinary incontinence and mental health
including anxiety, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), low self-esteem, depression and flash-
backs (McGarry and Simpson, 2011; Lazenbatt and Devaney, 2014; Brozowski and Hall, 2010;
Fisher and Regan, 2006; Wilke and Vinton, 2005).
Less is known about the impacts of sexual violence on older women. Jeary’s 2005 study is
the only one to date in the UK to consider the impacts of experiencing sexual violence on older
female survivors, based on case files held by criminal justice organisations and adult protection.
Physical impacts included injuries, bruising and cuts, and psychological consequences included
nightmares and anxiety.
In terms of injury, the literature indicates older women who experience sexual violence
are more prone to genital trauma than younger women (Muram et al., 1992; Ramin, 1997;
Jones et al., 2009; Templeton, 2005; Morgan et al., 2011). Burgess et al. (2008) reports that
77.3% of her sample of sexually abused elders (n = 284) had visible injuries. Another study by
Burgess et al. (2000) report that over half of the sample of sexually abused women (n = 20)
died within a year of the assault. However, some studies have found no differences between
older victims of sexual assault and younger victims in relation to physical injury (Del Bove et al.,
2005; Baker et al., 2009). However, one of the key limitations of these studies is that they tend
to treat rape or sexual assault as an isolated and discrete event (Bright and Bowland, 2008; Mann
et al., 2014). Other factors, including pre-existing physical and/or mental health conditions,
socio-economic factors and experiences of previous abuse, are not considered. As such, it is not
possible to state the cause and effect of sexual assault and negative health implications reported
in these studies.

Barriers to reporting
Research suggests that older women are less likely to report than younger women (Blood, 2004;
Women’s Aid, 2007; Lombard and Scott, 2013). Due to the nature of the offence, women may

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be reluctant to report incidents to the police, may not see the violence as criminal behaviour, or
may not wish their abuser to be criminalised (Scott et al., 2004). These issues can be compounded
for older women, who may face a number of other barriers including financial pressures, genera-
tional attitudes, professional awareness and attitudes, social pressures and dependency (Lombard
and Scott, 2013). As Morgan Disney & Associates point out, ‘the lack of data available about
older women may be evidence in itself of the difficulty older women experience in speaking
about their situation’ (Morgan Disney & Associates, 2000, p. 5).
A number of barriers in the reporting of domestic violence by older women have been
highlighted, including generational norms around family matters and the home being private,
and shame and embarrassment being key reasons for keeping their experiences hidden from
family and friends (Beaulaurier et al., 2007; Scott et al., 2004; McGarry and Simpson, 2011).
Older women come from a time where you were expected to keep matters private (Straka and
Montminy, 2006), and have been socialised with more traditional attitudes and values relating
to gender roles, marriage and family (Straka and Montminy, 2006). These may include a strong
sense of privacy about family issues, being a good submissive wife and being committed to their
husband and family (Aronson et al., 1995). Zink et al. (2005) have also highlighted that while
there are similarities in terms of the reasons for non-disclosure to health care professionals for
both younger and older women, older women were also bound by the ‘traditional mores of
their time’, for example beliefs about privacy in the home and a lack of awareness about the
available support mechanisms. Moreover, older women may not be aware that services exist to
support them or may feel they are for younger women only (Beaulaurier et al., 2007; Scott et al.,
2004; McGarry and Simpson, 2011). Consequently, gender and age intersect to create specific
challenges and barriers for some older women who experience domestic violence (Lombard
and Scott, 2013).
As a result of the blurred distinction between elder abuse and domestic violence (DV), Brandl
and Horan (2002) found that women were being offered inappropriate support, which included
family counselling, offering support for the perpetrator and/or anti-depressant prescriptions for
the woman, rather than the responses that are offered to younger women (Lombard and Scott,
2013). Furthermore, the professionals’ attitudes, rather than being supportive, often blame the
victim (Pritchard, 2000).
In 2013 we conducted a small qualitative study interviewing 11 domestic violence practi-
tioners and eight survivors aged 45 or over to examine the barriers experienced by older people
reporting or disclosing sexual violence. Shame was the most frequently mentioned reason that
women do not report DV to the police, mirroring previous research (see Lombard and Scott,
2013; Scott et al., 2004; Fisher et al., 2003). All of the victim-survivors (n = 8) and all of the
professionals (n = 11) involved in the study stated that shame underpinned women’s decisions
to stay in the relationship and not to report the violence. This might be due to embarrassment,
belief that it should be kept ‘secret’, that they should be old enough ‘not to be in this position’
or that they do not want people to know they have been putting up with abuse for so long.
One survivor explained:

Through shame I used to tell lies because I was ashamed of what he had become, from the
person he used to be to the person he is now is two different people. And I used to cover
up for him, because I was ashamed with myself for putting up with it.
(Helen)

Stigma and judgement by others overlapped with shame, but it was unclear whether other
people knowing about the abuse caused the shame, or whether shame meant the women feared

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judgement from others. Again, this concept was multi-faceted and the stigma of abuse affected
women differently, depending on her personal circumstances. For some women, it was neigh-
bours or friends knowing and what their reaction would be. For others, the stigma was attached
to their employment and professional or economic status and the impact on their lifestyle. For
others, it was more about the impact that the stigma would have on their partner’s status.
Another barrier to disclosing abuse was a lack of support from family or friends. This may in
part reflect generational norms, that women should accept men’s anger and that the cause of this
was usually the woman’s fault. As one survivor recalled:

When I did try to tell people, it was as if I was expecting too much from him . . . ‘of course
at times he is gonna be bad tempered, and things like that, he’s got a lot to put up with with
me’ and things like that. It didn’t help when my family actually supported him and not me.
(Gertrude)

Unlike much of the previous research, our study also examined the reasons why older women
did choose to report. These reasons broadly fell into two categories: motivating factors and ena-
bling factors. Motivating factors were generally based on realisations or life events and under-
pinned some women’s reasons for reporting. These included a need to protect themselves and/
or others, justice and wanting better for themselves and their children.
Protection from physical violence was the most frequently cited reason why survivors said
they had reported their ex-partner to the police. This may occur whilst the woman is still in the
relationship, or after the relationship has ended. As one survivor explained: ‘The severity of it,
the severity. Because he could have killed me. [I was] scared, scared to death’ (Jane).
Some women reported their partner to protect her children. This was usually based on a fear
that the children would be taken away from the woman and put in care, but other times it was
to prevent the partner getting custody of the children. For some survivors, justice was the funda-
mental motive for reporting their ex-partner. This could be justice for themselves and/or their
children. It could also be simply that they wanted to see the perpetrator punished for his actions.
Some women stated they reported to the police because they wanted better for themselves.
This was interpreted as a form of closure and a way of increasing the woman’s confidence by
‘standing up’ to the abuse. This also overlapped with women thinking about their mortality;
several women said they did not want to die with their secret. Others said illness or the thought
of living the rest of their life in a violent relationship was the motivator for change. The mortal-
ity of the perpetrator was also a motivating factor for some women; the death of the perpetrator
allowed women ‘space for action’ (Westmarland and Kelly, 2013) for women to disclose or
report their experiences. Professionals also felt that the death of the perpetrator might motivate
women to report what they had experienced. This is not a factor which has been thoroughly
examined in the existing literature.
Enabling factors were generally based on sources of support from a range of bodies including
professionals, friends, family and children. These foundations of support enabled women to feel
confident enough to report to the police. Engagement with specialist DV agencies underpinned
many women’s reasons for reporting. Some women also mentioned mortality as a trigger for
reporting, either their own (the realisation that they may be killed by their partner, or not want-
ing to ‘die with the secret of domestic violence’) or the abuser’s death; some women said that
once the abuser died they were ‘free’ to tell their story.
Support from family and adult children was also crucial and was often the primary factor
underpinning women’s decision to report the abuser to the police. Whilst family was identified
in this study as a key barrier to older women reporting DV perpetrators to the police, it was also

189
Hannah Bows

identified in the interview data that adult children and the support of other family members can
be fundamental in a woman’s decision to report DV to the police.

Perpetrators of domestic violence and sexual violence against

older women
There are marked differences across, and within, the existing literature in respect of perpetra-
tor characteristics. As Burgess et al. (2007) note, one of the few indisputable conclusions about
sexual offenders is that they constitute a markedly heterogeneous group. However, a number
of common themes in relation to the perpetrator’s gender and relationship to the victim are
observed in the existing literature.
Some research in the field of elder abuse has reported that most physical, emotional and sexual
abuse experienced by women is actually intimate partner violence grown old (Fisher and Regan,
2006; Ramsey-Klawsnik, 2003). However, other studies report other family members – typically
male and either sons, sons-in-law or grandsons – as perpetrators (Holt, 1993; Ramsay-Klawsnik,
2003 in Mann et al., 2014; Lundy and Grossman, 2005). Naughton et al. (2010) report that
perpetrators of interpersonal violence, which includes sexual abuse, were most likely to be adult
children or spouse/children, with no reports of paid home help as perpetrators of interpersonal
abuse. O’Keefe et al. (2007) found, overall, 51% of mistreatment in the past year involved a
partner/spouse, 49% another family member, 13% a care worker and 5% a close friend (respondents
could mention more than one person. Overall, 80% of interpersonal abuse (i.e. physical, psycho­
logical and sexual abuse combined) perpetrators were men and 20% were women. This is con-
sistent with the majority of elder abuse studies, which generally find perpetrators of sexual and
physical violence are male (Burgess et al., 2008).
In the sexual violence literature, several studies have shown a higher rate of stranger rapes
than in the general literature. Groth (1978), discussed above, reported that the majority of his
sample of 170 men who committed sexual offences against an older woman did not know the
victim prior to the attack, although this was an FBI based sample, therefore limited to cases
reported to the police. A similar study by Davis and Brody (1979) in the United States found
that in 78 sexual assault cases in Nashville involving women aged over 50, the majority (68%)
were assaulted by a stranger and over three-quarters of the attacks occurred in their own home
(73%). More recent research also supports these earlier findings. Muram et al.’s (1992) study,
emerging from the United States, compared sexual assaults of 53 women aged 55 or over with
53 sexual assaults of women aged between 18 and 45. Significant differences were observed in
the location of assault and relationship between perpetrator and victim. They report that 72% of
the assaults against older victims occurred in the victim’s home compared to just 19% of younger
victims. Furthermore, 79% of older victims were assaulted by strangers compared to just 57%
of younger victims. Burgess et al. (2007) found the majority of assaults occurred in the victim’s
home (70.1%), with 22.4% in nursing homes and 6.6% in other locations. In 61% the victim did
not know the offender although on interview many offenders said they knew the victim from
the neighbourhood and knew the victim’s daily routine, which Safarik et al. (2002) describe as
a relative stranger. In Scriver et al.’s (2013) analysis of survivors accessing rape crisis centres in
Ireland, the majority had been victimised in their home, however a significant proportion (35%)
had been victimised in an ‘other’ private space, such as a car or hotel room.
In our FOI based research, the majority of perpetrators were acquaintances (26%), how-
ever the proportion of stranger rapes (20%) was the same as partner/husband rapes (20%) and
higher than normally observed in rapes involving younger people, where the figure for stranger
rapes is around 15% (Home Office, 2013a). Table 14.2 provides a breakdown of location data.

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 Violence against older women

Table 14.2 Location of assaults

Location n %

Victim home 299 54%

Perpetrator home 38 7%
Victim and perpetrator home 36 6%
Care home, hospital or nursing home 117 21%
Public outside 26 4%
Public indoor 9 2%
Other 16 3%

Most of the offences occurred in the victim’s home, however the second most common loca-
tion was a care home. In those cases, the most common perpetrator was a ‘carer’.
Perpetrators in the existing sexual violence literature are almost exclusively male. Perpetrators
are generally younger than their victims in the existing sexual violence and a considerable body
of early (and some more recent) work documented that a significant minority (and in some
cases, majority) of perpetrators were more than 30 years younger than the victim (Groth, 1978;
Pollock, 1988; Ball and Fowler, 2008; Burgess et al., 2007). Other studies, such as Roberto and
Teaster (2005), found perpetrators were most likely to be a similar age to the victim. Our FOI
research examining police data found the majority of perpetrators were aged under 60 (66%).
Figure 14.1 shows that most perpetrators were aged between 40 and 59, so not as young as
reported in the research described above.
Early studies reported high rates of physical violence and the use of weapons in older sexual
violence cases (Groth, 1978; Pollock, 1988). For example, in Groth’s (1978) sample of 170
sexual offenders convicted of sexually assaulting a woman aged 50 or older, 60% seriously

400
355

300

200

139

100 91 87
74 76
41 48
33 29
7 14 7 3 0 3
0
16< 17–19 20–29 30–39 40–49 50–59 60–69 70–79 80–89 90–99 100
and over

Age of perpetrators - n = 394 Age of victims - n = 613

Figure 14.1 Age of victim and perpetrators

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Hannah Bows

injured their victims, 43% savagely beat them, 7% stabbed their victims and 10% murdered the
women. Groth’s (1978) also reported that in 60% of the sample a weapon was used and in a
similar number of cases the victim sustained a serious injury. In contrast, only one of the men
who assaulted younger women used a weapon and none inflicted life-threatening injuries on
their victims. However, Baker et al.’s (2009) analysis of 198 cases of suspected or actual sexual
assault of women aged 50 and over found no reported incidents involving weapons where
women lived in institutional settings. In cases involving women living in non-institutional (i.e.
domestic residential) settings, one or more weapons were used in 17% of cases.

Conclusion
Despite increased awareness and research attention on elder abuse, domestic and sexual vio-
lence have been neglected fields of inquiry. There has been a tendency to approach abuse of
older people as gender-neutral, despite research consistently revealing that older women are at
a higher risk of experiencing physical and sexual violence than men, and that the majority of
perpetrators are male. As a result, there are gaps in knowledge in relation to the extent of vio-
lence against older women, the long-term impacts and support needs, and barriers to disclosure.
There has been a steady increase in research over the last decade addressing some of these gaps
in relation to domestic violence, but very little research specifically exploring sexual violence. As
Whittaker (1995) points out, the ageing society is a primarily female society, and sexual violence
is an overwhelmingly female experience. An analysis of sexual violence against older women
must therefore take into account the social structural position of older women in society and
consider a range of factors, including age and gender, when exploring sexual violence against
older people.
Our research examining the extent of recorded rape in the UK has shown that rape of
older people shares some similarities and differences with the existing research which warrant
further exploration, in particular, the age of the perpetrator and higher levels of stranger rapes.
Furthermore, certain groups were under-represented in this study, for example those from BME
communities, which may reflect particular cultural barriers and requires specific attention.
Our research examining reasons for reporting domestic violence among survivors aged 40
and over also produced a number of findings that require further consideration. Whilst many
of the barriers to reporting echoed previous findings, our research highlighted a number of
motivating and enabling factors. In particular, a significant finding that has not been discussed
elsewhere in the ‘older’ DV field is the notion of mortality as an enabling factor for women
reporting DV; the death of the abuser or thinking about their own mortality was a trigger for
some women to report or disclose their experiences. Furthermore, the support of domestic
violence services was seen as crucial in enabling women to feel confident to report to the police.
There is a need for future research examining different forms of violence against older
women, specifically the short- and long-term impacts of domestic and sexual violence and
barriers to service engagement. In particular, it is crucial that women’s accounts and stories are
included in research, as most of the studies to date have not included survivors.

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 15
Female genital mutilation
A form of gender-based violence

Judy Wasige and Ima Jackson

Introduction
Female genital mutilation (FGM) differs from most forms of gender-based violence because
women are not only the victims of the practice but women are also involved in perpetration. It
is carried out on all girls in a practising community and since it is promoted as a highly valued
cultural practice and social norm, it has been preserved for centuries (WHO, 2012). It is estimated
that more than 200 million girls and women have undergone FGM globally (UNICEF, 2016) and
despite efforts to eradicate the practice, every year approximately three million girls and women
are at risk of this violence and the potential negative health consequences (UNICEF, 2013).
In the UK, for example, despite 30 years of criminalisation of the activity, no charges have
ever been brought, yet there is evidence to show that it is being carried out (House of Commons
Home Affairs Committee, 2016). This would suggest that there is something very wrong about
our collective national and also international approaches to understanding and supporting those
who are victims and perpetrators. This chapter sets out the historical and cultural context to
current understanding from a Scottish and UK perspective and seeks to contribute to the devel-
oping narrative in which practising community perspectives are included in the discussion to
support future debates and understanding of FGM in order to end this violence against girls and
women. We reflect on how we have arrived at this point of knowledge and understanding and
what we can learn for future work.

What is FGM?
A joint statement by ten international agencies defines FGM as ‘all procedures that involve
partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital
organs for non-medical reasons’ (WHO, 2008, p. 4) and four types are classified as shown in
Table 15.1 below. Types I–III vary depending on the amount of tissue removed during the
procedure. Type III, infibulation (Pharaonic) is the most severe category and involves removal
of the labia minora and external part of the clitoris and sewing the labia majora together, leaving
a small orifice for urina­tion and menstruation. Type IV symbolises all procedures where no flesh is
removed, e.g. pricking, piercing, incising, scraping, cauterising the genital area (and elongation).

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Table 15.1 Classification of FGM

Type I Clitoridectomy: partial or total removal of the clitoris (a small, sensitive and erectile part of the
female genitals) and, rarely, the prepuce (the fold of skin surrounding the clitoris) as well.
Type II Excision: partial or total removal of the clitoris and the labia minora, with or without excision
of the labia majora (the labia are the ‘lips’ that surround the vagina).
Type III Infibulation: narrowing of the vaginal opening through the creation of a covering seal. The
seal is formed by cutting and repositioning the inner, and sometimes outer, labia, with or
without removal of the clitoris.
Type IV Other: all other harmful procedures to the female genitalia for non-medical purposes, e.g.
pricking, piercing, incising, scraping, cauterising the genital area (and elongation).

Source: WHO (2016, pp. 2–4).

Type IV, particularly elongation, is practised in many African countries with low FGM preva-
lence, but little attention is paid to it and communities that practice it do not relate it to FGM,
as discussed below.
Within these categories are multiple and diverse practices that are specific to localised con-
texts and cultures in the diverse practising communities. It is noted that in some contexts, the
procedures are carried out on very young children, including infants; in others, it is commonly
practised on girls between the ages of four and eight; in many other communities FGM is part
of an initiation process leading to up to marriage; whilst in others it is performed on women just
before childbirth or on those marrying into an FGM practising community from a non-FGM
practising community (UNICEF, 2013). Between 2004 and 2015, the majority of girls were
subjected to FGM before they were five, with 85% of the girls in Yemen experiencing FGM in
the first week of their life (UNICEF, 2013).
The terminology, definitions and statistics on FGM are predominantly decided by international
agencies, which are predominantly Western-led and they set the tone of the debates, even when
prevalence statistics are based on anecdotal evidence and the terminology conflicts with practis-
ing community views. Discourse by Africans, including proponents of the practice, is limited and
eradication efforts implemented from within the affected communities are hardly referenced.

Why is FGM carried out?

Historically, female genital alterations have been carried out for two reasons; as a cultural prac-
tice which is the predominate focus in this chapter and as a medical intervention carried out by
doctors in the West to deter masturbation and treat obscure nervous disorders such as hysteria,
neurasthenia and epilepsy (Dorkenoo, 1994, p. 30). In Britain amputation of the clitoris (cli-
toridectomy) was a rare but documented occurrence until the 1860s, after which no reliable
evidence of the practice exists (Abu-Sahlieh, 1994). However, in the United States, articles on
the virtues of clitoridectomy continued to appear in medical journals until the 1960s and there
were regular reports of girls or women being subjected to various procedures, particularly the
shortening of their labia or clitoris when parents or a husband judged them ‘too long’ (Abu-
Sahlieh, 1994). Conroy (2006) suggests that FGM is currently camouflaged in the guise of
female genital cosmetic surgery and is on the rise in Western countries. Therefore, to clarify,
although medical interventions still occur today, the term FGM is mostly used to refer to cultur-
ally motivated practices and will be discussed within that context here.
Cultural female genital procedures are embedded in the socialisation processes of com-
munities in Africa, Asia and the Middle East and have been performed on women and girls

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for centuries. Boyle traces FGM back to the second century bc and suggests that it originated
in current-day Egypt as Type III (infibulation) and spread southwards and westwards while
diminishing to clitoridectomies (Boyle, 2002, p. 27). She links its roots in the Pharaonic belief
of bisexuality of gods, which relates every individual to having two souls, a female soul and a
male soul. The female soul in the male is located in the prepuce of the penis and the male soul of
the female in the clitoris. For complete and healthy development into femininity or masculinity,
excision of the clitoris in females and that of the prepuce in males was required (Boyle, 2002).
Boyle (2002, p. 27) writes that FGM also originated to curb women’s sexual desire, thus pre-
venting premarital sex and ascertaining patrilineage, which reinforces the idea that women are
their husband’s property and is a common thread running through all FGM practising commu-
nities (Dorkenoo, 1994, p. 45). FGM is tracked to the slave trade in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, when slaves who were sewn up in such a way that they could not conceive, fetched
more money (Boyle, 2002, p. 28), and Abdulcadir et al. (2001) note that infibulation derives
from the Latin word fibula, used by Romans to fasten slave’s labia majora to prevent them from
engaging in sexual activity. Once rooted in these communities, FGM continued to be perpetu-
ated as a cultural practice from generation to generation. The reasons given for practising FGM
today are as diverse as the practices themselves, but whether carried out in infancy or puberty,
the main intention of FGM across all cultures is to control female sexuality and manifests itself
using various ideological presentations (Dorkenoo, 1994, p. 41). Justification hinges either on
religious or initiation rites or, in some cases, on both, and psychology and patriarchal myths
are both used (Dorkenoo, 1994). Whilst its continuation is tied to Islamic belief in some com-
munities (Johnson, 2000), FGM pre-dates Islam and despite being practised by people from a
cross-section of faiths, no religious doctrine advocates for it.
Koso-Thomas sets out some of the common arguments given by communities for continuing
the practice. These include: maintenance of cleanliness; pursuance of aesthetics; prevention of
stillbirths; promotion of social and political cohesion; prevention of promiscuity; improvement
of male sexual performance and pleasure; increase of matrimonial opportunities; maintenance of
good health; preservation of virginity and enhancement of fertility (Koso-Thomas, 1987, p. 5).
In many communities where FGM is practised, the belief that men prefer women who have
undergone the procedure is upheld through marriage negotiations with physical examination
carried out on brides in some communities, and brides who have had FGM fetch a higher bride
price (Dorkenoo, 1994, p. 48). The honour of families who have not prepared their girls for
marriage is brought to disrepute and insulting language used to describe those who have not
had FGM (Parker, 1995). Mothers and older female relatives have a mandate to ensure that all
girls undergo the procedure and fathers and other male relatives, although not directly involved
in carrying out the procedure, reinforce it. The decision to undergo FGM is not an individual
decision, but a community decision, and survivors have attested to how relatives or community
members have performed it on them without the consent of their own parents (Burrage, 2016,
pp. 22–23; Bradley, 2011, pp. 51–72).
The value placed on FGM heightens the social pressure on girls to have it done and Prazak
(2016), Gruenbaum (2001) and others report incidents where some girls have carried it out
on themselves and those who carry out the procedure maintain it for economic reasons. Adult
women from ethnic groups that do not practise FGM have the procedure done, most times
with their consent, when marrying into an ethnic group that practises FGM (Dorkenoo,
1994, p. 12). Imposed prohibition has often been met with fierce resistance from practising
communities (UNICEF, 2013, p. 10; Thomas, 2000) and, in some cases, FGM has been used
as a political tool by a dominant group on a minority group during periods of political unrest
(Thomas, 2000, p. 129).

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The problems of terminology: being careless with words and being

‘Western’ about it
Western feminists played a crucial role in motivating international interest in FGM, but the dis-
course generated ferocious response from postcolonial theorists and the heated arguments that
ensued between the two perspectives regarding the terminology used have strangely contributed
to maintaining violence against girls and women (Boyle, 2002). Once Hosken’s (1979) ‘impe-
rialist’ publications reached wider audiences in the West, it appears as if a voyeuristic obsession
with exotic sexual cultures and an inspiration to save helpless African women from cruel self-
inflicted barbaric practices was initiated. Most literature on FGM in the last century focuses on
Africa, creating a supposition that FGM is synonymous with African cultural practice, yet FGM
is practised in other parts of the world, as noted in the prevalence data below.
Postcolonial feminist critique on Western feminism has brought an important perspective to
understanding how FGM is maintained within practising cultures. It demonstrates how even
those who seek to support the eradication of the practice have contributed to its maintenance
through their lack of ability to reflect on their own stance and the cultural and historical per-
spectives that they themselves are situated in. This understanding grew when postcolonial theo-
rists (e.g. Abusharaf, 2006; Gruenbaum, 2001; Nnaemeka, 2005; Toubia, 1985; Walley, 1997)
argued that Western feminists frame FGM as a measure of cultural inferiority and position
African men and women as objects of intervention, not subjects in their own right (Wade,
2011). Wade (2009) highlights that the term ‘female genital mutilation’, in defining all versions
of the practice as disfiguring, disallows thoughtful consideration in favour of uncompromising
and judgemental condemnation that is both insensitive and counterproductive. These critics
advocate returning to the term ‘female circumcision’ or to ‘female genital cutting’, which they
felt was more purely descriptive. The risk of not taking the issue of terminology seriously and
to continue to describe the procedures as mutilations risks attempting to ‘engage through insult’
(Ahmadou, 2000) and would not unsurprisingly be likely to restrict further access to the very
members of the communities it may be most important to engage with. By demonising and
infantilising FGM practising communities, Western feminist discourse affirms a false hierarchi-
cal binary between the West and the rest, erasing the many similarities between ‘their’ practices
and ‘ours’ and the fact that women in all communities are subject to patriarchal oppression.
The binary also erases the autonomy of African women and the fact that African women were
already engaged in anti-FGM activism, positioning members of FGM practising communities as
objects of intervention, not subjects in their own right (Wade, 2011).

Alliances within feminism: the current landscape

Debates between postcolonial feminists and Western feminists have moved beyond terminology
to analysing cultural identities. It has been suggested that FGM scholarship and activism should
be left to practising communities only (Ahmadou, 2000). It has been argued that postcolonial
critique privileges cultural identities over gender solidarity and that cultural relativism/pluralism
limit opportunities for moral judgement (Wade, 2011). Considering these discussions, trans-
national feminists (e.g. Beckett and Macey, 2001; Boudon, 2005; Gruenbaum, 1996; Phillips,
2007) reconceptualise culture as fractured, uneven and contested and that, therefore, both insid-
ers and outsiders can agitate for cultural change – the point is that there is room for feminist
alliances across cultures in addressing FGM (Wade, 2009).
Added to this complex mix are two other components worth mentioning here. First, that
FGM is recognised by practising communities to fulfil a social obligation and, as such, considered

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by them to be valuable, is almost always ignored (Walley, 1997). Second, that Western media
coverage of FGM has often been hyperbolic and one-sided, presenting diverse traditional practices
uniformly as mutilations, ignoring the cultural complexities that underlie these practices. Most of
the literature and media reports explain procedures and health risks related to the most extreme
form of FGM – infibulation, that is practised by a relatively few communities – i.e. 10% of all
FGM procedures (UNICEF, 2013). Furthermore, the inclusion of Type IV rituals in the WHO
definition is highly debatable because the procedures and the health outcomes associated with
Types I–III are unfamiliar to Type IV practising communities. Consequently, the current preva-
lence data is contested as more communities realise that procedures like elongation are a form of
FGM (Ariyo et al., 2016). The issue of prevalence is contested and discussed in more detail below.

Prevalence
While the exact number of girls and women who have undergone FGM remains unknown,
UNICEF estimates that over 200 million women and girls have had FGM in 29 countries
in Africa and Asia where prevalence data is available, as shown in Table 15.2. Of these, 27
countries are in Africa and it has been noted that more than half live in just three countries;
Indonesia, Ethiopia and Egypt (27.2 million) and about a quarter (44 million) are girls below the
age of 15 (UNICEF, 2016). In some countries, prevalence is almost universal, with the highest
prevalence reported in Somalia (98%), Guinea (96%), Djibouti (93%) and Egypt (91%). The
lowest prevalence rates are noted in Uganda and Cameroon at 1%.
Prevalence statistics are collected through self-reporting and represent the percentage of
girls and women aged 15–49 who have undergone FGM at any point in their lives (UNICEF,
2013). Apart from Africa, it has been noted that FGM is practised in Middle Eastern countries,
including Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Israel; in Peru,
Colombia, Mexico and Brazil by some indigenous populations; and by some Muslim popula-
tions of Indonesia, Malaysia, India and Pakistan (Dorkenoo, 1994, p. 32; UNICEF, 2016).
However, prevalence data is not given.
Globalisation and other migration related factors have led to FGM being reported in Europe,
Australia, Canada and the United States among immigrant women from practising communi-
ties. Prevalence statistics and predictions of the number of girls at risk are estimated based on
census statistics as discussed below (UNICEF, 2013). Recent media reports have shown that
FGM is practised by Muslim communities in Dagestan, Russia where it appears to be supported
strongly by Muslim religious leaders (Oliphant, 2016). Considering how widespread the prac-
tice has become, FGM is a global concern and a public health issue.

Table 15.2 FGM prevalence

> 80% 51–80% 26–50% 10–25% <10%

Somalia 98% Gambia 76% Guinea Bissau 50% Central African Iraq 8%
Guinea 96% Burkina Faso 76% Chad 44% Republic 24% Ghana 4%
Djibouti 93% Ethiopia 74% Cote D’Ivoire 38% Yemen 23% Togo 4%
Egypt 91% Mauritania 69% Kenya 27% Tanzania 15% Niger 2%
Eritrea 89% Liberia 66% Nigeria 27% Benin 13% Cameroon 1%
Mali 89% Senegal 26% Uganda 1%
Sierra Leone 88%
Sudan 88%

Source: UNICEF (2013, p. 27)

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Occurrence of FGM depends on a wide number of factors and varies from one region of a
country to another, from community to community and from family to family, and in some
cases, it is a personal choice. Predictors of prevalence and type are given as ethnicity, member-
ship in a culture and sometimes nationality (Hernlund and Shell-Duncan, 2007). This can mean
that whilst FGM can be practised by a tribe in one country, the same tribe across the border in
a neighbouring country might not practise it (Dorkenoo, 1994). Whether FGM is carried out
by a community or family also depends on where you are, at home or in exile or abroad; where
you are positioned in a country, in the urban area or rural area. Other factors influencing the
occurrence of FGM are whether you are in a marriage with someone from the same or different
ethnic group and whether you are surrounded by neighbours who do or do not practise FGM
(Hernlund and Shell-Duncan, 2007).
Recent statistics show an overall decline in prevalence of FGM amongst girls aged between
15 and 19 from 51% in 1985 to 37% in 2015 (UNICEF, 2016). However, prevalence in coun-
tries which record the highest data or the most severe forms of FGM have not changed much.
For example, the prevalence of FGM in Somalia was still 98% in 2013. It has been stressed that
current progress is insufficient to keep up with the increasing population growth and the number
of women undergoing FGM will rise significantly in the next 15 years (UNICEF, 2016), with
30 million girls undergoing FGM across the globe in the next ten years (UNICEF, 2013).
Concerns have been raised about the reliability of the prevalence data for several reasons.
First, the data does not reflect results from observations made through physical examinations,
but represents women’s self-responses which in turn depend on the women’s understanding
of the survey questions. In many cases, survey interviews are conducted by interpreters from
practising communities who might be in favour of the practice and only involved for financial
reasons (Prazak, 2016, p. 234). The data provided by different sources also vary between self-
reported data and data collected through a physical exam. In cases where only a small nick was
made on the female genitalia, a physical examination may not establish that FGM was carried
out (UNICEF, 2013). In other cases, women who report having FGM change their mind at a
later stage due to factors like prosecution warnings. Women might not reveal their FGM status
because they have been coerced to secrecy and the danger of being ostracised are high (Boyle,
2002). Irrespective of these concerns about data accuracy, the numbers of women and girls
affected remains vast. In fact, a recent study highlights that elongation is underreported and calls
on international bodies to review the prevalence data, which could be misleading as it does not
adequately cover the countries where labia elongation is practised. There is a risk that this either
trivialises those practices or minimises the negative impact they can have on women and girls
(Ariyo et al., 2016).

A practice is sustained when valued by the culture

Culture reflects the values, norms and beliefs held by members of a community and is inter-
nalised through socialisation processes for periods, often spanning generations. It dictates the
way of life of the individual, their roles and responsibilities. Although cultural practices are
considered beneficial to community members, culture is also politically constructed and some
cultural practices can be harmful to a particular group, yet are sustained by the value placed on
them. Historically, men have held power in most societies and because they play a major role
in determining cultural practices, most harmful cultural practices, like FGM and early marriages,
serve men’s interests and continue to be maintained, despite the violence girls and women are
subjected to.

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Being an element of culture, social norms are customary rules that govern the behaviour
of groups and societies and replicate what communities believe is morally right and how they
expect their members and communities to behave (UNICEF, 2013, p. 15). In practising socie-
ties, FGM is a socially upheld behavioural rule and obligation to practice is strengthened by con-
siderations of the social sanctions girls and families face if they do not conform, including social
exclusion, stigma and lack of opportunities for marriage and status in the community. Families
and individuals who uphold the practice believe that their group or society expects them to do
so and it is widely acknowledged that FGM functions as a self-reinforcing social convention
or social norm. Furthermore, FGM is mainly practised in collective societies where personal
opinion is predetermined by the community (Hofstede, 1984). Consequently, individual deci-
sions to abandon the practice may not be effective and, unless alternative behaviours are agreed
and reinforced by all community members, such that no single girl or family is disadvantaged by
the decision, the practice is bound to continue. With all these factors to confront, it is perhaps
less surprising to find that women find it difficult to break away from the overt patriarchy that
dominates their lives.

FGM as a form of gender-based violence: what direction are

we heading?
Gender-based violence refers to violence that targets individuals or groups on the basis of their
gender, that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or mental harm or suffering,
including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in
public or in private life (European Institute for Gender Equality, 2017). Because of the descrip-
tions given here, FGM is widely acknowledged as a form of gender-based violence. However, it
is far too simplistic for those ‘outside’ of practising communities to see the descriptions of what
FGM involves as straightforward clear indicators with no doubt that FGM is simply violence
on women by women.
From the discussions above, FGM is a deeply rooted cultural practice that is perpetuated
because communities strongly believe that without it girls are not adequately prepared for adult-
hood. Consequently, girls who have not had FGM have reduced opportunities for marriage and
are eventually excluded from social, cultural, political and economic activities in their com-
munities. Considering the multiple factors that lead to the practice of FGM, understanding the
social and cultural dynamics of FGM alone is not sufficient in developing preventative measures.
A closer look at the decision-making processes and gender power dynamics surrounding the
practice is also necessary. The unseen power negotiations that influence women to practise
FGM show, as noted by Toubia and Sharief (2003), that there is a direct link between FGM,
the status of women and girls in a practising community and their level of empowerment and
agency. Women are coerced into practising FGM in order to earn a living, however minimal,
and as a result, inflict lifelong physical and psychological harm on themselves.
It is now well-recognised that social norms are interconnected and FGM cannot be addressed
in isolation (CEDAW/CRC, 2014). Furthermore, because FGM is mainly carried out on chil-
dren from infancy to 15 years, who have no say about it, it is also described as serious child abuse
by international agencies and Western governments have stringent rules to prosecute perpetra-
tors. For women who migrate to the West, it may come as a surprise to some, following a health
care examination, that they had FGM, and media reports can cause unnecessary angst to others
when they overgeneralise the health implications of the diverse practices. As if surviving FGM is
not enough, women who have undergone the operation are subjected to further violence when
they become exhibits in health care establishments in immigrant host countries or when they

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must endure health issues due to fear of being criminalised because they have undergone the
practice (Hernlund and Shell-Duncan, 2007). Painful, discouraging encounters of humilia-
tion are recalled by FGM survivors when some have been asked whether they have been in
traffic accidents, or suffered burns, or simply exhibited to assembled interns – often without
their permission. Certainly, physicians don’t deliberately hurt feelings; but their own hor-
ror when encountering the damage of FGM for the first time often results in unintended
additional pain.
The UN Convention for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)
and Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) (2014) acknowledge that although the
issue of harmful cultural practices, including FGM, was less known at the time of drafting of the
Conventions, provisions have been further developed and member states are obligated to recog-
nise that FGM and other harmful cultural practices should be addressed within a broader context
based on a comprehensive understanding of how the practices are linked to other cultural and
social norms and other practices (CEDAW/CRC, 2014). Consequently, it is critical that FGM
is addressed as a continuum of violence, powerlessness and lack of agency that a woman may
experience during her lifetime (CEDAW/CRC, 2014).

Responses to FGM
All countries across the globe are mandated to adopt some or all of the international or
regional treaties addressing FGM and to report to the respective treaty bodies. However,
not all countries have enacted laws prohibiting FGM. Of the 29 countries in Africa and
the Middle East with prevalence data, 24 had FGM restrictions and 33 countries in other
continents had made it illegal using varying approaches (UNICEF, 2013). For example, in
Mauritania, the ban applies to practice in government health facilities and by medical pro-
fessionals only, and restrictions in Tanzania, the United States and Canada apply specifically
to minors. In Burkina Faso, fines are levied on individuals who know about FGM incidents
and do not report, whilst in Kenya, like the UK, an extraterritorial clause extends restric-
tions outside its borders (UNICEF, 2013).
The implementation of restrictions is particularly ineffective in African countries with the
risk of undergoing FGM in some communities still extremely high, as shown above. This indi-
cates that although laws can challenge the traditional status quo by providing legitimacy to new
behaviours, they are ineffective if they are not accompanied by measures to influence cultural
traditions and expectations (Berer, 2015).

UK response
Like in many other Western nations, response to FGM in the UK was initiated by individuals
from the affected communities due to challenges with service provision. FORWARD, initiated
in 1981 by an African woman (Efua Dorkenoo), was instrumental to criminalising FGM and
lobbied for the UK’s first law against FGM in 1985 (the Prohibition of Female Circumcision
Act). Since then the government has made efforts to raise awareness of FGM and a recent
commitment through the Girl Generation – a global Africa-led initiative – aims to end FGM
in a generation (DFID, 2013). Due to the lack of robust data, England strengthened its FGM
legislation through the Serious Crime Act 2015. A range of measures are being implemented,
including: lifelong anonymity for survivors; legislation to enable prosecution of parents if they
failed to prevent their daughter being cut; FGM Prevention Orders; and a specialist FGM Unit
set up to identify and respond to FGM.

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Mandatory reporting by healthcare professionals, teachers and social care workers and the
police was introduced, but it remains unclear what would happen in the event a professional
failed to report (House of Commons Home Affairs Committee, 2016). As a result, the first
annual recording confirmed that FGM is performed in the UK: 43 girls born in the UK had had
FGM, of which 11 had taken place in the UK (House of Commons Home Affairs Committee,
2016). Lessons from countries like France which have used legal means heavily indicate that this
could contribute to underground practice, with the age for FGM being lowered to avoid detec-
tion, or victims of botched procedures may be left to bleed to death when parents, circumcisers
and community fear prosecution (Shell-Duncan and Hernlund, 2000, p. 33).

Scottish response
FGM is a relatively new phenomenon to Scotland. Whilst anti-FGM campaigns were initiated
in England in 1983, for example, initial campaigns in Scotland only started in 2007. This late
response is attributed to several factors, including the lack of visibility due to the secrecy around
the practice, but mainly, the rapid increase in the number of migrants in Scotland due to the
UK government’s asylum seekers dispersal scheme to Glasgow (O’Brien et al., 2016, p. 13).
Consequently, service providers had to develop a response to the awareness of the issue as
challenges emerged in service provision and as community based organisations intensified their
campaigns (ibid.). Campaigns led to a review of the 1985 FGM Prohibition Act (UK), which
was updated to the Female Genital Mutilation (Scotland) Act (2005), increased the penalty from
5 to 14 years and enacted extraterritorial powers to prosecute offenders both in Scotland and
abroad. In Scotland FGM is also described as serious child abuse and the Children and Young
People (Scotland) Act 2014 and the GIRFEC (Getting It Right for Every Child) policy are tools
for early intervention and prevention (Scottish Government, 2016).
The first Scottish report with prevalence data on FGM was produced in 2014 (Baillot et al.,
2014) and uses census statistics to predict risk; 23,979 people living in Scotland in 2011 were
from an FGM practising country and, between 2001 and 2012, 2,750 girls were born to moth-
ers from an FGM country (ibid.). Although this data might give an indication of the scale of the
problem, UNICEF warns that using census statistics to calculate prevalence and risk of FGM
is problematic for several reasons. First, as noted above regarding the occurrence of FGM, not
all communities or families from an FGM practising country necessarily practise FGM. Other
factors like prevalence of FGM in the country and ethnicity should be considered before
making estimates (UNICEF, 2013). Also, using country prevalence data overestimates the true
risk, particularly for girls from countries where there has been a decline and overlooks efforts
made by intervention campaigns (Johnsdotter, 2007). Furthermore, parents’ intention for their
daughters to undergo FGM diminishes rapidly in some immigrant communities (Shell-Duncan
and Hernlund, 2000).
Response to FGM in Scotland appears to lean heavily on training and awareness-raising
for service providers but affected communities are involved only in a tokenistic way. O’Brien
et al. note the frustration felt by communities, ‘they [communities] are asked to be part of
consultations, to respond to policy developments that have already been decided, but have not
been invited to be proactive or supported to be empowered and lead their own communities’
(2016, p. 14). The critical role communities can play in ending FGM in Scotland and beyond
is now acknowledged by the Scottish government, which highlights that FGM will continue to
be an issue in Scotland until the communities themselves choose to end the practice (Scottish
Government, 2016, p. 21). The government stresses that the views of communities affected
by FGM must shape and inform future policy and service provision (ibid.). However, the

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government does not clarify how this will be implemented and continued emphasis on legal
intervention clearly disregards the social and cultural factors associated with FGM. Scottish
policy makers’ inclusion of African voices in FGM consultations is meaningless when the result-
ant national action plan only placates international policy drivers and support for African-led
peer support groups is minimal.

Concluding thoughts: bringing practising communities ‘in’ – a Scottish

perspective
As discussed in this chapter, the long-standing debates on FGM are difficult to resolve and do
not stand still. This is articulated by Hernlund and Shell-Duncan (2007, p. 42):

Although these practices are referred to as ancient and entrenched, it is clear they are in a
flux and constantly being renegotiated . . . and research rigour and compassionate engage-
ment are not mutually exclusive. In the current world of paranoid discourses, about the clash
of civilisations, it is more important than ever to avoid sensualisation and exaggerated judge-
ments and remind ourselves that culture is something that all of us do and most of us are
confronted with multiple narratives from which we must determine the right thing to do.

