The Routledge Handbook of Gender and Violence [1 ed.] 1472483510, 9781472483515

Table of contents :
Contents
Notes on contributors
Acknowledgements
Introduction to gender and violence • Nancy Lombard
Part I: Theoretical discussions of gender and violence
1 Coercive control as a framework for responding to male partner abuse in the UK: opportunities and challenges • Evan Stark
2 What’s in a name? The Scottish government, feminism and the gendered framing of domestic abuse • Nancy Lombard and Nel Whiting
3 On the limits of typologies: understanding young men’s use of violence in intimate relationships • David Gadd and Mary-Louise Corr
4 Male victims: control, coercion and fear? • Emma Williamson, Karen Morgan and Marianne Hester
5 Domestic violence in lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or transgender relationships • Rebecca Barnes and Catherine Donovan
Part II: Specific forms, representations of, and responses to, gendered violence
6 The implications of pornification: pornography, the mainstream and false equivalences • Karen Boyle
7 Statutory response to sexual violence: where doubt is always considered reasonable • Deborah White and Lesley McMillan
8 Stalking as a gender-based violence • Katy Proctor
9 Cyber-trolling as symbolic violence: deconstructing gendered abuse online • Karen Lumsden and Heather M. Morgan
10 The relationship between disability and domestic abuse • Jenna P. Breckenridge
11 Child contact as a weapon of control • Kirsteen Mackay
12 Femicide • Karen Ingala Smith
13 ‘Lad culture’ and sexual violence against students • Alison Phipps
14 Violence against older women • Hannah Bows
15 Female genital mutilation: a form of gender-based violence • Judy Wasige and Ima Jackson
16 Gender and trafficking of children and young people into, within and out of England • Patricia Hynes
17 Prostitution and violence • Natasha Mulvihill
Part III: Conducting research on gendered violence
18 Lost in translation? Comparative and international work on gender-related violence • gigi guizzo, Pam Alldred and Mireia Foradada-Villar
19 Researching child sexual exploitation: methodological challenges of working with police data • Maureen Taylor
20 Researching gender-based violence with minoritised communities in the UK • Khatidja Chantler
21 Young women’s responses to safety advice in bars and clubs: implications for future sexual violence prevention campaigns • Oona Brooks
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
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
Index

Citation preview

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 criminology, 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 violence 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 prevented 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 Nancy Lombard

1

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 Evan Stark

15

  2 What’s in a name? The Scottish government, feminism and the gendered framing of domestic abuse Nancy Lombard and Nel Whiting

28

  3 On the limits of typologies: understanding young men’s use of violence in intimate relationships David Gadd and Mary-Louise Corr

41

  4 Male victims: control, coercion and fear? Emma Williamson, Karen Morgan and Marianne Hester

53

  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 Karen Boyle

85

  7 Statutory response to sexual violence: where doubt is always considered reasonable Deborah White and Lesley McMillan

97

  8 Stalking as a gender-based violence Katy Proctor   9 Cyber-trolling as symbolic violence: deconstructing gendered abuse online Karen Lumsden and Heather M. Morgan

109

121

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

133

11 Child contact as a weapon of control Kirsteen Mackay

145

12 Femicide Karen Ingala Smith

158

13 ‘Lad culture’ and sexual violence against students Alison Phipps

171

14 Violence against older women Hannah Bows

183

15 Female genital mutilation: a form of gender-based violence Judy Wasige and Ima Jackson

196

16 Gender and trafficking of children and young people into, within and out of England Patricia Hynes 17 Prostitution and violence Natasha Mulvihill

vi

208 223

Contents

PART III

Conducting research on gendered violence

235

18 Lost in translation? Comparative and international work on gender-related violence gigi guizzo, Pam Alldred and Mireia Foradada-Villar

237

19 Researching child sexual exploitation: methodological challenges of working with police data Maureen Taylor

250

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

262

21 Young women’s responses to safety advice in bars and clubs: implications for future sexual violence prevention campaigns Oona Brooks

274

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

287

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

303

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 experiences 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 participation 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; gender, 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 criminology 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 humanitarian contexts; and trust and mistrust during forced displacement. She has worked and conducted 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 poorest 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; violence prevention and working with children and young people. She recently devised a gender 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 contributes to the Delivery of Care programme. Heather specialises in research where technologies meet surveillance/monitoring, compliance/deviance and gender. Heather is currently exploring 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 operation 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 reconceptualisation 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, particularly 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 intervention, 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 suggestions 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, confidante, 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 criminology, 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, representations 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, behaviours, 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 configuration 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 masculinity’ 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 heterosexuality 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 violence 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 GenderBased Violence. Walby and Towers argue the importance of that which is measurable and comparable, 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 characterised 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, trolling 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 physical violence. In doing so, international organisations, government bodies and women themselves 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, individualised incidents using Stark’s definition, we can focus instead on the patterns of abuse that 3

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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, personal 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 highlights how all of the countries in the UK have taken on board the non-physical aspects of coercive 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 position 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 masculinity, 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’, examining 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 positive 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

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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

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in the pornography industry where the issue becomes about consumption rather than exploitation 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 pornographic 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 constructions 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 – denying 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 agencies, 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 highlight 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

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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 supporting 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 development, civil and political development, legal protection, conflict and security concerns. Discrimination based on race, ethnicity, national origin, ability, socio-economic class, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, culture, tradition and other realities often intensifies acts of violence against women. (Manjoo, 2011) Breckenridge highlights how disabled women experience more severe and more frequent incidents 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 relationships 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 majority). 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 chapter 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

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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 acknowledged 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 violence. 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 imaginations 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 ‘intimate 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 specific. 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 researchers around the complex issues of child sexual abuse. Many practitioners and researchers working 8

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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 exploitation, 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 organisations’ 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, mutilated, 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 relations 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 understandings 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