That is how we got involved in FGM work. Through engagement with affected communi-
ties, we appreciate that excluding practising communities from decision-making processes has
developed an understanding of the practice that appears skewed by misinformation and ethno-
centrism. Furthermore, that punitive measures and ultimately prosecution appears increasingly
like a blunt tool being applied when the manifestation of systemic acts of inequality and violence
appears. As understanding grows, punishment can no longer be a favoured policy option in end-
ing FGM. Related to this, the increasing use of Female Genital Cosmetic Surgery (FGCS) and
Female Genital Piercing has raised concerns of racism, discrimination and cultural imperialism
(e.g. Njambi, 2004).
FGM is a relatively new area to Scottish policy analysis and likely to have a significant impact on
front-line interventions and policy development. Research should seek to understand the mecha-
nisms within policy development and implementation which result in African communities who
experience a broad range of harmful cultural practices feeling excluded from decision-making.
A more balanced analysis should be made of the factors that lead to the practice of harmful
cultural practices and the stereotypes that lead to views of African communities being disre-
garded. By acknowledging that although the choice to continue or eliminate FGM may mainly
lie in the hands of practising communities, any resolution of debated issues and development of
culturally sensitive interventions requires that the opinions of children, women, men, activists,
health and social care practitioners, scholars and policy makers are included.

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 16
Gender and trafficking of children
and young people into, within
and out of England
Patricia Hynes

Introduction
By the end of 2015, 65.3 million people were known to the United Nations High Commission
for Refugees (UNHCR) to have experienced forcible displacement as a result of persecution,
conflict, generalised violence or human rights violations (UNHCR, 2016). This figure included
internally displaced persons (IDPs) remaining in their countries of origin, refugees and asylum
seekers who had crossed borders to seek protection and stateless persons not considered nation-
als of any state in the world. Detailed demographic information is not available for the entirety
of these populations but it is estimated that around half are female with the proportion of chil-
dren, under the age of 18 years, estimated to be 51% (UNHCR, 2016). This figure includes the
more than one million people who crossed the Mediterranean Sea to European countries during
2015 to seek refuge, with thousands dying en route (Crawley et al., 2016). Numerous reports
from governmental and non-governmental organisations working with children have outlined
how children are subject to sexual exploitation,1 at risk of going missing2 from European refugee
camps and are experiencing an increased vulnerability to trafficking.3
There are now specific targets about trafficking and violence against children contained within
the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (Steven, 2014). Goal 5 relates to Gender
Equality and Target 5.2 is to: eliminate all forms of violence against all women and girls in public and
private spheres, including trafficking, and sexual and other types of exploitation. Goal 16 sets out to pro-
mote Just, Peaceful and Inclusive Societies and Target 16.2 is to: end abuse, exploitation, trafficking
and all forms of violence against and torture of children. To begin to achieve these in relation to traf-
ficking in the UK, better and richer understandings of the causes, methods of identification and
consequences of trafficking are necessary.
Over the past few decades, the global prevalence of trafficking has been fervently debated,
particularly around the lack of empirical evidence for statistics cited (Salt, 2000; Tyldum, 2010).
‘Trafficked persons’ are not demarcated in the global figure of 65.3 million in statistics from the
UNHCR – rather the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has been mandated
since 2010 to collect data and produce biennial reports on trafficking in persons of patterns and
flows at national, regional and international levels (UNODC, 2014: 6). Statistics are consequently
collected under the ‘security lens’ of the UNODC rather than through a ‘human rights lens’

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(Gozdziak and Collett, 2005) that could focus on protecting ‘potential victims of trafficking’
(PVoTs) and ‘victims of trafficking’ (VoTs).4 When citing statistics caution is required, although
statistics are often uncritically replicated in literature on trafficking.
The International Labour Office (ILO) has conservatively estimated that there are now
20.9 million people who are ‘victims’ of forced labour globally at any one time (in the period
2002–2011) (ILO, 2012). Global statistics for people who have experienced trafficking include
estimates from UNICEF about the number of children trafficked around the globe. A 2008
report estimated that 2.4 million people are trafficked annually across borders and that around
half – some 1.2 million – of all trafficked people are children (ILO, 2002).
Debates about trafficking of adults are polarised, divisive and have ‘conflicting agendas’
(Anderson, 2014: 255; Agustin, 2007; Doezema, 2010). The issue of sexual exploitation is par-
ticularly divisive within the feminist movement. On one side, feminists argue that ‘sex work’
should be legalised and a rights approach adopted (Andrijasevic, 2010; Doezema, 2010). On
the other, feminists argue prostitution is a symptom of partriarchy and that voluntary consent
is consequently not possible. Agustin (2007) argues that the label of ‘trafficking’ invokes a vic-
timising discourse and does not accurately describe those who do sex work. She also argues that
‘helpers’ and moral agendas surrounding ‘rescuing’ those involved denies agency and makes
those involved passive ‘victims’. Jobe (2008: 69) outlined how the sexual trafficking of adult
women in the UK has become a commonly told story in the UK asylum system, of: ‘over-
whelmingly . . . non-Western . . . women who have been tricked or duped into forced prostitu-
tion . . . invariably [involving] extreme forms of violence and control by predominantly male
trafficker(s)’. Skrobanek et al. (1997) argued that trafficking of women can only be understood if a
number of different perspectives are adopted – as migrant workers, sex workers and as women in
a male-dominated society. As such, this early account of trafficking in Thailand encompassed an
intersectional approach which looked beyond a single axis of social division, considering power
relations in their analysis (Hill Collins and Bilge, 2016; Skrobanek et al., 1997).
People who are forced to migrate include refugees and ‘asylum seekers’ who are fleeing per-
secution and those who are ‘trafficked’ for various forms of exploitation. As well as separate sta-
tistics, there are distinct legal frameworks, definitional differences, differing policy agendas and
separate literatures surrounding seeking asylum and trafficking. As Zetter (2007) suggests, such
contrasting definitions and separate legal arrangement are a source of bureaucratic ‘fractioning of
the [refugee] label’ (2007: 172–192), including the pejorative label of ‘trafficked migrant’ (2007:
184). This ‘fractioning’ of protection is reified in labels, categorisations and policy constructs.
Whilst the label ‘asylum seeker’ has now been made mainstream and institutionalised into pol-
icy and practice, ‘trafficking’ remains a highly contested term with definitional confusion and
various forms of exploitation suggested to constitute ‘trafficking’ (Agustin, 2007; Anderson and
O’Connell-Davidson, 2002; Gould, 2010; Palmary, 2010). The introduction in the UK of the
Modern Slavery Act5 to consolidate existing offences of human trafficking, slavery and all forms
of exploitation, has added the term ‘modern slavery’ into these debates. The distinction between
‘trafficking’ and ‘smuggling’ also becomes blurred in practice, with the two terms being used
interchangeably (Pearce et al., 2013). Within this contribution the most used international defi-
nition set out in the Palermo Protocol 20006 is used.
As Coy (2016) outlines, differentiating the exploitation of children from adult women in the
sex industry has long been considered a ‘false distinction’ given that significant proportions of
women were under the age of 18 when they began such involvement. Similarly, both child and
adult asylum seekers can become vulnerable to exploitation during processes of displacement,
a process that in the UK is heavily politicised and age-assessed (Crawley, 2007). For example,
Lewis et al. (2015) found adult woman with insecure socio-legal status in states of gendered

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‘hyper-precarity’ (2015: 157) where they were exploited, in situations of domestic or sexual
violence (2015: 151) and domestic servitude (2015: 156). The UK ‘hostile environment’ for
those seeking refuge from persecution means that adults and/or children find themselves posi-
tioned in contexts of being vulnerable to exploitation (Lewis et al., 2015: 8–11). For children,
or those transitioning from children’s to adult’s services, this is particularly problematic.
The UK is considered to be a destination, transit and source country for trafficking of children
of young people7 (ECPAT UK, 2015) and the focus of this contribution is on children who have
experienced trafficking, drawing on research into the trafficking of children into, within and out
of England.
Trafficking is a gendered phenomenon, from the ways in which recruitment occurs through
to the consequences within gendered laws and policy responses. Forms of exploitation are also
gendered, including for children in the UK. This contribution focuses on those who have
been identified as ‘trafficked’, viewing what is already known about trafficking of children in
the UK and available statistics of those referred to a National Referral Mechanism (NRM)8
for adults and children. Thereafter the gendered causes, constructions and consequences of
trafficking and ‘internal’ trafficking of children in England will be explored. This includes
children from beyond the borders of the UK and those defined as cases of ‘internal’ trafficking
as a consequence of various forms of exploitation, including child sexual exploitation (CSE),
within the UK.

Research design, methods and ethics in research on ‘trafficking’

of children
To explore how ‘trafficking’ of children and young people is understood and operationalised
across England, empirical material for this chapter is drawn from statistics provided by the
National Crime Agency (NCA) on referrals to the NRM and three research studies. A gendered
analysis was not an explicit aim of these studies but all three focused on aspects of the traffick-
ing of children into, within and out of the UK, including ‘internal’ trafficking. In each study,
interviews and focus groups were tape-recorded, fully transcribed and analysed using NVIVO
and, in Study 3, SPSS software.
The first study (Study 1) (Pearce et al., 2009) was a qualitative study conducted between
the University of Bedfordshire and the NSPCC on the trafficking of children into, within and
out of the UK (fieldwork conducted between 2007 and 2009). This study explored trafficking
of children and aimed to identify and develop agency responses to children and young people
brought into, moved within or out of the UK. A key aim was the focus on identifying good
child- and young person-centred practice and safeguarding from further abuse and exploita-
tion. Ethically informed research methods included the use of focus groups and semi-structured
interviews with 72 practitioners plus data extraction from 37 case files (f = 30; m = 4; unknown
gender = 3) from three different anonymised locations across England. A young person Advisory
Group provided input throughout and, ultimately, composite case studies were utilised in the
final report to ensure anonymity. The ultimate report was entitled Breaking the Wall of Silence:
Practitioners’ Responses to Trafficked Children and Young People.
The second study (Study 2) was a small-scale qualitative scoping study on knowledge held
within migrant and refugee ‘community’9 organisations (MRCOs) in relation to the trafficking
of children (fieldwork conducted between 2012 and 2013). This study aimed to explore knowl-
edge and understandings of the trafficking of children within the non-statutory sector, with
a particular focus on migrant and refugee ‘community’ organisations based in London. This
involved in-depth qualitative interviews with ten anonymised representatives of the voluntary

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sector across London, plus an examination of existing literature from three further organisations
involved in raising awareness of trafficking and child protection within ‘communities’.
The third study (Study 3) (Kohli et al., 2015) was an evaluation conducted on behalf of the
UK Home Office on a trial of Independent Child Trafficking Advocates (ICTAs) in 23 local
authorities across England (fieldwork conducted in a 12-month period between September
2014 and August 2015). The 12-month trial service was run by Barnardo’s and the evaluation
of this trial was carried out by a team from the University of Bedfordshire. This evaluation
looked at how the trial of an advocacy scheme was implemented, how the role of advocates
worked in practice and the impact of the advocacy scheme for trafficked children. Following
ethical approval from 22 local authorities, Barnardo’s, the University of Bedfordshire and the
Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS) data-sharing agreements were signed to
enable the study. A mixed methodology was utilised involving an alternate allocation process as
a basis for comparing children supported by advocates relative to existing child protection provi-
sions. One-hundred-and-fifty-eight children (f = 79; m = 78; unborn child = 1) were allocated to
an ‘advocacy’ or ‘comparator’ group and core demographic information collected. Thirty chil-
dren were interviewed (21 in the ‘advocacy’ group and 9 in the ‘comparator’ group). Interviews
also took place with independent advocates (n = 6), external stakeholders (n = 18) plus focus
groups with operational and strategic managers (n = 9). Two online surveys were completed at
different time intervals (survey 1 = 26 respondents; survey 2 = 90 respondents). One-hundred-
and-forty-one case files were examined for basic characteristics, formal networks of care and
frequency of contact with allocated professionals.

What is known about trafficking of children in the UK

In 1995, the subject of ‘child trafficking’ first came to the attention of social workers in West
Sussex when a child went missing from local authorities care for, it was suspected, CSE (ECPAT
UK, 2007). Thereafter scoping studies drew out further cases of children being trafficked ini-
tially to Europe for the purposes of CSE and then arriving in the UK (ECPAT UK, 2001) as
well as for labour exploitation in and around London (ECPAT UK, 2004). From these early
reports, the numbers of known cases of sexual exploitation of children have grown, replicating
other contexts wherein trafficking of children has been seen through a sexualised and gendered
lens, with predominant interest in girls and young women trafficked for sexual exploitation
(Doezema, 2010).
This early focus on sexual exploitation meant that other forms of exploitation such as forced
labour or domestic servitude and the overlaps between different forms of ‘trafficking’ emerged
later. When discussing children in the UK, there is growing recognition of different forms traf-
ficking can take, including sexual exploitation, forced labour and domestic servitude. Lesser
known forms of enforced criminality also invoke the language of trafficking, or modern slavery,
to explain crimes such as cannabis cultivation or begging.
In the UK, much of the academic literature also relates to either those seeking asylum (Bloch
and Schuster, 2005; Lewis et al., 2013; Zetter, 2007) or those trafficked (Anderson, 2012, 2014;
Bokhari, 2008; Craig, 2010; ECPAT UK, 2012; Hynes, 2011, 2015; Kelly and Bokhari, 2012;
Skrivankova, 2010). Anti-trafficking efforts run parallel to a broader immigration and asylum
agenda that has seen an increasing tightening of policy and legislation since the mid-1990s (Bloch
and Schuster, 2005; Bloch and Solomos, 2010; Hynes, 2009; Lewis et al., 2013). Since this time,
the portrayal of asylum seekers as ‘bogus’ or ‘genuine’ claimants has entered public conscious-
ness leading to narratives of ‘undeserving’ and ‘deserving’ refugees (Sales, 2002). Consequently,
an appreciation of the more structural ‘harms’ of state asylum and immigration policy whereby

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further exploitation can occur and vulnerabilities be exacerbated, is essential for an understanding
of anti-trafficking efforts (Anderson, 2012; O’Connell Davidson, 2013).
Children arriving into the UK are assigned policy labels of ‘unaccompanied minors’, ‘asylum
seeking children’ or ‘potential victims of trafficking’ (PVoT). However, there is overlap between
these labels, with the realities of children’s lives potentially applicable across differing categorisa-
tions. Children or young people may have a claim to asylum on the basis of having been ‘traf-
ficked’ or have ‘trafficking’ circumstances revealed during an asylum application. Valid claims for
refugee status based on persecution and/or fear of torture and ill-treatment for ‘victims’ of traffick-
ing are aspects of this overlap (OSCE, 2013) in line with Target 5.2 of the SDGs. More broadly,
children living without documentation – sometimes referred to as being ‘undocumented’ – have
been found to be in positions of extreme vulnerability to exploitation but may not be in a position
to claim asylum (Sigona and Hughes, 2012).
Human trafficking and forced labour are both said to be modern forms of slavery which some-
times overlap, but are not identical (Craig, 2014; Skrivankova, 2014). Craig’s 2014 review of the
contribution of research in understanding ‘modern slavery’ in the UK provides an overview of
‘grey’ literature from a consortium of NGOs – the Anti-Trafficking Monitoring Group (ATMG).
Each of these reports – Wrong Kind of Victim?, All Change and Hidden in Plain Sight – progressively
document areas for improvement in prevention, identification and protection. Research funded
by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) has resulted in a collection of independent studies on
the nature, scale and scope of forced labour relating to adults, including the work of Dwyer et al.
(2011), Geddes et al. (2013) and Skrivankova (2010).
In the UK, statistics are recorded separately for people seeking asylum and those who have
experienced trafficking and there are considerably more people included in asylum statistics
than within trafficking statistics. In 2014, there were 31,300 applications for asylum in the UK
(UNHCR, 2015) and 4,01510 final non-EU applicants were granted refugee or another form
of humanitarian status. In the same year, 2,340 (NRM, 2015) potential cases of trafficking were
referred to the NRM. Of these, 1,669 were adults and 671 ‘minors’11 with forms of exploitation
for adults divided into ‘sexual exploitation’, ‘domestic servitude’, labour exploitation’, ‘organ
harvesting’ and ‘unknown exploitation’. Statistics for asylum are produced by the UK Home
Office who oversee refugee status determination in the UK. Statistics on trafficking are collected
by the NCA and, akin to global statistics, under a crime prevention and prosecution agenda
that offers little to support or protect ‘victims’. Both nationally and internationally, recording of
statistics by different agencies reifies perceived differences between these populations and denies
intersectional factors such as gender and age to be fully evaluated.
During 2015, available statistics of referrals to the NRM identified 3,266 ‘potential victims’
of trafficking during 2015. Of these, 982 (30%) were children – 17 years or under – at the time
of exploitation and referred to the NRM. ‘Labour exploitation’ accounted for 288 children,
mainly from Vietnam and Albania, and ‘sexual exploitation’ of 217 children, of which 105 were
UK-born. Domestic servitude had been identified 69 times, three cases of ‘organ harvesting’
and, worryingly, 405 (41%) cases identified were for a category called ‘unknown exploitation’.
Vietnam (248 minors), Albania (206 minors) and the UK (127 minors) together accounted for
581 of the total number of children identified in 2015.
By the 2016 year end summary, 1,278 children had been referred to the NRM. Of these,
the most prominent exploitation type for those ‘first exploited as a minor’ was again ‘labour
exploitation’, including ‘criminal exploitation’ (NRM, 2017). The forms of exploitation found
in cases involving children who are referred to the NRM can be seen in Figure 16.1.
Figure 16.1 illustrates children identified as trafficked and referred to the NRM during
2016 plus the way forms of trafficking – and ‘internal’ trafficking of UK born children – are

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500

375

250

125

0
Domestic Labour Sexual Sexual Unknown
serviture exploitation exploitation exploitation (UK) exploitation
(non-UK) type

Female Male Unknown Total

Figure 16.1 NRM referrals 2016: minors by gender and exploitation category
Source: NRM, 2017.

constructed and gendered. ‘Domestic servitude’ relates to 67 female and 36 male children.
‘Labour exploitation’ was identified for a greater number of male children – 400 male and
68 female children referred. The ‘unknown exploitation’ type relates to 80 females and
265 males.
In 2016, of the 1,278 ‘minors’ identified approximately 40% were female and 60% were male,
challenging earlier gendered assumptions of trafficking being about females trafficked for sexual
exploitation. As can be seen in Figure 16.2, the number of male referrals of children overtook
female referrals in 2015, and again in 2016, perhaps reflecting improvements in identification
of boys and young men. Strict divisions between females as ‘victims’ and males as ‘perpetrators’
are not therefore reflected in these figures. A sub-category of ‘criminal exploitation’ included
‘cannabis cultivation’, something which has attracted considerable media attention in the UK12

800

600

400

200

0
2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

Male children Female children

Figure 16.2 NRM referrals 2012–2016: minors by gender

Source: NRM, 2012–2017.

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and ongoing suggestions that protection for these children needs to be based on child protection
principles rather than criminal justice routes.

Categorisations of international and ‘internal’ trafficking for ‘sexual exploitation’

It is not unusual for studies of migration to be split into two bodies of work – one primarily con-
cerned with mobility between countries and the other within countries (King et al., 2008). In the
UK, non-governmental organisations have noted how CSE and trafficking have been treated as
‘distinct phenomena in UK policy and practice’ (ECPAT UK, 2015: 3). As shown in Figure 16.1,
referrals for sexual exploitation have been sub-divided into ‘sexual exploitation (non-UK)’ and
‘sexual exploitation (UK)’. In 2016, there were 118 female and 29 male cases of ‘sexual exploitation
(non-UK)’ (total = 147) and 203 female and 12 male cases of ‘sexual exploitation (UK)’ (total = 215).
Cases referred to the NRM involving sexual exploitation continue to be distinguished in
this way and more ‘internal’ than international cases were referred during 2016. The numbers
of female referrals for this form of exploitation outweighs the number of male referrals in both
UK and non-UK cases, potentially as a result of the under-reporting of boys and/or legacy of a
focus on females. This may also be a consequence of the preoccupation with sexual exploitation,
and greater visibility, surrounding girls and young women.
In the three research studies drawn upon for this contribution it was found that there is little
conceptual clarity between cases of ‘internal’ trafficking – referred to within these statistics as
‘sexual exploitation (UK)’ – and broader policy agendas surrounding CSE. There is also little con-
ceptual clarity about overlaps between exploitation and forms of trafficking that do not involve
movement. However, these UK cases of sexual exploitation do sit within ongoing debates about
CSE. Brayley and Cockbain (2014) have argued that UK-born children are trafficked specifically
for sex within the UK and call for a definition of ‘internal child sex trafficking’ to assist practition-
ers define issues of ‘movement’, ‘transportation’ and patterns of abuse. Their resulting definition
is: ‘A repeated process involving two or more adults in which a child is recruited and transferred
to a location in order to be sexually exploited’ (Brayley and Cockbain, 2014: 182). Whilst 215
referrals during 2016 do not appear to warrant a distinct definition, it is of note that NRM
statistics do not include all children identified for CSE. Kohli et al. (2015: 40) found that local
authorities were not referring all cases of CSE to the NRM, in part for fear of overwhelming the
system and due to historically separate provision established specifically for CSE in many areas.
There have been a number of high profile inquiry findings and reports in the UK which
highlight the issue of CSE and services for CSE have subsequently increased (Coy, 2016). For
example, the Jay (2014) Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham
found some 1,400 children13 were subjected to CSE between 1997 and 2013, including those
who were ‘trafficked to other towns and cities in the north of England’ (Jay, 2014: 35). It con-
tained several quotes relating to trafficking:

‘Child B loved this man and believed he loved her. He trafficked her to Leeds, Bradford
and Sheffield and offered to provide her with a flat in one of those cities.’
( Jay, 2014: 38)

Time and again we read in the files and other documents of children being violently
raped, beaten, forced to perform sex acts in taxis and cars when they were being trafficked
between towns, and serially abused by large numbers of men.
( Jay, 2014: 49)

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The use of the terms CSE and trafficking have been used interchangeably within this and other
Inquiries. Also, there have been increasing levels of disclosure of CSE in cities across the UK,
such as Rotherham, Manchester and Oxford. A controversial front page exposé in The Times in
January 2011 by the journalist Andrew Norfolk suggested an ‘Asian sex gang’ problem in the
UK (Cockbain, 2013). The media article outlined how, with the knowledge of child protection
experts for more a decade, a repeated pattern of sex offending involving groups of older men
who ‘groom and abuse vulnerable girls aged 11 to 16 after befriending them on the street’ was
occurring where offenders were of a particular Asian heritage and victims were white. It was
reported by Norfolk that this constituted a particular ‘pattern’ or ‘model’ of CSE.
Cockbain (2013) argued that such ‘on-street grooming’ has been constructed as a ‘new racial
crime threat’ (2013: 22–32). Further anti-racist responses by a range of feminists (Dhaliwal,
forthcoming) examine this ‘othering’ and bring into question the long established notion of
white, female purity in trafficking debates. Authors such as Doezema (2000), Gozdziak and
Collett (2005) and Gould (2010) have suggested these notions hark back to the ‘white slave
trade’ and 1921 League of Nations change of terminology from ‘white slavery’ to the ‘traffic
of women and children’, reportedly to avoid discrimination and not allow any ‘victim’ to be
neglected on the basis of their ethnicity. Doezema (1998) writes about how the trafficking of
women and children was born out of these early ‘social purity movements’ in which public
perceptions were of: ‘white adolescent girls who were drugged and abducted by sinister immi-
grant procurers, waking up to find themselves captive in some infernal foreign brothel, where
they were subject to the pornographic whims of sadistic, non-white pimps and brothel masters’
(Doezema, 1998: 36).
Further analysis of the events described by Norfolk have been described as similar to the
‘moral panic’ (Cohen, 2011) around ‘mugging’ in the 1970s (Cockbain, 2013: 25). Some
authors have suggested that trafficking of children is a ‘moral panic’ that draws attention away
from ‘more difficult issues confronting social work’ (Cree et al., 2014). Others consider what
we know about trafficking of children to be the ‘tip of the iceberg’ given its hidden nature that,
once future awareness raising has been more successful, will retrospectively be recognised as
a significant public issue in child protection. As Stanley Cohen, author of the seminal text on
‘moral panics’ outlines in his introduction: ‘A series of stories over the last twenty years about
serious abuse in children’s homes . . . revealed not panic or even anxiety, but a chilling denial’
(2011: xvi). If cases of CSE – including those not referred to the NRM – were to be classed as
‘internal’ trafficking, the increasing disclosures of CSE in Rotherham, Manchester, Oxford and
other cities across the UK suggest that NRM referral numbers would increase.

Gendered causes of trafficking

If Targets 5.2 and 16.2 are to be achieved, fuller and more informed understandings of why traf-
ficking occurs in the first instance are required. More nuanced, richer and evidence-informed
accounts could help dispel dominant narratives around gender, nationality and other social
divisions, that perpetuate under-reporting and/or visibility around particular forms of traffick-
ing and gender constructs. Participants in Study 1 sometimes made very general statements and
assumptions illustrate why more informed narratives are needed:

I’ve not dealt with anything from Africa at all but I get the impression that with African girls
from some states there’s much more of a tradition of selling them off as slaves effectively.
(Study 1, interview with social care practitioner)

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Patricia Hynes

I mean, one hears tales that the Chinese are linked to it more than anyone else, and brothels
where you’ve girls who are literally chained in the basement to a radiator. I’ve certainly not
seen anything of that nature with Eastern European girls which we’ve had.
(Study 1, interview with social care practitioner)

It was also found in Study 1 that trafficking was often described by practitioners as a one-off
and sometimes nationally bounded event in the life of a child rather than being a process occur-
ring over the longer term (Pearce et al., 2009; Hynes 2010, 2011). Case files revealed how the
trafficking process could begin in one country and continue through other countries, mean-
ing young people were made vulnerable to trafficking throughout their lifespan. In analysing
these case files, there was often no clear, easily identifiable beginning, middle or end to their
experiences of abuse and/or exploitation. Similarly, there was no easily identifiable ‘event’
where exploitation began or ended. Exploitation could be hidden in the day-to-day activities
of children and, crucially, abuses and/or exploitation could occur over a long period of time.
Assumptions around social norms in countries beyond the UK were related to actions of traf-
ficking and traffickers:

if you think about it, if you lived in Africa . . . the societal norm is to have a house
girl . . . She might be 13 or 14 but she will do the housekeeping, the cleaning and such
like. So if you then go to live in England, your norm is to have a house girls. So, culturally,
I think there’s a . . . ‘well, that’s normal’, if you’re from that cultural background.
(Study 1, interview with social care practitioner)

In Study 2, explanations tended to focus on structural inequalities and structural factors such
as patriarchy rather than a focus on individual ‘vulnerabilities’. Gender considerations spanned
country of origin and experiences within the UK and, as one representative suggested, there
was an inherent relationship between structural and contextual factors in countries of origin and
the process of trafficking:

until women’s roles in these societies change . . . [and] . . . the overt sexualisation of women
[changes] walking down the street makes you realise just how disposable women are . . . we’ve
been really shocked at the way women are portrayed . . . women have very low standing.
(Study 2, interview with representative of MRCO)

Others commented on existing gendered social norms they felt created ‘vulnerability’ to traf-
ficking and which also highlighted contextual and structural harms:

You’re working with an issue that’s so engrained in society . . . this exploitation conversa-
tion about changing societal norms around the roles of women and young girls.
(Study 2, interview with representative of MRCO)

then, this culture where it’s kind of normal for girls to be abused, for violence in the home
to take place for, um, women to be very, very sexualised . . . so women as objects, it’s very,
very normal in society.
(Study 2, interview with representative of MRCO)

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Young women intending to help their families within countries of origin was also relayed and
related to ‘honour’ and ‘purity’ (Douglas, 1996):

the girl is thinking, I need to help my family. That’s honour isn’t it, because you’re going
abroad, you’re going to help the family, you are going to make us proud . . . lots of these
girls don’t want to go back to their communities because they’re afraid of losing their hon-
our, have lost their honour . . . often they go back as victims of trafficking but the com-
munity does not want to know because they’re unclean.
(Study 2, interview with representative of MRCO)

Gendered consequences of trafficking

Gendered categorisation and identification of trafficking

As found in Study 1, trafficking is a process. As such, the identification of trafficking was also
found to be a process and, rather than reliance on one-off disclosures, practitioners described
how they built a fuller picture over months, sometimes years, to identify trafficking. The process
of identifying a child or young person as having been ‘trafficked’ is complex and occurs within
the child protection system in the UK. Cases of trafficking often incorporated overlapping
forms of abuse with physical and emotional abuse, neglect and sexual abuse being outlined in
case files. Practitioners commented on how boys and young men were potentially as vulnerable
to trafficking but that dominant narratives around more visible cases of girls and young women
potentially hampered identification efforts:

I think people do tend to focus on girls for the simple fact that people know more about
girls. . . . obviously it doesn’t exclude boys at all and I think it means that people really have
to try harder to try and look at the exploitation of boys.
(Study 1, interview with social care practitioner)

This research, completed in 2009, found practitioners predominantly focusing on trafficking for
sexual exploitation, usually of girls rather than boys, making sexual exploitation of females more
visible and sensitivity to identification of this form of trafficking greater. One composite case
study drawn from case files compiled within the report for Study 1 described how ‘Thomas’, a
16-year-old British boy, would go missing regularly and have overseas travel arranged for him
with suspicions of sexual exploitation overseas. Trafficking out of the UK for these purposes
was a less visible form of exploitation, potentially more so as this related to cases of young men.
It is noteworthy that by 2016, NRM statistics reveal more males than females being referred to
the NRM.
In Study 2 non-statutory organisations’ roles and understandings of trafficking were explored
as these organisations have no formal role in the NRM. It was found that like practition-
ers in statutory agencies, representatives of MRCOs had variable understandings of trafficking
with some MRCOs already working on the issue of trafficking, particularly around domestic
servitude, problems inherent in informal fostering arrangements and child abuse linked to faith,
belief systems, witchcraft and spirit possession. Other MRCOs were unaware of trafficking
and/or denied the existing of exploitation within their own communities. A key finding was
that there is considerable room for further understanding and a greater focus on the nuances,

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subtleties and complexities involved. Linkages between seeking asylum from persecution and
trafficking was also evident – as one respondent outlined in describing their own experience of
seeing trafficking first-hand:

I have seen a young girl . . . but the company who brought her in. First she was an unaccom-
panied minor, but eventually she developed to be 18, 19, a very beautiful girl. But she didn’t
have the contacts here, parents and etc. we don’t know the truth. . . . So the agency, or the
representative of the agency who brought her in, this time demanded sex from her. Selling her
and etc. This is how she pay the money back – £6,000 she had to pay back. And how many
sex you have to sell yourself to pay off £6,000? So that was an example I have witnessed.
(Study 2, interview with representative of MRCO)

The transition and precariousness of becoming adult in the UK asylum system exacerbates
vulnerability. In this case, being able to repay a debt owed to the ‘agency’ or ‘company’ who
brought her in led directly to exploitation:

It is an agency, we call them ‘chetta’, who are human transporters – they can exploit anything
that they can. If you are a beautiful woman, they could exploit your body. If you are maybe
a person that got land or money back home, they could exploit that. Or they might push you
into drugs business. They might push you into extorting money because that is what we are
experiencing in the community.
(Study 2, interview with representative of MRCO)

From both Study 1 and 2 it was clear that stories and accounts of trafficking remain untold in the
UK child protection context, particularly in Study 2 around contextual factors that cause traf-
ficking/exploitation. A key suggestion from these studies was that better knowledge of causes
and richer accounts of experiences were needed. In Study 2, it was also found that identification
of trafficking could be enhanced if a broader range of agencies had roles in the process, particu-
larly those working within community engagements frameworks in positions to form crucial
relationships of trust with children.

Missing children and gender

On arrival into the UK, children go missing whilst within the child protection system. The
issue of children going missing and the link to trafficking has been outlined in ‘grey’ literature
(ECPAT UK, 2007; Pearce et al., 2009), academic literature (Bokhari, 2008; Kelly and Bokhari,
2012; Pearce et al., 2013) and government reports where children were found to ‘go missing’
or ‘abscond’ within the first 48 hours of arrival into the UK when placed in temporary accom-
modation and remain missing thereafter (CEOP, 2007, 2009).
Children going ‘missing’ is a complex area and is under-researched. Recent Europol estimates
of 10,000 refugee children disappearing and feared to have ‘fallen into the hands of organised
trafficking syndicates’14 after arriving in Europe during the refugee ‘crisis’ have been questioned
by Sigona and Allsopp.15 They point to the inadequacy of policies within the EU that cater for
the specific needs of child migrants, the need for young adults to fulfil family obligations around
repayment of debts, the pull of social networks in EU countries and the lack of family reunifica-
tion processes to explain why children circumvent official and slow asylum processes.
In Study 3, of the 159 children in the trial, 72 children had at least one episode of going
missing. At the end of the 12-month evaluation, 27 children remained missing, 7 of whom had

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gone missing within the first few hours of arriving into the UK. Of these 27 children, 23 were
Vietnamese nationals – 4 young women and 19 young men. This suggests that identification and
subsequent protection of young males remains inadequate.

Conclusions and policy implications

Globally and nationally in the UK, statistics for people seeking asylum or experiencing trafficking
are maintained separately, although these populations overlap in practice. Separate definitions
and literatures reify labels assigned and, in the UK at least, the legacy of trafficking discourses
may mean that some children are not being identified or supported adequately as a consequence
of their gender. From the 2016 NRM statistics outlined above, girls have tended to be identi-
fied in greater numbers than males for ‘domestic servitude’ and ‘sexual exploitation’ and boys
are identified predominantly for ‘labour exploitation’ and ‘unknown exploitation’. Whether the
identification of children for particular forms of exploitation reflect dominant narratives around
trafficking, represent a ‘moral panic’ (Cohen, 2011) or only reach the ‘tips of the iceberg’ requires
further investigation. Gendered perspectives of ‘victims’ being female and ‘perpetrators’ of traf-
ficking being male are unhelpful and miss the complexities of trafficking and/or exploitation.
What is clear, however, is that these discourses create the danger of reduced identification
of boys and young men, as well as other forms of exploitation across genders. Further research
on the trafficking of boys and young men is warranted, as is research on children who may
have been trafficked out of the UK as at present only anecdotal accounts exist. Awareness and
identification of trafficking is at best patchy, with exceptions for practitioners working in and
around port areas who have experienced trafficking over time. There is also a complete lack of
literature concentrating on children and forced labour in the UK.
Across all of the studies it was found that a much greater awareness of the indicators of traf-
ficking was necessary and that richer understandings of trafficking, which include the ways males
and females are recruited, would enhance identification and protection of children. Training
and continuing professional development are consequently important, including the inclusion
of trafficking with the curriculum of trainee social workers, police officers, youth workers,
health professionals, teachers and other service providers. National and international provision
of data providing breakdowns along axes of social division such as gender, age and other inter-
secting classifications would allow heterogeneity and complexities of trafficking to be more fully
analysed and understood. This also holds the potential to break down dominant discourses that
create risks of non-identification of children as ‘trafficked’, including those with multiple forms
of exploitation. Interdisciplinary research across social policy, migration studies, violence against
women and girls (VAWG), violence against children (VAC) and current conceptualisations of
‘children on the move’ would also provide useful insights.
There is also a clear need for further research into why and how children go missing from
service provision and why particular nationalities are more prone to this than others. Overall,
more research into the richer stories and nuances of the trafficking and exploitation of children
is needed, as is a greater understanding of the interface between asylum and trafficking cases.

Notes
1 ‘Neither safe nor sound’: Sexual exploitation, trafficking and abuse engulfing the lives of children in the
camps of Calais and Dunkirk: www.unicef.org/media/media_91576.html.
2 10,000 refugee children are missing, says Europol: www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/30/fears-
for-missing-child-refugees.

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3 See for examples, EC Compilation of Children in Migration data: http://ec.europa.eu/justice/funda

mental-rights/files/rights_child/data_children_in_migration.pdf.
4 PVoTs and VoTs are acronyms used by the UK National Crime Agency.
5 Came into force on 31 July 2015.
6 The ‘Palermo Protocol’ refers to the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons
Especially Women and Children as a supplement of the Convention Against Transnational Organized
Crime. This legal definition provided the first internationally agreed definition of human trafficking
and in Article 3 defines ‘trafficking’ as: ‘“Trafficking in persons” shall mean the recruitment, transporta-
tion, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of
coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability
or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control
over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.’ The Palermo Protocol was signed by the United
Kingdom in December 2000, coming into force in February 2003, with the definition of trafficking
reflected in UK legislation. The United Kingdom also ratified the Council of Europe Convention on
Action against Trafficking, which became operational in April 2009.
7 Hereafter referred to as ‘children’ if under 18 years old.
8 The NRM was introduced in 2009, designed in part to help identify VoTs.
9 It is acknowledged that the term ‘community’ is ambiguous and contested. The notion of ‘community’
is complex and full elaboration is beyond the scope of this chapter. See Bertotti et al. (n.d.) for a review
of conceptualisations of the term.
10 Eurostat (online data code: migr_asydcfina).
11 Seventeen or under at the time of first claimed exploitation.
12 Vietnamese children forced into slave labour in UK’s clandestine cannabis plantations, viewed on
24 May 2016 at: hwww.scmp.com/news/world/article/1724406/vietnamese-child-slaves-labour-uks-
clandestine-cannabis-plantations.
13 Gender split not specified but reported as more females than males with a subsequent concern of under-
reporting of exploitation of young men.
14 See note 2.
15 Mind the gap: Why are unaccompanied children disappearing in their thousands? www.opendemoc
racy.net/5050/nando-sigona-and-jennifer-allsopp/mind-gap-why-are-unaccompanied-children-disap
pearing-in-thous.

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 17
Prostitution and violence
Natasha Mulvihill

Introduction and definitions

This chapter considers how the relationship between prostitution and violence has been theo-
rised and how the prevailing fault lines within the research on the normative status of prostitution
are reflected in identifying the causes of, and responses to, violence. The academic literature on
prostitution has been dominated by two often conflicting perspectives. First, that prostitution is
violence against women (Jeffreys, 1997, 2009; Barry, 1995) and is rooted in patriarchal relations.
Second, that prostitution is work (Campbell and O’Neill, 2006; Delacoste and Alexander, 1998;
Kempadoo and Doezema, 1998), for which women and men should be afforded labour rights
and legal protections. In reviewing the research on prostitution and violence, the strengths and
limitations of each framework are considered, as well as briefly introducing ‘symbolic violence’
(Bourdieu, 1990; Coy et al., 2011) as an alternative resource that moves between and beyond
this dichotomy.
For the purpose of this chapter, prostitution is identified as encounters where an individual
pays another individual (in financial or other terms) to secure ‘some form of sexual/bodily
contact . . . most commonly penetrative sex’ (Kelly et al., 2009, 7) and draws mainly on research
conducted within the UK. For context, although it is legal to buy and sell sex in England and
Wales, a number of restrictions exist in relation to buying and selling sex in a public place; to
keeping a brothel; to causing, inciting and controlling prostitution for gain; and to advertising
prostitution (Sections 1, 33–36, Street Offences Act 1956; Sections 51A, 52–53, Sexual Offences
Act 2003; Section 46, Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001). There are also offences in relation
to trafficking for sexual exploitation; to paying for sex with someone who is exploited; and to
the exploitation of children in prostitution (Sections 47–51; 53A; 57–59 of the Sexual Offences
Act 2003). The situation in Scotland is similar: here, there have been four failed attempts since
2010 to introduce a law criminalising buyers and in 2015, a member of the Scottish Parliament
lodged a proposal to decriminalise prostitution along the lines of the New Zealand model. The
legal context for prostitution is important because it is cited variously within the literature as a
cause and a remedy to the violence experienced by those working in prostitution.
Finally, a note on language. The terms ‘sex buyers’, ‘sellers’, ‘sex workers’, ‘those working in
prostitution’ and so on tend, first, to understate the gendered nature of prostitution and, second,

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to position each actor as engaging freely in a market exchange (Niemi, 2010). Prostitution is a
practice which is patterned by gender: the vast majority of sex buyers are men who pay for sex
predominantly with women, but also with other men and children (see for example, British
National Surveys of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles, 20131). The discussion here will reflect
this, focusing on women’s experience of violence, unless otherwise stated. Some working in
prostitution claim to exercise choice. For others, the experience is characterised by unequal
power relations and limited agency, and at worst coercion and exploitation. For this reason,
some writers problematise the notion of sex workers and instead use a passive voice in referring
to women in prostitution (‘women sold in prostitution’ or ‘prostituted women’ (Jeffreys, 2009),
for example), while others find such language infantilising and disempowering. Where the terms
‘buyers’ and ‘sellers’ are used in this chapter, readers should be mindful of these debates around
inequality and agency.

Prostitution and violence

The literature on violence and prostitution in many ways reflects the wider story of academic
research and policy in this area. The historic focus of policy in England and Wales up until the
early 2000s was on managing women and managing ‘visible’ prostitution, on-street in particular.
Reflecting this, Church et al. (2001) claim that violence against prostitutes was little researched
because concern was for women as vectors of disease to clients and others: neglecting, of course,
that clients could equally be considered ‘vectors’! Many of the academic studies in this period
review the experience of street-working women (early work by Teela Sanders (2004a, 2004b)
is a notable exception) and as late as 2004, the Home Office Consultation ‘Paying the Price’
devotes only one chapter of a review of prostitution policy to activity off-street (Home Office
Communication Directorate, 2004). It is likely that the vulnerability (for some, victimhood),
visibility and therefore accessibility of these women to researchers offer part of the reason: street
workers are often problematic drug and alcohol users, with chaotic personal histories (Jeal and
Salisbury, 2004). It illustrates too the way in which silences within academic research may be
mirrored within policy, and vice versa (see Harrington, 2012).
From the turn of the century, however, vulnerability was identified in a new guise: the
trafficking of women and children across external and internal borders for the purpose of
sexual exploitation. A number of international agreements and conventions, including the
United Nations Protocol (2000) to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons and
the European Union Council Framework Decision (2002) on combating trafficking in human
beings, required signatories to address this ‘new’ form of exploitation. In particular, measures
were advocated to address ‘demand’, bringing sex buyers firmly into the spotlight and extending
scrutiny of consent and exploitation to the off-street trade.
Examining the relationship between prostitution and violence is hampered by lack of data.
As an illicit activity, it is difficult to know the numbers involved in prostitution overall and
therefore the representativeness of the studies on violence. The 2004 Home Office consulta-
tion cites 80,000 sex workers in the UK, which is in turn a finding from research by Kinnell
in 1999 (extrapolating from a survey of 16 sex work projects), who herself expressed concern
about the continued use of this work by government (BBC News, 2009). Work by Cusick
and colleagues (2009) explores the difficulties involved in estimating the sex worker popula-
tion and concludes that Kinnell’s figure is reasonable and could be slightly higher. Recent
research by Smith and Kingston (2015) identifies 27,408 members of an (undisclosed) UK
website for escorts advertising their services, revealing the potential scale and diversity of this
particular sector.

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The measurement of ‘violence’ is also contested. First, given the insecure legal status of those
working in prostitution, violence is likely to be significantly under-reported. Second, the way
in which violent crimes and the circumstances of the complainant and the accused are recorded
(or not recorded) under police counting rules makes it difficult to look at aggregate data on the
nature and scale of violence in relation to prostitution. Third, there is the question of what con-
stitutes violence. Brooks-Gordon (2006) asks, for example, if the situation where a client steals
back the money from a seller constitutes rape or robbery. Fourth, we might consider whether
violence has to be physical: in policy and practice, the term ‘domestic violence’ has in the UK
given way to the more expansive term ‘domestic abuse’ to recognise the breadth of emotional,
psychological, financial, health and physical harm that can occur. This shift is reflected in the
criminalisation of coercive or controlling behaviour under Section 76 of the Serious Crime Act
2015. Finally, we could consider whether cultural representations of women in prostitution rep-
resent a symbolic violence and what relationship, if any, this has with material violence. Before
exploring the theoretical frameworks, I want to review some of the existing evidence on types
of violence within prostitution, the perpetrators and context.

Types of violence, perpetrators and context

Much of the literature focuses on physical and sexual violence experienced by women in prosti-
tution. In a study on Merseyside, Campbell (2002) found that of 70 street sex workers surveyed,
54% had been physically assaulted, 43% had been sexually assaulted, 36% had been raped and
43% had been threatened with a weapon. Hester and Westmarland (2004) found that 74% of
street workers had experienced physical violence and over half of those asked reported fearing for
their life on at least one occasion (52%, 68/132). Violence may be perpetrated by clients or men
pretending to be clients, by muggers, pimps, vigilantes and other community members as well
as other women (Kinnell, 2008; Dalla, 2002; Hubbard and Sanders, 2003; Pitcher et al., 2006;
Arnold et al., 2001).
A number of authors distinguish the levels of violence between indoor and on-street pros-
titution, which is attributed to high levels of substance misuse and chaotic living among street
workers. In their interview survey of 71 street working women in Bristol, Jeal and Salisbury
(2004) find that 73% had experienced violence (including rape and assault with a weapon). Half
had entered prostitution to support a drug habit and two-thirds were homeless or under threat
of homelessness (Jeal and Salisbury, 2004). Research into off-street venues suggests less, though
still significant, levels of violence (Church et al., 2001), which may be attributed to lower use
of Class A drugs and tight management practices in indoor venues (May et al., 1999; Sanders
and Campbell, 2007). However, given the significant expansion and diversification of the sex
industry in the past ten years (including concerns about trafficking and exploitation: see Dickson,
2004), it is not clear that this comparison between on- and off-street is still useful. Rather, further
research is needed to specify the different risks and experiences of violence within indoor settings.
The historic and concurrent violence experienced by women in prostitution is well docu-
mented in the literature, although is again focused particularly on street workers. A significant
source of data on violence and harm among sex workers has come from health researchers sur-
veying, for example, sexually transmitted infections or engagement of at-risk groups with health
services. In their assessment of the health needs of women in prostitution, Jeal and Salisbury
(2004) for example found that 62% of their sample of street working women had experienced
physical, sexual or emotional abuse as a child. Of this group, 70% had experienced sexual abuse
and half had been taken in to care. The attendant misuse of drugs and alcohol is likely to be
linked to these experiences of trauma. In 2007, a third of violent incident reports taken by a sex

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work project in Huddersfield related to violence from partners, pimps, ex-partners or another
family member (Kinnell, 2008). Sixteen per cent related to violence perpetrated by acquaint-
ances, including half by other women (Kinnell, 2008). Sex workers are also at higher risk of
homicide: the mortality rate for women in prostitution in London is 12 times the national aver-
age (Ward et al., 1999). In their study of the lives of 130 sex workers over a 15-year period,
Ward and Day (2006) found that two of their cohort had been murdered. Since 1990, 152 sex
workers have been murdered in the UK (NPCC, 2016).
Many women in prostitution experience significant emotional and psychological violence,
including confinement, isolation, threat of loss of custody of children, extortion of money and
so on. Some behaviours are identified by a 2013 World Health Organization report as human
rights violations and are consistent with the ‘coercive control’ (Stark, 2007) manifested within
intimate relationships. The WHO report also highlights ‘state violence’ (for example, punitive
laws or direct violence by police, prison or border guards) and ‘non-state’ violence (for example,
from gangs or religious extremist groups) (WHO, 2013, 24).
In the following three sections, I want to explore how researchers understand, explain and
respond to this violence. Specifically I am interested in the identification of causes, how perpe-
trators are positioned and how these relate to a policy and practice response.

Sex work, the law and violence

Within the sex work perspective, the legal status and the policing of selling and buying sex is
a key factor in accounting for violence. Sanders (2005, 91) argues that the liminal legal space
which prostitution occupies enables an illicit economy where violence and exploitation are
common currency, where individuals can feel alienated both from the police and from state
resources, and where they respond by taking responsibility for their own victimisation and
safety. The illicit nature of prostitution is seen as both a cause and a reflection of ‘whore stigma’
(see Nagle, 1997), where women are demonised both for acting outside the law and transgress-
ing social expectations of femininity. This can make sex workers reluctant to report violence to
the police as they fear not being believed, being prosecuted (Church et al., 2001; Campbell and
Kinnell, 2001; Thukral et al., 2003) or facing reprisals from pimps and perpetrators (Campbell
and Kinnell, 2001).
Sex buyers are positioned as ordinary men paying for a service, with only a small minority
of often repeat offenders perpetrating violence (Kinnell, 2008). Kinnell elsewhere draws on the
then London Ugly Mug List – now a national scheme which collates sex workers’ reports of
violence to warn others and aid police intelligence2 – to note that 75% of attacks were com-
mitted by those who did not pay (2008). Indeed, similar arguments are used to express con-
cerns about criminal and prohibitionist measures against buyers, since it is felt these remove the
‘decent’ buyers from circulation, leaving a more violent hardcore who are untroubled by the
risk of prosecution (SCOT-PEP, 2008). In his work in Sweden exploring why men pay for
sex, Sven-Axel Månsson proposes a similar distinction between occasional and habitual buy-
ers, where the latter are resistant to legal sanction and have a more ‘troubled’ relationship with
women (2004, 9).
In seeking to explain violence against women in the sex industry in Canada, Lowman (2000)
distinguishes between ‘situational’ and ‘predatory’ violence. Situational violence occurs where
there is a dispute within the encounter over the service offered or provided, for example. The
client uses violence to assert their claim. Premeditated violence occurs where a client or faux
client targets a sex worker for robbery or rape, for example, possibly having used their services
on prior occasions to gather intelligence about their security arrangements. Kinnell (2008, 151)

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cites research among street workers identifying four suspected triggers which might be termed
‘situational’: sex workers refusing certain services or calling time before men have ejaculated;
disputes over money; and clients being unable to get an erection or refusing to wear a con-
dom. For indoor workers, the presence of security arrangements, such as CCTV, screening in
a holding room, a maid to provide assistance and so on, are offered to explain the lower rates
of violence (Sanders, 2005; Raphael and Shapiro, 2004). This research in turn supports the sex
work thesis that violence within prostitution is in large part a function of its irregular status: the
more formalised and business-like the setting, the lower the risk.
A number of writers develop this theme to explore how state actors and state policy are
implicated in violence against women in prostitution. Morgan Thomas argues for example that
when police carry out periodic ‘crackdowns’ in an area, they ‘cease to be protectors of women,
and become persecutors’ (cited in Phoenix, 2009, 153). Crackdowns tend only to hasten the
arrangement of transactions (giving women less time to assess a client for safety), to displace
activity elsewhere (to more secluded or unmonitored areas) and possibly damage the relationship
between police and sex workers (who could provide intelligence on perpetrators of violence and
wider criminality).
Given the possibility of self-incrimination and prosecution, women may also be reluctant to
report perpetrators (Campbell and Kinnell, 2001; McKeganey and Barnard, 1996; Thukral et al.,
2003). For this reason, many researchers across the spectrum of opinion support the decriminali-
sation of those selling sex. Being offered informer status by police can put them at even higher
risk of violent retaliation from pimps and organised gangs (Sanders, 2005). Kinnell highlights
failures within the criminal justice system, either to bring charges; to safeguard women while
defendants are bailed; or to give sentences which reflect the gravity of the crime (2008, 252–258).
Kinnell suggests some criminal justice personnel exhibit troubling attitudes towards women in
prostitution, differentiating and subordinating their victim status in relation to other women and
believing their tolerance of abuse to be higher (2008, 254–256). In Nils Christie’s (1986) term,
sex workers are not considered ‘ideal’ or ‘legitimate’ victims, because they are judged complicit
in their victimhood.
In responding to violence, Sanders (2005, 72–92) provides a comprehensive account of the
precautions (for example, not wearing necklaces to deter strangulation or robbery), deterrents
(for example, making a phone call in front of the client to confirm venue and/or car registra-
tion) and remedial protection (for example, carrying a blade to use if attacked) adopted by sex
workers. Williamson and Folaron (2001) describe similar ‘survival strategies’ for street sex work-
ers in the United States in anticipation of, or in response to, violence. Within the sex work
perspective particularly, writers advocate a ‘harm reduction’ approach (Campbell and O’Neill,
2006; Pitcher et al., 2006) with women (and men) in prostitution working in partnership with
voluntary and/or statutory agencies, to manage the risks involved in sex working, including the
risk of violence. Dodgy Punters or Ugly Mugs schemes (Kinnell, 2008; Penfold et al., 2004) are
good examples of self-organising initiatives, which emerged in part due to lack of confidence
in the police. However, while these individual and collective measures may go some way
to ‘designing out vulnerability’, Sanders and Campbell (2007) argue that ‘building in respect’
requires changes in the legal and policy framework to recognise the employment, citizenship
and human rights of sex workers. Rather than positioning buyers and sellers within the sex
industry as ‘exploiters’, ‘deviants’ or ‘victims’ requiring either criminalisation or rehabilitation,
they call for consideration of tolerance zones or managed areas for street work and allowing
women to work together out of licensed premises.
In summary, the sex work perspective provides empirical insight in to the challenges and
experiences of individual women (and men) working in the sex industry. The argument is made

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that violence against sex workers is principally a function of a prohibitive legal and policy frame-
work, combined with restrictive attitudes within society and within the criminal justice system
which serve to stigmatise and elevate the risk of violence for women in prostitution.
However, the place of violence – and by extension, harm – within the sex work perspec-
tive requires scrutiny. In the comparison of street and indoor markets by Church et al. (2001)
and others, the rate of violence are still high for indoor workers. Many women are described
as accepting (though not tolerating) that a certain level of violence comes with prostitution
(Sanders, 2005; McKeganey and Barnard, 1996). It is worth noting too the emotional labour
(Hochschild, 1983) of keeping the client compliant (Kinnell, 2008; Barnard, 1993), including
maintaining in O’Connell-Davidson’s (2013) term the ‘fiction of mutuality’ that the sex worker
is always willing and enjoying the encounter. Indeed, Sanders identifies the emotional toll of
constant anticipation (though not necessarily realisation) of violence as a key harm. Women can
also lead complex lives, keeping their work secret from friends and family, in some cases even
partners (Sanders, 2005).
The elaborate protective measures described above can suggest that women are responsible
for self-policing, identifying safe from unsafe clients (Stanko, 1998; Radford, 1987), though the
National Ugly Mugs website notably clarifies that ‘Violence against sex workers is a crime, not
an occupational hazard’. Sanders and Campbell (2007) draw on evidence from Germany, the
Netherlands, Nevada and Australia to demonstrate that violence is reduced where prostitution
is legally regulated, though the evidence is elsewhere disputed (see Outshoorn, 2012; Farley,
2007; Sullivan and Jeffreys, 2001). In theory, the regularisation of sex work would reduce stigma
and the need for secrecy. However, as explored in the next section, it could be argued that the
sex work perspective overplays the willingness and capacity of women to engage in formal legal
structures and fails to interrogate the possibility that violence is at some level integral to the
practice of prostitution.

Prostitution as violence against women

An alternative understanding of prostitution is that it is a ‘harmful cultural practice originating
in the subordination of women’ (Jeffreys, 2009), which both enables and itself constitutes a
form of men’s violence against women. From this perspective, it is the way in which ‘relations
of dominance and subordination’ structure prostitution which explain levels of violence, rather
than a lack of employment rights or stigmatised identity (Miriam, 2005, 7). These relations are
patriarchal, evidenced by the gendered patterning of prostitution across countries and cultures:
the sex buyer is invariably male.
It is argued that many women in prostitution experience the continuum of violence within
their own life histories, enduring physical or sexual abuse as children, entry into prostitution
sometimes before 18 (Jeffreys, 2000) and further violence in adulthood from partners, pimps and
customers. Farley (2003) for example documents high levels of post-traumatic stress disorder
among her research sample of women working in San Francisco, which she relates also to other
individual and social harms, including child sexual assault, racism and colonialism. Such work
recognises how social inequalities may intersect with gender to define experiences of violence
and harm within prostitution.
The violence against women perspective problematises the positioning of prostitution as
‘work’. Rather than wither away as women’s equality advanced, Jeffreys (2009) argues that
prostitution gave way to ‘sex work’ from the 1970s and 1980s onwards as ideas around sexual
freedom, economic individualism and markets coalesced. Prostitution is now a multi-billion
dollar global industry. But what separates prostitution from other labour (including problematic

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labour such as low paid or unregulated work), it is argued, is that prostitution is ‘embodied
labour’ (Wolkowitz, 2002). The embodied nature of prostitution makes it difficult to draw a
line between selling sexual access to one’s body and selling oneself: in the context of prevailing
gender-power relations, it makes violence possible. The literature surveying buyer attitudes is
offered as evidence for this: for example, a number of male buyers express the view that once
they have paid for sex, there are no areas ‘out of bounds’ (Coy et al., 2007).
Related to this issue of boundaries is research on the prevalence of rape myths, including
that women in prostitution are unrapeable; or deserve to be raped; or are not harmed through
rape (Miller and Schwartz, 1995). It is interesting to note how women in prostitution experi-
ence acutely the misogyny that has historically and continues to apply to women in general: for
example, that married women cannot be raped by their husbands or that women engaging in
non-marital sex are promiscuous and therefore deserve rape (see Bourke, 2008). Kinnell dis-
putes the prevalence of rape myths among sex buyers, underlining her argument that these are
better attributable to men who don’t pay (2008, 151–154) or apply to a small group of repeat
offenders. While it is certainly difficult to homogenise or even elucidate the attitudes and inten-
tions of all sex buyers, the violence against women narrative asks us to consider a common
thread between a range of discourses and practices. It critiques gender and power relations in
the round, both within the practice of prostitution and in society at large.
While some of those who understand prostitution as violence against women may support,
in the short term at least, a harm reduction approach, many support criminal sanctions for sex
buyers to combat prostitution and the associated violence ‘at source’. To challenge, in other
words, male entitlement to paid sex. The emergence post-2000 of trafficking and sexual slavery
as an international policy concern has enabled the discussion of such measures. For example,
Section 53A of the Sexual Offences Act (in force since April 2010) makes it an offence in
England and Wales to pay for sex with someone who is exploited in prostitution. However,
the 2016 Home Office Select Committee Enquiry into Prostitution describe sex buyer laws as
unproven in terms of reducing violence and exploitation and as out of step with prevailing law
in this area, since they introduce a ‘moral judgment’ (Home Affairs Select Committee, 2016,
paras 11–13). The invocation of ‘morality’ is interesting given that the legal system routinely
reflects the prevailing social mores by defining and censuring particular behaviours. Accusations
of ‘moralising’ or of ‘interfering in the private business of consenting adults’ can protect indi-
vidual freedom but can also resist challenging practices which society has come to accept as
normal or unproblematic.
A patriarchal analysis of prostitution identifies the gendered attitudes which support the
subordination and objectification of women and women’s bodies as critical targets for policy.
Some police forces in England and Wales run kerb-crawler rehabilitation programmes (based
on the American ‘John Schools’ model), which aim to challenge men’s understanding of
prostitution and the women involved. Yet kerb-crawlers represent a small proportion of
buyers in the fast-changing sex industry. Indoor prostitution has expanded and diversified
significantly and is increasingly organised online. Moreover, if street sex workers experience
exceptionally high levels of violence because they are easier targets for non-paying perpetra-
tors, it could be argued that kerb-crawlers are being penalised simply for buying sex ‘in the
wrong place’.
The strength of the violence against women perspective is that it problematises the gendered
nature of prostitution and it historicises the practice of prostitution as consistent with the subor-
dination of women in patriarchal societies. Echoing Stanko’s (1990) analysis that all women are
at risk of violence from men and develop strategies accordingly, prostitution is presented as ‘an
extreme case that sheds light on violence against women generally’ (Miller and Schwartz, 1995, 1).

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This raises the fascinating question of whether eradicating violence against women would make
prostitution safer, or simply render it obsolete.
Writers from the sex work perspective provide a trenchant critique of conceptualising pros-
titution as violence against women. First, they emphasise the diversity of buyers and sellers in
terms of gender, sexuality, able-bodied/disabled and so on (Brooks-Gordon, 2010; Whowell,
2010; Weitzer, 2000): although, while these encounters require separate theorisation, it could
be argued that relations of power and inequality apply here too. Second, it is claimed that the
specificity, gravity, causes and redress of different types of violence (rape, beatings, murder, rob-
bery, coercion) and different contexts for sex work are undermined by understanding prostitu-
tion itself as violence and women as perpetual victims (Brooks-Gordon, 2006; Morgan Thomas,
2009). Indeed, there is implicit in some critique that the sex work position better speaks to
the practical reality of women’s lives and meeting their needs, and this is reinforced by the co-
production of research and comment by academics working with sex workers through the
UK Network of Sex Work Projects. This is ironic given the long tradition of gender violence
researchers working with and voicing the needs of women experiencing violence. It demon-
strates how the theoretical divisions within the field have led often to researchers speaking with
and for the constituency of women who better reflect their normative position. This in turn
can misrepresent women who steer a complex path between choice and constraint, victimhood
and agency. While women may recognise the experiences of violence within some academic
research, they may fail to recognise themselves.

Symbolic violence
Associated with the work of Pierre Bourdieu (1990), ‘symbolic violence refers to unseen forms
of domination that are embedded in everyday actions’ (Coy et al., 2011, 442). The meanings
and symbols applied to particular groups are seen as legitimate, thereby ‘obscur[ing] the power
relations which permit that imposition to be successful’ (Jenkins, 2002, cited by Coy et al., 2011,
442). The term ‘symbolic violence’ could be said to sit in the intellectual tradition of Gramsci’s
(1971) ‘hegemony’ and Lukes’ (1974) ‘third face of power’, which Lukes describes as:

prevent[ing] people, to whatever degree, from having grievances by shaping their per-
ceptions, cognitions and preferences in such a way that they accept their role in the exist-
ing order of things, either because they can see or imagine no alternative to it, or because
they see it as natural and unchangeable, or because they value it as divinely ordained and
beneficial.
(Lukes, 1974, 24)

It is symbolic violence because it describes how representations and discourse enable the perpetu-
ation of harmful practices towards a particular group. For example, for those understanding
prostitution as violence against women, the oft-cited phrase that ‘prostitution is the oldest pro-
fession’ has the effect of historicising, normalising and making inevitable women’s participation
in prostitution. The misrecognition of power recalls Jeffreys’ wry comment that:

Liberal feminism really believes that women have nothing to lose but their chains, unless
they have learnt to enjoy wearing them, and when women are not obviously wearing
chains they are assumed to be replete with free will and exciting opportunities.
(1997, 160)

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Likewise, media stock images accompanying stories on prostitution, which portray stocking-
clad legs on an evening street, could be described as titillating news consumers as well as de-
personalising and stereotyping sex workers (most of whom do not work on the street). Indeed,
the role of the media and entertainment industry in reinforcing particular tropes about women
in prostitution deserves further attention. Women are commonly represented in crime dramas
as the victims (rather than the lead detectives) of explicit on-screen physical and sexual violence.
Featuring women in prostitution expands this dimension, invoking Ripper plot lines and focus
on the perpetrator’s individual motives and mentality. Such ‘crime porn’ (Mackichan in BBC
News, 2016) could be said to contribute to an eroticisation of violence against sex workers
(see Mackinnon, 1987). While it is difficult to evidence a causal link with material violence
(although such processes of ‘othering’ are implicated in the perpetration of hate crime (see
Campbell, 2014)), the diverse guises of symbolic violence should be of concern to all researchers
interested in promoting the safety and wellbeing of women working in prostitution.

Summary and gaps

Many of those working in prostitution will experience physical or sexual violence and harm to
their health and wellbeing. This occurs across different settings and is inflicted by multiple per-
petrators including sex buyers, pimps, partners or random attackers. For some, this violence is
frequent and severe – even fatal. In explaining violence, the sex work position problematises the
legal status of sex work and the associated stigma. It identifies a moral function to the violence,
which both dissuades other women from selling sex and punishes those who do (Kinnell, 2008;
Brooks-Gordon, 2006). The patriarchal analysis locates prostitution as an outcome of the subordi-
nation of women and violence as consistent within maintaining the gender hierarchy. ‘Symbolic
violence’ offers a theoretical resource for researchers interested in how cultural representations
may be implicated in both the commission and the social response to violence within prostitution.
This chapter raises questions about the nature of research in this area. How the relation-
ship between prostitution and violence is understood and addressed is intimately related to our
normative position on buying and selling sex. The illicit nature of sex work and partisanship
with the academic field has sometimes meant that, like the blind men and the elephant, our
comprehension of prostitution has been extrapolated piecemeal from selective studies. In addi-
tion, the distinction between street (‘very violent’) and indoor work (‘less violent’) appears less
relevant given significant changes to the practice of prostitution in the UK over the past ten
years, including evidence of trafficking. More up-to-date research, focusing particularly on the
diversity of indoor settings, is urgently needed. Research using an intersectional framework
(see Crenshaw, 1989) is also required to explore how relations of power – gender, ethnicity,
sexuality, economic or migrant status and so on – are implicated in the experience of violence
within prostitution for different groups, within different settings. Indeed, while the criminal law
is important in recognising and bringing justice to victims, locating violence within a broader
framework of ‘inequalities’ could better enable the development of preventative social, cultural
and economic policy measures to tackle violence within prostitution in the future.

Notes
1 ‘Natsal 3’ was conducted between 2010 and 2012 and findings are available at: www.natsal.ac.uk/natsal-
3.aspx [accessed 14 October 2016].
2 Information on National Ugly Mugs is available at: https://uknswp.org/um/about/ [accessed 14
October 2016].

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 Part III
Conducting research on
gendered violence
Q Taylor & Francis
Taylor & Francis Group
� http://taylorandfrancis.com
 18
Lost in translation?
Comparative and international work
on gender-related violence

gigi guizzo, Pam Alldred and Mireia Foradada-Villar

Introduction
It is generally agreed that research across countries, with different cultural and/or language con-
texts, brings difficulties of translation, meaning here both the literal linguistic translation of words
and terminologies, and the more complex matching of interpretations, connotations or cultural
meanings. In projects concerned with gender and violence there are many difficulties of transla-
tion in the wider sense, that need to be acknowledged in order to allow fruitful cross-cultural
exchange and/or the comparison of research findings or the sharing of materials. A fundamental
issue is the varying understandings of the main terms used, after and beyond translation, including
of ‘gender violence’, ‘domestic violence’, ‘gender-based violence’ and ‘gender-related violence’.
This chapter examines linguistic and cultural translation as key challenges of cross-national
or comparative projects to combat gender violence. It considers issues of translation in cross-­
European projects, citing mainly the experience of two projects co-funded by the EU DAPHNE
Programme: the GAP Work Project and CARVE.1 Both used English as the main project lan-
guage but involved partners from ten different European countries (Belgium, Bulgaria, France,
Greece, Hungary, Italy, Ireland, Serbia, Spain and England). The main challenges explored
are: (1) the difficulties of agreeing relevant translations; (2) the problem of precision across
cultural frameworks; (3) the assumption of relevance; and (4) the intractable problem of the
imperialist privilege of writing in English as mother-tongue. The GAP Work Project and
CARVE Project were challenging in these respects, but succeeded overall. We write this as
two multilingual citizens of Catalonia, Spain, and an English mother-tongued, academically
monolingual project coordinator.
We will consider what the research methodology literature alerts us to in conducting com-
parative studies and how international gender/violence research bear out these issues. Then we
share some of the challenges we wrestled with in these particular international feminist collabora-
tions. Finally, we examine what the literature on translation can offer for elaborating and working
through these challenges. We hope to develop our reflections on the definitional issues raised
and our awareness of culturally sensitive modes of international collaboration, and to share the
lessons we’ve learned in support of other (and our own future) international collaborations. First,
though, we contextualise international collaborations on gender violence.

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gigi guizzo et al.

Collaborating internationally on gender violence

In academic and policy circles the term ‘gender-based violence’ tends to refer to NGO, GO and
EU-level definitions, such as the ‘Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combat-
ing violence against women and domestic violence’,2 in order to anchor meaning in accepted
definitions. But even if, in general, academics and policy-makers tend to agree on some basic
definitions of the terms, they are aware that when conducting field research, the interpretation
of the terms by lay people can differ widely country to country, and even within countries, due
to a host of socio-cultural as well as language differences.
At the same time, researchers use the definitions and terminology of regional and national
law because this sets the frame for what is meaningful in the respective country context. This is
partly because the law reflects dominant discourses and partly because the law provides the frame
for actions that can be identified by policy-makers in order to act on violence against women.
Indeed, legal discourse can be analysed for what it indicates about the cultural framing of an
issue, such as gender-related violence, in a given jurisdiction (e.g. Alldred and Biglia, 2015). The
connection between ‘local’ law and dominant norms and values is pointed out in the ‘Violence
against women: an EU-wide survey: main results report’ by the Fundamental Rights Agency
(FRA, 2014: 159):

These [survey] findings underline, furthermore, the interdependence of legal context, pre-
vailing social norms and values, and individuals’ own actions and thoughts with respect to
the subject of violence against women. Researchers can look at these factors together at the
level of each EU Member State. This can help to explain the differences between Member
States in the level of violence experienced against women and respondents’ level of aware-
ness of other women as victims of domestic violence.

As the FRA report explains, there are local contexts that shape attitudes and norms, but country
comparisons are sometimes made to search for shared patterns or suggest the relevance of par-
ticular interventions. Furthermore, such comparisons can offer new ways to interpret research
participants’ views or responses. This comparison of local or national to international implies
many levels of ‘translation’ in order to work.
In a comparison of policy on gender-related violence affecting young people in Italy, Ireland,
Spain and England, we ran into difficulties in comparing countries because of debates about
translation of our key terms, and because of differences in legal organisation and practice between
countries (Alldred and Biglia, 2015; Biglia et al., 2016). For instance, in England legislation strives
for gender neutrality, but Catalan law strives to be gender-sensitive and specifies gendered effects,
and the two legislatures start from differing definitions therefore of ‘domestic violence and abuse’
(regardless of gender/age/relationship) or gender violence (respectively), as we explore later. This
has implications for whether ‘homophobic’ (meaning lesbophobic or biphobic) abuse is included
in the definition – which is possible in Catalonia, but in England, is treated in different legislation.
The very definitions in policy of ‘young people’ differ not simply by age inclusion but by implicit
or grammatical gender too.

Comparative methods
What can the tradition of comparative research offer methodologically? In order to develop
comparative research and for analyses of countries, etc., relative to each other, several strategies
have been used to manage data and validate outcomes (Lijphart, 1971), including conducting

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matching surveys, secondary analysis of national data, contrasting personal observation and
interpreting findings in relation to their social contexts (Hantrais, 1995: 3). Feminist and critical
theorists have highlighted the importance of context in knowledge production (e.g. Fraser and
Nicholson, 1989) and have pushed social science to study phenomena in relation to where it
occurs and how it is known. The high theory of Fraser and Nicholson’s ‘local empirical narratives’ –
in preference to grand narratives of universal Truth – have led to recognition in mainstream
methods texts that the production of knowledge through research (or the representation of a
social group in any form) is political, and positionality is all about recognising the vantage point
of the researcher, in terms of their cultural, classed, gendered, bodily and professional located-
ness (Alston and Bowles, 2003; Creswell, 2012; Cohen et al., 2013; Whittaker, 2012). This is no
longer a specifically feminist position; there’s new pressure on natural scientists to account for
their perspective and their impact on the data, shaking the pillars of objectivism.
Developments in comparative methods (Collier, 1993) notwithstanding, this recognition of
the situatedness of knowledge presents a challenge. First there is the difficulty of identifying
matching information from different countries in order to compare, when who can establish that
these are well matched? The ‘principle of equivalence’ (Jowell, 1998) presents the problem, and
can question the legitimacy of the research process and its outcomes. This equivalence problem
is vividly illustrated in relation to research on violence against women where the varied criteria
each country employs in legal and criminal matters shape the collection of data and the baseline
for comparisons. We know, for instance, that comparison of rates of domestic violence and abuse
cross-nationally is made difficult because there are significant differences in the definitions used
(Moser, 2007; Waltermaurer, 2005), in participants’ recognition of what constitutes violence,
and reporting bias from differing methodologies (Alhabib et al., 2010). Thus, in our field, it is
readily apparent that legal, social and methodological differences complicate comparative work.
Methodologically we also know that surveys may not be measuring the actual numbers of
women who have been abused, but rather the number willing to disclose that abuse (Alhabib
et al., 2010) and, to the particular researcher via that method at that time. Different methods seem
to elicit differing rates, such that face-to-face methods elicit more disclosures of violence than
self-report measures or telephone interviews, in line with previous research indicating that the use
of multiple and open-ended questions increases accuracy of reporting. Englehart (2014) argues
that obstacles to gathering empirical measures of violence against women include the differing
definition of violence against women and jurisdictions’ differing reporting rates and measures.
Differing rates of reporting are linked to cultural stigma, as well as trust in the police and other
government institutions. One admirable attempt is Womenstats, which compares official statistics
on rape but tries to mitigate the problems of comparison by weighting them according to their
various legal definitions of rape and the strength of taboos and other impediments to reporting.
While it cannot be used to track changes over time in any of them because of the manipulations
in order to compare, this does enable comparison between countries within a particular year.
One of the specific issues that arises in comparative analyses of domestic violence (DV) is that
not only do the definitions of DV differ, such that some will include intergenerational abuse
(child/youth to parent abuse, abuse of elders, etc.) while others are more like measures of VAW
(or VAWG, depending on age categories), but varying perceptions of what constitutes violence
and abuse complicate the picture (Sokoloff and Dupont, 2005). Thus, in terms of understand-
ing knowledge in its context, women must be able to express how violated they feel within
a cultural framework that is meaningful to them and much comparative work is hindered by
the lack of attention to socio-cultural context (Yoshihama, 1999). In contrast, Moser (2007)
argues for universal standards to measure empowerment and context-sensitive indicators. One
such approach is to use multi-level indicators, where broader level indicators might apply across

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a range of contexts, while indicators at the community and household level might be adapted
for specific contexts. Waltermaurer (2005) points out that at least 33 screening instruments for
intimate partner violence (IPV) were developed between 1979 and 2003, which are a liability
in comparisons over time or between populations because they define the abuse and the abuser
differently, and so need assessing for validity and reliability in multiple geographic areas and
among diverse population subgroups. Reliability between, as well as within, instruments needs
establishing. This is relevant at local, regional and national levels, too: even within a country or a
jurisdiction, datasets might not use consistent definitions. For instance, in England, even where
definitions of violence cohere, data collected at police force level is not comparable to other
indicators that are based on regional data (Plan International UK, 2016).
Demographic breakdown of statistics might be well-intentioned but has to weigh the cost
of reinforcing stereotypes, or of understating the tremendous diversity among women in terms
of the prevalence, nature and impact of domestic violence or abuse even within ethnic, racial,
religious and socio-economic groups and sexual orientations (West, 2005, cited in Sokoloff and
Dupont, 2005). While recent literature emphasises the polyvocality of women experiencing
abuse, this is sometimes undermining of structural analyses, and attending both to individual
voices (including differences of experience and meaning), and creating powerful structural or
country-level analyses are in tension (Sokoloff and Dupont, 2005). Gracia and Lila’s (2015)
comparison of attitudes to VAW in EU countries (using the 2010 Eurobarometer and the 2014
FRA survey) raises many challenging issues, such that when a range of questions tapping similar
issues (e.g. acceptability of violence towards women) with different samples might actually be
considering different behaviours and circumstances. Walby and Myhill’s authoritative review
of methodologies for researching VAW highlights the need to extend the range of forms of
sexual violence that are recorded, broaden the definitions used, identify the various impacts of
violence, and seek more coverage of marginalised communities and socio-economic data that
is more disaggregated.
Furthermore, cross-national comparisons carry the risk of instilling a default centre – the
researcher’s ‘home’ culture/society/language – against which other countries are measured. The
methodology literature recommends multi-national research teams and so an international ‘EU
project’ team intent on producing collaborative analyses such as ours would seem a hopeful way
forward. The aim being that analyses remain grounded in their contexts, rather than variables
becoming isolated from their contexts and rendered meaningless (Ragin, 1991). However, in
practice, this isn’t as easy as it sounds.
Suggestions from the comparative methods literature (e.g. Crompton and Lyonette, 2006;
Hantrais, 1995; Tonon de Toscano, 2011; Pickvance, 2001), include that a broad range of
socio-cultural indicators are identified to understand complex social phenomena, institutions or
structures and that interpretation of cause must consider whether phenomena could have mul-
tiple correlations (Pickvance, 2001), and that each might differ across contexts. Not only might
correlation differ or be inconsistent, or confounded, but the nuances of cultural politics and
social differences within any one location might mean that in gender violence projects, differ-
ent interventions are needed and different analyses relevant for the different regions in question.
This point is frequently made and well received in international meetings, such as the review
of learning from gender violence EU projects we attended recently in Brussels.3 But what are
the implications of this for projects that need to have both enough unity to be ‘a project’ and
enough sensitivity to cultural differences to make meaningful impacts?
Of the suggestions Jowell (1998) makes for mitigating these issues in international compari-
sons, the idea that international partners collaborate in the interpretation, as well as the design,
of comparative research (and not only in supplying data) feels fairly standard good practice in

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gender violence projects that may seek a more collaborative approach overall or EU projects
that will probably have researchers from each country as partners. The suggestion of not com-
paring too many countries at once to enable deeper understanding of each makes sense, as it
speaks to the increased validity closer attention might bring, but clearly there might be times
when a broad-brush international comparison table makes a political impact that makes it worth
the compromise. So, although advocating high standards of inclusion for the data and omitting
countries on grounds such as poor response rates, nonconforming fieldwork period, different
modes of interviewing or sampling, and so on, might be the ideal in comparative work, and is
even more of a challenge in qualitative, interpretive and subjective analyses, it is just one of the
political decisions about feminist strategies within research that we are making when we embark
on international research.
These recommendations might shape the design of studies that set out with comparative
aims. But what we were aiming for in our EU projects were collaborations that offered the ben-
efit of sharing ideas across contexts – theoretical ones, types of feminist interventions and overall
political strategies – rather than strictly comparative designs. However, the lure of comparable
data is felt where similar actions are to be conducted in multiple sites. It might then be easy to
assume data would be comparable.

GAP Work Project: some challenges of comparison and translation

The way issues of interpretation are embroiled with those of comparison can be illustrated by
the GAP Work Project. It had partners from six European countries with funding for training
‘actions’ to help ‘youth practitioners’ tackle gender-related violence in young people’s lives.4
Although the design wasn’t strongly comparative between the countries, the issues that arose
illustrate how such projects could embed assumptions of, or evoke desire for, comparability.
The original vision was for a project that trained youth workers, teachers and sports coaches,
and since it was designed from an English perspective (and by a teacher of Youth & Community
Work) it was soon realised that these professional identities don’t necessarily map over to those
in other countries. After much discussion about the definition of youth worker in order to
identify which practitioners in Spain most closely matched, it was decided that teachers were
the only professional group that we might expect to engage in all four countries. Although the
bid referred to training that would reflect local cultures and needs, implicitly there was the desire
for matching datasets and to offer matched figures for how positively teachers in each country
viewed the training. Only much later did differences emerge between even professionals with
titles that translate the same: ‘youth practitioners’ in Spain and Italy do not have an equivalent
degree of professional autonomy or the power to shape agendas in their work with young peo-
ple as those in the England or Ireland (Levitan and Alldred, forthcoming).
In the final report, when we reflected on the overall success of the actions in the four coun-
tries, what struck us was the way an initial agreement over the definitions of gender-related
violence at the start had given way to a diverse set of local interpretations of the definition by the
end of the project. Perhaps this revealed the different meanings of the terms in different contexts,
and it certainly illustrated the general tension between how unified and ‘coherent’ such a project
is and how much autonomy is allowed to enable context-dependent, locally accountable actions.
The political motivation for the project was the desire to bring queer and intersectional femi-
nist approaches to bear on anti-violence work in schools. In particular, it sought to bridge the gap
between interventions tackling Violence Against Women and Girls and those tackling homo-
phobia (which increasingly addressed transphobia too) (Alldred, 2014). The concept advanced to
bridge this gap was ‘gender-related violence’ (GRV), intentionally broader than ‘gender-based

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violence’ and eschewing any identity basis or limitations (Alldred, 2014). GRV was defined as
‘sexist, sexualizing or norm driven bullying, harassment or violence whoever is targeted’ (Alldred,
2014). GRV deliberately sought to encompass gender normativity and to frame the gender binary
itself as a problem. This meant that it actively expanded the category from violence between inti-
mate partners or ex-partners to include peer violence or bullying that might relate to actual or
perceived sexual orientation, or conformity to gender norms, as well as sexual harassment and
violence. There seemed no reason to differentiate victims on the basis of their identities when the
whole gender system needs questioning and power relations dismantling.
All four partners agreed the definition at the outset but at the end of the project we realised that
the Irish team had developed their training around a definition of gender-based violence, albeit
one that acknowledged and included homophobia. They drew parallels and identified solidarities
between VAWG and homophobia but theoretically centred the problem in male violence or
machismo. The Irish team identified working across faith groups and through faith organisations
as a key factor in their preference for these terms (see Alldred et al., 2014). Linguistically, for the
Spanish team in particular, the distinction was significant. They adopted the term ‘violencias
de genero’ (gender violences) that is starting to be used in Spanish and Catalan (violències de
gènere), to refer to the multiple gender identities and different experiences of violence, despite
the common source of a phallocentric hegemony.
It seemed that the English and Spanish teams were more influenced by debates about intersec-
tionality and Queer Theory, but who’s to say whether this reflects national patterns or individual
preferences. We asked this question again when a discussion about the meaning of sexualisation
foundered and it seemed that the team did not all recognise the same problem. The cultural poli-
tics of combining sexual violence/domestic violence and abuse (DVA) with LGBTQi-targeted
abuse differed. The Italian team felt that this was particularly novel in Italy and the coalition they
formed between Torino Pride and the Gender and Women’s Studies Research Centre is unique.
However, layers of debate about the cultural relevance of particular strategies for social
change might already be based on assumptions that we were using the English words to mean
the same thing. Translation between languages is, of course, not a literal thing.

Translating ‘gender-related violence’ into Spanish, Catalan, Italian, etc.

‘Gender violence’ translated into Spanish can be understood to mean domestic violence, but
translated deliberately into the plural, ‘violencias de genero’ was, in the GAP Work Project, felt
to be a progressive step in expanding the concept by the coordinator of the Spanish (Catalan)
team, although other Spanish-speaking academics contested this, saying that it did not carry the
point. The Spanish coordinator suggested using ‘violences’ in English to emphasise plurality, but
instead the grammar rule was obeyed, and the PI insisted that the term ‘violence’ had an inclu-
sive meaning that didn’t elide differences, just like ‘food’ is not plural but includes many things.
In Spain there is a law on comprehensive protection measures against gender violence (organic law
1/2004) and a law on gender equality (organic law 3/2007). These laws have moved beyond the
protection of women victims of domestic violence, to recognising that gender violence is a
social problem that is present in all layers of public and private life. However, neither law cov-
ers sexual harassment, rape, genital mutilation or economic violence. By definition, gender
violence refers to any type of violence against a person because of their gender. However, as
women and girls primarily experience this type of violence, the term is commonly used as a
synonym for violence against women. In the above-mentioned laws gender violence refers to
violence by a man against someone who is, or has been, his wife or partner. Domestic violence
is a term widely used across Europe but not in Spain because there it refers to violence in the

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family, regardless of the gender of ‘victim’ or perpetrator, so from a feminist perspective it is

seen as imprecise. However, in England, ‘domestic violence’ hits a more feminist note accord-
ing to our England-based author because it references a strong feminist history and implies
gender-based violence in popular usage (and particularly adult women’s experience of violence
from men), whilst not specifying it. In fact, a helpline for men experiencing domestic violence
or abuse emphasises that men can be victims of domestic abuse to interrupt the elision with
violence against women. However, the current legal term in England, ‘domestic violence and
abuse’, deliberately widens to acknowledge abuse other than physical violence and between any
household members or partners or ex-partners (Home Office, 2013). So, it seems therefore that
accurate translations imply different coverage and theoretical frameworks because of the con-
notations they have for historical reasons.
Even within the same country, terms and legal frameworks can vary. Within Spain, autonomous
regions have their own laws, and the term ‘violencia masclista’ is used in Catalan law (law 5/2008 –
the right of women to eradicate male-sexist violence) and is favoured by many feminists. The Catalan
word ‘masclista’ (in Spanish ‘machista’) means ‘male chauvinist’, and is used deliberately in the law
to make explicit that the violence is exerted by men against women. In contrast to the Spanish
laws cited above, other forms of violence are recognised in Catalan law: physical, psychological and
economic violence, sexual harassment and sexual assault, forced marriage, FGM, etc.
Thus, specifying gender is the emphasis in Spanish and Catalan law currently, whereas in
England law is now gender-neutral (although does attempt explicitly to acknowledge power
differentials) (Alldred and Biglia, 2015).
In the CARVE Project5 (EU co-funded), about how the workplace can help to combat
gender violence, it became clear how difficult it is to translate the terms ‘gender violence’ and
‘domestic violence’ across languages and cultures. At one event in Barcelona, the term ‘domestic
violence’ was used to refer to violence experienced by a woman in her private life, and how this
could be addressed through workplace support. The term was deliberately used to make clear that
it did not refer to violence at the workplace, which is legislated differently and was not the focus.
A largely feminist audience well acquainted with Spanish and Catalan law and gender violence
issues instantly criticised the use of the term, which was considered outdated, and superseded now
in Catalan by ‘violència de gènere’ or ‘violència masclista’ or, in Spanish, ‘violencia de género’
or ‘violencia machista’. To a UK-based collaborator the cause of the outrage is not obvious, but
in the Catalan/Spanish context, it was to associate the domestic uncritically with women and
view the private sphere as traditionally inferior to the male-dominated public sphere. In addition
to these associations it loses specificity, as it fails to recognise the gendered pattern of this violence.
For this reason, definitions of ‘domestic violence’ and ‘gender-based violence’ in Spanish and
Catalan law, and the subsequent feminist use of them are closely linked, and differ slightly from
the use in English. As in many countries the law has been modified in response to social change
and often as a consequence of feminist lobbying. In each country social and legal changes have
different histories, which can lead to misunderstandings in comparative studies and/or translation
of texts.
So, it seems that ‘correctly’ translated definitions of gender-related violence or domestic violence
and abuse do not necessarily align culturally. In terms of theoretical framing, whereas GRV is
rooted in a ‘third wave’ feminist post-identity politics, and so insists on separating what from
who, the concept of masclista/machista (a person whose behaviour is male chauvinistic) fixes
firmly on who the aggressor is and the Catalan law is determined to reflect a structural analysis
of gender violence. That is, it embodies a gender-based violence approach.
Language is therefore a barrier in comparative methods, since different languages do not
have equivalent meanings when they define or communicate the same idea. As we illustrated

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above, this might be difficult to identify in practice and it is certainly hard to accept the extent
to which this might limit collaborative potential; for instance, in the reliance we have on trans-
lated material if we do not speak a language. So how literally should we take material written
into the academically dominant English language by non-native speakers? How much context
will we be missing? How can we rely on our own translation when we speak the language,
but are from a different cultural and/or social background? The ‘translation’ into ‘academese’
is an issue we cannot even begin to address here, but what has the academic field of translation
studies to offer?