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is fragile, as highlighted by Lombard and Whiting (Chapter 2, this volume), it is still to be commended. 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 practices. 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 empowerment. 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 examples 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 punished. 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 narratives 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, challenge, 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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Connell, R.W. (2000) The Men and the Boys. Cambridge: Polity Press. Council of Europe (2011) Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence. Strasbourg: Council of Europe. Department of Health (2005) Responding to Domestic Abuse: A Handbook for Health Professionals [Online]. Available at: www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsPolicyAnd Guidance/DH_4126161. Epstein, D. (1997) ‘Boyz’ Own Stories: Masculinities and Sexualities in Schools. Gender and Education 9(1): 105–115. Equally Safe: Scotland’s Strategy for Preventing and Eradicating Violence Against Women and Girls (2014) [Online]. Available at: www.gov.scot/Resource/0045/00454152.pdf. Flood, M. (1997) Responding to Men [Online]. Available at: www.xyonline.net/RespondingtoMen.shtm. Flood, M. and Pease, B. (2009) Factors Influencing Attitudes to Violence Against Women. Trauma, Violence and Abuse 10: 125. Flood, M., Pease, B., Taylor, N. and Webster, K. (2009) Reshaping Attitudes to Violence Against Women. In E. Stark and E. Buzawa (eds), Violence Against Women in Families and Relationships Volume 4: The Media and Cultural Attitudes. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, pp. 177–199. FRA (European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights) (2013) Violence against Women: An EU-wide Survey. Main Results Report. Vienna: Publications Office. Gadd, D., Corr, M.L., Fox, C.L. and Butler, I. (2014) This is Abuse . . . Or is It? Domestic Abuse Perpetrators’ Responses to Anti-Domestic Violence Publicity. Crime, Media, Culture 10(1): 3–22. Gadd, D., Farrall, S., Dallimore, D. and Lombard, N. (2003) Equal Victims or the Usual Suspects? Making Sense of Domestic Abuse Against Men. International Review of Victimology 10(2): 95–116. Gelles, R.J. (1983) An Exchange/Social Control Theory. In D. Finkelhor, R.J. Gelles, G.T. Hotaling and M.A. Straus (eds), The Dark Side of Families: Current Family Violence Research. London: Sage Publications, pp. 151–165. Gelles, R.J. (1987) Family Violence. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Hester, M. (2013) The ‘Three Planet Model’: Towards an Understanding of Contradictions in Approaches to Women and Children’s Safety in Contexts of Domestic Violence. In N. Lombard and L. McMillan (eds), Violence Against Women: Current Theory and Practice in Domestic Abuse, Sexual Violence and Exploitation. London: Jessica Kingsley, pp. 35–52. Kelly, L. (1988) Surviving Sexual Violence. Cambridge: Polity Press in association with Basil Blackwell. Kenway, J. and Fitzclarence, L. (1997) Masculinity, Violence and Schooling: Challenging ‘Poisonous Pedagogies’. Gender and Education 9: 117–134. Kimmel, M. (1987) Rethinking Masculinity: New Directions in Research. In M.S. Kimmel (ed.), Changing Men: New Directions in Research on Men and Masculinity. London: Sage Publications, pp. 9–24. Lombard, N. (2013) But What About the Men? Understanding Men’s Experiences of Violence within a Gender-Based Model. In N. Lombard and L. McMillan (eds), Violence Against Women: Current Theory and Practice in Domestic Abuse, Sexual Violence and Exploitation. London: Jessica Kingsley, pp. 177–195. Lombard, N. (2015) Young People’s Understandings of Men’s Violence Towards Women. Farnham: Ashgate. Lombard, N. and Harris, R. (2018) Another Brick in the Wall? Preventative Education in Scottish Schools. In O. Brooks, M. Burman and C. McFeely (eds) Domestic Abuse: Contemporary Perspectives and Innovative Practices. Edinburgh: Dunedin Academic Press. Lombard, N. and McMillan, L. (2013) Introduction. In N. Lombard and L. McMillan (eds), Violence Against Women: Current Theory and Practice in Domestic Abuse, Sexual Violence and Exploitation. London: Jessica Kingsley, pp. 7–17. Mac an Ghaill, M. (1994) The Making of Men. Buckingham: Open University Press. Manjoo, R. (2011) Report of the Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, its Causes and Consequences. Human Rights Council, UN. McMillan L. (2013) Sexual Victimisation: Disclosure, Responses and Impact. In N. Lombard and L. McMillan (eds), Violence Against Women: Current Theory and Practice for Working with Domestic Abuse, Sexual Violence and Exploitation. London: Jessica Kingsley, pp. 71–86. Mills, C.W. (1959) The Sociological Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Montesanti, S.R. and Thurston, W.E. (2015) Mapping the Role of Structural and Interpersonal Violence in the Lives of Women: Implications for Public Health Interventions and Policy. BMC Women’s Health 15: 100. Mulvey, L. (1975) Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. Screen 16: 6–18. 11

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Myhill, A. (2017) Measuring Domestic Violence: Context is Everything. Journal of Gender-Based Violence 1(1): 33–44. O’Hare, U. (1999) Realizing Human Rights for Women. Human Rights Quarterly 21(2): 364–402. Rao, A. (1995). The Politics of Gender and Culture in International Human Rights Discourse. In J. Peters and A. Wolper (eds), Women’s Rights, Human Rights: International Feminist Perspectives. London: Routledge, pp. 167–175. Romito, P. (2008) A Deafening Silence: Hidden Violence against Women and Children. Bristol: Policy Press. Rowland, R. and Klein, R.D. (1990) Radical Feminism: Critique and Construct. In Feminist Knowledge, Critique and Construct. New York: Routledge. Skeggs, B. (1997) Formations of Class and Gender: Becoming Respectable. London: Sage Publications. Soothill, K., Francis, B., Ackerley, E. and Collett, S. (1999) Homicide in Britain: A Comparative Study of Rates in Scotland and England and Wales. Edinburgh: Scottish Executive Central Research Unit. Stanko, E.A. (2006) Theorizing About Violence Observations from the Economic and Social Research Council’s Violence Research Program. Violence Against Women 12(6): 543–555. Stanley, L. and Wise, S. (1993 [1983]) Breaking Out: Feminist Consciousness and Feminist Research. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Stanley, N., Ellis, J., Farrelly, N., Hollinghurst, S., Bailey, S. and Downe, S. (2015) Preventing Domestic Abuse for Children and Young People (PEACH): A Mixed Knowledge Scoping Review. Public Health Res 3(7). Stark, E. (2007) Coercive Control: How Men Entrap Women in Personal Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stark, E. (2013) Coercive Control. In N. Lombard and L. McMillan (eds), Violence Against Women: Current Theory and Practice for Working with Domestic Abuse, Sexual Violence and Exploitation. London: Jessica Kingsley, pp. 17–34. Stoudt, B.G. (2006) ‘You’re Either In or You’re Out’: School Violence, Peer Discipline, and the (Re) Production of Hegemonic Masculinity. Men and Masculinities 8: 273–287. UNICEF (1997) The Progress of Nations [Online]. Available at: www.unicef.org/publications/ index_6439.html. United Nations (2005) Infographic: Violence Against Women [Online]. Available at: www.unwomen.org/ en/digital-library/multimedia/2015/11/infographic-violence-against-women#sthash.1wZOFcWR.dpuf. United Nations General Assembly (1993) Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women (A/ RES/48/104 of 19 December 1992). United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) (2005) Frequently Asked Questions about Gender Equality [Online]. Available at: www.unfpa.org/resources/frequently-asked-questions-about-gender-equality. Walby, S. and Towers, J. (2017) Measuring Violence to End Violence: Mainstreaming Gender. Journal of Gender-Based Violence 1(1): 11–31. Ward, E. (1985) Father–Daughter Rape. New York: Grove Press. Whiting, N. (2007) A Contradiction in Terms? A Gendered Analysis and Same Sex Domestic Abuse [Online]. Available at: www.reducingtherisk.org.uk/cms/sites/reducingtherisk/files/folders/lgbt/con tradiction.pdf. WHO (2009) Promoting Gender Equality to Prevent Violence against Women [Online]. Available at: www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/violence/gender.pdf. Women’s Aid Ireland (2016) Behind Closed Doors. Women’s Aid Femicide Watch 1996 – 2016 [Online]. Available at: www.womensaid.ie/about/policy/publications/behindcloseddoors/.