Translation studies
Texts about translation in gender research, from a range of disciplines and countries, offer
insights for those researching across languages and countries. They highlight the importance
of subject-sensitive translation processes and practices that need to respect local socio-cultural
context as well as the legal framework in which the subjects of research move, and an exciting
recent strand argues that translation ‘problems’ offer an interesting way into discovering new
possibilities, to discover new debates or move beyond meta-narratives and conventions.
Alvanoudi argues that ‘translation is about contextualizing concepts and understanding the
practices that lie behind them’ (2009: 32). This means that the translator has to fully understand
the multiple meanings words carry, and the many layers to the cultural practices they describe.
She further argues that language conditions meaning, and that cultural conceptions are shaped
by language, and vice versa.
This helps explain why there can be acute difficulty agreeing a project name or acronym
given differing cultural context, language and pronunciation. A functional project title in English
(USVSV) that had been devised by the English PI and CO (Alldred and Phipps, 2015) proved too
difficult to pronounce in Spanish, and thus was changed to ‘USVreact’. In a collaboration it might
be surprising how much time needs devoting to a relatively simple issue like agreeing an acronym
when there are in fact many angles to consider. Thus, international collaborators might need long
discussions about seemingly unimportant issues, such as the Twitter hashtag, but perhaps this
shouldn’t surprise given that the requirements of this short tag/word are: that it carries the right
meaning and connotations for each language group, communicates instantly yet needs no quali-
fication, is pronounceable from each language and has no unintended or offensive connotations.
A special issue of the Graduate Journal of Social Science (2015) called ‘Lost (and found) in
Translation’ considers gender across language and cultures, addressing translation in the widest
sense – from one language to another, across disciplines, across cultures and/or social groups and
highlighting the feminist canon on translation from a range of disciplines (e.g. Spivak, Braidotti,
Irigaray, Simon, etc.). Editors Maria do Mar Pereira, Christina Scharff and Natasha Marhia
explain the intention to move translation in social sciences from ‘its usual confinement to the
linguistic and explore its value as an analytical tool in research’ and where problems can become
the source of new critical insights (2009: 6). In this sense translation is not a simple process but
a method and tool in itself that helps formulate new research questions.
Translation in research is framed as both linguistic and inter-disciplinary by Alvanoudi
(2009), using the metaphor of travelling to signify the movement of meaning across languages
and/or disciplines. She explores the terms ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ from a linguistic perspective, and
suggests that the difficulty of translating them adequately from one cultural context to another
throws up opportunities, as well as problems. She argues that even with an in-depth understand-
ing of different cultures and languages, some context will always be lost, but when recognised
and acknowledged, this is an opportunity to explore the ‘untranslatable’ subjects and reach a

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better (albeit not perfect) understanding. She cites examples from Scandinavian, Bulgarian and
Greek languages, and how words such as sex/gender do not translate ‘neutrally’ from or into
English, which is often presented as a gender-neutral language. She shows how language carries,
highlights and/or at the same time hides connotations and meanings. In other words, the mean-
ing is always there, but one can decide, when translating, whether to address and show all its
meanings and complications, or whether to choose only one (simplified) translation.
Travelling between disciplines can be a fruitful exchange and potentially enhancing or even
inspiring. It can test or explore research from a different angle, although is not necessarily popular
in academia:

There are two homogenizing forces in present day academia which work against difference
and which we, Women’s/Gender Studies scholars, need to overcome: the English language
hegemony, and disciplinarity. The first one can be negotiated but it can never be fully
resolved . . . The second problem is disciplinary. Conceptual translation is not a ‘friendly’
practice for present day academia, because it addresses issues of interdisciplinarity and it thus
challenges the dominant cognitive disciplinary habitus within academia.
(Alvanoudi, 2009: 33)

In our international projects we noted from the start the advantage of native-English bid writ-
ing, but increasingly saw the impact on the team dynamics of English-language dominance
for meetings, conferences and publications. It should be possible to acknowledge, though not
fully mitigate, the extra layer of work for those seeking to publish in languages other than
their mother-tongue (Mayuzumi, 2011, cited in Acker, 2015). For the GAP Work Project we
were especially conscious of this because the power differential between a Spanish and English
peer developed in the final stages of the project development when the EU bid form required
the linguistic discipline of being able to shape the project tightly into very concise statements
(e.g. 1,000 characters). Not only is the advantage of being EFL evident here but the impact this
had on the conceptual and theoretical development of the project is significant.
Esperanza Bielsa (2016) argues that people whose native language is not English are constantly
translating themselves into the dominant global language in order to communicate beyond their
own locales (citing Cronin, 2003). Her study of news translation from media, cultural and trans-
lation studies perspectives explores how information is shared globally, and questions who the
translator is, a point relevant for any researcher doing fieldwork in international projects. We
could ask who translates the content of an interview? Is the research participant already rephras-
ing (translating) for the researcher, in order to be understood? Does the researcher translate when
transcribing, or do we translate when we read the research? Without wanting to slip too far into
a Barthes/Foucault debate about who the author/translator is, it is clear that translation is less a
source of fixing meaning than a process that offers up new possibilities (and questions). Bielsa
considers how best to present our work to local and international audiences, and what alternative
ways of translating can be considered for presenting or disseminating work (performance, etc.).
Sherry Simon (2003) traces a history of women translators whose texts, since the sixteenth
century, have been considered inferior and argues that translators’ gender is always relevant to
process and to the politics of interpretation, meaning both the biological gender of the transla-
tor and the gendered use of language, grammatically and as a tool of legitimating patriarchal
authority. She calls for a ‘disciplinary hybridization’ to break the constrictive mono-discipline
tradition in academia and considers the problematic power relations of field research as related
to translation in its widest sense: is the researcher the translator (of participants’ input), and
how does this shape the role of the participant? And how to address the inescapable patriarchal

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hegemony implicit in language, especially when formulating research questions or interpreting

participants’ words? How is this further complicated when doing research in a second language,
transcribing research done in one language into another or sharing research across cultural and
language contexts?
The power to define through translation is also an issue for survivors of violence, where,
in seeking legal or medical intervention, the translator is a gatekeeper to services and may be a
community leader, a family member, a child or even the perpetrator.
Writing from the United States, Merry (2006: 2, 210) explores how global law translates into
the vernacular and suggests activists as ‘intermediaries between different sets of cultural under-
standings of gender, violence and justice’, arguing for an empathic attitude towards questionable
local cultural practices, which at ‘convention’ level are dismissed as intolerable, because they do
not conform to international law.

Strategies for gender equality

Appropriate translation is sometimes a matter of feminist strategy. Current debates among femi-
nists in Italy and Spain include whether to promote non-gendered pronouns using ‘*’ or ‘@’ or
to use the female form as generic, when conventionally it is the masculine. This strategic issue
is born of a linguistic problem that English speakers have not had to struggle with. In French,
Spanish and German the masculine and feminine forms of the same word can have different
connotations in terms of status, which might translate differently into English, for instance, the
feminine form of secretary in German (die Sekretärin) means someone doing secretarial work
whereas the masculine (der Sekretär) means Secretary of State.
So, there are issues of political strategy in translation decisions, and translations need to be
decided in context. Our example of how the cultural politics of combining gender-related vio-
lence with LGBT+ equalities differs between contexts showed this. Given that combining VAW
and LGBT equality is novel in Spain and Italy meant situated decisions by the Italian team to
work with the LGBT Office and for the Catalan team to adopt their activist practices (of queer
and feminist struggles in one) within academia. For a project with English as a common language
it meant that terms were less familiar and even awkward for some, and it was hard to establish
where translation and cultural politics meet. The equivalence required for comparative studies
might not be possible, or rather entails compromises that we should be explicit about. We might
also differentiate linguistic from contextual issues. An example of a seeming linguistic issue that
had analytic interest for us was our difficulty translating the titles of the professionals attending
our training, and on deeper analysis, even when we find a translation (or adopt a broad ‘youth
practitioners’, which might denote no specific professional formation), they may be differently
positioned as regards their professional status and power to intervene on GRV with young people
(Levitan and Alldred, forthcoming).

Losses and gains of working across translation

Research projects that intend to contrast data across different countries, and may wish to pro-
duce shared conclusions or suggest shared actions, need to contemplate and address the difficulty
of translation from the start. They need to work with the tensions (rather than against them)
that arise when terminologies and meaning are discussed in a group with people from different
countries working on one shared subject across different languages and countries. It is in these
fissures or tensions, that truly interesting research questions can be co-created, which can push

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debates further locally, nationally and internationally. Alternative interpretations of data or new
avenues of intervention might be offered by these collaborations, both of which we think are
incredibly valuable and can be very exciting.
Our experience demonstrates that translation must be seen as a cultural and not only a
linguistic exercise – the common language of English did not remove the cultural translations
needed between England and Ireland in one analysis of our experience – and most of the time
it is both of these at once.
As for the intractable problem of the imperialist privilege of writing in English as mother-
tongue, feminist journals such as Feminist Review and Gender and Education have agonised over what
it means to be an international journal publishing in English. Sandra Acker’s (2015) contribution to
the Gender and Education discussion reminded us that ‘elementary’ and ‘primary’ applied to schools
and grammar school have different meanings in English usage in the United States and in the
United Kingdom, adding yet another layer or distinguishing cultural from linguistic translation.
In future, we might be more self-conscious about the process of translating and how we, as
an international team of academics, check and validate our translations. We might tolerate and
explicitly acknowledge the potential lack of precise match across cultures. Can we allow for pos-
sible cultural non-translation in spite of language? One answer may be that framing international
collaboration as a way of seeing anew our own cultural politics and strategies, and interdiscipli-
nary work as a ‘means for gaining genuine insights on complex phenomena’ (Bielsa, 2016: 209)
offers a more complex understanding if the issues at hand; because working from different fields
and texts the researcher achieves a fuller understanding of a subject. Whilst we caution against
comparative designs, we think that putting our rich projects into more constructive relation
with each other than straightforward comparison can open avenues and offer new insights.

Notes
1 GAP Work Project: Improving Gender-Related Violence Intervention and Referral Through ‘Youth
Practitioner’ Training (EC project code: JUST/2012/DAP/AG/3176) http://sites.brunel.ac.uk/gap
and CARVE Project: Companies Against Gender Violence (project code: JUST/2013/AG/DAP/5559)
http://carve-daphne.eu/.
2 ‘[G]ender-based violence against women’ shall mean violence that is directed against a woman because
she is a woman or that affects women disproportionately[.] (Art. 3 d, Council of Europe Convention
on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence), http://eige.europa.eu/
gender-based-violence/what-is-gender-based-violence.
3 On 6 June 2016, DG Justice and Consumers’ Gender Equality Unit of the European Commission organ-
ised a meeting entitled ‘EU Projects on Violence Against Women – Learning for Meaningful Change’,
bringing together 55 managers of EU-funded campaigns against violence and DAPHNE projects run-
ning from 2012 to 2015. Read a summary here: http://ec.europa.eu/justice/gender-equality/files/
gender_based_violence/summary_report_vaw_en.pdf.
4 For the training resources and list of partners, see http://sites.brunel.ac.uk/gap.
5 http://carve-daphne.eu/.

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 19
Researching child sexual
exploitation
Methodological challenges of working
with police data

Maureen Taylor

Introduction
The role of research in reducing crime and informing the development of police policy and
practice has received increasing acceptance in the past 30 years (Cockbain and Knuttson, 2015).
The relationship between researchers and the police has not been without tensions (Cockbain,
2015), but as the momentum for police accountability and cost-effectiveness increases, so too
does the need for solutions to emerging crime ‘threats’. One such threat is child sexual exploita-
tion (CSE). Whilst not a new phenomenon, child sexual exploitation has emerged as a politically
charged issue bounded within a broader concern for child abuse and violence against women. Its
nature and prevalence has become the subject of policy debate, particularly following the expo-
sure of failings by the police and social services to protect girls and young women from predatory
groups of men in a number of towns in England (Bedford, 2015; Berelowitz et al., 2013; Coffey,
2014; Drew, 2016; Jay, 2014; Klonowski, 2013). The hidden and emotive nature of the subject
means that researching CSE presents a number of challenges to the academic researcher, particu-
larly when the research is within the context of policing and in an era of public service austerity
and scrutiny. Drawing upon data from PhD research, conducting research in CSE using police
data, this chapter will explore some of the methodological challenges, the need for pragmatism
in the choice of methods and the practical difficulties encountered in this area of research. It also
will highlight for other potential researchers some of the pitfalls in the police research process.

Child sexual exploitation

CSE is an issue of government, law enforcement and social welfare concern. It is not a new
phenomenon, although its emergence in parliamentary debate and policy development is the
outcome of a series of high-profile prosecutions of groups of young men across England for
sexually exploiting girls and young women. The nature and prevalence of child sexual exploi-
tation has been brought to the public’s attention by a number of inquiries into failures by the
police and social services to protect children and young people from sexual abuse (Bedford,
2015; Berelowitz et al., 2013; Coffey, 2014; Drew, 2016; Jay, 2014; Klonowski, 2013).

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 Researching child sexual exploitation

The definition for CSE used in England and Wales is:

Child sexual exploitation is a form of child sexual abuse. It occurs where an individual or
group takes advantage of an imbalance of power to coerce, manipulate or deceive a child
or young person under the age of 18 into sexual activity (a) in exchange for something
the victim needs or wants, and/or (b) for the financial advantage or increased status of the
perpetrator or facilitator. The victim may have been sexually exploited even if the sexual
activity appears consensual. Child sexual exploitation does not always involve physical
contact; it can also occur through the use of technology.
(Department for Education, 2017, 5)

This new definition replaces that previously issued by the DCSF (2009) to provide clarity
and consistency among practitioners working with children and young people. However, in
an attempt to operationalise previous definitions of CSE a number of ‘models’ of CSE have
been described by researchers. The Health Working Group (2014, 14) draw these together to
describe four models of CSE. These focus on a gendered model on sexual exploitation in that
they refer directly to ‘boyfriend’ and ‘networks of men’, positioning men as perpetrators:

1 ‘Inappropriate relationships’ involving a sole perpetrator who has inappropriate power or

control over a child and uses this to sexually exploit them.
2 The ‘boyfriend’ model in which the victim believes themselves to be in a loving relation-
ship, but the exploiter forces them to have sex with associates.
3 ‘Peer exploitation’, where a child is forced by peers into sexual activity with a number of
other children.
4 ‘Organised sexual exploitation’ in which networks of men pass children around for forced
sexual activity with multiple rapists.

Gohir (2013, 67) adds to these models an ‘intra-familial model’ whereby a victim is initially abused
by a family member and then introduced to males outside of the family. Whilst these models
have variable characteristics, there is considerable overlap between them. Most significantly, all
of these models have been shown to involve networks of offenders in facilitating and perpetrat-
ing these offences (Berelowitz et al., 2012).
The UK government’s concerns around CSE and the impact of gang and serious youth
violence on young women and girls, highlighted by Firmin (2010; 2011), resulted in an inquiry
by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner into CSE in gangs and groups (Berelowitz
et al., 2013). CSE in gangs and groups was identified by Berelowitz et al. (2012, 17) in 53%
of police forces in England and Wales and 2,409 children and young people were reported as
confirmed victims of child sexual exploitation in gangs and groups involving 1,514 offenders
in the 14 months August 2010 to October 2011. In the same period, Berelowitz et al. (2012)
identified 112 known groups or networks. However, despite the growing concern by the
government and by non-governmental organisations concerning groups and sexual exploita-
tion, research that focuses entirely on groups, their structure, function and impact is scarce.

Child sexual exploitation as gendered violence

Sexual violence has long been identified as ‘gendered’: emanating from a culture of gendered
inequality and power relations and typically disproportionately affecting women (Horvath
and Kelly, 2009). Whilst the gendered nature of sexual abuse victimisation is supported by

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Maureen Taylor

research data on ‘child sexual abuse’ more generally (Brayley et al., 2014; Barth et al., 2012),
data concerning the prevalence of CSE and the characteristics of both victims and offenders is
incomplete largely due to gaps and differences in recording practices within and between agen-
cies. However, what is known is that whilst both male and female children and young people
are reported to be victims of sexual exploitation, girls and young women are significantly over-
represented as victims (Brayley, et al., 2014; CEOP (Child Exploitation and Online Protection
Centre), 2011; Cockbain et al., 2014; Firmin, 2010; 2011).
It has been suggested this may reflect a lack of acknowledgement of their own victimisation
by boys and young men, and indeed, by professionals (Barnardo’s, 2013; Berelowitz et al., 2012;
Cockbain et al., 2014; Nicholls et al., 2014). Similarly, gendered approaches to CSE have been
criticised amidst fears that it ignores the experiences of boys and young men (Melrose, 2013) or
labels them solely as perpetrators of sexual abuse (Berelowitz et al., 2012) rather than as victims,
or as simultaneously both ‘abused and abuser’. However, this phenomenon of being both victim
and perpetrator is not only confined to boys and men, but to girls and young women, particu-
larly in the context of violent gangs (Beckett et al., 2013; Firmin, 2013; Pitts, 2013). The CEOP
(2011), Beckett (2011), Berelowitz et al. (2012) and Gohir (2013) all claim that the recruitment
and initial grooming of victims is sometimes undertaken by females, particularly in a peer group,
and that these girls or young women may have been, or are currently, sexually exploited.
Comparatively little research exists about those who perpetrate CSE (CEOP, 2011; Beckett,
2011; Berelowitz et al., 2012). Instead the emphasis has been on ‘child sex offenders’ as a
homogenous group. This includes those who sexually abuse within a familial setting and those
who have perpetrated ‘stranger’ sex offences. Despite legitimate claims concerning the apparent
invisibility of boys and young men as victims of CSE, Fox et al. (2012, 179) claim that men are
more likely to perpetrate sexual violence against a partner and they conclude that abuse within a
relationship ‘is indisputably differentiated by gender’. The notion of CSE as gendered violence
is supported by CSE research where data on gender is available. The CEOP (2011, 37) states
that 87% of offenders in their dataset were male, 4% were female and, for 9%, gender was
unknown. Berelowitz et al. (2012) state that in their dataset, 72% of offenders were male, 10%
were female and, for 18%, their gender was undisclosed.
CSE amongst peers is recognised as a growing problem (Barter et al., 2009; Berelowitz et al.,
2012; Firmin, 2011; 2015). According to Barnardo’s (2011) approximately one-quarter of CSE
involves abuse between peers. This includes online offences (Berelowitz et al., 2013; Ringrose
et al., 2012; CEOP, 2013) and, in particular, ‘sexting’. Within this context, Ringrose et al.
(2012) clearly places boys as perpetrators and girls as victims. This trend continues to be reflected
in studies of sexual victimisation in teenage relationships (Barter et al., 2009).
Much of the research around child sexual abuse and exploitation is situated in psychology –
which explores the motivation for sexual offending and models of sex offending, often patholo-
gising the individual offender – rather than the culture and context in which the offences take
place (Ward et al., 2006). However, Firmin (2015, 21) describes peer-on-peer abuse as: ‘a hetero­
normative phenomenon perpetrated by young men, against predominantly young women and
sometimes other young men’. Whilst this description is confined to peer-on-peer abuse, CSE
as gendered violence can be explored through the concept of hegemonic masculinity (Connell
and Messerschmidt, 2005). According to Messerschmidt (2012, 58), hegemonic masculinity
legitimates hierarchical gender relations between men and women, between masculinity and
femininity, and among men.
This can be constructed at an individual, group, community or global level. Thus, a culture
of broad, gendered inequality determines the attitudes and behaviour of men and women which
permits violence against women within multiple social ‘fields’ (Firmin, 2013; Franklin, 2013).

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This includes within the home, peer group, school, workplace, community and wider society.
The definition of CSE is grounded in the fundamental imbalance of power between victim
and perpetrator. However, this imbalance extends to other contexts, such as the internet, ‘sex-
ting’, gang violence and a wider culture of sexualisation that reinforces gender inequalities and
perpetuates notions of justifiable sexual violence (Coy, 2009; Fox et al., 2012; Franklin, 2013).
Fox et al. (2012, 28) note the ‘normalised sexism’ that permeates the context for young people’s
lives and relationships both on and off line. Their research identifies specific ways in which sex-
ism operates, which includes the notion of ‘boys’ ownership of girls’ bodies’; an acceptance of
verbal requests for sexual acts, physical groping and forced sexual acts. The context of CSE also
encompasses another locus of hegemonic masculinity – that of group and networked crime.

The networked nature of child sexual exploitation

It has long been acknowledged that much criminal activity is undertaken within the con-
text of a group or network (Canter and Alison, 2000; Papachristos, 2014; Weerman, 2003)
and that offenders working as groups have the capacity to cause greater harm than individuals
(Finckenhauer, 2005). In addition, Canter and Alison (2000, 14) state that ‘the ways in which
groups influence individual behaviours has great relevance for the way in which crime might
be investigated’. Therefore, in order to investigate offending by individuals who are part of
group or networked crime, Canter and Alison (2000) state that both the ‘implicit and formal
organisational networks’ in which offending is situated must be understood as well as the ‘social
landscape’ of the criminal activity – the complex structure and meaning of the social connec-
tions and processes between offenders.
Much of the research around networked crime focuses on ‘organised crime’ such as drug
trafficking or terrorist offences (Bruinsma and Bernasco, 2004; Mainas, 2012; McIlwain, 1999;
Morselli, 2009). However, research increasingly positions CSE as ‘organised crime’ by virtue
of the involvement of networks, groups and co-offenders. Despite this, the type, structure and
nature of networks of offenders and victims in the context of CSE have not been explored in the
same way that other forms of networked crime have. Therefore, responses to CSE, particularly
in circumstances when groups of offenders are involved, may be limited by a lack of understand-
ing of CSE networks.
Despite the incompleteness of data concerning group-associated CSE, Berelowitz et al.
(2013) note that CSE in groups and gangs is not only widespread, but that it takes varying
forms, not all of which are recognised in local police profiling or strategic responses. Similarly,
the networked or group nature of CSE is discussed in other research but its complex nature
means that descriptive terms are often conflated and levels of understanding are variable. Perhaps
the most commonly cited from of group-associated CSE is multiple perpetrator rape (MPR)
(Berelowitz et al., 2012; Firmin, 2015; Franklin, 2013; Horvath and Kelly, 2009; Woodhams,
2013). Franklin (2013, 38) claims that the majority of cases in her study of MPR involve groups
of adolescent boys and young adult men assaulting adolescent girls or young adult women,
within a ‘recreational context’ and gratuitous degradation, a view supported by Bijleveld et al.
(2007). The mood of perpetrators is described as ‘celebratory, with participants laughing and
cheering each other on’. Whilst in some cases violence occurs because of victim resistance,
Woodhams (2013) notes that in other cases it is a result of ‘group dynamics’. According to
Bamford et al. (2016, 83) the purpose and function of MPR is context-dependent, the most
common context being a ‘gang’. Such gangs are likely to be ‘hyper-masculine’, supporting
violence and abuse (Firmin, 2011; Pitts, 2013). Firmin (2015), however, states that MPR also
provides a context in which men can endorse their masculinity (Firmin, 2015).

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Maureen Taylor

Debate around group-associated CSE most frequently hinges on whether group-associated

sexual exploitation is organised, and if it is, the ways and the extent to which it is organised.
Berelowitz et al. (2012) claim that in contrast to gangs that are formed independently of sexual
exploitation, group-associated CSE is characterised by perpetrators who come together for the
purpose of exploiting children. Groups are defined rather broadly by Berelowitz et al. (2013, 16)
as: ‘two or more people of any age, connected through formal or informal associations or net-
works, including, but not exclusive to, friendship groups’. They go on to suggest that groups dif-
fer in terms of their organisation, ranging across a spectrum from ‘disorganised and opportunistic’
to ‘organised’. Similarly, they propose that there is a spectrum of financial gain for groups from
‘no financial gain’ to ‘financially profitable’ (Berelowitz et al., 2012, 28). Thus, for Berelowitz
et al., ‘groups’ are categorised by their levels of organisation or financial gain. Conversely, Firmin
(2011, 23) suggests that there are two types of groups involved in CSE, categorised by their
organisation as well as their involvement in crime: organised criminal groups and peer groups.
She defines organised criminal group members as: ‘professionally involved in crime for personal
gain operating almost exclusively in the “grey” or illegal marketplace’. A ‘peer group’ is described
as: ‘a small, unorganised, transient grouping occupying the same space with a common his-
tory. Crime is not integral to their self-definition.’ The CEOP (2013) also suggests that groups
involved in CSE can be divided into two types, but its division is based predominantly on their
motivations for sexual offending against children. One ‘type’ of group targets victims based on
their vulnerability, rather than the offender’s sexual preference for children. The CEOP (2013)
suggests that offenders in these groups may be loosely connected, for example as friends, whilst
others may be part of a more formal, organised network with links to other criminal or business
interests. The second ‘type’ of group consists of offenders with a sexual preference for children –
more commonly known as a ‘paedophile ring’. The CEOP (2013, 19) states that offline net-
working between offenders motivated in this way is ‘uncommon’.
In contrast to the CEOP’s suggestion that groups or networks can be divided according to
offender motivations, Berelowitz et al. (2013, 102) suggest that all groups or networks involved
in abusing children exist for the purpose of sexually exploiting children. They are linked through
their sexual offending, and the places they frequent to find and to exploit children:

Group-associated child sexual exploitation involves a group or network of individuals who,

for a range of reasons, come together to sexually exploit children. The individuals in this
network may never meet. They are likely to be connected through the victims that they
abuse, the taxi firms or bus shelters they use, the take-away shops they frequent in order to
find vulnerable children and young people, or the organised ‘parties’ they go to where they
pay to abuse children and young people.

These groups or networks may consist of peer or familial groups or be connected in other ways,
but their status as a ‘group’ or ‘network’ comes from their abuse of children. Their status as a
‘group’ is context-specific in that outside of the context of CSE, they may not be identified as a
group. Berelowitz et al. also state that some of these groups are ‘highly organised’ whilst others
are ‘ad hoc and opportunistic’.

Deconstructing the networks

A recurrent theme emerging from CSE research and practice is that of its networked nature.
The current state of knowledge about CSE networks, however, appears to be confined to a
set of ‘fuzzy’ typologies, broad descriptions of the connections between offenders and victims,

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for example, ‘friend’, ‘peer’ or ‘relative’ (Berelowitz et al., 2012; CEOP, 2011) and the analysis
of only two cases of internal trafficking from the same force area where structural difference
and power distribution has at least been evidenced (Cockbain et al., 2011). Underpinning this
confusion appears to be a consistent conflation of terminology, but more importantly a lack
of understanding about the structural properties of networks, how they function, the roles,
processes and the distribution of power within networks, their strengths and weaknesses, the
commonalities and differences they share with each other and to other crime networks, and the
impact this has on the way offences are committed and investigated. Yet if CSE is a form of
networked offending or is in any way ‘organised’, it is these factors that need to be understood
if attempts to protect children and to prosecute offenders are to be effective (McIlwain, 1999;
Morselli, 2009; van der Hulst, 2009).
As such, my doctoral research seeks to identify and analyse the dynamic relationships between
offenders and analyse how offenders use their connections within a network to sexually exploit
children and young people. It explores the structure and nature of the networks involved in
CSE – the people, organisations, places, resources and power, the ways in which they are
connected, the strength or weaknesses of those connections, how those connections are used
and the distribution and flow of information, resources and power as determinants of the abil-
ity of network members to commit crime and avoid detection. It also examines the common
characteristics between unconnected CSE networks across the UK, to suggest a child sexual
exploitation network typology or highlight network diversity. By analysing and understanding
these characteristics, effective measures to prevent network formation or function or to disrupt
existing criminal networks may be developed.

Methodology and methods

My own doctoral research adopts a comparative case study design, with a mixed methods
approach to social network analysis. Purposive sampling has been undertaken to identify
between seven cases from police forces within England where there have been prosecutions of
groups of two or more offenders for offences relating to CSE. This group size aligns itself with
Berelowitz et al.’s (2013) definition of group-associated CSE. As there is no specific offence
of ‘child sexual exploitation’ in UK statute, a ‘child sexual exploitation case’ is defined by the
participating force as such and includes the prosecution (successful or otherwise) of at least one
offence from the Sexual Offences Act 2003.
Social network analysis (SNA) is both a theoretical perspective and a set of methodological
techniques which have been used in the study of organised crime and criminal networks (Mainas,
2012; McIlwain, 1999; Morselli, 2009; Papachristos, 2014; Natarajan, 2006). Based on the prem-
ise that the structure of networks and the nature of the connections between ‘actors’ within
networks are significant in influencing individual actions, SNA both measures and describes the
structures or patterns of relationships that exist within a defined network. In a criminal network
context this includes organisational structure, such as identifying central ‘actors’ or sub-groups,
analysing the strength of associations and cohesion between actors, and power distribution within
the network. Understanding these factors has the potential for the employment of interventions
by the police to exploit structural weaknesses (Cockbain et al., 2011; Mainas, 2012).
Traditionally, SNA has been dominated by quantitative approaches to both data collection
and analysis. Such approaches are derived from sociometry and graph theory, using mathemati-
cal techniques and software such as UCiNET, EGONET and Pajek, to map and visualise social
relationships and interdependency. However, there is a growing body of research which adopts
a ‘bifocal approach’ to SNA, drawing on a combination of both quantitative and qualitative

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methods of relational data collection and analysis to generate a richer picture of criminal net-
works that situates quantitative network data within its wider social context (Crossley, 2010;
Edwards, 2010; Fuhse and Mutzel, 2011; Morselli, 2009).
In keeping with this shift to mixed method approaches to SNA and in an attempt to extend
knowledge and understanding of networks in CSE beyond the identification of prolific offenders
and their individual attributes, to an understanding of the nature and context of their connections,
my research utilises both quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection and analysis.
The data sought was from archived police case files and police intelligence reports, profiles
or individual logs. Archived cases rather than ‘live’ data provided the best opportunity for estab-
lishing network boundaries as the network was defined by the case itself and ‘complete’ to the
extent that it represented a network at a single point in time and place. Using archived files also
negated concerns around sub judice rules. This assisted in allaying fears from those providing the
data that ‘live’ cases may be compromised at court. The documents contained within case files
and intelligence reports comprised of written data pertaining to individual offenders, victims,
organisations, locations and events from each case. Each document was read and the relevant
data extracted and coded manually by the researcher. Relevant data included names, places,
events, number, type and direction of ‘ties’ (the relationship or connection between people).
Whilst the strengths of social network analysis are the ability to simplify networks, to simul-
taneously represent and structurally map connections (Crossley, 2010), social networks do not
exist in a vacuum. Neither are they static entities. Connections have meaning and context
which are not always revealed through quantitative analysis. As such, following the case file data
collection process, semi-structured interviews were undertaken with the Senior Investigating
Officer or the Officer in Charge of each case during its investigation. These provided an histori-
cal perspective, context and meaning to the networks and the connections, ties and resources
within it (Edwards, 2010). This is particularly important considering the nature of case file data,
some of which is ‘stripped back’ to include only that which is of evidential value or sanitised
to protect its source. Whilst interviews produce ‘messy’ data for analysis, this is perhaps more
reflective of social network reality (Edwards, 2010). Interview questions focused on the histori-
cal context of the network, its evolution and dynamic nature over a period of time, the social
context of the network and its functioning within that context, network structure and ties and
the extent to which networks presented challenges to investigation.
The data collection phase of my research has presented a number of challenges, some of which
were expected. The concluding sections of this chapter discuss the nature of these challenges and
the ways in which these were overcome.

Child sexual exploitation research within the wider context of

policing research
The history of police research is one that spans more than five decades, emerging from a criti-
cal research tradition in a context of political volatility and accusations of police corruption and
abuses of power (Cockbain and Knuttson, 2015; Reiner and Newburn, 2008). This tradition has
been open to much criticism and attributed a well-documented, problematic police–research
relationship (Bradley and Nixon, 2009; Rosenbaum, 2010). However, since the 1970s there has
been a significant shift in police-related research to a more applied research tradition, focused on
the development of effective crime control measures, a paradigm that continues today (Reiner
and Newburn, 2008). This shift has emerged within a context of changes in operational polic-
ing models, the growing politicisation of crime and its control, and a demand for increased
police accountability and cost-effectiveness. Whilst the role of research within new approaches

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to policing is widely acknowledged in terms of its contribution to intelligence-led policing,

evidence-based policing and the inherent ‘what works’ agenda, tensions still persist about the
role of research and researchers in policing (Cockbain, 2015).
Cockbain (2015, 22) identifies a number of factors that appear to impede policing research.
These include the perception by police officers that research is ‘a distraction from “real” (action-
oriented) police work’, fears of ‘political bias and misrepresentations in research’, a perception
by police officers that researchers are data and publications driven and enduring ‘“ivory towers”
stereotypes of academia’. Cockbain goes on to identify factors that facilitate police research.
These include the researcher’s ability to communicate the application of their research to a
policing context, mutual respect and trust, reciprocity, the researcher’s willingness to engage
with police culture and processes and their ability to provide transparency in the development
of data-sharing protocols.
The challenges experienced in accessing research data reflect some of the impediments to
research that Cockbain (2015) identifies. Fourteen police forces were originally approached as
having had at least one case of CSE involving more than two offenders. However, access to data
was only permitted by eight police forces and, in some cases, took up to two years to secure,
from initial enquiry to data collection. This reticence to provide access to police data appears to
be underpinned by several factors and presents an interesting paradox within the context of this
research. CSE has been in the media spotlight and has prompted government-commissioned
research into CSE and groups and gangs as well as violence against women and girls (refer-
ences) and several inquiries and serious case reviews (Bedford, 2015; Coffey, 2014; Drew, 2016;
Jay, 2014; Klonowski, 2013). Many high-profile cases have involved groups of ‘Asian’ male
offenders and young, white, female victims, and subsequent media reports have focused on
an ethnic and gendered construction of CSE. The police, along with other statutory agencies,
have not emerged in a favourable light in most of these reports and it was initially envisaged,
albeit naively, that this would mean police forces would welcome the opportunity for research.
Instead it appears that this presented one of the major barriers to accessing data.
With the knowledge of austerity and budget cuts to police forces across the UK, reduced
numbers of operational officers and major restructuring in some forces, requests were made
for data collection with the aim of ensuring that these would have minimal demand on opera-
tional officers and maximum benefit to the forces concerned. Identifying the ‘right’ person to
approach within each force was challenging. To begin this process, a list of CSE ‘contacts’ from
a national CSE network was obtained. Each force ‘contact’ was approached initially by email
and then followed up with a phone call. At times, this was met with no response or information
that the person had ‘moved on’ and new details given. Who the ‘right person’ or gatekeeper
was varied from force to force. In some forces the person who took the request forward was a
sergeant or inspector in a public protection role or on a CSE team. Other times the ‘right’ per-
son was the assistant chief constable. Their initial response usually led to another conversation
or in some cases a face-to-face meeting with someone else in the force. Even after agreement at
a senior officer level, an additional challenge was presented in the form of police staff gatekeep-
ers with ‘information security’ roles. This presented significant inconsistencies across forces in
their approach to sharing data. Numerous lengthy phone conversations and emails with various
personnel (up to nine different people within one force) eventually secured access to case file
data in eight police forces. Whilst finding the right person to approve access was a somewhat
pragmatic issue, it was underpinned by a notion of ‘suspicion’ which is not uncommon within
the field of police research.
Workman-Stark (2017) identifies an ethos of ‘secrecy’ as an integral and necessary part
of police organisational culture that serves to protect the security and integrity of evidence,

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Maureen Taylor

intelligence and the police service as a whole. Such secrecy renders police officers with a salient
attitude of suspicion towards anything or anyone that threatens the security not just of informa-
tion but of practices and culture. As such, the development of trust between the researcher and
the police is a significant part of any police research process. Loftus (2009, 201) explains: ‘The
problems of access and trust, which are integral to most social science research, are peculiarly
intensified in police research.’ Reiner (2000, 225) goes on to state that methodological problems
are ‘primarily those of detectives and spies: how to get information from people who are (often
rightly) suspicious of your motives, have much to hide and much to lose from its discovery’. In
this research, suspicion of the motives for the research and fear of how the data would be han-
dled (from careless handling to exposure to the media) was encountered on numerous occasions
and at various points in the data access process. Convincing gatekeepers that the research was
not about revealing or scrutinising police practice was challenging. However, fears of scrutiny
were unlikely to stem from a past critical research paradigm but were more associated with cur-
rent scrutiny that is crime type specific – child abuse and the problems associated with a systemic
culture of silence and denial in relation to responses to child sexual abuse and in particular the
widespread sexual exploitation of children and young people.
Wide criticism has been levied at the police for large-scale failures to protect children and
young people from sexual exploitation over the past 25 years (Coffey, 2014; Drew, 2016;
Jay, 2014). This failure is rooted in both social and organisational attitudes which have legitimated
and supported hegemonic masculinity whereby girls and young women who have reported
sexual offences have been rendered silent or invisible (Kelly et al., 2005; McMillan and White,
2015). Coffey (2014, 1) reports that female victims of CSE often didn’t present as ‘classic victims’
and were ‘looked down on’ by police officers. Coffey goes on to place these attitudes within a
wider culture where girls and young women are, on the one hand, sexualised by men, and yet on
the other hand, judged by their clothing and behaviour to be a less than ‘ideal’ victim. Jay (2014,
69) supports these views, stating that the attitude of the police was ‘that they were all “undesira-
bles” and the young women were not worthy of police protection’. Girls were often viewed with
contempt and blame. Whilst reports of the police and other statutory service failings of hundreds
of girls and young women have been widely publicised, entrenched organisational attitudes and
practices will be difficult to rectify, particularly within a persistent and wider rape-supportive
socio-cultural context.
Using police data to explore the nature of group-associated CSE was never going to be an
easy task. CSE by its nature and definition exists in a context of secrecy and power imbalance.
In response to several well-publicised reviews of practice, the police are making efforts to tackle
not only individual cases of CSE, but wholesale changes in approach to investigation through
the investment of specialist resources (Coffey, 2014; Drew, 2016; Jay, 2014). In order to drive
forward change in practice to afford victims of CSE the protection and justice they deserve, fur-
ther research will provide the evidence base upon which change can be developed. However,
meaningful, collaborative research will only be possible when a culture of suspicion and self-
protection within the police is set aside.

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 20
Researching gender-based
violence with minoritised
communities in the UK
Khatidja Chantler

This chapter addresses the challenges of undertaking sensitive topic research, specifically gender-
based violence in minoritised communities. Drawing on my research, it highlights three inter-
related dynamics of engaging in such research. First, it is often assumed that gender-based
violence is largely similar for all women. In this position, the experiences of minoritised women
are made invisible so that specific forms of violence and their impacts are left unexplored by
research. Second, where gender-based violence in minoritised communities is engaged with, it
is frequently framed in a pathologising manner. This dynamic between invisibility on the one
hand and pathologisation on the other hand has been termed ‘normalised absence/pathologised
presence’ by Ann Phoenix (1987). A third dynamic is the way in which the positioning of
minoritised communities, particularly in the current anti-immigration climate, shapes the diffi-
culty of speaking about issues such as gender-based violence without being represented as more
barbaric and from a more backward culture than majority communities are. A related dynamic
refers to some community leaders’ preference for dealing with matters such as gender-based vio-
lence ‘in-house’, which we have termed ‘cultural privacy’. Despite such challenges, this chapter
argues that it is not only possible, but also vital, to conduct research in order to build a research
base which can be utilised to protect women and children from minoritised communities expe-
riencing gender-based violence in a way which respects their experiences.

Background
Researching gender-based violence (GBV) within minoritised communities is complex and multi-
faceted. It is both different and similar to researching GBV in majority communities – and it is
important to attend to both. The relatively high profile given to issues such as forced marriage,
honour-based violence and female genital mutilation in policy arenas is to be welcomed, yet it
also carries the potential of ‘exoticisation’ of these forms of GBV (Chantler and Thiara, 2017). It
is important to note that the prominence given to such forms of GBV also runs the risk of making
invisible ‘ordinary’ or everyday forms of domestic abuse such as physical, sexual, emotional, finan-
cial abuse and coercive control. Researching GBV in minoritised communities therefore requires
close attention not only to different and similar types of violence, but also to how power relations
work to position communities in respect of each other.

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Whilst some research on GBV in minoritised communities frames GBV as a purely cul-
tural and/or a religious issue (e.g. Brandon and Hafiz, 2008, re: forced marriage), others frame
it within wider structural and systemic concerns such as racism, poverty, gender inequalities,
immigration policies and as a human rights and social justice issue (Chantler et al., 2003; Batsleer
et al., 2002; Gill and Anitha, 2011; Thiara and Gill, 2010). How GBV in minoritised commu-
nities is framed is key to the research questions asked, the methodological approach taken, the
focus of analysis and the subsequent representation of minoritised women and communities.
This also has a knock-on effect on policy formulation.
One of the key themes arising from GBV research in minoritised communities is the impact
of how domestic abuse and other forms of GBV intersect with immigration policy to make
it extremely difficult for minoritised women to flee abusive situations. In particular, the issue
of ‘no recourse to public funds’ whereby women from outside the EU married to UK citi-
zens or in civil partnerships are not entitled to refuge provision or welfare benefits during the
‘probationary period’ is problematic. However, post-Brexit, the implications for EU nationals
currently residing in the UK are not clear in relation to their access to benefits, but there is a
possibility that no recourse to public funds will extend to EU nationals fleeing abusive rela-
tionships. Women with no recourse are economically and politically trapped with extremely
limited means of escape, with some resorting to attempting suicide (Chantler et al., 2003).
Despite consistently highlighting this immigration rule as a major barrier to escaping abuse
for migrant women, the probationary period was extended from one year to two years and
further extended to five years in April 2012. The probationary period was introduced as a test
to ensure that such marriages were genuine and that the incoming spouse or civil partner was
not using marriage or civil partnership as a means of gaining settled immigration status in the
UK. This rule currently means that the incoming spouse has to remain in the marriage for five
years, even where there is violence, unless she applies for the Destitute Domestic Violence
Concession (DDVC). The DDVC gives her a three-month period to demonstrate that she
is a victim of abuse and to change her immigration status by applying for indefinite leave to
remain in the UK. This gives her access to welfare benefits during the time her immigra-
tion status is being considered by the Home Office. Research has also found that women on
spousal visas are not aware of domestic violence concessions or indeed of the laws and policies
relating to either immigration policy or the criminal justice process (Chantler, 2006; Anitha,
2010). Further, studies have found that perpetrators use women’s immigration status and their
unfamiliarity with policies and practices in the UK as a weapon to exert control and main-
tain dominance in the relationship (Batsleer et al., 2002). Threats of deportation should the
woman dare to contact the police or other support agencies are often deployed by perpetrators
to ensure silence and compliance. Just this brief discussion of the probationary period and no
recourse to public funds illustrates the importance of understanding the wider, systemic issues
that mediate minoritised women’s experiences of abuse.
Other systemic issues include the ongoing austerity measures and cuts in welfare services.
The minoritised women’s sector has fared particularly badly, suffering disproportionate cuts in
specialist refuge and outreach services to support victims/survivors of domestic abuse (Imkaan,
2012). Specialist minoritised women’s refuges were set up in part to deal with issues such as
no recourse to public funds, to provide support in appropriate languages and because of an
enhanced understanding of the cultural contexts that minoritised women belong to. This means
that the expertise built up over the last 30 or so years is being eroded and the reason for their
existence overlooked. Not only do some minoritised women have to contend with the five-
year probationary period and no recourse to public funds, but specialist help and support is being
simultaneously eroded, thus compounding the lack of support.

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Which methods?
The issue of which approach to use in any research project depends on the aims of the
research, the research questions asked, the rationale for undertaking the study and the primary
audience the study is attempting to reach. Debates about the relative merits or otherwise
of qualitative and quantitative methods are well rehearsed, so will not be repeated here.
GBV research in minoritised communities can usefully utilise quantitative, qualitative or
mixed methods approaches in knowledge production. Below, I illustrate the issues confront-
ing researchers in this field, to illustrate the challenges, gaps and potential of GBV research
regarding minoritised women. ‘Minoritised women’ is a very diverse category, comprising
women from many cultures, religions, country of origin or heritage and language backgrounds.
Minoritisation has two distinguishing features. First, it is not to do with the number of people
in any particular grouping but about a systematic process, which renders particular groups as
minorities. Second, and relatedly, it is about the power relations between groupings that func-
tion to position particular groups in specific historical, economic, political and geographical
spaces and times as ‘minorities’. Third, this conceptualisation disrupts essentialising notions of
‘culture’ as typified in ‘minority ethnic’ discourses (see Batsleer et al., 2002, for a more detailed
discussion). I have therefore used minoritisation or minoritised in the ways discussed above.

Quantitative approaches
If the aim is to find out what the incidence or prevalence of, for example, forced marriage is,
then a quantitative approach should be taken. This is more difficult than it sounds as it is com-
monly assumed that abuse is under-reported and most studies rely on reported cases. Regarding
forced marriage, studies in the UK have attempted to investigate databases held by key agencies
such as the police, social work departments and relevant third sector organisations (Hester et al.,
2007; Chantler et al., forthcoming). However, even this is not straightforward as organisational
databases may log forced marriage under various categories: as forced marriage or honour-based
violence or gender-based violence, and they might log ‘ordinary’ abuse experienced by minori-
tised women as honour-based violence rather than as domestic abuse (Bates, 2015; Chantler
et al., forthcoming). This confusion in terminology and the way in which different organisations
interpret and record domestic abuse or forced marriage is problematic and hampers the ability
to generate accurate data. The most robust measure of domestic and sexual assault in England
and Wales is the Crime Survey of England and Wales (CSEW), but this does not analyse data
by ethnicity and does not investigate issues such as forced marriage, female genital mutilation or
honour-based violence. However, some of the specific acts (e.g. of physical violence) involved
in these forms of violence are covered by the generic domestic abuse questions so some cases of
forced marriage, honour-based violence and female genital mutilation may appear in the overall
domestic and sexual violence figures. Nevertheless, as these are not separated out or interro-
gated further, there is no national-level data collected and analysed on a regular basis. Natcen
conducted a study to establish prevalence of forced marriage in 2008 and estimated between
5,000 and 8,000 cases of forced marriage in the year of their study. The study selected ten local
authority areas of the UK (from assumptions based on high, medium and low incidence of
forced marriage) and surveyed organisations (via a questionnaire) to investigate the number of
forced marriages reported in 2008. They then extrapolated these numbers to produce a national
estimated figure of forced marriages (Natcen, 2009). Macfarlane and Dorkenoo’s 2015 study
sought to establish the prevalence of female genital mutilation (FGM) in England and Wales.
They used a combination of methods including: household surveys in countries where FGM

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is practised to establish prevalence; utilising the 2011 census data on migration from practising
countries to England and Wales; and girls born to them were derived from birth registrations.
Their analysis estimates 137,000 women and girls living in England and Wales have undergone
FGM. These studies are useful (despite their limitations) as they offer much-needed initial data
about the extent of these forms of violence which policy-makers can use to develop specific pol-
icies and legislation to protect potential victims. However, it is important to note, that we have
no comparable data on the prevalence of ‘ordinary’ domestic abuse in minoritised communities.
This has the effect of privileging forced marriage and FGM as the only GBV issues relevant to
minoritised women whilst overlooking everyday domestic abuse in these communities.

Qualitative approaches
If the research aims and questions relate to understanding survivors’ experiences or professionals’
understandings of responding to GBV in minoritised communities, then a qualitative approach
is called for. Most of my research into GBV in minoritised communities adopts a qualitative or
mixed methods approach. Based on my research experience, I offer an account of what the key
issues are in conducting qualitative interview-based research on this topic.
A key approach taken in GBV research more widely is to pay close attention to what survi-
vors of abuse say about their experiences in relation to policy and practice in the field in order
to create services that are responsive to their needs. For many researchers, a starting point is to
conduct qualitative research (mainly interviews) with survivors. As has been discussed above,
often these studies have excluded the voices of minoritised women (normalised absence), so
research which looks at the specificity of minoritised women’s experiences of GBV is impor-
tant. However, we have now reached a stage where the issues are well known from survivor
perspectives and these have been summarised earlier. Clearly, the changing socio-economic and
political context makes it even more important to understand how these wider issues impact on
minoritised women’s experiences of GBV. Of particular pertinence are austerity and the shift-
ing and diminishing nature of refuge and outreach services to all women including minoritised
women; the increasing discourse of gender-neutrality in GBV; the strong anti-immigrant senti-
ment reflected in much public discourse and government policy, the securitisation and surveil-
lance aimed specifically at Muslim communities, but also at anyone who might be a Muslim.
One way to pay attention to the wider context and its impact on minoritised women expe-
riencing GBV, is to ensure that participants’ accounts are located within the socio-economic
and political climate of the time. In research I have conducted with minoritised women, their
accounts of GBV lend themselves easily to such an analysis and certain phrases encapsulate much
more than the few words spoken. A good example of this is when a participant said ‘the law has
given all the power to the man’ in relation to no recourse to public funds and her difficulties
in escaping the abusive relationship (see Chantler et al., 2003, for details of the study). Here we
see how state policies not only exacerbate domestic abuse by reducing the options available to
women in this situation, but also how they collude with male patriarchy in minoritised com-
munities by inadvertently sending a message that perpetrators can act with impunity.
Another method for laying bare the power relations at work is to ‘research up’. This means
that, rather than revisiting the now well-trodden path of the impact of GBV on minoritised
women, the spotlight should be on policy, service and professional responses to GBV. This
approach has been successfully deployed in Batsleer et al. (2002), which explored African,
African-Caribbean, Irish, Jewish and South Asian survivors’ experiences of GBV and service
responses to them. A previous study on attempted suicide and self-harm (South Asian women)
in which domestic abuse emerged as a precursor to manifestations of such forms of distress also

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utilised a similar approach (see Chantler et al., 2001, for further details). In interviews with
senior managers of services in the latter study, it was clear that the development of services did
not take into account any specific needs of South Asian women (normalised absence). This was
partly explained by senior managers as a matter of demographics, yet in the new era of person-
alised care, this would be a difficult position to justify. So, whilst on paper, health and social
care agencies may have the right equality policies, how these are implemented leave much to
be desired. From a human rights and social justice perspective, minoritised women are entitled
to the same level of services as majority women. In both the aforementioned studies, what
was interesting was that whilst professionals tended to offer cultural explanations for GBV in
minoritised communities, survivors eschewed this and talked about domestic and sexual vio-
lence, poverty, and immigration issues. Their accounts of domestic and sexual violence were
often indistinguishable from those experienced by majority women (apart from those that also
experienced immigration issues, racism, language issues), yet domestic abuse was conceptual-
ised by professionals as ‘part of their culture’ (Burman et al., 2004). The ‘cycle of abuse’ theory
(Walker, 1979) is frequently used as an explanation of domestic abuse in an over-determining
manner to the detriment of women experiencing abuse as it presents them as passive and as
experiencing ‘learned helplessness’. A ‘culturalist’ framing in relation to minoritised women
can be similarly critiqued in terms of assumed passivity. Further, in practice terms it means that
important opportunities for protecting minoritised women and their children are lost (discussed
further below). Qualitative research therefore involves a different type of knowledge produc-
tion and below I focus on a wide-ranging understanding of ethical research practice in this field.

Ethics, minoritisation and researching GBV

Clearly researching sensitive topics requires a heightened awareness of ethical issues. Basic ethi-
cal principles such as informed consent, anonymity, being aware of the potential for distress and
having mechanisms to counter this are standard for gaining ethical approval through ethics com-
mittees. However, it should also be noted that ethics are contextual and that different contexts
require different ways of meeting ethical standards. In some communities, a standard participant
information sheet and consent form may present barriers, especially where the participant’s
English-language proficiency might be a barrier. Additionally, some cultures are oral and will
prefer to have a conversation about the research study and what will be involved (rather than
reading about the study). So, it is important to be aware of how different modes of communica-
tion might better operate in different contexts. Minimising harm, especially when researching
GBV, entails being alert to the risks posed to potential participants both in making contact with
them, arranging an interview or discussion about the study and post-interview contact, includ-
ing referral to an appropriate support agency if required.
Most qualitative research on GBV that seeks to interview survivors is normally conducted
via gatekeepers in organisations that provide support to those experiencing GBV. Gatekeepers
perform a useful role in ensuring that information is passed on appropriately to potential par-
ticipants. Key to their considerations is a desire to protect the well-being of service users and
to screen out those who they deem to be too vulnerable. However, on occasion this can slip
into a m/paternalistic approach as many survivors value the opportunity to tell their stories and
to be attended to in a sensitive, empathic and caring manner. The challenge for gatekeepers
and researchers is the extent to which potential participants should be treated as autonomous
agents, taking their own decisions about whether they wish to participate or not versus vulner-
ability factors. This dynamic is often exacerbated where workers and survivors speak different
languages, which can often mean that such service users may well be excluded from research as

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the worker may not be able to explain the research study. Even if written information is pro-
vided in the survivor’s language, there is no guarantee that she will have the requisite literacy
skills. Here the tension between protecting the well-being of others and participants’ own sense
of autonomy and decision-making about whether or not to participate seems central to ethical
practice in research.

Power and ethics

Particularly in research with minoritised communities, it is crucial to use reflexivity in the
research process. Researchers’ own positionings, their levels of comfort/discomfort of working
with GBV across ethnic, class and gender lines, and their knowledge, understanding or experi-
ence of structural issues such as racism, sexism and class disadvantage will impact on the data
collected, what can be spoken about and the final analysis and presentation of the research. Whilst
ethics committees’ remits often do not involve commenting on methodology, ethical research
and methodology are inextricably interlinked. The very nature of the research process means
that there is a power imbalance between researcher and researched and this is compounded by
our structural positionings (e.g. Phoenix, 1994; Gunaratnam, 2003). Critical race approaches
and feminist approaches are very aware of this dynamic and advocate methods that attempt
to neutralise or redress inequalities within the research process. Research practice based on a
desire to reduce the power inequalities between the researcher and researched is predicated on
understanding the social and cultural contexts of research participants. A range of methods are
proposed, including building trust, empathic interviewing, offering participants the transcript of
interviews for alterations, sharing initial analysis with participants and co-producing outputs. The
extent to which these are pursued is dependent on the type of study, the funding and time-frame
available. I will discuss two of these aspects: building trust and interview transcripts.
Building trust can be thought of as operating at several levels: community, organisational and
individual. Researching minoritised communities may require researchers to build trust with the
community being researched. Often this entails making relationships with community leaders
(as gatekeepers to their communities); however in the case of GBV, this is problematic as most
community leaders are men and may minimise domestic abuse (just as in the wider population)
and make access to women with experiences of GBV difficult. Further, in some communities,
appropriate processes for resolving family issues including GBV utilise religious law and processes
and this can be read as a form of ‘cultural privacy’. Examples of these are the Sharia Council
in the UK for Muslim people, the Beth Din for Jewish people and ‘Canon Law’ for Christians
(see Douglas et al., 2011, for a fuller discussion). Whilst civil courts in the UK have the ultimate
say in family matters, including divorce, for those of a religious persuasion, the dissolution of
marriage from the Beth Din, Sharia Council or Catholic Church is a central part of religious
identity and, importantly, allows the person to re-marry within their faith should they wish to.
However, religious identification can also be used by perpetrators to enforce their authority,
e.g. by refusing to produce the paperwork required for a ‘get’ (which has to be presented by a
Jewish husband to his wife to effect the divorce). Religious resolutions to GBV are problematic
given that most religions are keen to see marriages survive where women are expected to make
most of the compromises and to tolerate the abuse. Patel and Siddiqui (2010) chart how the
multi-cultural policies of the 1970s have given way to ‘multi-faithism’, particularly since 9/11
and the London bombings of July 2005. They argue that a contradictory policy process has
taken place, with the state developing policy to challenge GBV relating to minoritised women
such as honour-based violence, forced marriage and FGM whilst simultaneously pushing for
faith-based responses to GBV which undermines minoritised women’s autonomy and choices

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due to the unequal gender relations characteristic of many faiths. They therefore conclude that
the shrinking of secular spaces works against women experiencing GBV. Given these mine-
fields, the question of how to build trust in minoritised communities in order to conduct GBV
research is a moot one. It seems clear that negotiating access via community leaders is fraught
and this is an approach to be avoided when researching GBV despite standard texts recommend-
ing this approach as a general principle in ethnographic research in minoritised communities
(see Temple and Moran, 2006). The approach I have taken, which has largely been successful,
is to access research participants via minoritised and mainstream women’s organisations. Hence,
key trust building needs to occur at the organisational rather than community level. Taking time
to explain to women’s organisations what the research is about, considering options for such
organisations to be part of the research advisory groups (if the study has one) is crucial to extend-
ing ownership of the research. It may also be worth volunteering within a key organisation to
understand the work of the agency and to demonstrate a commitment to the women it supports.
Developing professional networks with women’s organisations that work in the field is central
to building trust. Sidestepping community leaders and building relationships with the women’s
sector works for accessing minoritised women participants but clearly research involving perpe-
trators requires a different approach where engaging with community leaders is likely to be the
key to success. My research focuses on survivor and professional responses, hence engaging with
the women’s sector has been essential. However, this is still not sufficient, as the researcher still
needs to be alert to unequal power relations based on race, ethnicity, class or personal experi-
ences of GBV. As argued above, reflexivity is central to successful research with minoritised
communities. Once trust has been established at the organisational level, this needs to extend
to individual potential participants. Routine ethics procedures regarding accessing participants,
minimising harm and anonymity have been discussed above with relevant provisos. However,
trust is a process and a fine-tuning to the shifting power relationship between researcher and
researched is central to ethical research practice.
Assuming that participants have been recruited and interviews conducted and transcripts
prepared, the next step might include consideration of whether the participant should be offered
the transcript of their interview in case they wish to remove or add information prior to analysis.
In my research experience, this has been a far from straightforward process. Most participants
have not wished to see their transcripts and hardly any have wanted to remove or add material.
In a recent study investigating male experiences of forced marriage, one participant reported
that it been hard to tell his story and reading the transcript would mean revisiting painful events
and feelings that he would prefer to leave aside. However, he did discuss which elements of
his story he wanted to remove and to check on anonymity. So even though participants might
not want to see the transcript, offering participants the opportunity to do so presents partici-
pants with further options about how their data is to be used. In a different study, on South
Asian women and self-harm, another participant who I interviewed using an interpreter did not
want a translated transcript, but instead wanted a copy of the recording of the interview. She
wanted to use the recording to play to her family as she reported that she had never been able
to explain fully what had happened to her and the research interview had given her the oppor-
tunity to tell her story in her own way. Although she had been upset in the interview, she still
reported the interview as being useful and wanted to use it beyond the interview. In the study
on men’s experiences of forced marriage, another participant was visibly upset in the interview,
but wanted to continue with it and reported feeling relieved that he had the opportunity to tell
his story. These varying responses illustrate the importance of being prepared to listen to and
respond appropriately to distress not only during, but also after, the interview. Many gatekeep-
ers and ethics committees may be reluctant for researchers to access vulnerable participants in

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order to minimise distress, but for some participants the research interview can be transformative
or at least quasi-therapeutic.

The ethics and politics of representation

Expanding on the idea of ethics as an ongoing process, I turn now to what can be termed the
ethics and politics of representation (see Gunaratnam, 2003). Concerns about representing the
‘other’ emanate from, and are largely directed at, (women) researchers from dominant groups
researching subjugated or marginalised others. Closely linked to reflexivity, is the concept of
‘politics of location’ (Rich, 1986). Rich draws attention to the significance of the researcher’s
own body and social identities and the ways in which ‘whiteness’ is normalised, thus making it
difficult to hear the voices and experiences of ‘others’. Rich urges a reflexive stand to understand
one’s own politics of location. In relation to GBV and feminisms, it was assumed in the early
1970s that the categories ‘woman’ and ‘domestic violence’ covered all women. This charac-
terisation failed to recognise the diversity within the categories (normalised absence) and so the
experiences of minoritised women, disabled women, lesbian and trans women were overlooked
in the campaigning and establishment of women’s services to respond to domestic violence.
Since the late 1970s and early 1980s, minoritised women activists and academics have been at
the forefront of pushing forward the conceptual debate of what and who constitutes the category
‘woman’ to illustrate the limitations of using patriarchy as the sole organising principle of femi-
nism to the exclusion to racism and class considerations (Amos and Parmar, 1984; Crenshaw,
1991; hooks, 1982; Hill-Collins, 1991). Intersectionality, a key theoretical resource developed
by Kimberlé Crenshaw (1991) is still relevant today for preventing and responding to GBV in
minoritised communities. Her central argument comprises three key points. First, that when
feminists talk about ‘women’, they are largely focused on the concerns of white women and
patriarchy and so overlook the experiences of racism and black women. Second, she argues that
anti-racists are largely concerned with the situation of black men, thus also ignoring the plight
of black women. The gap ‘black women’ is thus created, with neither feminists nor anti-racists
paying attention to the specificities encountered by black women. Third, Crenshaw illustrates
very well how ‘race’, gender and class cannot be thought of as separate entities but as mutu-
ally constitutive, i.e. that black women’s experience of racism is also inflected by their gender
and class and vice versa. She uses the example of domestic abuse and immigration to illustrate
the practical, material and conceptual value of intersectionality and, arguably, this is even more
relevant in the current context of austerity and anti-immigration rhetoric and hostility. In the
UK, black women’s domestic abuse organisations were set up by black women to respond to the
gaps in services in mainstream services and to respond to the specificity of minoritised women’s
experiences of GBV (e.g. Southall Black Sisters). These hard-fought battles are currently under
threat with the twin agendas of austerity and heightened racism post-Brexit (BBC, 2016; Imkaan,
2012; Women’s Aid, 2014). Returning to the landmark texts of the 1980s is therefore a timely
reminder of the increased necessity in the current context to engage with multiple and intersect-
ing dimensions of oppression and to place privilege and whiteness within a politics of location.
This brings us to the thorny issue of whether those whose social identities reflect privileged
positions can or should research and write about ‘others’/minoritised women. The assumption
that cultural, linguistic, gender, sexuality and class similarity deepens the information gathered
as a researcher from a similar background might exhibit increased sensitivity to the nuances of
the interview. An ‘insider’ position clearly has advantages, but it is far from a simple matching
exercise, as Phoenix (1994) has pointed out. As Phoenix also notes, identities are not fixed,
but shift through the research process. In my research, although I normally have similarities of

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gender and experiences of minoritisation with research participants, so potentially contributing

to a shared vision and understanding of the issues that confront ‘us’ (researcher and participant),
does this make the task of representation less fraught with difficulties? How do these identifica-
tions work in practice? In relation to the studies ‘Attempted Suicide and Self-harm’ (Chantler
et al., 2001) and ‘Domestic Violence and Minoritisation’ (Batsleer et al., 2002), whilst it is easier
to see the similarities between myself and South Asian women participants (but even this is a
heterogeneous category), how am I positioned in relation to African, African-Caribbean, Irish
and Jewish women who were also part of the latter study or to African and African-Caribbean
women in a study on forced marriage (Hester et al., 2007)? Would my insider position be
strengthened if I were to reveal experiences of self-harm, domestic violence or forced marriage?
In addition, if so, which of these identities would be more privileged in a particular research
interview? I highlight these issues as a way of illustrating the impossibility of ‘matching’ as each
research study and interview brings different challenges and dilemmas. Further, there is a dif-
ferent set of power relations to contend with when researching ‘up’ as my minoritised status is
no longer an asset in interviewing, for example, service managers in mental health services. The
normal power relations between researcher and researched are therefore inverted in these situ-
ations. Shifting power relations within and between research interviews can usefully be utilised
as windows into data analysis. Given these fluid identities and power relations, it would not
make sense to stick rigidly to, or even to assume, a fixed insider position. ‘Outsider’ positions
are sometimes argued to provide objectivity and neutrality but here it is contended that this is
not possible given the arguments above about the politics of location. Therefore, it is not that
‘outsiders’ cannot undertake research with ‘others’ providing the task of analysis and reporting
on the research is undertaken with great care to ensure that dominant power relations are not
reinforced and re-inscribed through the analysis.
In relation to GBV in minoritised communities, one way in which dominant power relations
are re-inscribed is by reporting on GBV in these communities as purely cultural and, further,
to represent such cultures as ‘backward’, barbaric and ultra-patriarchal or as a pathologised
presence (Phoenix, 1987). Chantler and Gangoli (2011) argue that such a representation of
GBV in minoritised communities is flawed. First, a cultural framing is applied only in rela-
tion to minoritised communities, whilst GBV in majority, western societies is cast as a case
of ‘bad apples’, i.e. an individualised representation is given which locates responsibility on
to individual perpetrators rather than on cultural or social norms which allow GBV to flour-
ish. Whilst structural arrangements based on unequal gender relations are commonly assumed
within feminist frameworks to account for the prevalence of GBV, the links between such a
framing and how these unequal relations link to cultural values and practices is missing from
much analysis. This gap therefore contributes to GBV in majority communities being seen as
individualised acts rather than as also influenced by cultural norms and values. Second, framing
GBV as cultural only in minoritised communities represents minoritised women as completely
culture-bound and lacking in agency whilst positioning majority women experiencing GBV as
agentic. This does a disservice to both groups of women as majority women are then portrayed
as having abundant agency, so giving rise to ‘victim-blaming’ for staying in abusive relation-
ships or being held responsible for the failure to protect any of their children who witness
domestic abuse (Humphreys and Absler, 2011). The individualising frame does not do justice
to majority women’s experiences of GBV as survivors and feminists have repeatedly pointed to
economic, cultural or religious factors as well as (legitimate) fears that leaving will increase abuse
(CSEW, 2016; Wilcox, 2006). These factors make it very difficult to leave abusive relationships.
Minoritised women are portrayed as having no choice but to stay as GBV is seen as endemic
to their cultures, so instead of victim blaming, we have ‘culture-blaming’. This discourse flies

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in the face of studies that demonstrate that minoritised women face many other additional
struggles leaving abusive relationships, including: inappropriate service responses, immigration
issues, language and cultural issues and racism. Experiences of racism were reported as occurring
within mainstream women’s refuges where other residents displayed racist behaviour towards
minoritised women, but was not challenged by refuge staff (Chantler, 2006). Another exam-
ple of racism is where minoritised women are housed post-refuge. Largely, this is in socially
deprived neighbourhoods where minoritised women have experienced racist attacks (Chantler,
2006; see also earlier work by Mama, 1996). Hence, some minoritised women leaving abusive
relationships have reported that they are merely substituting GBV with racist abuse and vio-
lence. The national shortage of social housing exacerbates this problem, as there is limited or
no choice as to which housing to accept. Although housing minoritised women in deprived,
white neighbourhoods may leave them vulnerable to racist attacks, simultaneously this type of
housing location may offer protection from their GBV perpetrators who may have fewer net-
works in these neighbourhoods. A further issue is one of isolation, as many minoritised women
flee to alternative cities or towns far away from their perpetrators to generate a sense of safety
and security for themselves and their children. Their prior networks are thus disrupted and for
some women this has precipitated a return to their perpetrator (Chantler, 2006). The realities
of seeking safety are therefore complex and nuanced and this needs to be reflected in research,
policy and practice rather than a simplistic ‘culturalist’ framing of GBV in minoritised commu-
nities (pathologised presence). Third, a culturalist frame is detrimental to minoritised women as
professionals will see little point in intervening if GBV is conceptualised as ‘part of their culture’,
fixed and immutable. However, a contrary approach has been taken by some forms of femi-
nism to ‘rescue’ minoritised women from their oppressive cultures. Specifically, Razack (2004)
reminds us that such interventions can be imbued with (an unrecognised) colonial and imperial-
ist perspective to civilise ‘backward’ communities; that Euro-American cultures are presented
as forward-thinking and comprising values (such as democracy, liberty and egalitarianism) and
‘outside’ of culture – in stark contrast to minoritised cultures who are seen as culture-bound
(as discussed above). Finally, the use of a culturalist frame occludes structural issues and policies
such as immigration control, racism, austerity and lack of social housing as previously discussed.

Conclusion
Researching GBV in minoritised communities is fraught with challenges and opportunities
and this chapter contributes to addressing some of these. The chapter discusses the centrality
of reflexive research practice, including the ethical and political dimensions of representation
to demonstrate that these elements are more important than fixating about the im/possibility
of matched identities between researcher and researched. Drawing on Ann Phoenix’s (1987)
conceptualisation of normalised absence/pathologised presence and Crenshaw’s work on inter-
sectionality, I have illustrated how GBV research, policy and practice has frequently overlooked
the specific requirements of minoritised women (normalised absence) and how particular forms
of violence are seen as endemic to minoritised cultures (pathologised presence) which contrib-
utes to ‘culture-blaming’. Forced marriage, honour-based violence and FGM are important to
research as are ‘everyday’ forms of GBV experienced by minoritised women. I have also argued
that the similarities of experiences of GBV across all women are overlooked and that a cultur-
alised framing does not take into account structural arrangements, which mediate minoritised
women’s experiences of GBV, nor does it ensure their adequate protection. The current socio-
economic and political context is particularly difficult for minoritised women experiencing
GBV and for agencies providing specialist support to minoritised women. Austerity measures,

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immigration policy, increased surveillance on Muslim communities, cuts to welfare provision

and the heightened anti-immigrant racism and sentiment have to form the backdrop against
which GBV in minoritised communities is researched and understood.

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 21
Young women’s responses to
safety advice in bars and clubs
Implications for future sexual
violence prevention campaigns

Oona Brooks

Introduction
Contemporary young women appear to have greater freedoms to drink and socialise within the
night-time economy than their predecessors (Brooks, 2008). Meanwhile, bars and clubs have
been subject to a process of feminisation as part of an appeal to the female market (Chatterton
and Hollands, 2003). However, young women are simultaneously positioned as ‘a risk’ and ‘at
risk’ when they socialise in bars and clubs. Hence, they have also been identified as the primary
audience for personal safety campaigns intended to prevent sexual assault in bars and clubs. A
renewed interest in the dissemination of safety advice to young women has been prompted
by concern about drug and alcohol assisted sexual assault (Beynon et al., 2005; Brooks, 2013;
Burgess et al., 2009; Moore, 2009; Sturman, 2000) and women’s increased levels of alcohol con-
sumption (Mathews and Richardson, 2005; McKenzie and Haw, 2006; Richardson and Budd,
2003). Bars and clubs have also been identified as environments characterised by hypersexuality
and loss of control (Gunby et al., 2016). Within these environments, young women have been
identified as particularly vulnerable to sexual assault (Becker and Tinkler, 2014; Graham et al.,
2014; Moreton, 2002; Schwartz, 1997; Sturman, 2000; Watson, 2000) and sexual aggression by
men is perceived as an inevitability (Becker and Tinkler, 2014; Kavanaugh, 2013).
The way that young women view and respond to safety advice in this context, however, is
unclear. Research which has explored the safety behaviours used by women in public spaces
contends that they are acutely aware of their vulnerability, and that they adopt a range of ‘safe-
keeping’ strategies in response to their fear of sexual assault, physical assault and sexual harass-
ment (Seabrook and Green, 2004; Stanko, 1990; Tulloch, 2004; Wesely and Gaarder, 2004;
Wilson and Little, 2008). This is perhaps unsurprising given the conventional constructing of
public spaces as masculine spaces, when women are not typically taught to feel safe (Gardner,
1990; Skeggs, 1999; Valentine, 1992; Wesely and Gaarder, 2004). However, there is a lack
of research which specifically examines women’s responses to safety campaigns and the safety
behaviours they adopt in the context of bar and clubs (including the reasons why they may
adopt some behaviours while rejecting others).

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This chapter, therefore, explores these issues through discussion of findings from a qualita-
tive study conducted with young women about their safety in the night-time economy. The
findings discussed highlight the complex and diverse responses which women make when faced
by the often contradictory and gendered discourses around safety when socialising in bars and
clubs. Consideration is then given to the implications for, and developments in, safety cam-
paigns directed at young women since the original publication of these findings in 2011.1

Safety campaigns
Safety advice directed at young women within the night-time economy has been developed
by a range of agencies, including the police, sexual assault support agencies, drug and alcohol
agencies, the government, and community safety partnerships. Such advice is intended to equip
young women with knowledge of how to avoid or prevent drink spiking, sexual assault, and the
irresponsible consumption of alcohol. The following messages are typical of safety advice found
in within awareness-raising materials:

Drug rape is rare: don’t let it happen to you!

(Fife Community Safety Partnership, ‘Don’t take a chance’ leaflet)
Just who has bought you that drink, can you trust them?
(West Lothian Drug Action Team, ‘Everything you need for a good night out’ leaflet)
Don’t be a target, be pub and club savvy, don’t lose it!
(Lothian and Borders Police poster)
One in three reported rapes happens when the victim has been drinking.
(Home Office, ‘Know Your Limits’ poster)
Remember, if you’re not keeping an eye on your drink then somebody else might be.
(Scottish Executive, ‘Know the Score’ leaflet)
Go out in a group and have a ‘sober’ friend who can look after you.
(St Andrews University, ‘Spike’ advice website)

From a feminist perspective, it can be argued that advice of this nature holds women individu-
ally responsible for preventing the sexual violence which is perpetrated against them; a discourse
also evident within conventional crime prevention literature directed at women. Feminist cri-
tiques of this advice reflect four key concerns: the individualisation of responsibility (Walklate,
1997); the gendering of risk and responsibility (Neame, 2003; Walklate, 1997); the adoption
of a limited conceptualisation of sexual violence (Lawson and Olle, 2005); and the absence of
any focus on men who choose to perpetrate sexual assault (Berrington and Jones, 2002; Stanko,
1996). It is argued that such approaches limit women’s freedom and autonomy in public space
and invoke a victim-blaming discourse should a woman fail to adhere to particular standards
of conduct (Campbell, 2005), typically those associated with appropriate femininity. As one
of the most ardent critics of crime prevention literature directed at women, Campbell (2005)
argues that this literature inadvertently furthers the possibility of rape rather than preventing it
by casting male sexual behaviour and feminine vulnerabilities as inevitable. This forms part of
‘gendered configurations’, which reify male dominance and female rapeability by constructing
‘masculinity-as-aggressive’ and ‘femininity-as-vulnerable’ (Campbell, 2005: 134), thus install-
ing rape as a ‘fixed reality’. Despite these critiques of conventional safety advice for women, it

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would appear that a discourse of gendered and individualised responsibility persists in contem-
porary safety campaigns.

Study design and analysis

This chapter draws upon data from a qualitative study, which explored the views, experiences
and behaviours of young women (18–25 years) in relation to their safety when socialising in bars
and clubs. Four focus groups and 29 semi-structured interviews were conducted with young
adult women in Scotland; in total, 35 young women participated in this study. Due to the
geographical spread of participants, experiences of socialising in four out of Scotland’s six cities
formed the main focus of discussion, although some participants also referred to their experi-
ences of socialising in smaller towns.
Focus groups were designed to concentrate primarily on young women’s views about
safety and associated safety advice for women in bars and clubs using materials from safety
campaigns as prompts to facilitate discussion. Meanwhile, individual semi-structured inter-
views were designed to elicit participants’ personal experiences of socialising in bars and
clubs, their safety concerns and safety behaviours in these settings. Data from focus groups
and interviews were fully transcribed and coded using the computer-assisted qualitative data
analysis software (CAQDAS) package NVivo. The analysis process followed a three-stage
model comprising of open, axial and selective coding (Strauss, 1987). In practice, however,
this was not a linear process and the analysis moved back and forth between different stages
of this model as new themes and connections within the data emerged. In the discussion that
follows, where participants’ responses have been quoted directly, pseudonyms have been used
to protect their anonymity.
Participants were primarily white, heterosexual women in further or higher education. This
is a limitation which should be borne in mind when reflecting upon the findings of this study.
For example, a more diverse sampling frame in terms of race and class may produce different
findings, particularly given the construction of respectable or successful femininity through race
and class (Griffin, 2004; Jackson and Tinkler, 2007; Skeggs, 1997). It is also acknowledged
that sexuality impacts upon definitions of safety and the identification of safe spaces in the
night-time economy (Corteen, 2002; Moran et al., 2003). Nonetheless, the sample used in the
current study provided a valuable opportunity to examine the views and experiences of a key
population within bars and clubs, since the consumption of alcohol is an acknowledged feature
of student life (Gill, 2002; Piacentini and Banister, 2008). Moreover, young women are identi-
fied as being particularly (although by no means exclusively) vulnerable to sexual assault within
licensed premises (Moreton, 2002; Schwartz, 1997; Watson, 2000), and are a key target audi-
ence for safety campaigns in these social settings.

Findings
Participants were asked if they were aware of any specific safety advice or campaigns in relation
to socialising in bars and clubs, and prompted for details of this advice. Although participants’
recall of specific safety campaigns was relatively low, there was a high level of awareness of the
key messages within these campaigns (i.e. how to prevent drink spiking, look out for female
friends, and limit alcohol consumption). To a certain extent the young women who participated
in the current study endorsed and adopted behaviours advocated within the prevention literature,

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describing an extensive range of safety behaviours that they used when socialising in bars and
clubs, including: watching drinks, only drinking out of bottles, covering the tops of bottles, tak-
ing drinks to the toilet, not dressing ‘provocatively’, going out in a group, staying with friends
at all times (including going to the toilet), limiting alcohol consumption, pretending to be
engaged to be married, seeking protection from male friends, leaving bars and clubs to escape
unwanted male attention, humouring men, wearing shoes that they can run in, pretending to
spill drinks bought for them, not accepting drinks from unknown men, and seeking assistance
from bouncers or bar staff.
However, young women’s behaviours were complex and contradictory in that they adopted,
resisted and transgressed behaviours advocated in safety advice. Four key themes emerged in
relation to participants’ adoption and rejection of safety behaviours: common sense and neces-
sity; disparity between theory and practice; maintaining control and respectability; and resent-
ment of the focus on women’s behaviour. These themes are discussed below with verbatim
extracts from interviews and focus groups to illustrate these themes in participants’ own words.

Common sense and necessity

For most of the young women in the current study, utilising safety behaviours was ‘just what
you do’ while drinking in bars and clubs and, as such, recommended behaviours within safety
campaigns were simply described as ‘common sense’ precautions.

Katy (FG02):  lot of it’s common knowledge, though, isn’t it? You do without thinking of
A
it, this is one of the steps on the poster ‘go out in bunch, go out in a group’ –
yeah; ‘keep your drink with you’ – yeah.

Participants’ positioning of safety behaviours as ‘common sense’ precautions, is reminiscent of

the ‘normal precautions’ described by Stanko (1987) in relation to safekeeping strategies used by
women in public places, although in the contemporary context of bars and clubs, new behav-
iours have emerged in relation to the prevention of drink spiking. Young women’s assertions
that they were already aware of the advice contained within safety campaigns were largely based
on receiving messages from their family and the media at an early age. The most notable features
of familial advice were both the early age and vigour with which this advice was given, in addi-
tion to the explicit (and implicit) focus on preventing sexual violence.

Annabelle (INT): I ’m the only daughter in my family so I’ve had it drummed into me by my
dad. ‘There’s a lot of perverts out there. Be careful’ . . . my parents aren’t
trying to be nasty about it, but they do sort of hammer home the fact that
look, you’re a young girl, you’re more vulnerable than your brothers will be.

Safety messages given to women at an early age were also described by participants as being rein-
forced by media accounts of women being raped or sexually assaulted, including ‘real life’ stories
in women’s magazines. Stanko (1990: 85) notes that as women reach adulthood, they develop
an acute awareness of their vulnerability and the need to adopt safekeeping behaviours as part of
‘a continuous lesson about what it means to be female’. Participants’ awareness of their vulner-
ability as a young woman meant that their adoption of safety behaviours was also influenced by
a sense that taking responsibility for your own safety was a necessity:

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Oona Brooks

Sophie (INT): Y
 ou’re forced to think about it [safety], you have to think about it. Unfortunately
it’s just part and parcel of the going out situation . . . you could put yourself in
a very vulnerable position if you don’t think about who you’re talking to, who
you’re going with, how you’re getting back home.

The necessity of engaging in safety behaviours was both normalised by participants and under-
stood to be gendered. It is noteworthy that relatively few participants questioned why they
should need to adopt safety behaviours in the first instance. The perceived inevitability of men’s
behaviour, or at least the behaviour of some men, contributed to participants’ understanding
that they needed to take responsibility for their own safety.

Rachel (INT): It should be that the men know that there are lines and you shouldn’t cross
them, and if a woman says ‘no’ she means no . . . but I just don’t think it ever
is going to be . . . you have to look out for yourselves and other women.
Debbie (INT): I think men are always going to behave the way they are and that’s just men
[laughs]. I think it is mainly the women themselves [who should take respon-
sibility for safety] because, obviously, they have control over what exactly
they’re drinking and what exactly they’re doing.

These assertions draw upon essentialist discourses of male sexuality, as predetermined and inca-
pable of change. Debbie laughs after suggesting that men do not have the capacity to change
their behaviour, since ‘that’s just men’. The laughter which accompanies this statement effec-
tively minimises the gravity of the idea that men are incapable of changing their behaviour,
even if women experience this behaviour as intimidating or abusive. To a certain extent, this
finding lends credence to Campbell’s (2005: 119) assertion that women internalise the mes-
sage within the prevention literature which unwittingly reinforces essentialist notions of the
‘vulnerable/indefensible feminine’ and the ‘potent/unstoppable masculine’. This builds upon
earlier feminist work which highlights the way that cultural norms position intimate sexual
violence as a ‘natural’ or ‘exaggerated’ expression of innate male sexuality (Neame, 2003),
thus upholding the myth that men are physically incapable of controlling themselves sexually
(Lawson and Olle, 2005) and implying that women must accept responsibility for avoiding and
evading such threats. However, as will be discussed, young women in the current study also
resented and resisted the idea that their own behaviour should be questioned or moderated in
order to maintain their safety. This highlights the complex, and at times, contradictory nature
of young women’s responses to this issue.

Disparity between theory and practice

Although engaging in safety behaviour was understood to be a ‘normal’ and largely accepted
element of a night out, participants also described limitations to adopting the behaviours advo-
cated within safety advice; namely that doing so imposed on their capacity to have fun, was at
times impractical, and conflicted with the prevailing drinking culture. Given that young women
seek to ‘have a good time’ when they are in bars and clubs, it is perhaps unsurprising that some
young women did not consciously think about their safety, or resisted doing so.

Lynn (FG01): A
 lot o’ people just try and put that [safety] out their mind so it doesn’t ruin
their night.

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Despite the restrictions of remaining vigilant and adopting safety behaviours the vast major-
ity (31 out of the 35) of the young women in this study said that they watched their drinks in
bars and clubs in order to prevent them from being ‘spiked’, although some participants did
acknowledge that this could be difficult to do in practice.

Ruth (FG03): Y
 ou go out with the intention of right, keep a hold of my drink and I won’t
put it down and all this stuff, but then once you’re out and you’ve had a few
more drinks it tends to go a little bit by the wayside. It’s all good in theory, but
in practice it doesn’t really work out.

As an evening progressed watching drinks was something which young women conceded became
more difficult, particularly as the amount of alcohol that they had consumed increased. Safety
advice intended to help women avoid their drinks being spiked recommends that they avoid leav-
ing drinks unattended and don’t accept drinks which they have not seen being poured. However,
participants highlighted scenarios in which it would be impractical to follow this advice.

Judith (INT): I f I was with a guy going out for a drink that I’d just met, like a month ago or what-
ever . . . I would never have any second thoughts about going away to the toilet and
leaving my drink. ‘Cause I mean what do you do? You’re not gonna say . . . ‘I’m
taking my drink with me to the toilet’ . . . you would just leave it there.

Aspects of safety advice such as ‘never accept a drink you’ve not seen being poured’ were also
highlighted as unfeasible in busy bar and club environments. Ironically, women’s concerns not
to leave their drinks unattended also meant that they may consume their drinks more quickly,
increasing the likelihood of drunkenness.

Melissa (INT): Y
 ou either down it or you trust your friends . . . If you’ve spent £5 on a cock-
tail and your favourite song’s just come on, all your friends are grabbing you up
to dance and you’re like do I down it, do I not?

Although almost all of the young women in the current study watched their drinks, none of
them used specific devices to prevent their drink from being spiked, or to detect whether their
drink had been spiked.2 On the whole, young women were critical of devices such as bottle
stoppers and ‘drinks detectives’. These devices were described as costly (‘it costs money to buy
these stoppers, you know, to stop your drink getting spiked’), impractical (‘you’re gonna have
to take like a big black bag of those out with you every time you go’) and at odds with having
fun (‘it takes kind of the enjoyment bit out of it really’).
Advising women to go out in groups, look out for their friends and avoid leaving with a
stranger is an integral part of safety advice directed towards young women socialising in bars
and clubs. Going out in groups, or at least not alone, is something which participants described
doing as a matter of course. This is perhaps unsurprising given the safety concerns and stigma
attached to drinking in bars as a lone female (Hey, 1986; Stanley, 1980). However, the nomina-
tion of a ‘drinks watcher’ within friendship groups, as recommended within safety literature,
was not adopted by any of the participants; it was rejected on the basis that it formalises respon-
sibility for something which seems like ‘natural’ behaviour and that doing so would be an unfair
imposition of responsibility on one person. Further, relying on friends is a safety strategy which
is not without difficulties, particularly if they are also intoxicated.