12

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 available 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 literature 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 followed 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 nonviolent tactics of ‘control’ as more oppressive than violence (Stark and Flitcraft, 1996; Jones and 15

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Schechter, 1992). Meanwhile, feminist-oriented NGOs pressured the UN and other international 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 terrorism’ (Johnson, 2008) and ‘coercive control’ (Stark, 2007). In September 2012, England became the first country to explicitly identify ‘coercive control’ 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 everyday 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 affirmative 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 dignity’, 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

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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 subordination, 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 government 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

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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 initiatives 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 sociopolitical 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 definition, 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 caseworker 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’ contradict 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 partner 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 analysing the data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW). Although the CSEW 18

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(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 treating 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 extraordinarily 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 sentence, 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

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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 violence 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 enforcement situation in England resembled a revolving door through which tens of thousands of abusive 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 proportion 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 discovered 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 budgets 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 desperate help-seeking in ways that were increasingly perfunctory and even punitive. These responses included applying pseudo-psychiatric and other pejorative labels to ‘repeaters’ that communicated 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 suggests that, as arrest logs, CPS caseloads and court dockets are filled by the same victim/offenders 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 households 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

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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 schematized 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 nonreciprocal 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 dominate 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 control 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

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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% threatened 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 violence against others, including pets; the destruction of personal or family property; making cherished 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 partner’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 monitor 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

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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, controllers 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 experience 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 partner’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, typically 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’. Seventynine 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

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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 activities 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 arbitrariness 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 woman’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 vulnerable 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 identified 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; prohibiting 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 belittlement; 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 enforcement 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

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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 longrunning 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 ‘protection’ and ‘prosecution’ are already in place throughout much of the UK, including a littleused 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, masculinity 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 coercive 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 prosecution 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

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References The Archers (2016). BBC Radio 4. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qpgr/episodes/downloads. Beasley, M.E. and Thomas, D.Q. (1993). Domestic violence as a human rights issue. Human Rights Quarterly 15(1): 36–62. Beck, Connie J.A. and Raghavan, C. (2010). Intimate partner abuse screenings in custody mediation: The importance of coercive control. Family Court Review 48(3): 555–565. Black, M.C., Basile, K.C., Breiding, M.J., Smith, S.G., Walters, M.L., Merrick, M.T., Chen, J. and Stevens, M.R. (2011). The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (MISVS): 2010 summary report. Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control. Butterworth, K. and Westmarland, N. (2015/2016). Victim’s views on policing partner violence. European Police Science and Research Bulletin 13: 60–63. Buzawa, E. and Hotaling, G. (2003). Domestic violence assaults in three Massachusetts communities. Final Report. Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice. Campbell, J. and Soeken, A.L. (1999). Women’s responses to battering over time. Journal of Interpersonal Violence 14: 21–40. CEDAW (1992). Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, General Recom­ mendation 19, Violence against Women (Eleventh session, 1992), UN Doc. A/47/38 at 1 (1993), reprinted in Compilation of General Comments and General Recommendations Adopted by Human Rights Treaty Bodies, UN Doc. HRI/GEN/1/Rev.6 at 243 (2003). Crown Prosecution Services (CPS) (2016). Violence against women and girls, 2015–2016. Available online at www.cps.gov.uk/publications/docs/cps_vawg_report_2016.pdf. Accessed 10 January 2017. Dobash, R.E. and Dobash, R.P. (1992). Women, Violence & Social Change. London: Routledge. Forte, J.A., Franks, D., Forte, J. and Rigsby, D. (1996). Asymmetrical role taking: Comparing battered and non-battered women. Social Work 49(1): 59–73. Glass, N., Manganello, J. and Campbell, J. (2004). Risk for intimate partner femiocide in violent relationships. DV Report 9(2): 1, 2, 30–33. Gov.UK (2013). New definition of domestic violence. Available online at www.gov.uk/government/ news/new-definition-of-domestic-violence. Accessed 9 June 2016. Guardian (US edition) (2/17/2017) Theresa May: I want to transform how we talk about domestic violence. 17 February. Available online at www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/society/2017/feb/17/ theresa-may-domestic-violence-abuse-act-laws-consultation?client=safari. Accessed 28 February 2017. Hester, M. (2006). Making it through the criminal justice system: Attrition and domestic violence. Social Policy and Society 5(1): 1–12. Hester, M. and Westmarland, N. (2006). Criminal Justice Matters 66(1): 34–35. Hill, A. (2016). Police failing to use new law against coercive domestic abuse. Guardian, 31 August. Available online at www.theguardian.com/society/2016/aug/31/police-failing-to-use-new-lawagainst-coercive-domestic-abuse. Accessed 12 September 2016. HMIC (2014). Everyone’s business: Improving the police response to domestic abuse. Available online at www.hmic.gov.uk. Accessed 12 September 2016. HMIC (2015). Increasingly everyone’s business: A progress report on the police response to domestic abuse. Available online at www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmic. Accessed December 2015. Johnson, M.P. (2008). A Typology of Domestic Violence: Intimate Terrorism, Violence Resistance and Situational Couple Violence. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press. Jones, A. (1994). Next Time, She’ll be Dead: Battering and How to Stop It. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Jones, A. and Schechter, S. (l992). When Love Goes Wrong. New York: HarperCollins. Lischick, C.W. (2009). Divorce in the context of coercive control. In E. Stark and E. Buzawa (eds), Violence against Women in Families and Relationships (Vol. 2). Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, pp. 191–224. Logan, T.K., Shannon, L. and Cole, J. (2007). Stalking victimization in the context of intimate partner violence. Violence and Victims 22(6): 669–683. Mooney, J. (1993). Domestic violence in north London. London: Middlesex University, Centre for Criminology. Mrsevic, S. and Hughes, D. (1997). Violence against women in Belgrade, Serbia. Violence against Women 3(2): 123. Piispa, M. (2002). Complexity of patterns of violence against women in heterosexual partnerships. Violence against Women 8(7): 873–900.