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Oona Brooks

Judith (INT): Y
 ou always think, ‘Oh . . . oh they would look after me’, but then in the end
they’ve not remembered going home either, so . . . if some guy was trying to
like . . . drag me somewhere, would they even be in a position to do anything
about it? . . . it’s not that your friends . . . would intentionally not look out for
you, but it’s that maybe . . . they’ve lost control as well.

Some women did seek to limit their alcohol consumption, and factual information about the alco-
holic content of different drinks was generally viewed positively by participants. However, infor-
mation and advice about sensible drinking was seen to contradict the promotion of alcohol and the
prevailing drinking culture, described by Measham and Brain (2005) as a ‘culture of intoxication’.

Lisa (INT): S ee I think that’s really silly because it’s a bit for students and then it says ‘Avoid cheap
drinks promotions or competitions to get you to drink more’ [laughs] . . . That’s all
about Freshers’ Week. I mean they can’t . . . give out a leaflet like this in a Freshers’
Week pack, and then you’re gonna open it and then behind it you’re gonna have
‘12-hour Tuesdays, drinks are all 99 pence’ – it just totally contradicts each other.

Maintaining control and respectability

Given the nature and extent of young women’s safety concerns, behaviours which give women
the sense that they are in control of their environment and their own bodies have an under-
standable appeal even if, as discussed previously, there are practical challenges in implementing
these behaviours. Indeed, some participants displayed a sense of pride and reassurance, emanat-
ing from their own level of awareness and use of safety behaviours. It has been argued elsewhere
that safety behaviours employed by women in the realm of leisure, such as only going out at
particular times, are ‘resistant practices’ (Jordan and Aitchison, 2008: 343), illustrating how
women address their fears in order to participate in leisure activities (Mehta and Bondi, 1999).
The notion of safety and control as a state which can be practised and accomplished was evident
in the participants’ accounts.

Fiona (INT): It’s more when people have bad incidents or if someone’s had to walk
home . . . we’ll talk about it as a group and it’s discussed that won’t happen again.
As bad as it sounds it’s always bad incidences that make us kind of think, ‘Right,
this . . . like, we’ll be safe this time’ . . . I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not,
but . . . yeah, it’s basically just kind of years of practice [laughs].

Implicit within Fiona’s description of the way that she and her friends ‘will be safe this time’ is
a belief that they are capable of ensuring their safety, so long as they behave in a particular way.
While the sense of control and security this belief may offer young women has an understand-
able appeal, it is difficult to position safety behaviours as ‘resistant practices’ in the empowering
sense of this term when the adoption of these behaviours emanates from an understanding of the
adverse implications of failing to adopt such precautions. Further, for some women the adoption
of safety behaviours also appeared to offer a means of distinguishing themselves from the less
controlled behaviours of ‘other’ women.

Jessica (INT): I ’m . . . more aware of things that are around me than some girls. Some girls just
seem to let go too much when they’re out.

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Distancing themselves from the ‘risky’ conduct of ‘other’ women in bars and clubs may allow
young women to maintain a position of respectability; an appealing position given that alcohol
consumption is not conventionally associated with respectable femininity. Earlier studies indi-
cate that women who drink alcohol are frequently viewed as being more sexually available and
promiscuous than women who do not consume alcohol (Abbey et al., 2001; Testa and Parks,
1996). Further, as Measham (2002) notes, alcohol consumption is not just influenced by gender,
it is also a way of ‘doing gender’ and excessive alcohol consumption, in particular, is associated
with the less respectable working classes (Skeggs, 2004). This highlights one of the negative
implications of the individualised discourse inherent within much of the contemporary preven-
tion literature targeted towards young women. In essence, it can be argued that women who
fail to ‘self regulate’, fail to do their gender properly (Campbell, 2005: 132). While participants
understood women’s drinking to have become more socially acceptable now than it was in the
past, they were also acutely aware of enduring gendered risks.

Fiona (FG03): I don’t know if it’s just in my personal experience, but I think I’m more
likely to hear people slagging off a drunk girl than a drunk guy. You hear
people saying . . . ‘What’s she doing?’, or, ‘She needs to go home’. I don’t
think you really hear that about a guy as much.
Ruth (FG03): No, I agree. They’re more likely to say, ‘Oh, look at the state of her’, rather
than, ‘Oh, look at the state of him’. The guys would just be look, ‘Oh,
you were so drunk last night’, whereas the girls would be, like, ‘You were
really, really bad last night’, as in, ‘Sort yourself out’. Yeah. It’s more seen as
funny . . . if a guy’s really drunk. For a girl it’s, ‘they should be ashamed’.

Hence, for participants, the freedoms that they associated with drinking and socialising in bars
and clubs remained relative to that of their male counterparts. In this regard, maintaining control
and respectability remains a gendered responsibility.

Resentment of focus on women’s behaviour

Despite a sense of inevitability about men’s behaviour, which manifests itself in women remain-
ing vigilant and adopting safety behaviours, some participants questioned the predominant focus
on women’s behaviour within safety campaigns.

Lisa (INT): I mean they all say the same thing, don’t they? And the more you hear something the
more you’re just gonna be like, ‘Yeah, yeah, I know, whatever’ . . . because it’s all
aimed at girls and I think that . . . yeah, after you hear it too many times you just switch
off, whereas guys don’t hear it enough, which maybe is why . . . they spike people’s
drink . . . and they think they can get away with it too, and they can. Well they do.

It would appear that participants’ sense that they had ‘heard it all before’ contributed to a process
of ‘switching off’ from safety messages. However, some participants also questioned the inten-
tions of campaigns and media attention on the issue of women’s safety.

Louisa (INT): Y
 ou’ve also got like the date rape drugs all over the papers and in the news
and everything, but I don’t necessarily think that it’s any worse than it’s ever
been . . . I think it’s a backlash . . . I just think it’s like the media trying to make

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Oona Brooks

women scared of leaving their houses . . . it’s like you’ve got to be careful, don’t
be by yourself, get a rape whistle, be scared of everyone around you because
everyone’s a danger to you, whereas they’re not. You’ve got to be sensible, but
they’ve created too much of a problem out of it.

While maintaining a balance between the positive outcome of raising awareness and the nega-
tive outcome of increasing fear is a matter of contention within safety campaigns, Louisa implies
here that there is a ‘backlash’ to women’s freedom which manifests itself in attempts to restrict
women’s movements through fear. Further, the current approach to women’s safety, as conveyed
in the media and safety campaigns, was also located by other participants within the context of
women’s freedoms more broadly, again alluding to a ‘backlash’ (Faludi, 1992):

Eilidh (INT): It’s like women are let off the leash in some ways. It’s like those training leads
you get for puppies, you’re let off for so long and then they kind of like yank you
back again. It’s like oh you’re allowed to vote and do all this, but now you’re not
allowed to drink or smoke ‘Come back! Come back! Get back in the kitchen!’
I honestly feel like it’s like it can be so difficult to be a woman ‘cause you keep
getting told what’s appropriate and what’s not appropriate.

For some participants, their frustration with what they perceived to be unfair and contradictory
messages triggered a reaction against safety messages (‘men don’t get this . . . so why should I
listen to it?’). Related to this sense of injustice, and concern articulated by some participants that
there were negative implications of safety campaigns focusing entirely on women’s behaviour,
a preference was articulated for campaigns which focused on men’s behaviour. The following
focus group extract relates to discussion of a Home Office poster with the message ‘1 in 3 rapes
happened when a woman has been drinking’:

Lorna (FG03): It feels like they should have another poster that says one in three . . . out of
how many rapes has the male been drinking when he carries out rapes?

Perhaps paradoxically, the Home Office also developed a campaign which focused on the need
for men to ensure that they have the sexual consent of women if they have been drinking. This
campaign was received more positively by participants.

Louisa (INT): I think that’s a good campaign [Home Office consent campaign], because I
think it might make men question like their attitude and themselves rather than
women being told to question themselves and stop drinking because you’re
going to end up getting taken advantage of. It’s more like, guys stop doing it!

Discussion and conclusions

While it is difficult to ascertain the specific impact that safety advice has on young women’s
attitudes and behaviours amidst other social and cultural influences, findings from this study
suggest that the individualised and gendered discourse within safety campaigns is reflected in
young women’s accounts of socialising in bars and clubs, and their associated safety concerns
and behaviours. However, even within the confines of the relatively homogenous white, mid-
dle-class sample of the current study, young women’s responses to safety advice were diverse

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and, at times, contradictory; gendered safety advice was simultaneously adopted, resisted and
rejected. Arguably this highlights the complexity of ‘doing gender’ within the contemporary
context of bars and clubs. For most of the participants in the current study, adopting safety
behaviours to prevent drink spiking and sexual violence was both ‘common sense’ behaviour
and a necessity in light of their safety concerns in bars and clubs. However, adopting safety
behaviours such as only going out in groups, having shoes that they can run in, and watching
their drinks at all times are surely only ‘common sense’ measures for women, not men.
Echoing the assertions of Neame (2003) and Campbell (2005), it is argued here that safety
campaigns inadvertently compound the normalisation of male violence and harassment expe-
rienced by women by presenting it as an innate aspect of male behaviour alongside the pres-
entation of safekeeping strategies for women as ‘common sense’. Drawing upon a Foucauldian
perspective, McNay (1992) argues that bodily practices become a ‘technology of the self’
through a process of normalisation. Applying this logic to safekeeping strategies employed by
women to prevent rape, Campbell (2005: 123) posits that these strategies become ‘embodied
acts’ rather than a coercive form of regulation. The findings of the current study largely concur
with the conceptualisation of safety behaviours as normalised and ‘embodied acts’, which form
part of a process of self-regulation and social control. However, for participants in the current
study these acts were often performed with an awareness, and at times resentment, of the indi-
vidualised and gendered responsibility inherent within these acts. Moreover, certain aspects of
safety advice were also rejected by participants as unrealistic, or unfairly concentrated on the
behaviour of women rather than men. This challenges the notion that safekeeping behaviours
used by women are entirely internalised or ‘embodied acts’. Further, participants highlighted
practical difficulties in relation to successfully implementing advice such as watching drinks at all
times and never accepting a drink you have not seen poured.
Campaigns which fuse messages about women’s alcohol consumption and the prevention of
sexual assault risk (re)invoking a victim-blaming discourse. There are certain implications for
women who ‘fail’ to adopt recommended safety behaviours in that they subsequently risk blame
or alienation in the event that they are assaulted, since they have essentially ‘failed to do their
gender properly’. The gendered construction of risk, predicated upon notions of appropriate
femininity, has practical implications for the attribution of blame and responsibility following
rape or sexual assault. This is an area where public attitudes and those within the criminal justice
system are consistently identified as problematic (ONS, 2015; Reid et al., 2015), thus endorsing
the assertion by Watson (2000: 12) that ‘The role that alcohol and other drugs play in sexual
assault is most apparent in the area of perceived culpability’.
The findings of this study highlight the need for campaigns to focus on the behaviour of
abusive men, and the cultural beliefs which sanction sexual violence as a normative aspect of
male sexuality, rather than on the ‘risky’ behaviour of women. Ultimately, violence against
women cannot be eliminated without focusing preventative work on abusive male behaviour.
This would represent an important departure from previous prevention campaigns which, with
rare exception, have typically focused on women’s individual responsibility to resist the violence
and harassment they are subjected to at the hands of abusive men. Reflecting on developments
in recent years, there would appear to be some cause for optimism in the direction of con-
temporary campaigns. Rape prevention campaign messages are increasingly targeted at men,
with a particular focus on educating them about sexual consent (Gunby et al., 2016: 4). This
approach is illustrated through the ‘This is Abuse’ campaign3 launched in England and Wales by
the Home Office in 2010 to educate girls and boys between the ages of 13 and 18 years about
consent in sexual relationships (Home Office, 2013).

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Oona Brooks

In Scotland, progressive national campaigns have been led by Rape Crisis Scotland to address
prejudicial attitudes towards women and highlight perpetrator responsibility. The thought-
provoking campaign ‘This Is Not an Invitation to Rape Me’4 was launched in 2008 by the
Justice Secretary to challenge victim-blaming discourses around women’s alcohol consumption,
clothing, relationship status, and consent to other forms of sexual activity. There is also evidence
of a renewed emphasis on perpetrator responsibility within recent Police Scotland campaigns.
Working in partnership with women’s organisations and drawing upon the findings of the study
discussed within this chapter, Police Scotland (previously ACPOS) launched the ‘We Can Stop
It’5 campaign in 2012. This campaign focused on men and sexual consent, highlighting reform in
the legal definition of rape in Scotland. Within these national campaigns there is a clear emphasis
on perpetrator responsibility. In 2015, however, victim-blaming discourses were still evident
within some local policing campaigns in England. Both Sussex and Essex police launched cam-
paigns that again (re)invoked a victim blaming discourse. Perhaps the most notable features of
these campaigns, however, was the substantial public critique that they attracted, including peti-
tions for their withdrawal. While Essex police defended their campaign, the public critique that
it attracted is indicative of a growing lack of tolerance in relation to victim blaming discourses.
Overall, it remains to be seen what impact more progressive campaigns such as those high-
lighted above will have on potential perpetrators against a backdrop of problematic attitudes
towards women who experience rape and sexual assault. However, although the campaigns dis-
cussed here have primarily targeted potential perpetrators, they also send a clear and unambiguous
message to women who have experienced sexual violence; namely, that they violence inflicted
upon them is not their responsibility. Arguably, this is in itself a valuable outcome.

Notes
1 The findings presented in this chapter are reproduced from the following article: Brooks, O. (2011) ‘Guys!
Stop Doing It!’: Young Women’s Adoption and Rejection of Safety Advice when Socializing in Bars,
Pubs and Clubs. British Journal of Criminology: An International Review of Crime and Society, 51(4): 635–651.
2 These devices include ‘spikeys’ and ‘drinks detectives’. A ‘spikey’ is a product which is designed to prevent
a substance being administered into a drinks bottle by sealing the bottle neck, allowing space for only a
straw to be inserted. A ‘drinks detective’ is a device which is designed to be inserted into a drink in order
to detect the presence of ‘date rape drugs’. The reliability of these devices, however, is questionable.
3 ‘This is Abuse’ campaign page: www.gov.uk/government/collections/this-is-abuse-campaign.
4 ‘This Is Not an Invitation to Rape Me’ campaign page: www.thisisnotaninvitationtorapeme.co.uk/.
5 ‘We Can Stop It’ campaign page: www.wecanstopit.co.uk/.

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 22
‘Thinking and doing’
Children’s and young people’s
understandings and experiences of intimate
partner violence and abuse (IPVA)

Christine Barter and Nancy Lombard

Introduction
It is the aim of this chapter to present two types of research that have examined children and
young people’s relationships with intimate partner violence and abuse (IPVA). First, research
has explored how young people (generally from the ages of 11 to 21) understand and talk about
such violence – which may or may not focus upon personal experiences. The second type has
looked specifically at analysing young people’s personal experiences of the violence within their
own relationships. This has usually focused upon those deemed ‘old enough’ to be in sexual
partnerships (generally from age 14 onwards). In this chapter, we term the former researching
understandings of IPVA and the latter researching experiences of IPVA.
We go on to present an overview of the research, the methods used and the main findings,
demonstrating that whether the research is about understandings or personal experiences, many
of the themes are consistent. We then use this to make the case for broad preventive education
to start within primary school settings framed within a gender equality context.

Understanding violence
Both authors (Barter et al., 2009; Lombard, 2015) and others (McCarry, 2010; Fox et al., 2016)
have consistently argued that: ‘Gender and violence pervade and shape young people’s social
relations . . . very powerfully, already informing both their own understandings and at times
their own actions’ (Lombard, 2015: 1). Research has been critical in informing the need for
pragmatic policy intervention, seeking to develop awareness-raising and educational strategies
(see Burman and Cartmel, 2005; Burton et al., 1998; Dublin Women’s Aid, 1999; Kelly et al.,
1991). Early attitudinal research with children and young people found that there were some
circumstances in which it would be okay to hit a woman or force her to have sex (Burton et al.,
1998). Such findings demonstrated that not only did these young people hold complacent atti-
tudes towards violence against women but there was the implication that such attitudes would
inform their future relationships. Further studies, in the 1990s and 2000s, looking at the opin-
ions of teenagers produced comparable results. Each highlighted young people’s acceptability

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of violence within relationships and occasions where rape was tolerated or anticipated. The
work of Burman and Cartmel, whilst highlighting many similarities around the ‘deserving
victim’ and ‘naturalness’ of some forms of violence, also found that young people were less
tolerant of violence against women in general (2005: 38) and that peer to peer work and
preventive education had been influential in these developments. As such, education is key
to preventing violence, including all forms of violence against women, through the changing
of attitudes and behaviour with young people identified as the main ‘target’ (see Flood et al.,
2009; Hester and Westmarland, 2005; Lombard, 2013, 2014, 2015; McCarry, 2010).
Presumptions about children’s knowledge and capabilities had meant that primary school
children were bypassed in favour of those who were older and often easier to access. Lombard’s
study (2015) set out to explore how children in primary school settings understood IPVA –
framed as men’s violence against women. Her work focused upon this age range to complement
and also move on from similar studies that had focused upon teenagers (Burton et al., 1998;
Burman and Cartmel, 2005). Earlier studies had similar motivations – examining attitudes rather
than lived experiences with a view to informing prevention work.
Lombard’s work sought to explore attitudes early and, if necessary, challenge such opinions.
That way, more could be done to inform preventive work as these children became teen-
agers. Children and young people were not necessarily disclosing violence within their own
relationships but were harbouring and demonstrating attitudes that worryingly accepted such
behaviour. Some of the earlier attitudinal work that focused upon young people also began to
highlight that many were also drawing upon their own experiential knowledge – that is the
young people were experiencing IPVA for themselves. Barter et al.’s work was one of the first
UK studies to address this issue directly.

Experiencing violence
A breadth of quantitative evidence on young people’s IPVA experiences in relationships
is available, however this mostly originates from the United States, generally described as
‘dating’ violence. It is only relatively recently that research on this form of intimate violence has
been undertaken in the UK and wider European countries. Although the US-based evidence
is informative, we cannot simply transfer understandings from one country to another where
differential cultural, social and attitudinal contexts are present (Stanley et al., 2015) Hence this
chapter brings together UK research on the prevalence and impact of IPVA in young people’s
relationships with research on children’s attitudes on domestic violence. However, initially we
shall consider the international findings on prevalence, to provide a wider context in which to
situate our European studies.
Most international research on this issue has examined three types of abuse: physical, sexual
and emotional/psychological. It is only relatively recently that abuse through new technologies
has also been explored, with most studies seeking to address one or more of the following com-
ponents: controlling behaviour (e.g. using mobile phones or social networking sites to try and
control who someone can be friends with/where they go/how they dress); surveillance (e.g.
constantly checking on what partners have been doing/who they have been seeing/demanding
passwords to online social media accounts), emotional online abuse (e.g. posting nasty/deroga-
tory online messages); isolation (e.g. attempting to separate partners from friends by posting
untrue/insulting messages from their phones, etc.); and coerced sexting (Draucker and Martsolf,
2010; Marganski and Fauth, 2013; Zweig et al., 2013).
Two recent data syntheses by Stonard et al. (2014) and Wincentak et al. (2017) provide
evidence on prevalence rates. Stonard et al. addressed physical, sexual and online IPVA whilst

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Wincentak et al. (2017) restricted their evidence synthesis to sexual and physical forms of vio-
lence. Both reviews identified that approximately 20% of young people experience some form
of physical violence from a partner, irrespective of gender. Both reviews concluded that a greater
proportion of girls compared to boys experience sexual victimisation within their relationships.
Stonard et al. found that a broad definition of sexual violence, comprising any unwanted sexual
contact, revealed prevalence rates of between 26% and 33% for adolescent females and 23% for
males. This compares to rates of between 2% and 19% for females and 6% for males if a narrower
definition of unwanted sexual intercourse was used. This is comparable to Wincentak et al.’s
(2017) findings of 14% and 8%, respectively.
Stonard et al. (2014) found that around half of all young people reported some form of
emotional abuse from a partner whilst 12% to 50% reported abuse through new technologies,
although the authors acknowledge that the evidence base for this form of IPVA is less devel-
oped. While not addressed in the above reviews, Barter’s work found that same-sex adolescent
relationships experienced similar prevalence rates (Barter et al., 2009, 2015).
Stonard and colleagues argue that IPVA in young people’s relationships represents a significant
problem and that gender is only a factor for sexual violence victimisation. This gender divide
in respect to sexual victimisation is also present online where pressured sexting and unwanted
sharing of sexual images is primarily experienced by girls (see Wood et al., 2015; Draucker and
Martsolf, 2010; Zweig et al., 2013). However, several studies show that greater proportions
of young women report more severe forms of IPVA compared to young men (Foshee, 1996;
Wolitzky-Taylor et al., 2008). Hamby et al. (2012) established that more girls than boys reported
fear and injury. These studies reflect findings from America and Australia, where young women
frequently spoke of their persistent experiences of coercive male power (Allen, 2003; Chung,
2005), although Allen’s work offered more examples of young women’s own mediations of this
power. As we will show, these findings are consistent with our own European work, which
clearly identifies that although some forms of IPVA in young people’s relationships are similar
for both females and males, the gendered impact of these experiences is significantly different.

Methodology
This section will initially detail the qualitative mixed-methods approach taken by Lombard
in her study of 11- and 12-year-olds (Lombard, 2015) and then describe the mixed-methods
approaches used in two of Barter’s studies combining a school-based survey with in-depth semi-
structured interviews with young people aged 14 to 17 years old (Barter et al., 2009, 2015; see
Barter, 2014, for a methodological overview).
Lombard’s study working with 11-year-olds initially elicited negative and paternalistic
responses from several of the gatekeepers. Schools refused to participate because of protection-
ist beliefs about what children would and would not feel comfortable talking about. This was
in stark contrast to the reactions of the children who were delighted to have the opportunity
to talk about their own beliefs and opinions and be listened to. Informed by the sociology of
childhood paradigm, the children in Lombard’s study were active participants in the process. An
exploratory questionnaire was designed to facilitate the children’s input into the process, which
was then used as the basis for the discussion group sessions. Vignettes, a successful method used
with young people when talking about potentially controversial topics (see Barter and Renold,
1999), were introduced to offer examples of situations for the children to discuss based upon
responses to the exploratory questionnaire.
The exploratory questionnaire consisted of seven pages, comprising 21 questions, which the
children completed in an average of 20–30 minutes. The opening pages of the first section asked

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about their interests, aspirations and responsibilities at home. The third page comprised state-
ments that sought to challenge (or reveal) gendered stereotypes, which the children had to rate
as okay, not okay and not sure. The inclusion of questions about gender was relevant because of
previous research findings detailing the prevalence of restrictive and normative gendered roles
and expectations (see McCarry, 2010). The final statements focused upon violence to lead them
in to the latter half of the questionnaire, which dealt solely with violence and abuse. Many of
the questions retained children and young people as the focal point, but questions pertaining to
adults were introduced to see if distinctions were made in relation to the acceptability (or oth-
erwise) of issues among those who were older. The next section asked specific questions about
teasing, abuse and violence. Each question asked if it was okay or not okay to do these things,
with enough space provided for the young people to write why this was so. The aim of this sec-
tion was to replicate some of the myths surrounding violence (such as ‘it is okay to hit a woman
if she has had an affair’) and extricate what the children thought about this.
The discussion group method was used to discover the thoughts and opinions expressed in
the exploratory questionnaire as well as other issues relating to violence against women and girls.
Using discussion groups with small numbers of children (between two and five), enabled the
greatest amount of participation, whilst also making, in practical terms, the discussions and tran-
scribing more manageable. The sessions took place among friends, ensuring a safe and trusted
environment (Morrow, 2001: 207), to enable the children to have a space to explore their own
and others’ attitudes more reflexively and to question, agree and challenge the responses of others.
Three vignettes were used during the discussion group sessions. Finch (1987: 105) describes
vignettes as ‘short stories about hypothetical characters in specified circumstances, to whose situ-
ation the interviewee is invited to respond’. The vignettes were a means of generalising about
situations rather than relating them to their own specific personal examples (see Stanley and
Wise, 1993 [1983]). By using vignettes children had the space to analyse, define, explore and
explain how they interpreted the situation using the discourses that they had available to them.
Barter and Renold (1999: 1) maintain that vignettes are helpful in research, ‘to allow actions in
context to be explored; to clarify people’s judgements; and to provide a less personal and there-
fore less threatening way of exploring sensitive topics’.
Both Barter et al.’s (2009, 2015), studies utilised a mixed-method approach combining quan-
titative and qualitative methodologies, and both also used vignettes to facilitate discussions. In
both studies the qualitative sample was purposely selected to include young people with experi-
ence of IPVA in their intimate relationships. The initial study, undertaken in England, Scotland
and Wales, examined emotional, physical and sexual forms of violence in adolescent relation-
ships through a non-representative survey of 1,350 young people from 15 schools and 91 inter-
views with young people. A linked project to this study by Wood et al. (2010) explored the
IPVA experiences and views of more ‘disadvantaged’ young people (n = 82) not captured in the
schools-based work, including participants from young parent projects; young offender institu-
tions; pupil referral units for excluded pupils; residential children’s homes; and foster care. The
second mixed-method European project (Barter et al., 2015) addressed the developing issue of
abuse through new technologies, including controlling behaviours and pressured sexting. Five
European countries participated in the research: Bulgaria, Cyprus, England, Italy and Norway.
Countries were chosen to reflect differential usage of new technology as measured in the EU
kids online survey (Livingstone et al., 2011) and levels of gender equality (Eurobarometer 344
survey, 2010). The mixed-method study involved: expert workshops across the five countries;
a non-representative survey of 4,500 young people aged 14–17 from 45 schools; 100 interviews
with young people; and the development of an app and web-based recourse for young people

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to explore their own relationship experiences, identify signs of risk and sources of support
(see http://stiritup.eu). Despite being unable to achieve a representative sample the sampling
framework ensured a balance by gender, schools from rural and urban areas, and localities of
economic diversity. Both studies included young people’s advisory groups to ensure that their
views and understandings were incorporated into the research process: for example, in the 2015
study young people across five countries co-developed an online resource for young people (see
http://stiritapp.eu/).

Findings
This section first examines how the younger children made sense of violence and, second,
explores their lived experiences of IPVA. As is detailed below there was some discussion of
experiential knowledge in Lombard’s study even though the 11- and 12-year-olds were not
asked directly for this information.

How do young people construct and understand men’s violence

against women?

Naturalising violence
In Lombard’s study, children subscribed to naturalised definitions of masculinity to explain
(rather than question) why men (and boys) were violent. The concept of naturalisation illus-
trates the processes by which children draw upon biological and innate explanations to explain
why people act as they do. Children sought to naturalise violence as a prerequisite of masculine
identity, reinforcing ‘naturalised’ gender differences to do so; using the notion of being ‘a man’
to explain predispositions to violence.

Monica: Violence is like men, hitting and kicking.

Elizabeth: Men start the violence ’cos they are bigger and stronger.

In all cases, an understanding of violence was sought outside of the individuals’ own sphere of
knowledge, focusing upon, and illustrated with, abstract examples of violence and violent behav-
iour. These intrinsic attributes of masculinity (as opposed to socially constructed masculinities;
see for example, Connell, 2005) were also drawn upon to explain girls’ violence (as unnatural
or ‘non’ violence) because of their lack of masculinity. It was also evident in their ‘naturalised’
endorsements of gendered hierarchies of violence and the codes that had to be adhered to.

Grace: 
It’s not natural for girls to hit each other but . . . it’s natural for boys to hit each other
’cos they are always fighting.

Yet these ‘naturalised’ examples of violence jarred with discussions of their own lives and
experiential knowledge. For example, when the children talked about boys they knew (or
their own experience of being boys themselves), then the discussions of ‘naturalised’ violence
transformed into socially constructed and performative attributes of what it was to be a man.
Such attributes were considered both desirable and unobtainable constructions, for example,
boys who struggled with the expectation that they should perpetrate or experience violence
because of expectations around their gender.

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Stewart: 
Like my dad expects me to be able to kinda take it and he says like, you’re bigger, you
should, it shouldn’t affect you.

The key issue here is how children conceptualise age and view violence as an inevitable part of
becoming a man.

Defining ‘real’ violence

Children defined ‘real’ violence as physical acts done by men that had legal consequences. Lombard
found that children subscribe to a constellation of factors that needed to be in place to enable them
to define actions as violent. For example, how the participants defined violence followed a pre-
scribed linear model or sequence. It involved two or more men, fighting physically in a public
space. The violence would result in physical injury, intervention by authority and consequence.
Children constructed ‘real’ violence as a temporally distant phenomenon, in that it occurred in
adulthood. It was judged to be spatially distant in terms of happening in public (in view of others)
and it was located away from them personally. ‘Real’ violence was also distant from them in rela-
tion to gender, in that young people described it as taking place between adult men.

Jason: But then you know it’s bad, ’cos the police’ll come.
Diane: If they are fighting for real they’ll get arrested and have to go to the court.

Such violence was ‘abstract’ because of its physical and emotional distance from them. The
‘actors’ were unknown to each other and crucially to the children. Incidents that were experi-
enced by the children themselves (‘named’) were less likely to be labelled as violence, particu-
larly if they involved girls as ‘victims’ (of male peers’ actions) and where there was no official
consequence (such as the intervention of a teacher).

Naming ‘unreal’ violence

Much of the violence experienced or perpetrated by the participants was minimised, normalised
and regarded as ‘unreal’.

Claire: 
He gives me Chinese burns. I don’t like it, its really sore. When I tell my mum, she
says he does it because he likes me.
Hayley: Like boys always say to the teacher it’s a ‘kid on’, but they are doing it for real.

This reinforces the minimisation of women’s experiences when the violence does not fit within
the framework of what is ‘real’ (see Krahe and Temkin, 2009; Radford and Stanko, 1996).
Much of men’s violence against women fails to be identified as such by others (neighbours, the
police, the criminal justice system) and this is further replicated here by what children judge to
be real – those actions where a figure of authority intervenes and condemns it. It was this valida-
tion by an adult that designated an action ‘real’ violence. Indeed, an adult intervening, chastising
or providing a consequence (or not) was highly significant in this research.

Sarah: I mean [boy in class] is always doing it. And I tell the teacher and she thinks I am telling
tales. But it hurts. He really hurts me.
Rachel: I just wish he’d stop. But he never gets told off, so he just keeps on doing it.

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‘Unreal’ violence signifies the proximity of the child to the violence. That is, behaviour that was
close to them in terms of temporality (it happened among children, young people, peers and
siblings), spatially (in locations close to them) and both between and among the same gender.
This behaviour did not fit into their linear model of violence in terms of the actors, spaces and
intervention. Violence that was labelled ‘unreal’ represented the actions that the children were
most likely to normalise. They called this ‘dummy fighting’, ‘pretend’ and ‘unreal’. All of these
actions took place among their peers and siblings in their own spaces; playgrounds, homes and
community streets. Crucially, these actions were not labelled or condemned as ‘violence’ by
adults or those in authority. This lack of validation resulted in participants accepting and mini-
mising their own roles of perpetration and victimisation.

Layla: 
When the boys are doing it to each other the teacher always says stop but not when
they are doing it to girls.

Justifications of violence using gendered stereotypes

Children justified men’s violence against women using gender stereotypes and a rigid under-
standing of adult relationships framed by heterosexuality and marriage.

Daisy: 
Like if you have a boyfriend now and he does something wrong, you just dump him.
But when you are married its different. You have to forgive him. Like if he hits you
and then say sorry, you forgive him because you have been together longer and you
are married, so it means more.

The themes of gender inequality, male power, normative gender roles and heterosexuality
were pertinent in children’s understandings of men’s violence against women. It is by antici-
pating and normalising these frameworks of male power as acceptable that children construct
adult relationships in terms of power, regulation and control, and blaming women when things
go wrong. It becomes clear through the analysis that children repeatedly access adulthood to
understand certain forms of gender identity and construct adult heterosexuality as a rigid and
narrow framework, using heterosexuality as a lens through which to examine men’s violence
against women.
Children understand men’s violence by examining the motivations of the individual through
the context of heterosexuality. Justification is a form of explanation that entails using and endors-
ing inequality to explain violence. Men are in a position of power and women in a subordinate
role with violence used by men to consolidate their position. The concept of heterosexuality
both naturalises and normalises these inequities, to the extent that for many of the children vio-
lence and abuse appears a valid action and reaction to the context.
In her study, Lombard found that violence used by men against women is judged to be an
anticipated consequence of gendered inequality, endorsed by expectations of male entitlement,
obedience, regulation, control, ownership and possession. It is by understanding heterosexuality
in this way that young people go on to blame women for violence perpetrated against them.
The dissenting voices were few, but they are critical in recognising that not everyone saw the
inequity of adult relationships as inevitable. Having addressed children’s attitudes and conceptu-
alisations we now build on this to consider young people’s own experiences of IPVA.

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Exploring young people’s experiences of violence

Here we draw on Barter and colleagues’ work to explore how common different forms of
violence and abuse are in young people’s own relationships and the subjective impact of these
experiences. Both survey data and young people’s own narratives will be used to demonstrate
how gender both mediates and underpins these practices.

Physical violence
Peter: The boy should be the boss, the girl should do everything that he asks. But he should
treat her well . . . I said to her: Let’s go to dance! I was a bit drunk. She did not want to.
I took her out and started beating her.
(Male, Bulgaria, Barter et al., 2015)

The 2009 survey found that more girls than boys reported physical violence victimisation, 25%
(n = 150) compared to 18% (n = 100), representing a significant gender difference. The later
2015 survey showed that between 9% and 22% of young women and 8% to 15% of young
men across the five countries reported some form of physical violence from a partner (see
Table 22.1). Young women in England (22%) and Norway (18%) reported the highest levels:
almost one in five reported having experienced physical violence compared to one in ten young
women in other countries.1

Sexual violence
Tasminder: See with my relationship it wasn’t up to me (when to have sex). But when it
happens it just kind of happens and then afterwards you think oh my god.
(Female, Barter et al., 2009)

Emma: Yeah, quite a few times (pressured into sexual intercourse) . . . it’s quite horrible, I
was only young, well I wasn’t really really young, I wasn’t . . . like when I was 12, it was
like when I was 13.
(Female, Wood et al., 2010)

Table 22.1 Gender and IPVA prevalence (Barter et al., 2015)

Country Gender Physical % Sexual % Emotional % online %

no yes no yes no yes no yes

Bulgaria Female 89 11 79 21 59 41 53 47
Male 85 15 75 25 65 35 57 43
Cyprus Female 90 10 83 17 69 31 55 45
Male 91 9 81 19 66 34 57 43
England Female 78 22 59 41 52 48 52 48
Male 88 12 86 14 73 27 75 25
Italy Female 91 9 65 35 59 59 60 40
Male 87 13 61 39 41 41 54 46
Norway Female 82 18 72 28 68 32 62 38
Male 92 8 91 9 81 19 80 20

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Emma: I thought we were going to somewhere else and he led me to a park and started like
pushing me around and forcing me to do things I didn’t want to do and, and he pushed my
head down so hard. I was sick everywhere and then they just left me.
(Female, England, Barter et al., 2015)

In the first survey 35% (n = 185) of girls and 16% (n = 93) of boys reported sexual victimisation,
most often sexual pressure. The 2015 survey reflected this gender divide with between 17% and
41% of young women and 9% and 25% of young men (see Table 22.1) reporting sexual abuse,
again most prominently involving sexual pressure. In both surveys, generally speaking, a greater
proportion of young women reported the use of sexual force than did young men. The 2015
survey also demonstrated that most sexual coercion occurred either face-to-face or both face-
to-face and online, only a minority reported online pressure in isolation. Reflecting the country
patterning of physical violence, young women in England and Norway reported the highest rates
of sexual victimisation.

Emotional/psychological abuse
Bethany: To be honest I’d rather be beaten then have emotional pain because I don’t deal
with things like that very well.
(Female, UK, Barter et al., 2015)

Stefan: I beat them with words. This is most hurtful.

(Male, Bulgaria, Barter et al., 2015)

Caitlin: Mm. And then if I go out he’ll just go mad and then just basically I’ll just end up
crying and go back home. So I’d just rather stay in . . . Which was a mistake really because
then he used to do that all the time then, and then obviously he had something over me.
(Female, Barter et al., 2009)

The 2009 study found that 75% (n = 428) of girls and 50% (n = 289) of boys reported some
aspect of emotional victimisation from a partner, this represented a significant gender difference.
The most commonly reported acts were controlling behaviour and surveillance. The qualitative
findings from the above study, alongside findings from Wood et al. (2010), demonstrate how
aspects of male control were often normalised. For example, Wood et al. (2010) found that
two-thirds of female and a third of male participants reported emotional abuse, most commonly
controlling behaviour via mobile phones. Worryingly, half of these young women normalised
this behaviour, believing it to be an integral aspect of an intimate relationship. Few of the girls
interviewed felt able to substantially challenge their partner’s controlling behaviour due to pos-
sible negative repercussions. In stark contrast, none of the boys reported this in respect to female
attempts at control, instead positioning such behaviour as intolerable. Boys mostly argued that
they ignored their partner’s attempts at control or ended the relationship if they persisted.

Online abuse
Tatiana: There were times when he would just grab my phone from my hands and wouldn’t
let go of it, so he would check my messages.
(Female, Cyprus, Barter et al., 2015)

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Interviewer: How did you deal with it [constant phoning]?

Josh: I turned my phone off.
(Male, Barter et al., 2009)

Amy: He breathed down my neck 24/7, it was horrible.

(Female, UK, Barter et al., 2015)

The online measure used in the survey drew on previous research questions and recommenda-
tions from the young people’s advisory groups. Young people were asked ‘Have any of your
partners ever done any of these things using a mobile phone, computer or tablets to:

•• Put you down or sent ever sent you any nasty messages?
•• Post nasty messages about you that others could see?
•• Sent you threatening messages online or by mobile phones?
•• Try and control who you can be friends with or where you can go?
•• Constantly check-up on what you have been doing/who you have been seeing, for example,
by sending you messages or checking your social networking page all the time?
•• Used mobile phones or social networking sites to stop your friends liking you, for example,
pretending to be you and sending nasty messages to your friends?’

On average around 40% of young people, irrespective of gender, reported some form on online
abuse (see Table 22.1). Male participants in England and Norway reported the lowest levels
(around 23%). Reinforcing the findings from the earlier survey, controlling behaviour and sur-
veillance were the most commonly experienced forms of online abuse irrespective of gender.
When we compared young people’s experiences of IPVA we found that the majority of young
people who reported abuse stated they experienced both online and offline forms.
However, in all country samples, a substantial proportion of online forms of IPVA occurred
in isolation from face-to-face victimisation. In these instances, the online context may provide
the space for young people to behave in a manner which would not occur face-to-face. The
online context may facilitate behaviours which would not be replicated face-to-face. A lack of
physical proximity may remove concerns about a partner’s immediate reaction and reduce the
role of anticipated repercussions in moderating abusive behaviour. Alternatively, online forms
of IPVA may represent a precursor to face-to-face IPVA (see Barter et al., 2017).

IPVA and impact

International studies have shown that, compared to boys, girls report: more negative emotional
responses; are more likely to be hurt or require medical attention, whilst boys more often
report laughing about the violence perpetrated against them (Jackson et al., 2000; Foshee, 1996;
Molidor et al., 2000).

Callum: She tried to batter me but I’m too strong . . . its nothing . . .
(Male, Barter et al., 2009)

Helena: But when he was hitting me I changed and . . . I lost weight and everything like
that and I just went like all skinny and . . . and obviously then I was less confident because
I was thinking like ‘Ur . . . you’re going skinny’ and everything like that. I couldn’t eat or
nothing like that.
(Female, Wood et al., 2010)

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In both surveys, young people were asked to report on the negative and affirmative subjective
impact of their IPVA experiences. Negatives impacts included feeling: upset; scared; embar-
rassed; shocked; unhappy; humiliated; bad about yourself; angry and annoyed. Affirmative
responses included loved; wanted; protected; good about yourself; thought it was funny and
no effect. Both surveys reported significant gender differences: girls more frequently reported a
negative impact to their experiences compared to boys. Most commonly girls reported feeling
scared, humiliated and upset; whilst boys who stated a negative consequence most commonly
reported feeling annoyed or angry (Barter et al., 2009, 2015). For example, the 2009 survey
found that for physical victimisation, three-quarters of girls but only 14% of boys reported a
negative impact, similarly 70% of girls and only a minority of boys (3%) reported a negative
impact of sexual victimisation. In contrast, most boys reported no effect or thought it was funny.
Interestingly, fewer participants described a negative consequence in relation to emotional,
and to a lesser extent, online forms of abuse: only 31% of girls and 6% of boys in the 2009 sur-
vey reported a negative impact of emotional victimisation and between 49% and 83% of young
women and 28% to 41% of young men in the 2015 research reported a negative only impact
to online abuse. However, in both surveys reports of negative consequences did significantly
increase when behaviour/s were reported to occur frequently or if more than a single form of
abuse was reported, demonstrating that it is the patterning of these forms of abuse which causes
the most distress rather than an isolated incident. It may also testify to the normalisation of cer-
tain relationship behaviours by some young people and possibly boys’ attempts to minimise the
impact of their female partner’s behaviour due to constructs of hegemonic masculinity, which
seeks to restrict male vulnerability.

What do we know?
The studies identified in this chapter look at children’s and young people’s opinions of violence
against women alongside their own experiences of victimisation and perpetration. The themes
from both study areas demonstrate how limited constructions of gender can impact upon how
children and young people both accept and normalise violence against women as both an
abstract idea and as a lived experience. Barter’s findings, alongside international research, clearly
shows that IPVA in young people’s relationships represents a major social issue and public health
concern. While less research has addressed the impacts of IPVA in young people’s relationships,
her research, in conjunction with others, indicates that this is differentiated by gender: girls
report more negative experiences than boys.
Although primarily focusing upon attitudes, the number of girls in Lombard’s study who
talked about their own experiences and their own (and others’) minimisation of them was
also a feature in Barter’s studies. This highlights that girls’ experiences continue to be normal-
ised and minimised within societies which highlight acceptable expectations of how men and
women interact.

Lito: Knowing that most of my friends’ relationships were similar or even worse, I thought
that ‘this is just the way things are’. I thought that everyone goes through the same thing,
that all boys are like that . . . So, I agreed . . . with his behaviour . . . with him expressing
his jealousy like that (controlling behaviour). Even though I didn’t like it.
(Female, Cyprus, Barter et al., 2015)

In all the studies children and young people felt that schools had a crucial role to play in both
challenge the normalisation of IPVA and protecting those affected:

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Christine Barter and Nancy Lombard

Emma: I think a good thing would be to add, like for an hour in high school, stuff like this
to the curriculum . . . I think if you did this with the whole year about healthy relationships
then the punishments for domestic violence and stuff, at least like an hour a week or even
in assemblies and that would, maybe people who hadn’t heard it was wrong would know
it was wrong, and girls would be able to recognize it.
(Female, UK, Barter et al., 2015)

Tone: The schools should talk about it more, take it more seriously. The teachers should be
more involved. I got really depressed, I was like, why didn’t you say something, you could
have helped me, you could have done something for me.
(Female, Norway, Barter et al., 2015)

Similar themes were consistent across the studies, including expectations of violence and its
subsequent normalisation. Understanding violence as ‘natural’ and biological as well as justify-
ing violence through stereotypical gender roles were also beliefs that were present in Barter and
Lombard’s research.

Recommendations and key messages

This chapter has detailed two different forms of study with children and young people – one
that focuses specifically upon attitudes of children to IPVA and the other that looks at what
happens when those negative attitudes are put ‘into practice’ with young people’s own rela-
tionships. The overarching messages from the studies are the same and have demonstrated that
children and young people who harbour negative gendered attitudes to girls and women are
more likely to form relationships where these opinions dictate the nature of them, through
destructive emotional abuse, online stalking and physical and sexual violence. Our message for
practitioners, teachers and parents is that how children and young people learn about, negotiate
and conduct their relationships is key.
This is the current message of sexual education campaigners who want to focus upon how
young people learn about relationships, the expectations of relationships (both within and out-
side of them) and also ‘healthy endings’ – especially when so much abuse occurs at the end of a
relationship. This was evidenced in two recent UK Serious Case Reviews convened due to the
separate murders of two young women (aged 16 and 17) by their abusive male partners. ‘Lucy’
was killed while attempting to leave the abusive relationship and ‘Jayden’ had just separated
(see http://safelives.org.uk/practice_blog/violence-young-people%E2%80%99s-relationships-
%E2%80%93-reflections-two-serious-case-reviews).
However, alongside and underpinning this is the importance of gender. Research indi-
cates that those with fixed ideas about gender and the perpetuation of gender stereotypes are
more likely to be in abusive relationships (Barter et al., 2015; Sears et al., 2007; Stanley et al.,
2015; Lichter and McCloskyey, 2004), although not all longitudinal studies have found this
association (Foshee and Bauman, 2001). Nevertheless, it appears that effective interventions
to prevent IPVA in young people’s relationships address both negative gendered attitudes and
acceptance of aggressive behaviour which supports the use of gendered violence (Poteat et al.,
2010; Reyes et al., 2016).
It is without question that new technologies have changed how childhood is experienced
(Livingstone et al., 2011). Children from an early age now have access to vast amounts of infor-
mation, activities, games and interactions with peers locally, nationally and globally. It can act as
platform for change, solidarity and resistance. We need to also recognise that new technology

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can be a positive part of a relationship. However, it can also act as a conduit for abuse from
peers, partners and adults. We also should not underestimate the power of the internet to influ-
ence our behaviours and expectations. Barter et al.’s 2015 study shows that boys who regularly
watching online pornography were significantly more likely than those who didn’t to perpetrate
sexual violence, including pressured sexting (see Stanley et al., 2016). Boys have stated that in
the absence of appropriate sex education, online pornography, with its harmful misogynist and
often violent depictions of sex, is their main source of information about sexual intimacy.
Consequently, any focus upon healthy relationships needs to also recognise and emphasise
ways in which gender is played out and challenge the dominant restrictive scripts extant at
divergent structural levels: individual, family, peer, community and societal (including virtual).
Relationships need to be recognised as places to grow, feel safe, explore and have fun, as well
as being open to negotiation and compromise. Children and young people need to be provided
with the spaces, mechanisms and recourses to enable them (as well as and alongside adults)
to challenge harmful gendered attitudes and associated abusive practices. In the same way that
society expects those in authority to condemn violence and violent acts, through action and
consequence, children need this too. Children learn what is right and wrong through adult inter-
vention, whether that is a parent, carer, teacher or a figure in authority. When adults minimise
children’s experiences, or do not condemn an action, or chastise using their ‘adult’ authority this
sends a message that abusive behaviour is okay. Adults need to name and define such behaviour
as unacceptable and provide a consequence.
Gendered scripts and practices are so embedded that much more needs to be done. Academics,
practitioners and children’s charity campaigners have long called for the need for more effective
sex education with a focus upon healthy relationships and gendered violence, as highlighted in a
recent newspaper article (www.theguardian.com/society/2015/feb/11/teenage-girls-coerced-
sex-survey). This was also the conclusion of the 2016 inquiry into sexual violence and sexual
harassment in schools in England:

The Government should create a statutory obligation . . . for all schools, primary and sec-
ondary, to develop a whole school approach to preventing and tackling sexual harassment
and sexual violence.
(www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/
cmwomeq/91/9102.htmlink)

In 2017, after sustained campaigning on this issue, the UK government agreed and made Sex
and Relationship Education compulsory in all schools in England from the age of four. Such an
approach is well established in the Scottish Government’s Equally Safe Strategy and is under-
pinned by the compulsory sexual health and relationship education advocated by Scotland’s
National Education Curriculum:

Education professionals therefore have a huge opportunity to lead the way in attitudinal
change, being in a prime position to nurture the next generations on positive gender roles
and healthy, equal relationships from an early age.
(Equally Safe: Scotland’s Strategy for Preventing and Eradicating
Violence against Women and Girls, 2014: 24)

Gender inequality underpins both men’s perpetration and women’s victimisation of harassment
and sexual violence: we positon gendered violence as both a cause and a consequence of gender
inequality.

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Christine Barter and Nancy Lombard

Emma: If somebody’s brought up in a house where women are treated as second class to men
then it gives a child from a young age the impression that women are second class to men.
(Female, UK, Barter et al., 2015)

Whilst we can work to prevent gendered violence and the perpetuation of attitudes that sup-
port it, we cannot do so within current restrictive gender regimes that naturalise, normalise and
justify much of what children and young people experience. We need to begin with a commit-
ment to challenge gender inequality before we can work to undo its consequences. As such, the
preventive work should include not just information about warning signs and the potential risks
of social media, but also healthy respectful relationships and the importance of gender equality.

Note
1 Note on Comparative Research: As European research on adult domestic violence (DV) has shown, the
willingness of participants to report their experiences is often heavily influenced by how DV is viewed
in different countries (FRA, 2014). Countries with higher gender equality and greater DV awareness
also often report the highest levels of DV.This may be because in these countries DV is viewed as a social
and political rather than a personal and therefore private problem. The STIR expert meetings (Barter
et al., 2015) and the young people’s advisory groups identified that England and Norway had the highest
levels of awareness in respect of interpersonal abuse in young people’s relationships, reflecting the FRA
findings for adults across these countries. England and Norway also reported the highest levels of physical
and sexual violence for young women in the 2015 survey. It may therefore be that female respondents are
under-reporting their experiences of physical and sexual violence, the most stigmatised forms of IPVA,
in a social context where awareness of the problem is lower.

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 23
Making our feelings matter
Using creative methods to re-assemble
the rules on healthy relationships
education in Wales

Libby, Georgia, Chloe, Courtney, Olivia and

Rhiannon with Emma Renold

Introduction: the ‘Relationship Matters’ project

We are a group of Year 11 girls (age 16). In the autumn of 2015 three of us were invited to take
part in a research project about where we felt safe and unsafe growing up and living in our Welsh
valleys town Llanmerin (fictional name).1 This project was not only about listening to our views
(Phase 1),2 it also included the opportunity to do something about the things that mattered to us
(Phase 2) and enabled us to share our story with others through the visual arts (Phase 3).
During the first phase, some of us talked about the different forms of emotional, verbal and
physical sexual harassment that can happen in school, online and in our communities. This
included everything from street harassment to unwanted sexual ‘banter’ online or in school
corridors. Professor Emma Renold from Cardiff University and Citizens Cymru asked us if we
were interested in forming a group that focused on gender and sexual well-being and to work
with some of the anonymised interview data from the first phase of the project to influence
the educational measures of the new Violence Against Girls and Women, Domestic Abuse and
Sexual Violence bill (Welsh Government 2015a). We said YES!
We met every week for eight weeks, at lunchtime, and monthly after that. This chapter is
our story of how we used arts-based methods in a group activist research project, which we
called the ‘Relationship Matters’ project. We show how we worked creatively with our own
and others’ ‘data’ to bring about personal (e.g. in minds and bodies) and political change (e.g. in
legislation and practice). Professor Renold has written about the process as making ‘darta’ and
‘dartafacts’, using theories to get us thinking about ‘the emotional power of objects to ethically
communicate personal experience on sensitive topics’ (Renold 2017). This is our story3 of the
making of those dartafacts and what they helped us and others achieve.

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Turning ‘data’ into ‘darta’

Talk and make

All of our lunchtime sessions took place in our high school’s multi-agency room. This is a room
where really important decisions take place. It has a large, oval 12 ft conference table that we used
to spread out our materials and eat around (Figure 23.1). The room looks out onto the Welsh
valleys landscape, and you can sometimes spot horses grazing in the fields. We used almost all the
surfaces of the room: the floor, chairs, conference table, side tables and window sills.
In the first few sessions, we talked about what makes a safe relationship, what kinds of sexual
harassment young people face in school, online and in our communities. It was a bit awkward to
start with, because we didn’t think it was normal to talk about this kind of stuff with someone you
didn’t know. This feeling didn’t last long. After a few minutes we realised that Emma had seen and
heard all of the things we were sharing and more. We learnt that she had dedicated her whole career
to hearing these stories from children and young people much younger than us, and there are many
other projects like ours around the world.4 With our permission, Emma recorded our conversa-
tions, typed up our words and we ended up using them to make lots of different things that helped
us express our feelings in different ways, from tagged hearts and poems, to skirts made out of rulers.

Figure 23.1 Making room and mind maps

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Scream, Shout, Speak Out: making mind maps and raps

In the second session Emma brought in a large roll of thick paper which stretched beyond the entire
length of the conference table. She scattered coloured marker pens around the edges and spread out
the word cuttings of (anonymised) data extracts from young people’s interviews in the first phase,
and our typed-up talk from the first session. Some of us started to use the data pieces to make mind
maps and one of us, Libby, wrote a short poem, ‘Scream, Shout, Speak Out’ (Figure 23.2).
This poem took Libby only ten minutes to write. We all sat together, cwtched5 by the win-
dow, and she read it out to the group. It went down really well. We all burst into applause. It
got us to start talking about how everyone keeps things to themselves, and how problems get
worse if you don’t speak up and share them. Sometimes you have to scream and shout about
what’s happening. This is how the poem got its title.

Figure 23.2 Scream, Shout, Speak Out

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‘It’s soooooo fun!’: making the Run(a)way of Disrespect

Writing our thoughts on the large roll of paper using words and symbols (like emojis) soon became
a ritual for the start of each session. We found it really uplifting to be able to write down all the
insulting things we read, see and hear. It even became fun. We didn’t realise that this roll of paper
would become so significant. It was such a great way of getting our feelings out. We ended up
using this dartafact in our school assembly, asking students to ‘stamp out the hurtful words’ (see
below). We called this piece the ‘Runway of Disrespect’ (Figure 23.3). However, in preparing for
this chapter we decided to call this section the ‘Run(a)way of Disrespect’ because of the ways some
people run away from the hurtful things that happen, and also how comments can go viral, not
just in the way things can spread through online and offline gossip, but in your head. Sometimes,
one comment can seem bigger because it is spinning around in your mind, like a broken record

Figure 23.3 Runway of Disrespect

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(see how we used this idea in our film ‘Words Won’t Pin Me Down’ by projecting a spinning
roundabout onto our foreheads, www. productivemargins.com). In many ways our whole way
of working, especially in the early sessions, was about how ideas can runaway with themselves.
We return to the idea of what Emma and her team have started to think about as ‘Runaway
Methodologies’ at the end of the chapter.

‘They use rulers to lift up our skirts’: making the ruler skirt
In our second meeting, a few of us talked about how some boys use rulers to lift up girls’ skirts.
As soon as the words had been spoken, one of us wrote it down in capital letters: ‘RULER
TOUCHING’. Emma encouraged us to think about what else the ruler could do. Here is an
extract of how we began to play around with the word ruler, and how we might transform the
ruler from an object used to sexually harass girls, to an object for change:

Ruler touching!
Emma: We could bring in some rulers, do something with those rulers . . . do something else
with them?
Girl/s: We could do/
Emma: Change their meaning/does that make sense?
Girl/s: Yeah.
Girl/s: We could do a poster for that (makes the action of sticking a ruler up a skirt) like/with a ruler.
Girl/s: We could do a statue or something.
Emma: A statue made out of rulers?
Girl/s: Yeah.
Girl/s: Yeah like papier-mâché and stick rulers/through it.
Girl/s: Rulers are used for . . . rulers are used for measuring not touching.
(Laughter)
Girl/s: Yeah because the boys touch, like they touch you with the rulers.
Girl/s: And up her skirt.
Emma: And there’s the word rule in ruler.
Girl/s: Rule her.
Girl/s: RULE HER!! (louder).
Girl/s: Rule her with your ruler.
(Transcribed talk, Session 2)

We started to think about how girls’ experiences of sexual harassment are often ruled out (e.g.
hushed up, or felt as normal); how schools are not ‘measuring up’ because they don’t address
these issues very well; and how being, or being like, a girl or woman have been ruled and regu-
lated throughout history, and now! We surprised ourselves at how powerful the image of the
ruler became in this moment. Very quickly, we all wanted to bend the rules, re-write the rules.
Emma brought in printed paper rulers and acrylic rulers. We began to write all the nega-
tive things we wanted to stop and some positive things that we wanted to start happening (e.g.
‘respect’). We began to make a paper chain from the paper rulers, and this later became known
as the ‘shame chain’ (Figure 23.4), as we chose rulers with words that are used to shame and
humiliate girls (Figure 23.5).
But what would we do with the acrylic rulers? We thought about ruler bunting or making
a ruler monster, but then we suddenly started talking about wearing the rulers, and from a cape
to decorating a suit jacket, we returned to the skirt (Figure 23.6). The ruler-skirt was a way of

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Figure 23.4 Shame chain

Figure 23.5 Ruler graffiti

Figure 23.6 Ruler skirt

 Making our feelings matter

making visible the hurtful and often hidden experiences that can happen to girls and turn them
into something positive – something that might raise awareness of these issues.
We had no idea that the rulers would become such a significant part of our creative activism
for making a better relationships education. The ruler-skirt has been worn by us and Emma in so
many different places: at school assemblies; at the Welsh Assembly, at the 2015 Welsh Women’s
Aid conference; at the 2015 International Day of the Girl Conference (www.fullcircleedu-
cation.org/giving-girls-fairer-chance/); at the Welsh Government’s all-Wales safeguarding in
education conference which focused on violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual
violence; at the launch of AGENDA (see Renold 2016); and at UK and European academic,
practitioner and arts-based events (see productivemargins.com).

‘Some feelings are difficult to talk about’: making the tagged heart
Some feelings are too difficult or painful to put into words. Sometimes all we have are our feel-
ings, like a lump in our throat, or a churning in our stomachs. To help us express these feelings
in different ways, and not through language, Emma read out some of the words and phrases
(from our group discussions and interviews) that we found hurtful, and suggested we use the pile
of printed paper rulers to show how we feel. We ended up scrunching and ripping the paper. In
ten minutes we had created a big pile of torn pieces (Figure 23.7). We talked about how these
pieces were not just like our feelings, they were our feelings:

Girl/s: It’s like, it’s better to get your anger out on something.
Girl/s: It’s like a sense of relief for me.
Emma: A sense of relief?
Girl/s: Yeah . . . how you react like . . . your feelings . . . rips them up and crumples them up
until there’s practically nothing left and you’re left in pieces. And I reckon using paper
is actually a good way of expressing that.
Emma: So you’re thinking about your feelings inside the paper?
Girl/s: My feelings ARE the piece of paper.
Emma: Are the piece of paper?
Girl/s: Like crumpled up, torn up into little tiny pieces.
(Transcribed talk, Session 3)

We didn’t want to throw our feelings away so we thought out loud what to do with them.
Some of us wanted to keep them. Others wanted to bin them. But putting them in bin was like
chucking our feelings away. One of us noticed that the bin in the room was a recycling bin,
which sparked the following conversation:

Girl/s: Recycle them!

Girl/s: Yeah, so you’re doing something good with . . . so you’re . . . something good . . .
Emma: Well, we’ve got Sellotape (sticky-tape), I’ve got some Pritt Stick (glue) . . . I’ve got colours.
Girl/s: Stick them all back together.
Girl/s: It’s going to be hard because . . .
Girl/s: Nothing can.
Girl/s: Nothing mends.
Girl/s: Oh my god, why don’t you stick them together into a shape of a heart?
Girl/s: Oh yeah.
Emma: What made you think that? Just then?

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Figure 23.7 Paper feelings

Girl/s: Because she was on about feelings, her feelings and . . .

Girl/s: You can’t really fix a heart.
Girl/s: I know but it won’t be . . .

After taping all the torn pieces into the shape of a heart, we then decorated the outside:

Girl/s: You could put like a crack down the middle. Split down the middle.
Emma: You can.
Girl/s: So like all broken hearts can be mended, it might take time like but . . .
Girl/s: We could draw a clock.
Emma: A clock?
Girl/s: Yeah, because it takes time.
(Transcribed talk, Session 3)

In the space of 30 minutes we had recycled our feelings and created another powerful dartafact,
which we later called the ‘Tagged Heart’ (Figure 23.8).
It was really important to us that the clock has cracks on it, and that you can see that the heart
is made from the torn and crumpled paper, because no matter how many times you say sorry, or
try to straighten something out, the marks will always be there. Not all feelings or broken hearts
can be mended. But sometimes you can recycle the good things, and you can learn from them,
and learn from the past. Our Tagged Heart is carrying all our difficult feelings, our crushed feel-
ings. For us, our heart is our core. It is who we are. It is what keeps us alive.
And so, over a couple of sessions, we had created a range of dartafacts – all of them sparked
from a process which none of us could have predicted at the outset. It was now time to share
both our process, and our dartafacts, with others.

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 Making our feelings matter

Figure 23.8 Tagged Heart

Re-assembling the rules: sharing our dartafacts in school assemblies

Fired up by what we had created, we were now ready to share with the wider school. A whole
school assembly was the way we wanted to do it. At the beginning of the project, we weren’t
sure about speaking on these issues in assemblies, but we felt empowered by our dartafacts and we
wanted students and staff not only to feel how we feel when they are subjected to everyday sexual
harassment, but how this form of harassment is so often ruled out as ‘banter’ and seen as normal.
Assemblies are formal. They are also high status and supported by heads of years and senior
management. Usually nothing much happens in school assemblies. There’s a lot of being talked at.
We wanted to make our assembly interactive. So we set about working with Emma to inject some
movement and participation into our assembly, not just by sharing our story and dartafacts, but
by inviting students to have the chance to join our ‘Relationship Matters’ campaign for a ‘better
and real relationships education’. We designed and delivered two school assemblies (age 11–14)
to over 300 pupils.
Experimenting with the usual format of our school assembly, we arranged the space so that
students’ first point of contact was with one of our dartafacts: the 17ft ‘Runway of Disrespect’.
Arriving early, we rolled it out and made a barrier with the chairs so that as students entered
the assembly hall they had to walk by, look down on and read the words on the runway before
taking their seats (we got special permission to do this, given the graphic nature of some of the
words). Next, we put two slips of paper and a coloured felt tip was placed on each of the student
chairs (over 150 of them!): one slip had the printed rulers on one side and the heading, ‘we need

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a healthy relationships education because . . .’ was on the other. This slip connected directly to
our campaign. The second slip was blank. Finally, the PowerPoint screen projected a super-size
image of the Tagged Heart, and two large heart-shaped foil helium balloons were gently sway-
ing mid-air. The stage was set!
Over the next 20 minutes we shared our story and the making of our dartafacts. It was
nerve-racking because we didn’t know how students or staff were going to react. Some of us
were more nervous than others, so only those who felt comfortable in doing the talking led the
presentation. Students were invited to listen, watch, read, touch and feel them. We read out the
poem ‘Scream, Shout, Speak Out’, taking one line each. Individual volunteers were asked to
sound out the words and phrases on the rulers and the shame chain. This wasn’t easy to do as
words were hand-written (and not so neat!), and on the ruler-skirt they could be back to front.
But the fact that the messages are difficult to read was an important part of the process – it got
across how experiences of sexual harassment can be hard to hear and talk about.
Other interactive elements were more inclusive and involved everyone. We passed our Tagged
Heart around the whole assembly and asked students to ‘look after our feelings’ because ‘these are
our feelings’. We were worried that the heart might get trashed, but everyone was really careful
and we got it back in one piece, even after being handled by a couple of hundred students.
At the end of the assembly, students were invited to take part in the ‘Relationship Matters’
campaign and share their thoughts in writing on ‘why they think a real relationships education should
be compulsory for all schools in Wales’. Lots of students wrote comments which we later included in
a lobbying letter to politicians that we posted on the Violence Against Women and Girls Action
Group’s website (Figure 23.9).

Figure 23.9 Relationship Matters assembly

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Students were also asked to comment on what they felt about our assembly. These mes-
sages were really powerful. We got comments that said how proud they were of how we were
standing up and speaking out about these issues and how we acknowledged that both boys and
girls get upset about hearing these comments. Some people apologised for not realising how
much their comments hurt and some shared their own experiences of sexual harassment. Other
comments asked for advice and support on particular issues. There wasn’t one comment that
ridiculed what we were doing. We were so impressed not only by the respectful ways students
responded to our assembly, but in their messages to us, and for our campaign. And while we
weren’t collecting comments from teachers, one teacher came over after the assembly to share
her story about similar things that had happened to her when she was younger. The head of year
and head teacher also publicly shared their support for our campaign, and praised the creative
ways in which we were raising awareness of these issues.
As our assembly drew to a close, we invited students to stamp on the ‘Runway of Disrespect’
as loudly and roughly as they wanted to. We were keen that students not only got an oppor-
tunity to take part in some of the activities we created to make these issues matter, but also to
have a physical outlet and inject a bit of fun into what are serious issues to begin the day with!

Ruling the Senedd: how our ruler-heART activism informed

national policy
The ruler-slips, the hearts and the ruler-skirt all informed the design of our creative activism.
Our aim was to influence policy-makers who were failing to respond to research evidence on
the voices and experiences of children and young people (Renold 2013) by weakening or with-
drawing many of the original preventative education measures at earlier stages of the bill. On
18 February we took part in some direct action, led by Emma and Jonathan Cox from Citizen
Cymru.6 Together with over 40 other young people from urban and rural south Wales, we
spent a day making personal valentine cards. It was so great to see so many different people from
so many different places take part in this action. The cards included a list of our recommenda-
tions of what we wanted the new bill to include and a policy poem, with lines written from
each participating school:

It’s Not Too Late

Roses are red
Violets are blue
It’s not too late
For me and you
To change the law
That can change our lives
And end the violence
So we can survive and thrive
We need pupil champions
We need proper teacher training
We need a real relationships education
To stop girl shaming and boy blaming
So when it’s time to vote
Please think of our ode
We need you to take action
Because you’re in control

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Roses are red

Violets are blue
Respect and Consent
Are about policy change too

Three ruler-slips from our own school’s listening campaign joined hundreds more ruler-slips
(as Emma had opened up the ‘Relationship Matters’ activism to two other schools). Each slip
was pasted to hang from a cut-out heart inside a red valentine card (Figure 23.10). It was really
important to us that these were real comments, not photocopies, not typed up. They were per-
sonal. They were messages from the heart – messages that would swing out when the card was
opened. But would they swing the politicians into action?
Each card was placed in a personally addressed envelope to all 60 assembly members. They
were then sealed with a red lipstick kiss to connect our local action to the global Violence
Against Girls and Women campaign, Red My Lips. We took the train down to the National
Assembly for Wales at the Senedd, Cardiff Bay, and hand-delivered the cards for the assembly
members to pick up the next day.

Figure 23.10 Valentine card action

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 Making our feelings matter

“Fully supportive of this.”

Leanne Wood AM
“Very original
and thought
provoking. Have “Totally support the need for
taken on board.” schools to promote healthy
Andrew T relationships and have tabled
Davies AM amendments to the VAW bill
accordingly.” Peter Black AM
“thanks for the valentine’s card.
Healthy relationship education is
extremely important.” Gwyn R Price AM “A truly lovely gesture and a good way to
make the point. Please say a huge thank
you.” Janet Finch-Saunders AM
“They are absolutely right. The duty to
teach children about healthy “And I agree with them. Education is v
relationships should be in the Gender important as a part of the VaW Bill. I spoke
Based Violence Bill. Such a creative way on it in the Assembly and in cttee.” Alun
to get your message across.” Eluned Davies AM
Parrot AM

Twitter activism . . .
Figure 23.11 Twitter activism

Over the coming weeks, we worked with Emma and the Violence Against Girls and Women
Action group to proactively organise and participate in national media coverage, including a
Twitter campaign. As the bill was about to be voted on for the final time Emma tweeted all
the assembly members for us (Figure 23.11). She asked them if they received our valentine
cards, and what did they think? Many sent through their comments, and some posted a picture
proudly holding their card.
While we will never really know if our creative activism and public campaign directly affected
the dramatic U-turn in the policy-making process at the ninth hour, we believe from personal
communication with one of the assembly members, Jocelyn Davies (chair of the ‘Violence
Against Women and Children’ cross-party group) that we did make a difference.7 The bill was
passed on Tuesday 10 March. It included many of our education amendments for better teacher
training, a whole education guidance for practitioners and a national advisor to make sure every­
thing in the Act happens.
We are really proud to have been part of the campaign, and to be listened to. As our poem
says, ‘respect and consent is about policy change too’. We hope that we have helped begin to
re-write the rules for a better relationships education in Wales that puts gender equalities and
children and young people’s own experiences at the heart of change. In fact, since the Act
gained royal assent in the summer, we have had the opportunity to develop our activities further
in the making of the art exhibition and film ‘Graphic Moves’ with professional artists Heloise
Godfrey-Talbot, Rowan Talbot and Seth Oliver (see productivemargins.com) and more mem-
bers of the team, Gabrielle Ivinson and Eva Elliott (Figure 23.12). This phase involved working
more with our dartafacts and the messages they carry.
Our story has also been used as a case study for how young people can use creative methods
and the visual arts to raise awareness and campaign for change in two Welsh government rela-
tionships education resources for practitioners (Welsh Government 2015b) and young people

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Figure 23.12 Dartafacts in ‘Graphic Moves’ exhibition

(AGENDA: A young people’s guide to making positive relationships matter, Renold 2016).
We recently submitted this case study to the Women and Equalities Select Committee’s (2016)
Inquiry into Sexual Harassment and Sexual Violence in Schools8 as evidence on the importance
of creative approaches to sex and relationships education.

Words won’t pin us down

Being part of the Relationship Matters project has been a life-changing experience, not just
for us, but also, we hope, for others. We have learnt so much in the making and doing and we
really hope more workshops and projects like these can happen for more young people. Using
runaway methods in which anything can happen and where ideas can flow into and make dar-
tafacts that can affect people really gets to the heart of how change can happen. Change in us,
and change in others. It is good to have a plan and something to aim for, like raising awareness
about an issue. But it is also good to plan for the unexpected. Who knew we would make a
ruler-skirt or a tagged heart!
While sexual harassment has not gone away, we don’t think being called names or asked to
do stuff is normal. It’s wrong. We can talk about it more openly, and we don’t take it so per-
sonally. We feel like a bigger person. Where before we might have felt shamed and would look
down, now we hold our heads up. We have more confidence in ourselves, in our bodies. Some
of us have begun to share that confidence with others, and we hope to continue to do so now
we have left high school, by running workshops for students in primary and secondary schools
supported by teachers and the new young people’s guide AGENDA.

316
 Making our feelings matter

The poem we wrote for the short film, ‘Words Won’t Pin Me Down’, is how we would like
to end this chapter. The last line gets to the heart of how the making of dartafacts can help us
express what is so difficult to talk about. Experience and change is both personal and about us,
but also collective, and more than us.

Words Won’t Pin Me Down

you shouted something to me
and I wanted to fight back
I was too afraid
I thought you would attack
don’t judge me
don’t rule me
don’t read me
don’t beep me
until you’ve walked a mile
in my shoes
but even then
you’ll never know
what I’ve been through
talk to me
listen to me
understand me
feel what I feel
a conversation doesn’t hurt nobody
in fact
it might make me
a little less angry
FEEL WHAT I FEEL

Notes
1 This project was funded by the ESRC/AHRC programme, ‘Productive Margins: Regulating for
Engagement’ (ES/K002716/1). For further details about the project and programme, see www.productive
margins.com.
2 You can read more about the findings of the research project and how we used iPads and geographic
information system (GIS) technology to show and share with the research team local areas where we felt
safe and unsafe on the research programme website (productivemargins.com; see also Thomas 2016).
3 This chapter has been produced over several stages. As a group we created a written script for our school
assembly, facilitated by Emma Renold. This script told the story of the Relationship Matters project in
our own words. This script was expanded each time our project and activism developed. It has been
shared by us, and through posters, at different events, conferences and exhibitions (see productivemargins.
com). We used the most recent version of the story to reflect upon the process, and two of the team
(Libby and Georgia) worked for a full day with Emma to develop the chapter. Libby and Georgia anno-
tated each section (which Emma had laminated on A3 paper) and we recorded our conversation. Emma
then wrote up the first draft of what we had created in the session. This draft was then edited and passed
around the group before Emma gave it the final once-over and submitted to the editor of this collection,
Nancy Lombard.
4 For case study examples around the world, see Renold (2016); for inter-generational feminist activisms,
see Taft and Gordon (2016), Brown (2016) and Edell et al. (2016); for gender activism and feminist
school-based networks, see the Gender Equalities Leadership in Schools (GELS) network; and for

317
Emma Renold et al.

examples of academic scholarship theorising young feminist activisms, see Taft (2010, 2014), Keller
(2015), Mendes (2105) and Ringrose and Renold (2016, forthcoming 2018).
5 Cwtch is a familiar Welsh term that can mean cuddle or hug.
6 Citizen Cymru Wales is a registered charity that ‘builds diverse alliances of communities organising for
power, social justice and the common good’. They have members from over a hundred organisations,
including young people. Thank you to all that helped make this happen, including Matthew Abraham,
Siriol Burford,Victoria Edwards and Gareth Thomas.
7 Watch one of the assembly members, Jocelyn Davies, talk about the impact of the valentine card research-
activist practice informing the educational amendments to the Violence Against Women, Domestic Abuse
and Sexual Violence Act (2015) here: www.cardiff.ac.uk/news/view/339289-impact-on-policy-award-
welsh-government-with-the-school-of-social-sciences (accessed 8 July 2016).
8 For the final ‘special report’ of the Women and Equalities Select Committee into Sexual Harassment and
Violence in Schools, see www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmwomeq/91/9102.htm.

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Mendes, K. (2015) Slutwalk: Feminism, Activism and Media, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
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Government. Available at: www.agenda.wales.
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University Press.
Taft, J. (2014) The political lives of girls, Sociology Compass, 8, 259–267.
Taft, J. and Gordon, H.R. (2016) Intergenerational relationships in youth activist networks, Geographies of
Children and Young People, 5, 1–21.
Thomas, G.M. (2016) ‘It’s not that bad’: Stigma, health, and place in a post-industrial community, Health
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Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence in Wales, Welsh Government.

318
 Index

abduction of children 147, 149, 150 Asian sex gangs 215, 257
Abdulcadir, J. 198 assault model, failure of the 18–20
abortion 22 ASSIST 35
accessibility 137, 138–140 asylum seekers 204, 208, 209, 211–212, 218, 219
accountability 15 Atherton, Michael 158–159
Acker, Sandra 247 ATMG see Anti-Trafficking Monitoring Group
ADHD see Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
Disorder 48, 50
Adkins, L. 123 attrition 19–20, 97–98, 100, 105
advice, young women’s responses to 6, 274–286 austerity 142, 263, 265, 269, 271–272
Africa: female genital mutilation 197–198, 199, Australia 146, 200, 228, 289
200, 203, 205; trafficking of children 215, 216 Austria 185
age: elder abuse 184; intersectionality 9, 71, 141; awareness-raising 9, 10, 35–37, 204, 287
risk of domestic abuse 133; see also older women
agency 4, 6, 87; female genital mutilation 202, Bacchi, C. 28
203; minoritised communities 270; prostitution Baker, M.W. 192
224, 230 Balderston, S. 134
AGENDA 315–316 Ball, H.N. 186
aggression 122, 274, 298 Ballan, M.S. 135
Agustin, L.M. 209 Bamford, J. 253
Ahmadou, F. 199 Bandavad, Barach 159
Ahmed, Tahira 163 Barker, Meg 94n4
alcohol 57, 60–61; anti-rape campaigns 284; Barnardo’s 211, 252
‘lad culture’ 172, 175; older women 186; Barnes, Rebecca 5, 67–81
prostitution 224, 225; safety advice in bars and bars and clubs, safety advice in 274–286
clubs 274, 275, 276–277, 279–282, 283 Barter, Christine 9, 287–302
Alison, L. 253 Bates, Laura 128
Alldred, Pam 237–249 Batsleer, J. 265
Allen-Collinson, J. 62 BDSM 77, 88, 89, 91, 94, 94n4
Allen, L. 289 Beard, Mary 127
Allsopp, Jennifer 218 Beckett, H. 252
Alvanoudi, A. 244–245 Belgium 185, 237
anal sex, forced 19, 21–22 Berelowitz, S. 251, 252, 253, 254
Angel, Joanna 89 Bernstein, Elizabeth 178
anger management 43 Berridge, S. 128
anonymity 121, 129, 266, 268 Bertram, Jo 125
Anti-Trafficking Monitoring Group (ATMG) 212 Bielsa, Esperanza 245, 247
antisocial personality disorder 44, 50 Bijleveld, C.C.J.H. 253
anxiety: male victims 56, 62, 63; older women Binns, A. 122
187; perpetrators 44, 47, 50; risk of domestic biphobia 68, 72, 74–75, 238
abuse 134; stalking victims 116 bisexuals 71
The Archers 25 Bishop, J. 122
Asia 197–198, 200 Bjerregaard, B. 113

319
Index

Bjorklund, K. 115 child sexual exploitation (CSE): definition of 251;

black feminism 128, 173, 174, 178 legislation 223; researching 8–9, 250–261;
black women 128, 172–173, 269 trafficking of children 209–210, 211–219, 224
Blaque, Kat 127 children: child contact 7, 145–157; disabled
bodies: body shaming 122, 125; disabled women women 135; female genital mutilation 197,
135; male gaze 123, 125; pornography 90 200, 202; older women 189; trafficking of 8,
Bolton, D. 127 208–222; understandings and experiences of
borderline personality disorder 50, 51 intimate partner violence and abuse 287–302
Bourdieu, Pierre 122, 123, 128–129, 230 Children Act (1989) 155n2, 155n3
Bows, Hannah 7, 183–195 Christians 267
Boyd, C. 114 Christie, Nils 227
Boyle, E.H. 198 Church, S. 224, 228
Boyle, Karen 5–6, 10, 85–96 Citizen Cymru 313, 318n6
Bradbury-Jones, C. 138 class: Bourdieu 123; carceral systems 178; child
Brain, K. 280 sexual exploitation 9; erotica and pornography
Braithwaite, L. 129 86–87; intersectionality 9, 71, 141, 269; ‘lad
Brandl, B. 188 culture’ 174–175; ‘mummy porn’ 89; researcher
Brayley, H. 214 reflexivity 267, 268; sexual violence 174; young
Breckenridge, Jenna P. 7, 133–144 women’s responses to safety advice 276
Breiding, M.J. 112 Cockbain, E. 214, 215, 257
Brody, E.M. 190 coercion 16, 21–23, 51; male victims 58;
Brooks-Gordon, B. 225 prostitution 224; sexual relations 173; young
Brooks, Oona 6, 274–286 people 289
Browne, S. 29 coercive control 3, 15–18, 20–25, 32, 112, 147;
Brownmiller, Susan 173 case study 50, 51; Coercively Controlling
Buchwald, E. 122 Violence 42, 43, 44, 56; court cases 148, 155;
Budd, T. 61 criminalisation of 225; femicide 161; LGBT
Bulgaria 237, 290, 294 relationships 69; male victims 65; minoritised
bullying 242 communities 262; perpetrator personality types
Bure, Candace Cameron 128 44; prostitution 226; Scotland 35
Burgess, A.W. 187, 190 Coffey, A. 258
Burman, M. 288 Cohen, Stanley 215
collective societies 202
Cameron, David 175 Collett, E.A. 215
Campbell, A. 275, 278, 283 colonialism 174, 228
Campbell, R. 225, 227, 228 common sense 277, 283
Canada: female genital mutilation 200, 203; LGBT comparative research 237–249, 300n1
DVA 69, 71; sexual violence against students ‘conducive context’ 166–167
171; statutory responses to sexual violence 98, confidence 73, 118, 316
99, 102–103, 104; violence against women in Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS) 69, 112
prostitution 226 Connell, R.W. 1–2, 7, 54, 60
Cannell, M.B. 185 Conroy, R.M. 197
Canter, D. 253 consent 88–89, 94, 173–174, 282, 283–284
carceral feminism 178 consumption 90–91, 93–94
care homes 187, 190, 191 context: comparative research 239; ‘conducive’
caregivers 136, 138, 183, 191 166–167; gender differences in experience
Carter, Clive 167–168 of abuse 112; knowledge production 239;
Cartmel, F. 288 minoritised communities 265; stalking 110,
CARVE Project 237, 243 113–114, 118
case attrition 19–20, 97–98, 100, 105 control 16, 21, 23–24, 34, 46, 112; case study 50,
CEDAW see Convention on the Elimination of 51; child contact 148, 150–155; disabled women
All Forms of Discrimination Against Women 136; male victims 57–60, 65; young people 293,
CEOP 252, 254 295, 296; young women’s responses to safety
Chantler, Khatidja 9, 262–273 advice 280; see also coercive control
Charles, N. 29 Convention on Preventing and Combating
child abuse 7, 32; female genital mutilation as 202, Violence against Women and Domestic
204; perpetrator’s experience of 48–49, 50; Violence (Istanbul Convention) 2, 17–18, 25,
prostitution 228 110, 133, 238

320
 Index

Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of cyber-trolling 6, 121–132

Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) ‘cycle of abuse’ theory 266
17, 203 Cyprus 290, 294
Convention on the Rights of People with
Disabilities (CRPD) 133 Daly, Mary 161–162, 165
Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) 203 DAPHNE programme 185, 237
convictions 19, 25n3, 98, 105; see also criminal ‘dartafacts’ 303, 304–313, 316
justice system; law enforcement; prosecutions Daubney, M. 127
‘coordinated community response’ 18 Davies, Jocelyn 315, 318n7
Copel, L.C. 135, 136 Davis, Angela Y. 178n1
Coral Project 67, 71, 73, 74–77 Davis, L.J. 190
Corr, Mary-Louise 4, 41–52 Day, S. 226
Corradi, C. 168 death threats 122, 123–124
Corrigan, R. 104 Deen, James 91, 94n4
Corry, J. 162 degradation 22–23
Costolo, Dick 121 denial 6, 60, 258
Council of Europe Convention (Istanbul dependency 68
Convention) 2, 17–18, 25, 110, 133, 238 depression: LGBT DVA 77; male victims 62, 63,
Counting Dead Women 159, 163, 167, 168 64; older women 187; perpetrators 44; risk of
court action 145–157 domestic abuse 134
court orders 146, 149, 151, 155 deprivation 23–24
Cox, A.K. 113 desexualisation 135
Coy, M. 37, 209, 230 desires, women’s 90
Craig, G. 212 Desmarais, S.L. 184
CRC see Convention on the Rights of the Child Devaney, J. 141, 185
Creasy, Stella 124 deviance 126
Crenshaw, Kimberle 269, 271 Di Santo, R. 89
Criado-Perez, Caroline 124, 127 disability 7, 133–144, 269; definition of 133;
crime 47, 50; criminal exploitation of trafficking intersectionality 9, 71, 141; older women 187
victims 211, 213–214; femicide 165; groups disablism 133, 134–135, 141, 142
and networks 253–254, 255–256; policing disclosure/reporting: comparative research 239;
research 256–258; violence against women in disabled women 135, 138, 142; ‘Nordic
prostitution 227 paradox’ 161; older women 187–190, 192;
‘crime porn’ 231 prostitution 226; stalking 113
Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) discrimination 2, 16, 164; disabled women
18–19, 183, 264 133, 134; female genital mutilation 205;
criminal justice system 32, 63; prostitution 227, intersectionality 5, 7; LGBT DVA 73,
228; response to sexual violence 97–108; 78; online feminist activism 128; see also
Scotland 34–35; see also convictions; law homophobia; racism; sexism
enforcement; police; prosecutions divorce 145, 147, 267
critical race approaches 267 DNA evidence 103
CRPD see Convention on the Rights of People Dobash, R.E. 112, 167
with Disabilities Dobash, R.P. 112, 167
CSE see child sexual exploitation Dodge, A. 122
CSEW see Crime Survey for England and Wales Doezema, J. 215
cultural imperialism 205 domestic homicide 165–166
‘cultural privacy’ 262, 267 domestic violence and abuse (DVA) 3, 15; case
cultural relativism 199 attrition rates 19–20; CEDAW 17; challenges
‘culturalist’ framing 266, 270–271 ahead 24–25; child contact 146–155; children’s
culture: female genital mutilation 197–198, and young people’s understandings and
199, 201–202; gynocide 162; minoritised experiences of 287–302; comparative and
communities 264, 266, 270–271; popular international research 237, 238, 239–240,
beliefs and practices 10; sexual exploitation 242, 300n1; definitions of 133, 183–184, 238;
216; translation issues 244, 247; transnational disabled women 133–144; failure of the assault
feminism 199 model 18–20; gender-neutral framing 31–32;
‘culture-blaming’ 270–271 LGBT relationships 5, 67–81; male victims
Curry, M.A. 140 53–66; minoritised communities 265, 266;
Cusick L. 224 older women 183–195; Scotland 4, 28–29,