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Rees, A., Agnew-Davies, R. and Barkham, M. (2006, June). Outcomes for women escaping domestic violence at refuge. Paper presented at the Society for Psychotherapy Research Annual Conference, Edinburgh, Scotland. Stark, E. (2007). Coercive Control: How Men Entrap Women in Personal Life. New York: Oxford University Press. Stark, E. (2017). Foreword. In L. McOrmond-Plummer, P. Easteal and J. Levy-Peck (eds), Perpetrators of Intimate Partner Sexual Violence: Prevention, Recognition & Intervention. London: Routledge, pp. xx–xxvi. Stark, E. and Flitcraft, A. (1988). Violence among intimates: An epidemiological review. In V.N. Hasselt, R.L. Morrison, A.S. Bellack and M. Hersen (eds), Handbook of Family Violence. Plenum, pp. 293–3l9. Stark, E. and Flitcraft, A. (1996). Women at Risk: Domestic Violence and Women’s Health. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Tolman, R. (l989). The development of a measure of psychological maltreatment of women by their male partners. Violence and Victims 4(3): 159–177. UN Women (2015). Istanbul Convention. Available online at www.unwomen.org/en/about-us/guidingdocuments#sthash.vSvwsQpz.dpuf. Accessed 19 February 2017. Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Bill (15 March 2015). Available online at www.senedd.assembly.wales/mgIssueHistoryHome.aspx?IId=10028. Accessed 12 February 2016. Walby, S., Towers, J. and Francis, B. (2016). Is violent crime increasing or decreasing? A new methodology to measure repeat attacks making visible the significance of gender and domestic relations. British Journal of Criminology 56(6): 1203–1234.

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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 distribution. 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

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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 feminists, 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 domination’. 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 beginnings, 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 pragmatic 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 recognised 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. 29

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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 feminist 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 domestic 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/survivors 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 government 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 30

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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 understood 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 continuum 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 overwhelmingly 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 consequence 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 31

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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, nonetheless, 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 sexually’. 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 criminal 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 perpetrator’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 genderneutral definition contained within the strategy led, perhaps predictably, to some local authorities pressurising Women’s Aid services to open up their services to men. This has not as yet occurred in Scotland. 32

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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 experiencing 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 accommodation – 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 elsewhere (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 witnesses 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 similar 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 domestic 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’, provided 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

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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 effectively 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 children 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 predominately 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 definition 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 overwhelming 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

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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 domestic 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 empowered 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 better, 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 prevention 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:

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all education programmes and awareness training should to be underpinned by solid understandings 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 initiative 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 service 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, prevention 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 engagement with the government’s legislative and policy consultation programme, including giving evidence to parliamentary committees, and the strategic interventions of feminist parliamentarians 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

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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 inequalities 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 contexts (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’.

References Abrar, S. (1996) Feminist Intervention and Local Domestic Violence Policy. Parliamentary Affairs, 49(1): 191–205. Arber, S. (1991) Class, Paid Employment and Family Roles: Making Sense of Structural Disadvantage, Gender and Health Status. Social Science & Medicine, 32(4): 425–436. Bacchi, C. (1999) Women, Policy and Politics: The Construction of Policy Problems. London: Sage Publications. Browne, S. (2014) The Women’s Liberation Movement in Scotland. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press. Charles, N. (1995) Feminist Politics, Domestic Violence and the State. Sociological Review, 43(4): 617–640. Charles, N. and Mackay, F. (2013) Feminist Politics and Framing Contests: Domestic Violence Policy in Scotland and Wales. Critical Social Policy, 33: 593. Cockcroft, L. (2009) Women’s Refuges Told to Help Male Domestic Violence Victims or Lose Their Funding. Telegraph. Available at: www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/5109310/Womens-refuges-toldto-help-male-domestic-violence-victims-or-lose-their-funding.html. COSLA (1998) Guidance on Preparing and Implementing a Multi-Agency Strategy to Tackle Violence Against Women. Edinburgh: COSLA. Coy, M., Kelly, L., Foord, J., Balding, V. and Davenport, P. (2007) Map of Gaps: The Post Code Lottery of Violence Against Women Services. London: EVAW. Cuthbert, J. and Irving, L. (2001) Women’s Aid in Scotland: Purity versus Pragmatism. In E. Breitenback and F. Mackay (eds), Women and Contemporary Scottish Politics: An Anthology. Edinburgh: Polygon at Edinburgh. Dobash, R.E. and Dobash, R.P. (1979) Violence Against Wives: A Case Against the Patriarchy. New York: Free Press. 38

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Equally Safe: Scotland’s Strategy for Preventing and Eradicating Violence Against Women and Girls (2014) Edinburgh: The Scottish Government. Foucault, M. (1980) ‘Body/Power’ and ‘Truth and Power’. In C. Gordon (ed.), Michel Foucault: Power/ Knowledge. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester. Gadd, D., Farrall, S., Dallimore, D. and Lombard, N. (2002) Domestic Abuse Against Men in Scotland. Edinburgh: Scottish Executive Central Research Unit. Greenan, L. (2004) Violence Against Women: A Literature Review. Edinburgh: The Scottish Executive. Harne, L. (2011) Violent Fathering and the Risks to Children: The Need for Change. Bristol: Polity Press. Hearn, J. and McKie, L. (2009) Gendered and Social Hierarchies in Problem Representation and Policy Processes: ‘Domestic Violence’ in Finland and Scotland. Violence Against Women, 16(2): 136–158. Hester, M. (2009) Who Does What to Whom? Gender and Domestic Violence Perpetrators. Bristol: University of Bristol in association with the Northern Rock Foundation. Hester, M. (2013) The ‘Three Planet Model’: Towards an Understanding of Contradictions in Approaches to Women and Children’s Safety in Contexts of Domestic Violence. In N. Lombard and L. McMillan (eds), Violence Against Women: Current Theory and Practice in Domestic Abuse, Sexual Violence & Exploitation. London: Jessica Kingsley, pp. 35–52. Hester, M. and Westmarland, N. (2004) Tackling Street Prostitution: Towards a Holistic Approach. Home Office Research Study 279. London: Home Office. House, S. (2013) The Daily Record. Available at: www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/real-life/police-launchbiggest-ever-christmas-2954561. Joint Protocol Between Police Scotland and the Crown Office Procurator Fiscal Service: In Partnership Challenging Domestic Abuse 2017. Kelly, L. (1988) Surviving Sexual Violence. Cambridge: Polity Press in association with Basil Blackwell. Kelly, L. (1999) Violence Against Women: A Policy of Neglect or a Neglect of Policy? In S. Walby (ed.), New Agendas for Women. London: Macmillan, pp. 119–147. Lombard, N. (2013) But What About the Men? Understanding Men’s Experiences of Violence Within a Gender-Based Model. In N. Lombard and L. McMillan (eds), Violence Against Women: Current Theory and Practice in Domestic Abuse, Sexual Violence & Exploitation. London: Jessica Kingsley. Lombard, N. (2015) Young People’s Understandings of Men’s Violence Towards Women. Farnham: Ashgate. 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: Oxford University Press, pp. 155–169. Lombard, N. and Harris, R. (2018) Domestic Abuse and Education: Another Brick in the Wall? In O. Brooks, M. Burman and C. McFeely (eds), Domestic Abuse: Contemporary Perspectives and Innovative Practices. Edinburgh: Dunedin Academic Press. Lovenduski, J. and Randall, V. (1993) Contemporary Feminist Politics: Women & Power in Britain. Cambridge: Polity Press. Mackay, F. (1996) The Zero Tolerance Campaign: Setting the Agenda. Parliamentary Affairs, 49(1): 206–220. Mackay, F. (2004) Women and Devolution in Scotland. Briefing note prepared for the Scottish Parliament Cross-Party Group on Women and the Equal Opportunities Commission. Mackay, F. (2010) Gendering Constitutional Change and Policy Outcomes: Substantive Representation and Domestic Violence Policy in Scotland. Policy and Politics, 38(3): 369–388. McFeely, C., Whiting, N., Lombard, N., Brooks, O. Burman, M. and McGowan, M. (2013) Domestic Abuse and Gender Inequality: An Overview of the Current Debate. Centre for Families and Relationships, University of Edinburgh Briefing 69. Available at: www.crfr.ac.uk/assets/briefing-69.pdf. Police Scotland and Crown Office Procurator Fiscal Service (2017) Joint Protocol Between Police Scotland and the Crown Office Procurator Fiscal Service: In Partnership Challenging Domestic Abuse. Edinburgh: Police Scotland and Crown Office Procurator Fiscal Service. Reid Howie Associates (2007) Evaluation of the Pilot Domestic Abuse Court. Edinburgh: The Scottish Government. Respect (2008) Respect Position Statement: Gender and Domestic Violence. Available at: https://nzfvc.org.nz/ sites/nzfvc.org.nz/files/Respect%20Statement.pdf. Rummery, K. (2013) Partnership Working and Tackling Violence against Women: Pitfalls and Possibilities. In N. Lombard and L. McMillan (eds), Violence Against Women: Current Theory and Practice in Domestic Abuse, Sexual Violence & Exploitation. London: Jessica Kingsley, pp. 213–232. Scott, M. (2005) Partnership, Power and Policy: A Case Study of the Scottish Partnership on Domestic Abuse. Unpublished PhD thesis. University of Edinburgh. 39

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Scottish Executive (2000) National Strategy to Address Domestic Abuse in Scotland. Edinburgh: Stationery Office. Scottish Executive (2001) Preventing Violence Against Women: Action across the Scottish Executive. Edinburgh: Stationery Office. The Scottish Government (2009) Safer Lives, Changed Lives: A Shared Approach to Tackling Violence Against Women. Scottish Women’s Aid (2011) Changing Lives: Outcome Evaluation of Women’s Aid Support Services in Scotland. Stark, E. (2007) Coercive Control: How Men Entrap Women in Personal Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Under Pressure (2011) Available at: www.zerotolerance.org.uk/resources/under-pressure?destination=n ode%2F355. Walby, S. and Myhill, A. (2001) New Survey Methodologies in Researching Violence Against Women. British Journal of Criminology, 41: 502–522. Welsh Government (2016) National Strategy on Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (2016–2021). Cardiff. Whiting, N. (2013) Effecting Operational Change Through Training: Challenges and Approaches. In N. Lombard and L. McMillan (eds), Research Highlights in Social Work: Violence Against Women. London: Jessica Kingsley, pp. 195–212.

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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 meaningfulness 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 shortcoming 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 unnoticed by those trying to support men who have used violence; and second, that opportunities

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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 screening 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 better 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 gender 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 methodological 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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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 thwarting 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 violence’: 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 measures 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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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 relationships; 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, HoltzworthMunroe’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 conformity 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 antisocial 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 heterogeneous 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 conceptualisation. 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? 44

On the limits of typologies

Method In what follows, we want to show how such contingencies matter using a case study pertaining 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 narrative-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 understand 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 violent 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

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‘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 relationships, 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 telling 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 paranoid 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

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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: ‘throwing 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 . . . 47

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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

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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 frustrated 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 having 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 contextual. 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 primarily 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. 49

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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 cannot 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 sexuality 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’ 50

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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 categorisation. 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 conscience, 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 considering 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 commonalities 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). 51

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References Dixon, L. and Browne, K. (2003) The Heterogeneity of Spouse Abuse: A Review. Aggression and Violent Behavior 8: 107–130. Dobash, R.P., Dobash, R.E., Wilson, M. and Daly, M. (1992) The Myth of Sexual Symmetry in Marital Violence. Social Problems 39(1): 71–91. Dutton, D. (2007) The Abusive Personality. New York: Guildford Press. Gadd, D., Fox, C., Corr, M.-L., Butler, I. and Alger, S. (2015) Young Men and Domestic Abuse. London: Routledge. Holtzworth-Munroe, A. (2000) Typology of Men Who Are Violent Toward Their Female Partners: Making Sense of the Heterogeneity in Husband Violence. Current Directions in Psychological Science 9(4): 140–143. Holtzworth-Munroe, A. and Meehan, J. (2004) Typologies of Men Who Are Maritally Violent Scientific and Clinical Implications. Journal of Interpersonal Violence 19(12): 1369–1389. Holtzworth-Munroe, A. and Stuart, G. (1994) Typologies of Male Batterers. Psychological Bulletin 16(3): 476–497. Holtzworth-Munroe, A., Meehan, J.C., Herron, K., Rehman, U. and Stuart, G.L. (2000) Testing the Holtzworth-Munroe and Stuart (1994) Batterer Typology. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 68(6): 1000–1019. Johnson, M. (2006) A Typology of Domestic Violence. Boston, MA: New University Press. Johnson, R., Gilchrist, E., Beech, A., Weston, S., Takriti, R. and Freeman, R. (2006) Psychometric Typology of U.K. Domestic Violence Offenders. Journal of Interpersonal Violence 21(10): 1270–1285. Jones, D. (2008) Understanding Criminal Behaviour: Psychosocial Approaches to Criminality. Cullompton: Willan. Kelly, J.B. and Johnson, J.R. (2008) Differentiation Among Types of Intimate Partner Violence: Research Update and Implications for Interventions. Family Court Review 46(3): 476–499. ONS (2014) Intimate Personal Violence and Partner Abuse. Crime Statistics, Focus on Violent Crime and Sexual Offences, 2012/13, London: ONS. Stark, E. (2007) Coercive Control: How Men Entrap Women in Personal Life. New York: Oxford University Press. Straus, M. (1993) Physical Assaults by Wives. In R. Gelles and D. Loske (eds), Current Controversies in Family Violence. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, pp. 67–87. Stuart, G., Moore, T., Gordon, K., Hellmuth, J., Ramsey, S. and Kahler, C. (2006) Reasons for Intimate Partner Violence Perpetration among Arrested Women. Violence Against Women 12(7): 609–621.