321
Index
30–31, 33–38; translation issues 242–243;
understanding young men’s use of violence
41–52; use of electronic devices 129; witnessed
by children 147, 152; see also coercive control;
gender-based violence; intimate partner
violence and abuse; violence
domination: children 154; coercive control 3, 18;
Declaration on the Elimination of Violence
Against Women 17; feminist challenge to male
29; Fifty Shades of Grey 94; gender regimes 2;
prostitution 228; see also power
Donovan, Catherine 5, 67–81
‘double deviance’ 126
doubt 98, 99, 100–106
Douglas, H. 138
drugs 57, 60–61, 148; ‘lad culture’ 175;
prostitution 224, 225; safety advice in bars and
clubs 274, 275
Du Mont, J. 103, 104
Dunham, Lena 127–128
Dutton, Donald 44
DVA see domestic violence and abuse
Dworkin, Andrea 173
dyslexia 138
Eagle, R.B. 128
economic abuse 4, 17
economic development 160–161
education 9–10, 25, 299; rape prevention 283;
Relationship Matters project 303, 312–313,
315–316; Scotland 36–37; young people’s
attitudes 287, 288, 297–298
Edwards, D. 89
Ege, Judith 159
elder abuse 183, 184, 188, 190; see also older
women
‘embodied labour’ 228–229
emotional abuse 4; children 147, 150; coercive
control 16, 42; degradation 22; disabled women
134; LGBT relationships 68, 69, 75; minoritised
communities 262; older women 190;
prostitution 225, 226; Relationship Matters
project 303; Scotland 28, 30, 31; trafficking of
children 217; young people’s experiences of
288–289, 290, 294, 295, 297, 298
emotional labour 228
empowerment 36, 128, 142, 202, 239
England: case attrition 19–20, 98; child sexual
exploitation 250, 251; Children Act 155n2,
155n3; coercive control 15, 16, 24; comparative
research 237, 238, 241–242, 244, 247; Crime
Survey for England and Wales 18–19, 183,
264; data collection 240; definition of gender
violence 17; education 10, 299; female genital
mutilation 203–204, 264–265; femicide 160;
homicide 161; language issues 243; legal aid
146; men’s rights activists 33;
322
older women 185; partner offences 19;
preventative education 283; prostitution 223,
224, 229; statutory responses to sexual violence
98–99, 100–102, 103, 104–105; trafficking of
children 210–219; under-reporting of sexual
violence 97; Women’s Liberation Movement
29–30; young people’s understandings and
experiences of IPVA 290, 294–296, 300n1; see
also United Kingdom
Englehart, N.A. 239
English language 244–245, 246, 247, 266
entitlement: ‘lad culture’ 177; male victims 4, 64,
65; paid sex 229; patriarchal society 167, 168;
young people’s attitudes 293
entrapment 21, 24, 32, 69
equality 38; see also gender equality
Equally Safe strategy 30–31, 33, 36–37, 299
erotica 86–87, 89–90
essentialism 278
ethics 266–271
ethics committees 140–141, 267, 268–269
ethnicity: child sexual exploitation 257;
comparative research 240; female genital
mutilation 201; intersectionality 7, 9, 71, 141;
older women 192; prostitution 231; researcher
reflexivity 267, 268; trolling 130; see also race
Europe: female genital mutilation 200; missing
children 218
European Convention on Human Rights
(ECHR) 145
European Disability Strategy 138–139
European Institute for Gender Equality 110
European Union (EU): child migrants 218;
comparative research 237, 240–241, 243, 245;
DAPHNE programme 185, 237; FRA report
238; kids online survey 290; sexual harassment 3
EverydaySexism project 128
evidence 99, 102, 103–105
expectations 1, 51; femininity 125–126; men
54, 58–59; young people’s understandings of
violence 291–292, 297, 298
exploitation: coercive control 16, 23; disabled
women 136; prostitution 224, 226; trafficking
224; trafficking of children 212–213, 216,
217–218, 219; see also child sexual exploitation;
sexual exploitation
Facebook 121, 130n1, 177
false allegations 6, 100–101, 155
family, as site of violence against women 2
family support 189–190
Farley, M. 228
Farrow, Stephen 159
fathers’ rights groups 145
fear 18, 112, 150; child contact 153; children
152; coercive control 16, 22–23, 24, 69; male
victims 4, 33, 57–59, 65; online spaces 130;

prostitution 225; of rape 173; Scotland 34;
stalking 6, 109, 113, 114–115, 116; women’s
safety behaviours 274; young people 289;
young women’s responses to safety advice
281–282; see also intimidation
female genital mutilation (FGM) 7–8, 110,
196–207; definition of 196; femicide 165;
minoritised communities 262, 267; prevalence
3, 264–265
femicide 7, 158–170
Femicide Census 159, 167, 168
femininity 2, 6, 54; appropriate 283; female genital
mutilation 198; LGBT DVA 72; safety advice
in bars and clubs 275, 278; stereotypes 124; as
submission 173; trolling 125–126; victims of
sexual violence 98, 100, 104
feminism: black 128, 173, 174, 178; carceral 178;
child sexual exploitation 215; comparative
research 241; cultural norms 278; definitions
of gender violence 16; English language 247;
female genital mutilation 7–8, 199; femicide
158, 161–162, 165, 168–169; Fifty Shades of
Grey 88, 93; intersectionality 269; knowledge
production 239; ‘lad culture’ 175, 178; LGBT
DVA 71, 72–73; liberal 230; male privilege
18; minoritised communities 271; online
activism 128; patterns of domestic violence 42;
pornography 5, 85, 86–87, 91, 94; prostitution
8; ‘public story’ of DVA 70; research
inequalities 267; safety advice in bars and clubs
275; Scotland 28, 29–31, 33–35, 37; sexual
exploitation 209; sexual violence 171–174, 176;
structural arrangements 270; translation issues
243, 244, 246; treatment of sexual violence
victims 97; trolling 122–123, 130; women’s
participation in online spaces 129; Zero
Tolerance 36
FGM see female genital mutilation
Fifty Shades of Grey 5–6, 85–86, 87–94
financial abuse: coercive control 16, 23; LGBT
relationships 69; minoritised communities 262;
Scotland 28, 30, 31
Finch, J. 290
Findley, P.A. 137, 140
Finland 185
Finneran, C. 68
Firmin, C. 251, 252, 253, 254
Fitzclarence, L. 2
Fletcher, P. 185
Flitcraft, A. 20
Folaron, G. 227
Foradada-Villar, Mireia 237–249
forced labour 3, 211, 212, 219
forced marriage 32, 33, 262, 264–265, 267, 271
forensic examinations 103–105
Fowler, D. 186
Fox, C.L. 252, 253
Index
FRA see Fundamental Rights Agency
France 237
Franklin, K. 253
Fraser, N. 239
frequency of violence 18
From Boys to Men project 45
Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) 5, 238
Gadd, David 4, 34, 41–52
Gander, K. 124
Gangoli, G. 270
gangs 165, 215, 251, 252, 253–254, 257
GAP Work Project 237, 241–242, 245
‘gaslighting’ 22, 25
gatekeepers: minoritised communities 266–267,
268–269; police 99, 257, 258; schools 289;
translators 246
gay men 60–61, 68, 70; see also LGBT people
Gazzard, Hollie 159
gender: child sexual exploitation 251–253;
comparative and international research 237;
concept of 1–2; ‘doing’ 281, 283; elder abuse
184; femicide 169; gendered scripts 299;
intersectionality 141, 269; LGBT DVA 72;
male victims 64; prostitution 223–224, 228,
231; ‘public story’ of DVA 70; social media
128–129; symbolic violence 123; translation
issues 243, 244–245; young people’s attitudes
290, 297, 298; see also femininity; masculinity
gender-based violence 2–3, 10; comparative and
international research 237, 238, 240–244;
definitions of 16–17, 31, 110, 238, 247n2;
female genital mutilation 196, 202; human
rights 16–17; minoritised communities
262–273; Scotland 30, 31; stalking as 109–120;
types of 5; see also domestic violence and abuse;
intimate partner violence and abuse; rape;
sexual violence
Gender Based Violence Research Network 38n3
gender equality 290, 300; CEDAW 17; education
9–10, 25, 36, 37, 315; Istanbul Convention 17;
‘Nordic paradox’ 161; Sustainable Development
Goals 208; translation issues 246
gender identity 22, 70–71, 74; barriers to help-
seeking 76–77; femicide 165; intersectionality
7; services for LGBT DVA 78
gender neutrality 31–32, 36, 38; comparative and
international research 238; discourse of 265;
older women 192; stalking 109, 110, 114
gender order 54
gender regimes 1–2, 3–4, 7, 54, 300
gender-related violence (GRV) 241–242, 243, 246
gendertrolling 122
Germany 185, 228
Gillan, Evelyn 36
Goffman, E. 60
Gohir, S. 251, 252
323
Index

Goldberg, Whoopi 127–128 homophobia 68, 71, 72–73, 74–76; comparative

Gould, C. 215 research 238, 241, 242; ‘lad culture’ 176;
Gowing, Catherine 167 trolling 129, 130
Gozdziak, E.M. 215 Hong Kong 185
Gracia, E. 161, 240 honour-based violence 33, 165, 185, 262, 264,
Graham, R.F. 128 267, 271
Gramsci, A. 230 Horan, D. 188
Greece 237 Hosken, F. 199
Grey, Sasha 91 House, Stephen 34
Griffin, Susan 173 Howard, L.M. 62
Gross, Alice 163, 164 HTPs see harmful traditional practices
Grossman, S.F. 185 Hughes, D. 24
Groth, A.N. 190, 191–192 human rights 3, 16–17; minoritised communities
groups of perpetrators 214–215, 251, 253–255, 257 263, 266; prostitution 226, 227; trafficking
Gruenbaum, E. 198 208–209
guizzo, gigi 8, 237–249 Human Rights Act (1998) 145
gynocide 161–162, 165 Hungary 185, 237
Hynes, Patricia 8, 208–222
Haines, D. 141
Hamby, S. 289 IC see Istanbul Convention
harassment 24, 242; see also sexual harassment IDAP see Integrated Domestic Abuse Programme
harm reduction 227, 229 ‘ideal’ victims 227, 258; see also ‘perfect victims’
harmful traditional practices (HTPs) 201, 203, 205 identity: intersectionality 5, 9, 71; men 54;
Harne, L. 148, 150 researcher identities 269–270; see also gender
Harpur, P. 138 identity
Harris, R. 36–37 ILO see International Labour Office
Harris, S. 184 immigration policy 263, 271–272
hashtagging 128 impacts of abuse: male victims 4–5, 61–62; older
hate crime 75, 121, 231 women 187; stalking 113–114, 117, 118; young
Head, S. 71 people 296–297
health issues: disabled women 137–138; female imprisonment, threat of 151, 153
genital mutilation 200, 202–203; male victims Imríšková, R. 113, 114–115
62–63, 64; older women 187; prostitution 225; indigenous people 71
stalking 118; see also mental health inequality 4, 10, 31, 54, 117, 299; challenging
health professionals 137–138 300; coercive control 21; culture of
hearings 150–151, 152–153, 155 sexualisation 253; information and
Hearn, J. 31 communication technologies 123; minoritised
Hearn, Jeff 56 communities 263; patriarchal society 161, 167,
hegemonic masculinity 2, 64, 124, 252–253, 169; prostitution 224, 228, 230, 231; research
258, 297 267; Scotland 35–36, 37; structural 5, 32, 38,
Heise, L. 160 57, 60, 168–169, 216, 270; young people’s
help-seeking: disabled women 137; LGBT DVA attitudes 293
70, 73, 76–77, 78; male victims 64; responses to infidelity 46, 49
20; stalking 113 Instagram 121, 125
Henderson, L. 68 Integrated Domestic Abuse Programme (IDAP) 45
Henry, R. 125 intention to cause harm 56–57, 64
Hernlund, Y. 205 internal child sex trafficking 214, 215, 255
Hester, Marianne 53–66, 68–70, 72, 73, 76, international collaboration 238, 244, 247
112, 225 International Labour Office (ILO) 209
heteronormativity 5, 71, 72, 73, 88, 129, 252 international law 246
heterosexuality 2, 93, 173, 293 international research 237–249, 288
hidden violence 3 internet 6, 253, 299; see also online abuse;
Hill, P. 126 social media
Hodgson, Nichi 89 intersectionality 5, 7, 9, 174, 269; carceral systems
Hohl, K. 98 178; comparative research 242; disabled women
Holtzworth-Munroe, Amy 41, 43–44 134, 139, 140–141, 142; LGBT DVA 70–71,
homicide 161, 192, 226, 298; domestic 165–166 78; prostitution 231; trolling 130

324
 Index

intimate partner homicide 165–166 Knight, I. 92

intimate partner violence and abuse (IPVA) 5, Kohli, R. 214
112, 160–161; definitions of gender-based Koso-Thomas, O. 198
violence 110; femicide 163, 165; government Kotsadam, A. 160
policies 168; older women 190; screening
instruments 240; young people’s understandings ‘lad culture’ 129, 171–172, 174–177, 178
and experiences of 9, 287–302 Lady Gaga 171, 172
intimate terrorism 16, 42, 50, 56, 112, 113; see also Langhinrichsen-Rohling, J. 113–114
coercive control language 8, 70; comparative and international
intimidation 21, 22–23, 42, 147, 153, 167 research 237, 238, 242–246, 247; minoritised
invisibility: child sexual exploitation 258; femicide communities 266–267; prostitution 223–224
161; health conditions 137–138; ‘honour’ law enforcement 19–20, 24, 121; see also criminal
based violence 185; LGBT DVA 74; male CSE justice system; police; prosecutions
victims 252; minoritised communities 262; Lazenbatt, A. 185
white male perpetrators 175 Lea, S.J. 184
IPVA see intimate partner violence and abuse ‘learned helplessness’ 266
Ireland 237, 238, 241–242, 247 learning disabilities 136, 139, 140
Islam 198 Leckie, B. 92
Islamophobia 128, 129, 130; see also Muslims Lee, Christine and Lucy 159
Island, D. 68, 72 legal aid 146, 150, 155
isolation: coercive control 16, 21, 23, 24, 147; legal discourse 238
LGBT DVA 73; minoritised women 271; legislation 4, 10, 19, 24; accessibility of services
prostitution 226; use of new technologies 288 139; child contact 145, 148–149; Children
Istanbul Convention (IC) 2, 17–18, 25, 110, Act 155n2, 155n3; educational amendments in
133, 238 Wales 315, 318n7; female genital mutilation
Italy 237, 238, 241–242, 246, 290, 294 203–204; Modern Slavery Act 209; prostitution
223, 229; rape 173; revenge porn 130; s.76
Jackson, Carolyn 178n2 criminal offence 15, 16, 18, 19, 24–25;
Jackson, Ima 7–8, 196–207 Scotland 29, 34; Serious Crime Act 204, 225;
James, E.L. 88, 89, 90, 92 Spain 242; Wales 25; see also policy
Jamieson, L. 70 Leone, J.M. 113
Jane, E.A. 122, 129 lesbians 25, 68, 69, 70, 269; see also
Jay, A. 214, 258 LGBT people
Jeal, N. 225 lesbicide 162
jealousy 43, 47, 50, 60, 72 Letellier, P. 68, 72
Jeary, K. 187 Lewis, H. 133–134, 209–210
Jeffreys, S. 228, 230 Leyland, Brenda 127
Jenkins, R. 230 LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender)
Jews 267 people 5, 67–81; adolescent relationships 289;
Jobe, A. 209 comparative research 242, 246; Coral Project
Johnson, J.R. 41, 42–44 74–77; intersectionality 70–71; key research
Johnson, Michael 41, 42–44, 56, 69, 112, 113 findings 73; ‘minority stress’ 72–73, 75–76;
Jorsh, M. 127 prevalence of DVA 68–69; qualitative turn 70;
Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) 212 Scotland 35; triggers for abuse 60–61
Jowell, R. 239, 240 Lila, M. 240
Lisak, David 177
Kane, Garry 159 Lithuania 185
Kanuha, V. 71 Littlejohn, R. 91–92
Keller, J.M. 122, 128 lived experiences 8, 110, 265
Kelly, J.B. 41, 42–44, 146–147 lobbying 30, 33, 34, 37, 243
Kelly, Liz 8, 9, 87, 103, 166–167, 173, 223 Loftus, B. 258
Kenway, J. 2 Logan, T.K. 113
Khoja-Moolji, S. 128 Lombard, Nancy 1–12, 28–40, 287–302
Kimmel, M. 2 love 72
Kingston, S. 224 Lowe, John 159
Kinnell, H. 224, 226–227, 229 Lowman, J. 226
Klein, R.D. 3 Lukes, S. 230

325
Index

Lumsden, Karen 6, 121–132 McNay, L. 283

Lundy, M. 185 McRobbie, Angela 123, 128–129
Measham, F. 280, 281
Mabo, Krishnamaya 168 media 25, 128–129; child sexual exploitation
MacDonald, J.M. 185 215, 257; disabled women 141; female
Mackay, F. 30, 37 genital mutilation 200; femicide 7, 163–164;
Mackay, Kirsteen 7, 145–157 prostitution 231; trolling 127, 130; young
MacKinnon, Catherine A. 173, 174 women’s responses to safety advice 281–282;
male chauvinism 243 see also social media
male gaze 6, 10, 123, 125 Meloy, J.R. 114
male privilege 18, 32 Menard, K.S. 113
male victims 4–5, 9, 53–66; child sexual men’s rights activists: see also fathers’ rights groups
exploitation 252; domestic homicide 166; older men’s rights activists (MRAs) 33
men 187; Scotland 33–34, 35; stalking 110, mental health: court cases 148, 154; disabled
113–114, 115–117, 118; trafficking of children women 134, 138; LGBT DVA 76, 77, 78;
213, 217, 219; young people 294–295, 296–297 male victims 62–63; older women 187; police
Manchester 215 investigation 101; prevention initiatives 37;
Mandle, C. 125 see also anxiety; depression
Manjoo, Rashida 7, 36, 164 Merlo, J. 161
Mann, Aaron 159 Merrill, G.S. 72
manslaughter 161 Merry, S.E. 246
Månsson, Sven-Axel 226 Messerschmidt, J.W. 252
Mantilla, K. 122 Middle East 197–198, 200, 203
MARACs see Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Miller, David 163, 164
Conferences Miller, J. 229
Marhia, Natasha 244 Mills, C.W. 8
marriage: early 3, 201; forced 32, 33, 262, 264–265, Milton, M. 71
267, 271; to perpetrator of rape 3; young Milward, Kathleen 159
people’s attitudes 293 Minaj, Nicki 125, 127
Marsden, Sasha 159 minoritised communities 9, 71, 72–73, 262–273
Marshall, Alex 129 ‘minority stress’ 72–73, 75–76
Martin, S.L. 134 Minton, David 159
masculinities 2, 10; inclusive 176; ‘laddish’ 172, misogyny 25, 43, 51, 173; femicide 162, 165, 167,
174–175; male victims 53, 54, 60, 61, 64 169; ‘lad culture’ 129, 172, 177; online feminist
masculinity 6, 51; ‘crisis of’ 176; education 25; activism 128; Other cultures 176; pornography
female genital mutilation 198; gender regimes 85, 299; prostitution 229; rape culture 123–124;
7; hegemonic 2, 64, 124, 252–253, 258, 297; trolling 126, 128–129, 130; see also sexism
Istanbul Convention 17; LGBT DVA 72; missing children 218–219
male victims 5, 54, 59–60, 63, 64; multiple Modern Slavery Act (2015) 209
perpetrator rape 253; naturalised definitions of money 23, 24, 34; see also financial abuse
291; safety advice in bars and clubs 275, 278; Montesanti, S.R. 2
sex industry 93; sexual violence against students Montez, J.K. 62
172, 177; softening of 176; victims of sexual Mooney, J. 18
violence 98, 100, 104 moral panics 215, 219
Matza, D. 60 morality 229
May, Teresa 17–18 Morgan Disney & Associates 188
McCann, Madeleine 127 Morgan, Heather M. 6, 121–132
McCarthy, M. 136, 139 Morgan, Karen 53–66
McClennen, J.C. 60 Morgan Thomas, R. 227
McFarlane, J. 140 Morris, S. 110–111
McGoldrick, Susan 158–159 mortality 189, 192
McGrory, John 159 Moser, A. 239
McGrory, Marie 159 Mowlam, A. 184
McGuire, Danielle L. 172–173 MPR see multiple perpetrator rape
McKie, L. 31 MRAs see men’s rights activists
McMillan, Lesley 6, 97–108, 115 Mrsevic, S. 24
McNair, Brian 87, 93 Mulla, S. 104

326
 Index

Mullen, P.E. 109, 114, 117 paedophile rings 254

Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conferences Palermo Protocol 209, 220n6
(MARACs) 18, 78 paranoia 46, 47, 50, 51
‘multi-faithism’ 267–268 parenting 135
multiple perpetrator rape (MPR) 253 Parks, Rosa 172–173
Mulvey, L. 6, 123 Parnis, D. 103, 104
Mulvihill, Natasha 8, 223–234 partner sexual assault (PSA) 19, 21–22; see also
‘mummy porn’ 88–90, 92, 94n3 intimate partner violence and abuse
Muram, D. 190 Patel, P. 267
murder 161, 192, 226, 298; see also femicide pathologisation 262
Muslims 178, 200, 265, 267, 272; see also patriarchy 94, 161, 174, 269; female genital
Islamophobia mutilation 198, 199; femicide 162, 164, 167,
‘mutual combat’ 42–43 168–169; gynocide 162; ‘lad culture’ 177, 178;
Myhill, A. 2, 240 language 245–246; LGBT DVA 72; minoritised
communities 265; prostitution 209, 223, 228,
‘naked trolling’ 124–125 229, 231; sexual violence against students 171;
naming 8, 28, 31–32, 141 trafficking of children 216
National Referral Mechanism (NRM) 210, peer exploitation 251, 252
212–215, 217, 219 peer groups 254
naturalisation of violence 10, 291–292, 300 Pereira, Maria do Mar 244
Naughton, C. 190 ‘perfect victims’ 163–164; see also ‘ideal’ victims
Neame, A. 283 Perkins, Sue 126
Nelson, Glen 168 perpetrators 4, 41–52; alcohol use 61; case
neoliberalism 93, 171, 174, 175, 176–178 attrition rates 19–20; child contact as a
Netherlands 228 weapon of control 146–155; child sexual
networks 251, 253–256 exploitation 251, 252, 253–255; coercive
Nibbs, Judith 163 control 32; domestic abuse of disabled women
Nicholson, L. 239 134–135, 136–137, 138, 141; domestic abuse
non-governmental organisations (NGOs) 16 of older women 184, 189, 190–192; domestic
‘Nordic paradox’ 161 homicide 166; female 33, 44, 110, 114, 196,
Norfolk, Andrew 215 252; female genital mutilation 196; femicide
normalisation of violence 10, 130, 283, 158–159, 163, 165, 167–168; intention to
297–298, 300 cause harm 56–57; LGBT DVA 69, 73,
norms 160–161, 173, 216; cultural 270, 278; 74–77; male victims as 53, 54–56, 57, 61,
domestic abuse of older women 188, 189; 63; minoritised communities 263; personality
female genital mutilation 202; gynocide 162; types 43–44; preventative work 283; repeated
local contexts 238; social learning 72 violence 19; responsibility 284; Scotland
Northern Ireland 25 34–35; stalking 113–114, 117; trafficking
Norway 290, 294–296, 300n1 of children 219; violence against women in
NRM see National Referral Mechanism prostitution 225–226, 227, 231
persistent and unwanted behaviour (PUB) 110,
objectification of women 167, 168, 169, 229 111–112, 115–117
O’Brien, O. 204 personality types 43–44, 50–51
O’Connell-Davidson, J. 228 Phipps, Alison 7, 171–182
O’Connor, Claire 159 Phoenix, Ann 262, 269, 271
O’Hare, U. 5 physical abuse 4; children 147, 150, 153, 154;
O’Keefe, M. 190 coercive control 16, 21, 42; court cases 148;
older women 183–195 disabled women 134; gender differences 112;
online abuse 121–132; child sexual exploitation LGBT relationships 68, 69, 75; limits of the
252; Relationship Matters project 303; young assault model 19; male victims 58; minoritised
people 288–289, 294, 295–296, 297, 298 communities 262; older women 185, 186,
oppression 3, 16, 164, 269; disabled women 133; 189, 190, 191–192; prostitution 225, 228, 231;
intersectionality 5; ‘minority stress’ 72–73; ‘public story’ of DVA 70; Relationship Matters
sexual violence 173, 174; structural 76 project 303; Situational Couple Violence
Ortoleva, S. 133–134 42; stalking 114; trafficking of children 217;
Owens, J.G. 113 women’s safety behaviours 274; young people’s
Oxford 215 experiences of 288–289, 290, 294, 297, 298,

327
Index
300n1; young people’s understandings of 292;
see also violence
Pizzey, Erin 145
Plummer, S.B. 137, 140
Podaná, Z. 113, 114–115
Poland 185
police 18, 20, 25; child sexual exploitation 8–9,
250, 256–258; data collection 240; definitions
used by the 34–35; femicide 159–160;
prostitution 227, 229; rape cases 98–103;
Scotland 28; victim-blaming 284; see also law
enforcement
policy: child sexual exploitation 250; comparative
research 238; court cases 155; disabled women
141–142; failure of the assault model 18; female
genital mutilation 203–205; intimate partner
violence 168; LGBT DVA 77–78; minoritised
communities 263, 267; prostitution 227–228,
231; Relationship Matters project 313–315;
Scotland 37; see also legislation
‘politics of location’ 269
pornification 85–86, 87, 89–90, 93–94
pornography 5–6, 10, 85–96; boys’ viewing of
299; definitions of 86; femicide 167, 168;
partner sexual assault 22
Portugal 185
Portwood-Stacer, L. 128
positionality 239, 267
postcolonialism 199
power 2, 3, 10; child sexual exploitation 253;
coercive male 289; ‘conducive context’
166–167; disabled women 136; female genital
mutilation 202; ‘lad culture’ 175–176, 178;
minoritised communities 262, 264; of naming
28; prostitution 224, 230; research ethics
267, 268, 270; sexual violence 174; social
reproduction 123; ‘third face of’ 230; types
of domestic violence 42; women 54; young
people’s attitudes 293; see also domination
Power-Cobbe, Francis 163
powerlessness 130, 203
Powers, L.E. 139
Prazak, M. 198
prevention 283, 300; preventative education 9, 25,
288, 313; Scotland 33, 35–37
privacy 188; ‘cultural’ 262, 267
privilege 71, 269; intersectionality 5; ‘lad culture’
175–176, 178; male 18, 32
Proctor, Katy 6, 109–120
prosecutions 19, 25n3, 34, 97; female
genital mutilation 203; online abuse 121;
trolling 130; see also criminal justice system;
law enforcement
prostitution 8, 86, 87, 167, 209, 223–234
protection: court orders 146; England 15; older
women 189; Scotland 33, 34–35
PSA see partner sexual assault
328
psychological abuse 4, 17; coercive control 16;
‘gaslighting’ 22, 25; Istanbul Convention 17;
LGBT relationships 68, 75; male victims 58;
older women 185; perpetrator personality
types 43; prostitution 226; Scotland 28, 30, 31;
young people’s experiences of 288, 295
psychopathology 43, 44, 51, 68, 72
PUB see persistent and unwanted behaviour
‘public story’ of DVA 70, 73, 76, 79
Purcell, R. 109, 110, 114
‘purity’ 215, 217
Queer Theory 241, 242
Quek, Kate 87, 89, 90, 93
race: child sexual exploitation 215; comparative
research 240; intersectionality 7, 141, 269; ‘lad
culture’ 175–176; researcher reflexivity 268;
sexual violence 174; young women’s responses
to safety advice 276; see also ethnicity
racism: anti-rape resistance 172–173; carceral
systems 178; female genital mutilation 205;
indigenous people 71; intersectionality 269;
‘lad culture’ 129, 175; minoritised communities
263, 271, 272; pornography 85; prostitution
228; researcher reflexivity 267; sexual violence
174; social learning 72; trolling 128, 129, 130
Radford, Jill 162, 164, 165
Raffles, Franki 36
Ramin, S.M. 185
rape 5; anti-rape resistance 172–173; blame
and responsibility 283; case study 46, 47, 50;
CEDAW 17; child sexual exploitation 214–215,
251; comparative research 239; convictions 98,
105; definitions of gender-based violence 110;
marriage of perpetrator to victim 3; medico-
legal evidence 103–105; multiple perpetrator
253; older women 185, 186, 187, 190, 192;
online threats 122, 123–125; partner sexual
assault 19, 21–22; police investigation 99–103;
porn industry 94n4; preventative work 283;
prostitution 225, 226, 229; rape culture 6, 10,
122, 123–124, 128, 172, 175; rape myths 98,
100, 103, 105, 174, 229; Rohypnol 130n2; state
responsibility 16; statutory response to 97–108;
young women’s responses to safety advice 6,
275, 277, 281–282, 283; see also sexual violence
Rape Crisis 36, 284
Razack, S. 271
Reade, B. 92
Reeves, K.A. 184
Refuge UK 19, 21–22, 23
refugees 208, 209, 212, 218
refuges 20; child contact 149; disabled women
139; LGBT DVA 68; racism 271; Scotland 30
Regan, L. 103
regulation 16, 18, 23–24, 32, 293

Reiner, R. 258
Relationship Matters project 303–318
relationship termination 63, 137
religion: comparative research 240; female
genital mutilation 198; intersectionality 7, 141;
‘multi-faithism’ 267–268; religious law 267;
trolling 130
Renold, Emma 9, 290, 303–318
repeated violence 18–19, 297
reporting/disclosure: comparative research 239;
disabled women 135, 138, 142; ‘Nordic
paradox’ 161; older women 187–190, 192;
prostitution 226; stalking 113
representation, ethics and politics of 269–271
reproductive coercion 22
research: child contact 146–155; child sexual
exploitation 250–261; comparative and
international 237–249; disabled women
140–141; LGBT DVA 68–71, 73; male victims
55–65; methods 55, 148–149, 238–241,
255–256, 264–266, 276, 289–291; minoritised
communities 262–273; older women 192;
prostitution 231; trafficking of children 210–211,
219; young people’s understandings and
experiences of IPVA 287–297; young women’s
responses to safety advice 276–283
resistance 42, 43, 44, 280; see also Violent
Resistance
respectability 281
responsibility 275–276, 277–278, 283, 284
revenge porn 121, 130
Reynolds, Jamie 168
Rich, A. 269
rights: disabled people 133, 141; parental 145, 155;
see also human rights
Ringrose, J. 252
RIP trolling 121, 129, 130n1
risk: bars and clubs 274; gendered construction of
283; LGBT DVA 71; older women 192; risk
assessment 18, 77, 78, 148
Ristock, J. 69, 71
Roberto, K.A. 187, 191
Robertson, A. 115
Roch, A. 71
Rogers, M. 71
Rohypnol 130n2
Romito, P. 6
Rotherham 214, 215
Rowland, R. 3
rules 24, 147
Russell, Diana 162, 165
Russia 200
s.76 criminal offence 15, 16, 18, 19, 24–25
Safarik, M.E. 190
safety: ‘coordinated community response’ 18;
minoritised women 271; safety plans for
Index
disabled women 139–140; stalking victims 112,
116–117; young women’s responses to safety
advice 6, 274–286
Salisbury, C. 225
Salvador, Nicholas 163
Sanders, T. 226, 227, 228
SANEs see sexual assault nurse examiners
Satjawat, Khanokporn 167–168
Saxton, M. 137
Scharff, Christina 244
Schwartz, M.D. 229
SCJS see Scottish Crime and Justice Surveys
Scotland 4, 28–40; anti-rape campaigns 284;
child contact 146–155; coercive control 18;
definition of gender violence 17; devolution
28, 30; education 9–10, 299; female genital
mutilation 204–205; feminist struggle 29–31;
implementation of gendered definition 33;
legislation 25; prevention 35–37; prostitution
223; protection 34–35; provision 33–34;
stalking 110–112; statutory responses to sexual
violence 99, 102; terminology 31; young
people’s understandings and experiences of
IPVA 290; young women’s responses to safety
advice 276; see also United Kingdom
Scottish Crime and Justice Surveys (SCJS)
110–112
screening 137–138, 240
Scriver, S. 190
SDGs see Sustainable Development Goals
secrecy, police 257–258
self-esteem 73, 187
self-harm 265–266, 268
self-regulation 281, 283
separation 145, 146
Separation-Instigated Violence 42, 43, 50
Serbia 237
Serious Case Reviews 257, 298
Serious Crime Act (2015) 204, 225
sex: commercialization of 90–91; consensual
sexual aggression 46; female genital mutilation
198; pornography and 6, 85, 87, 90, 91, 93;
translation issues 244–245
sex education 10, 135, 299, 316;
see also education
sex industry 85–86, 90, 93–94, 165, 209, 225,
227; see also pornography; prostitution
sex toys 90–91, 93
sexism 44, 51; gender-related violence 242; ‘lad
culture’ 129, 172, 174–175; ‘Nordic paradox’
161; ‘normalised’ 253; online feminist activism
128; researcher reflexivity 267; social context
167; social learning 72; trolling 126, 128–129,
130; see also misogyny
sexting 121, 252, 253, 288–289, 290, 299
sexual assault nurse examiners (SANEs) 104
sexual consumerism 85–86, 90–91, 93–94
329
Index
sexual exploitation: forced labour 3; as
international policy concern 229; legislation
223; trafficking of children 209–210, 211–219,
224; see also child sexual exploitation
sexual harassment 5, 6, 36; gender-related violence
242; ‘lad culture’ 172, 175, 177; prevalence 3;
Relationship Matters project 303, 304, 307,
311–313, 316; in schools 299; women’s safety
behaviours 274
Sexual Offence Liaison Officers (SOLOs) 98–99,
101–102
sexual orientation: comparative research 240;
femicide 165; gender-related violence 242;
intersectionality 7, 141; see also homophobia;
LGBT people; sexuality
sexual violence 4, 5; children 150; coercive
control 16, 21, 24; comparative research 240;
court cases 148; culture of sexualisation 253;
definitions of 183–184; definitions of gender-
based violence 110; disabled women 134;
femicide 167–168; Istanbul Convention 17;
‘lad culture’ 175, 177; LGBT relationships 68,
69, 75; minoritised communities 262, 266;
older women 183–195; partner sexual assault
19, 21–22; perpetrator personality types 43;
prevalence 3; prostitution 225, 228, 231; rape
culture 122; safety advice in bars and clubs
274–286; in schools 299; Scotland 30; statutory
response to 97–108; students 7, 171–172,
175, 177; theorisation of 172–174; trafficking
of children 217; trolling 122; young people’s
experiences of 288–289, 290, 294–295, 297,
298, 300n1; see also gender-based violence;
rape; sexual exploitation
sexualisation 87, 90, 216, 242, 253, 258
sexuality 70–71, 276; barriers to help-seeking
76–77; child sexual exploitation 9; female
genital mutilation 198; intersectionality 9;
prostitution 231; services for LGBT DVA
78; trolling 130; see also homophobia; LGBT
people; sexual orientation
Shah, S. 136, 137, 138, 139
shame 24, 64, 136, 188–189
shaming 22–23, 130
shared parenting 145–146
Sharief, E.H. 202
Sharpe, Clive 167
Shell-Duncan, B. 205
Sheridan, L. 114, 115
Siddiqui, H. 267
Sigona, Nando 218
silencing 6; ‘conducive context’ 167; disabled
women 137; femicide 7; minoritised
communities 263; trolling 122, 127,
129, 130
Silva, Palmira 163, 164
Simon, Sherry 245–246
330
Situational Couple Violence 42–43, 44, 45,
56–57, 69, 113
Skrobanek, S. 209
slavery 209, 212, 215–216
Smith, Clarissa 90
Smith, Karen Ingala 7, 158–170
Smith, N. 224
SNA see social network analysis
Snitow, Anne 87
social justice 263, 266
social learning 72
social media: control over 24; ‘lad culture’ 129;
LGBT DVA 78–79; male gaze 123, 125; online
activism 128; risks of 300; stalking 116; trolling
5, 6, 121, 123–130; young people’s experiences
288; see also Facebook; Twitter
social network analysis (SNA) 255–256
‘social purity movements’ 215
social reproduction 123
Soldani, B. 124
Spain 237, 238, 241–243, 244, 246
specialist services: disabled women 137, 138–140,
141, 142; LGBT DVA 73, 76–78; minoritised
communities 263, 265, 266, 271–272; older
women 188, 189, 192; ‘safety work’ 20;
Scotland 33–34
spiking of drinks 277, 279, 281, 283, 284n2
stalking 5, 6, 24, 109–120; coping strategies
114–115; court hearings 155; definitions of
109, 110; online 121, 298; partner sexual assault
21; student study 115–117, 118; surveillance 22
Stanko, E.A. 3, 6, 98, 118, 229, 277
Stanley, N. 8
Stark, Evan 3–4, 5, 15–27, 42, 44, 56, 57; context
of violence 112; control 60; court cases 148;
gendered nature of abuse 32
state violence 226
Stephenson, R. 68
stereotypes 25, 36, 124; comparative research 240;
disabled women 135, 141; harmful traditional
practices 205; prostitution 231; young people’s
attitudes 290, 293, 298
stigma: cultural 239; female genital mutilation 202;
older women 188–189; prostitution 226,
228, 231
Stöckl, H. 168, 185, 186
Stonard, K. 288–289
Straus, M.A. 42, 112
stress 62
Strid, S. 141
Stuart, G. 41, 43–44
students: sexual violence and ‘lad culture’ 7,
171–172, 174–178; stalking 113,
115–117, 118
submission 173
subordination of women 10, 17; coercive control
16, 18, 23, 24; gender regimes 2; partner sexual
 Index

assault 21; prostitution 228, 229, 231; young Umberson, D. 62

people’s attitudes 293 UNHCR see United Nations High Commission
suicide 47, 50, 265–266; threats of 22; trolling 127 for Refugees
Sundaram, Vanita 178n2 United Kingdom: black women 269; child contact
support services: disabled women 137, 138–140, 145; child sexual exploitation 210, 214–215,
141, 142; LGBT DVA 73, 76–78; minoritised 251, 255, 257; coercive control 21–25;
communities 263, 265, 266, 271–272; older definition of violence 183–184; disability
women 188, 189, 192; ‘safety work’ 20; legislation 139; female genital mutilation
Scotland 33–34 196, 197, 203–204; immigration policy 263;
surveillance 22, 147; child contact 154; Muslims intersectionality in domestic abuse policy
265, 272; technology-based 288; young 141; Istanbul Convention 17–18; ‘lad culture’
people’s experiences 296 172, 176; minoritised communities 264; older
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 208, 212 women 185, 186, 192; Prevent strategy 178;
Sweden 226 prostitution 223, 224, 226, 230, 231; Serious
Sykes, G.M. 60 Case Reviews 298; sex education 299; sexual
symbolic violence: prostitution 223, 225, 230–231; violence against students 171, 172, 175, 177;
trolling 121, 122–123, 128, 130 trafficking of adult women 209; trafficking of
children 210–219; young people’s experience
Taylor, Maureen 8–9, 250–261 of IPVA 288; see also England; Scotland; Wales
Teaster, P.B. 187, 191 United Nations (UN) 3, 16–17; definition of
technology: child sexual exploitation 251; violence against women 31; human trafficking
Relationship Matters project 317n2; young 224; Sustainable Development Goals 208
people’s experiences 288–289, 290, 295–296, United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of
298–299; see also internet; online abuse; social Violence Against Women 2, 17
media United Nations High Commission for Refugees
terminology 31–32, 242–244, 255, 264; see also (UNHCR) 208
language United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) 1
Theonnes, N. 109, 110 United States: anti-rape resistance 172–173; case
Thiara, R.K. 142 attrition 98; coercive control 22, 23–24; ‘dating’
Thistlethwaite, F. 126 violence 288; disabled women 140; female
threats 22, 24, 46–47, 147; legal action 151; online genital mutilation 197, 200, 203; forensic
spaces 128, 129; prostitution 225; rape 122, examinations 104; frequency of violence 18;
123–125; stalking 113, 114 ‘lad culture’ 172, 176; older women 185, 190;
3Ps 33–37 prostitution 227, 228; rape culture 175; sexual
Thurston, W.E. 2 violence against students 171, 177; status of
Tjaden, P. 109, 110 women 161; under-reporting of sexual violence
Tolman, R. 22 97; young women 289
Top Gear 126 Universal Declaration of Human Rights 16
Totton, Leah 126 unwanted pursuit behaviours (UPBs) 113
Toubia, N.F. 202
Towers, J. 2 verbal abuse: children 150, 154; Relationship
trafficking 8, 165, 208–222, 223, 224, 229, Matters project 303; Situational Couple
231, 255 Violence 42
transgender persons 25, 71, 73, 77, 128, victim-blaming 20, 127, 188, 270, 275, 284
176, 269 Vienna Declaration on Femicide 164–165
translation 8, 237, 242–246, 247 violence: case study 45–51; against children
transphobia 68, 72, 74–75, 241 147, 152, 153; coercive control 21, 24;
Treloar, Kirsty 158 comparative research 240; concept of 2–3;
triggers for abuse 60–61 gendered definition 33; global context
trolling 5, 6, 121–132 160–161; measurement of 225; naming 28;
trust 267–268 against older women 183–195; online 129;
Turnbull, Alison 158–159 patterns of 42–43, 112; perpetrator personality
Turnbull, Tanya 158–159 types 44; pornography as 87, 89; prevalence 3;
Twitter: activism on 315; international prostitution 223–234; Scotland 31; separation
collaboration 244; trolling 121, 122–123, 146; stalking 114; symbolic 121, 122–123,
125–130 128, 130, 223, 225, 230–231; young people’s
Tyler, Meagan 87, 89, 90, 93 experience of 288–289, 294–297; young

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people’s understanding of 287–288, 291–293; Western feminism 7–8, 199

see also domestic violence and abuse; gender- Westmarland, N. 225
based violence; intimate partner violence and White, Deborah 6, 97–108
abuse; physical abuse; sexual violence Whiting, Nel 4, 5, 28–40, 54
Violence Against Girls and Women Action Group Whittaker, T. 192
312, 314, 315 WHO see World Health Organization
Violent Resistance 42, 43, 44 ‘whole-school approaches’ 10, 36, 299
vulnerability: child sexual exploitation 254; Williams, A. 124
coercive control 24; male 297; prostitution 224, Williams, Georgia 168
227; young women’s responses to safety advice Williams, Myles 158, 159
274, 276, 277–278 Williams, Z. 121
Williamson, C. 227
Wacquant, L.J.D. 123 Williamson, Emma 4, 53–66
Wade, L. 199 Willis, Paul E. 174
Waite, L.J. 63 Wincentak, K. 288–289
Walby, S. 2, 18, 240 Wise, S. 8
Wales: case attrition 98; child sexual exploitation Witheridge, Hannah 163, 164
251; Children Act 155n2, 155n3; coercive WLM see Women’s Liberation Movement
control 15, 24; Crime Survey for England Wolkowitz, C. 229
and Wales 18–19, 183, 264; definition of Women’s Aid 29–30, 32, 33, 35, 129, 145, 159
gender violence 17; devolution 28; education Women’s Liberation Movement (WLM)
10, 283; female genital mutilation 264–265; 29–30, 173
femicide 160; gender-neutral framings 31–32, Womenstats 239
36; homicide 161; legal aid 146; men’s rights Wonderland, Alison 124
activists 33; older women 185; partner offences Wood, M. 290, 295
19; prostitution 223, 224, 229; Relationship Woodhams, J. 253
Matters project 303–318; under-reporting of Workman-Stark, Angela L. 257–258
sexual violence 97; Violence against Women, World Congress on Human Rights 17
Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence Bill 25; World Health Organization (WHO) 10, 196, 226
young people’s understandings and experiences World Organization against Torture 17
of IPVA 290; see also United Kingdom
Wallerstein, J. 146–147 Yates, Betty 159
Waltermaurer, E. 240 Young, Isabel 172, 177
Ward, E. 8
Ward, H. 226 Zalkans, Arnis 164
Wasige, Judy 7–8, 196–207 Zero Tolerance 33, 36
Watson, J. 283 Zetter, R. 209
Wells, Ida B. 172–173 Zink, T. 188

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