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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 abusive 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

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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 understanding 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 perpetrators 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 perspective 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 taking 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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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 interview. 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 remainder 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 participate 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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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 situational 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 56

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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 triggers 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 happened 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 behaviours 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 concerned’ and that he ‘regularly’ felt the need to change his behaviour: 57

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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 demonstrating 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, experienced 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 interviewees 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 overwhelming, 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 58

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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 lacking 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.’ 59

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His partner’s demands that he accompany her to garden centres rather than spending time participating 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 masculinities 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 outright 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 correlates 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

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Jeff:  I think it’d be more of a ‘pretend nothing happened’ and that his reaction was justified . . . 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 alcohol to men’s abusive behaviour (Finney, 2003). Budd notes that despite increasing alcohol consumption 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 minimising 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 minimising 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 experienced 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 fizzled 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 61

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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 genderspecific 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 suspect 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 emotional 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.

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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 strongminded’, 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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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 majority 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 supported 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 communicating ‘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 something, 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

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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 partners, 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 (RPPG-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).

References Allen-Collinson, J. (2009) ‘A marked man: Female-perpetrated intimate partner abuse’, International Journal of Men’s Health, 8(1): 22. Bacchus, L.J., Buller, A.M., Ferrari, G., Peters, T.J., Devries, K., Sethi, G., White, J., Hester, M. and Feder, G.S. (2016) ‘Occurrence and impact of domestic violence and abuse in gay and bisexual men: A cross sectional survey’, International Journal of STD & AIDS, 28(1): 16–27. Barnish, M. (2004) ‘Domestic violence: A literature review’, HM Inspectorate of Probation. www.fsa. me.uk/uploads/7/6/5/6/7656227/home_office_dv_literature_review_see_ch_5_and_6_for_risk_ and_vulnerability.pdf. Accessed 6 August 2013. Bowen, E. (2011) The rehabilitation of partner-violent men. London: Wiley-Blackwell. Carr, E.C. and Worth, A. (2001) ‘The use of the telephone interview for research’, Nursing Times Research, 6(1): 511–524. Connell, R.W. (2005) Masculinities. 2nd edn. London: Polity Press. Finney, A. (2003) ‘Alcohol and sexual violence: Key findings from the research’, London: Home Office, Communication Development Unit. George, M.J. (1994) ‘Riding the donkey backwards: Men as the unacceptable victims of marital violence’, Journal of Men’s Studies, 3(2): 137–159. Goffman, E. (1963) The presentation of self in everyday life. London: Penguin. Goffman, E. (1971) Relations in public: Microstudies of the public order. London: The Penguin Press. Graham-Kevan, N. and Archer, J. (2003) ‘Intimate terrorism and common couple violence: A test of Johnson’s predictions in four British samples’, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 18: 1247–1270. Hearn, J. (1988) ‘Child abuse: Violences and sexualities towards young people’, Sociology, 22(4): 531–544. Hearn, J. (1998) The violences of men: How men talk about and how agencies respond to men’s violence to women. London: Sage. Hester, M. (2013) ‘Who does what to whom? Gender and domestic violence perpetrators in English police records’, European Journal of Criminology, 10(5): 623–637. Hester, M., Fahmy, E. and Donovan, C. (2010) ‘Feminist epistemology and the politics of method: Surveying same sex domestic violence’, International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 13(3): 251–263. Hester, M., Ferrari, G., Jones, S., Williamson, E., Peters, T., Bacchus, L. and Feder, G. (2015) ‘Occurrence and impact of negative behaviour, including domestic violence and abuse, in men attending UK primary care health clinics: A cross-sectional survey’, BMJ Open, 5: 1–10. 65

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Hester, M., Williamson, E, Regan, L., Coulter, M., Chantler, K., Gangoli, G., Davenport, R. and Green, L. (2012) Exploring the service and support needs of male, lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgendered and black and other minority ethnic victims of domestic and sexual violence. Bristol: University of Bristol. Holt, A. (2010) ‘Using the telephone for narrative interviewing: A research note’, Qualitative Research, 10(1): 113–121. Howard, L.M., Trevillion, K. and Agnew-Davies, R. (2010) ‘Domestic violence and mental health’, International Review of Psychiatry, 22(5): 525–534. Htun, M. and Weldon, L. (2012) ‘The civic origins of progressive policy change: Combating violence against women in global perspective, 1975–2005’, American Political Science Review, 106: 548–569. Johnson, M.P. (1995) ‘Patriarchal terrorism and common couple violence: Two forms of violence against women’, Journal of Marriage and the Family: 283–294. Johnson, M.P. (2005) ‘Domestic violence: It’s not about gender – or is it?’, Journal of Marriage and Family, 67: 1126–1130. Johnson, M.P. and Leone, J.M. (2005) ‘The differential effects of intimate terrorism and situational couple violence’, Journal of Family Issues, 26(3): 322–349. Johnson, M.P., Leone, J.M. and Xu, Y. (2014). Intimate terrorism and situational couple violence in general surveys: Ex-spouses required. Violence Against Women, 20: 186–207. McClennen, J.C. (2005) ‘Domestic violence between same-gender partners: Recent findings and future research’, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 20(2): 149–154. Morgan, K., Buller, A.-M., Evans, M., Trevillion, K., Williamson, E. and Malpass, A. (2016) ‘The role of gender, sexuality and (non)clinical context upon help-seeking for intimate partner violence: A synthesis of data across five studies’, Aggression and Violent Behavior, 31: 136–146. Morgan, K., Williamson, E., Hester, M., Jones, S. and Feder, G. (2014) ‘Asking men about domestic violence and abuse in a family medicine context: Help seeking and views on the general practitioner role’, Aggression and Violent Behavior, 19(6): 637–642. Stark, E. (2006) ‘Commentary on Johnson’s “Conflict and control: Gender symmetry and asymmetry in domestic violence”’, Violence Against Women, 12(11): 1019–1025. Stark, E. (2007) Coercive control: How men entrap women in personal life. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Straus, M.S. (1999) ‘The controversy over domestic violence by women: A methodological, theoretical, and sociology of science analysis’, in X. Arriaga and S. Oskamp (eds), Violence in intimate relationships. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 17–44. Sturges, J.E. and Hanrahan, K.J. (2004) ‘Comparing telephone and face-to-face qualitative interviewing: A research note’, Qualitative Research, 4(1): 107–118. Sykes, G.M. and Matza, D. (1957) ‘Techniques of neutralization: A theory of delinquency’, American Sociological Review, 22: 664–670. Umberson, D. and Montez, J.K. (2010) ‘Social relationships and health: A flashpoint for health policy’, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 51(1 suppl): S54–S66. Whiting, N. (2007) ‘A contradiction in terms? A gendered analysis & same sex domestic abuse’, Edinburgh: Scottish Women’s Aid. www.scottishwomensaid.org.uk/sites/www.scottishwomensaid.org.uk/files/ SWA_LGBT_Topic_Paper.pdf. Accessed 30 May 2017. Williamson, E. (2012) ‘Measuring gender-based violence: Issues of impact and prevalence’, in K. Nakray (ed.), Gender-based violence and public health: International perspectives on budgets and policies. London: Routledge, pp. 65–78. Williamson, E. (2013) ‘Talking to men about domestic violence and abuse’, Hull Domestic Violence Forum Conference, April. Williamson, E., Jones, S.K., Hester, M., Morgan, K. and Feder, G. (2013) ‘Putting the gender into gendered violence: Men’s experience of domestic violence and abuse’, paper presented for Cardiff Women’s Aid, Annual Conference, Cardiff, 8 March. Williamson, E. Jones, S.K., Ferrari, G., Debbonaire, T., Feder, G. and Hester, M. (2015) ‘HEalth professionals Responding to MEn for Safety (HERMES): Feasibility of a general practice training intervention to improve the response to male patients who have experienced or perpetrated domestic violence and abuse’, Primary Healthcare Research & Development.

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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 methodological 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 empirical 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 substantial 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 practitioners 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.

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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 services 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 relationships 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%), followed 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), comparing 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 68

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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 conflicting 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 physical 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, representative 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 selfselected 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 understanding 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 relationship 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). 69

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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 methodological 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 predominantly 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 overrepresented 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 70

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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 sexuality 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’ experiences 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 exploring 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 simultaneously 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 recognised by others, as a victim/survivor or perpetrator and specific social positionings which perpetrators 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) qualitative 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 71

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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 understanding 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 masculinity 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’ psychopathology. Merrill (1996) for example constructed a psycho-social explanatory model which integrates individualistic factors such as inter-generational transmission of DVA and social learning. 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 psychological 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 difference 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 victimised 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 indicators across studies makes comparisons between them difficult. Degrees of being out, experiences 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 reservations 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 heteronormativity and the ‘public story’ of DVA deterring LGB and/or T people from approaching mainstream 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 relationships 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 relationship 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 questionnaire 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 discussed 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 experiences 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 question, 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 2–5 6 or more 1 2–5 6 or more 1 2–5 6 or more 1 2–5 6 or more

9 6 0.3 17 18 2 15 4 n/a 25a 9 0.2

Emotional

Financial

Sexual

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 ‘abusive’ behaviours. This might especially be the case for those whose behaviours were used in selfdefence 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 experiences 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 relationships 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 76

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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 parents 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 seriously 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 represented 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 77

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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 monitoring, 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 support 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 commissioners 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 78

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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 sociological 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.

References Badenes-Ribera, L., Bonilla-Campos, A., Frias-Navarro, D., Pons-Salvador, G. and Monterde-i-Bort, H. (2015) ‘Intimate partner violence in self-identified lesbians: a systematic review of its prevalence and correlates’, Trauma, Violence and Abuse, 17(3): 283–297. Balsam, K. (2001) ‘Nowhere to hide: lesbian battering, homophobia, and minority stress’, in E. Kaschak (ed.) Intimate Betrayal: Domestic Violence in Lesbian Relationships, New York: The Haworth Press, pp. 25–37. Balsam, K.F. and Szymanski, D.M. (2005) ‘Relationship quality and domestic violence in women’s samesex relationships: the role of minority stress’, Psychology of Women Quarterly, 29: 258–269. Barnes, R. (2008) ‘“I still sort of flounder in a sea of non-language”: the constraints of language and labels in women’s accounts of woman-to-woman partner abuse’, in K. Throsby and F. Alexander (eds) Gender and Interpersonal Violence: Language, Action and Representation, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 29–43. Barnes, R. (2010) ‘“Suffering in a silent vacuum”: woman-to-woman partner abuse as a challenge to the lesbian feminist vision’, Feminism and Psychology, 21: 233–239. Barnes, R. (2013a) ‘“She expected her women to be pretty, subservient, dinner on the table at six”: problematising the narrative of egalitarianism in lesbian relationships through accounts of woman-towoman partner abuse’, in T. Sanger and Y. Taylor (eds) Mapping Intimacies: Relations, Exchanges, Affects, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 130–149. Barnes, R. (2013b) ‘“I’m over it”: women’s accounts of life after woman-to-woman partner abuse’, Partner Abuse, 4(3): 380–398. Barnes, R. and Donovan, C. (2016) ‘Developing interventions for abusive partners in lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or transgender relationships’, in S. Hilder and V. Bettinson (eds) Domestic Violence: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Protection, Prevention and Intervention, Basingstoke: Palgrave, pp. 297–320. Bartholomew, K., Regan, K., White, M. and Oram, D. (2008) ‘Patterns of abuse in male same-sex relationships’, Violence and Victims, 23(5): 617–636. Brown, M.J. and Groscup, J. (2009) ‘Perceptions of same-sex domestic violence among crisis center staff’, Journal of Family Violence, 24(2): 87–93. Cruz, J. (2003) ‘“Why doesn’t he just leave?”: gay male violence and the reasons victims stay’, Journal of Men’s Studies, 11: 309–323. Donovan, C. (2013) ‘Redefining domestic violence and abuse: unintended consequences of risk assessment’, in J. Kearney and C. Donovan (eds) Constructing Risky Identities in Policy and Practice, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 109–126. Donovan, C. (2015) ‘Tackling inequality in the intimate sphere: problematizing love and violence in samesex relationships’, in R. Leckey (ed.) After Legal Equality, Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 167–183. Donovan, C. and Barnes, R. (2017) ‘Making sense of discourses of sameness and difference in agency responses to LGB and/or T abusive partners’, Sexualities. Available OnlineFirst, 1 January 2017. Donovan, C. and Hester M. (2008) ‘“Because she was my first girlfriend, I didn’t know any different”: making the case for mainstreaming same-sex sex/relationship education’, Journal of Sex Education, 8(3): 277–287. Donovan, C. and Hester, M. (2010) ‘“I hate the word ‘victim’”: an exploration of recognition of domestic violence in same sex relationships’, Social Policy and Society, 9(2): 279–289. 79

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Donovan, C. and Hester, M. (2011a) ‘Seeking help from the enemy: help-seeking strategies of those in same sex relationships who have experienced domestic abuse’, Child and Family Law Quarterly, 23(1): 26–40. Donovan, C. and Hester, M. (2011b) ‘Exploring emotion work in domestically abusive relationships’, in J. Ristock (ed.) Intimate Partner Violence in LGBTQ Lives, Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 81–101. Donovan, C. and Hester, M. (2014) Domestic Violence and Sexuality: What’s Love Got to Do With It? Bristol: Policy Press. Donovan, C., Barnes, R. and Nixon, C. (2014) The Coral Project: Exploring Abusive Behaviours in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and/or Transgender Relationships: Interim Report, Sunderland: University of Sunderland/ Leicester: University of Leicester. Available online at: www2.le.ac.uk/departments/criminology/docu ments/coral-project-interim-report. Donovan, C., Hester, M., Holmes, J. and McCarry, M. (2006) Comparing Domestic Abuse in Same Sex and Heterosexual Relationships. Sunderland: University of Sunderland/Bristol: University of Bristol. Finneran, C. and Stephenson, R. (2012) ‘Intimate partner violence among men who have sex with men: a systematic review’, Trauma, Violence and Abuse, 14(2): 168–185. Formby, E. (2011) ‘Sex and relationships education, sexual health, and lesbian, gay and bisexual sexual cultures: views from young people’, Sex Education, 11(3): 255–266. Girshick, L.B. (2002) ‘No sugar, no spice: reflections on woman-to-woman sexual violence’, Violence Against Women, 8(12): 1500–1520. Greenberg, K. (2012) ‘Still hidden in the closet: trans women and domestic violence’, Berkeley Journal of Gender, Law & Justice, 27: 198–251. Greenwood, G.L., Reif, M.V., Huang, B., Pollack, L.M., Canchofa, J.A. and Catania, J.A. (2002) ‘Battering victimization among a probability-based sample of men who have sex with men’, American Journal of Public Health, 92: 1964–1969. Guasp, A. (2012) Gay and Bisexual Men’s Health Survey, London: Stonewall. Head, S. and Milton, M. (2014) ‘Filling the silence: exploring the bisexual experience of intimate partner abuse’, Journal of Bisexuality, 14(2): 277–299. Henderson, L. (2003) Prevalence of Domestic Violence Among Lesbians and Gay Men: Data Report to Flame TV, London: Sigma Research. Hester, M. and Donovan, C. (2009) ‘Researching domestic violence in same sex relationships: a feminist epistemological approach to survey development’, Journal of Lesbian Studies, 13(2): 161–173. Hester, M. and Westmarland, N. (2006) Service Provision for Perpetrators of Domestic Violence, Bristol: University of Bristol in association with Northern Rock Foundation. Hester, M., Donovan, C. and Fahmy, E. (2010) ‘Feminist epistemology and the politics of method: surveying same sex domestic violence’, International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 13(3): 251–263. Hester, M., Ferrari, G., Jones, S.K., Williamson, E., Bacchus, L.J., Peters, T.J. and Feder, G. (2015) ‘Occurrence and impact of negative behaviour, including domestic violence and abuse, in men attending UK primary care health clinics: a cross-sectional survey’, BMJOpen, 5, e007141. Hill, N.A., Woodson, K.M., Ferguson, A.D. and Parks Jr, C.W. (2012) ‘Intimate partner abuse among African American lesbians: prevalence, risk factors, theory, and resilience’, Journal of Family Violence, 27: 401–413. HM Government (2016) Ending Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy 2016–2020, London: HMSO. Hunt, R. and Fish, J. (2008) Prescription for Change: Lesbian and Bisexual Women’s Health Check, London: Stonewall. Island, D. and Letellier, P. (1991) Men Who Beat the Men Who Love Them: Battered Gay Men and Domestic Violence, Abingdon: Routledge. Jamieson, L. (1998) Intimacy and Personal Relationships in Modern Society, Cambridge: Polity Press. Johnson, M.P. (2006) ‘Conflict and control: gender symmetry and asymmetry in domestic violence’, Violence Against Women, 12(11): 1003–1018. Kanuha, V. (2013) ‘“Relationships so loving and so hurtful”: the constructed duality of sexual and racial/ ethnic intimacy in the context of violence in Asian and Pacific Islander lesbian and queer women’s relationships’, Violence Against Women, 19(9): 1175–1196. Lewis, R., Milletich, R., Kelley, M. and Woody, A. (2012) ‘Minority stress, substance use and intimate partner violence among sexual minority women’, Aggression and Violent Behaviour, 17: 247–256. LGBT Domestic Abuse Forum and Stonewall Housing London (2013) Roar Because Silence Is Deadly, London: LGBT Domestic Abuse Forum and Stonewall Housing. Lobel, K. (1986) Naming the Violence: Speaking Out About Lesbian Battering, Seattle, WA: The Seal Press. 80

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McCarry, M., Hester, M. and Donovan C. (2007) ‘Researching same sex domestic violence: constructing a comprehensive survey methodology’, Sociological Research Online, 13(1/2). Available online at: www. socresonline.org.uk/13/1/8.html. Mak, W.W.S., Chong, E.S.K. and Kwong, M.M.F. (2010) ‘Prevalence of same-sex intimate partner violence in Hong Kong’, Public Health, 124: 149–152. Mendoza, J. (2011) ‘The impact of minority stress on gay male partner abuse’, in J. Ristock (ed.) Intimate Partner Violence in LGBTQ Lives, Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 169–181. Merrill, G.S. (1996) ‘Ruling the exceptions: same-sex battering and domestic violence theory’, Journal of Gay & Lesbian Social Services, 4(1): 9–21. Mizielinska, J., Abramowicz, M. and Staskińska, A. (2015) Families of Choice in Poland. Family Life of NonHeterosexual People, Warsaw: Instytut Psychologii Polskiej Akademii Nauk. Nixon, J. and Humphreys, C. (2010) ‘Marshalling the evidence: using intersectionality in the domestic violence frame’, Social Politics, 17(2): 137–158. Oswald, R.F., Fonseca, C.A. and Hardesty, J.L. (2010) ‘Lesbian mothers’ counselling experiences in the context of intimate partner violence’, Psychology of Women Quarterly, 34: 286–296. Pattavina, A., Hirschel, D., Buzawa, E. and Bentley, H. (2007) ‘A comparison of the police response to heterosexual versus same sex intimate partner violence’, Violence Against Women, 13(4): 374–394. Renzetti, C.M. (1992) Violent Betrayal: Partner Abuse in Lesbian Relationships, London: Sage Publications. Ristock, J. (2002) No More Secrets: Violence in Lesbian Relationships, London: Routledge. Ristock, J., Zoccole, A., Passante, L. and Potskin, J. (2017) ‘Impacts of colonization on Indigenous TwoSpirit/LGBTQ Canadians’ experiences of migration, mobility and relationship violence’, Sexualities. Published OnlineFirst, 1 January 2017. Roch, A., Morton, J. and Ritchie, G. (2010) Out of Sight, Out of Mind? Transgender People’s Experience of Domestic Abuse, Edinburgh: LGBT Youth Scotland, Scottish Trans Alliance and Equality Network. Rogers, M. (2016) ‘Breaking down barriers: exploring the potential for social care practice with trans survivors of domestic abuse’, Health and Social Care in the Community, 24(1): 68–76. Rogers, M. (2017) ‘Challenging cisgenderism through trans people’s narratives of domestic violence and abuse’, Sexualities. Published OnlineFirst, 1 January 2017. Stark, E. (2007) Coercive Control: How Men Entrap Women in Personal Life, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Te’llez Santaya, P.O. and Walters, A.S. (2011) ‘Intimate partner violence within gay male couples: dimensionalizing partner violence among Cuban gay men’, Men Sexuality & Culture, 15: 153–178. Tjaden, P. and Thoennes, N. (2000) Full Report of the Prevalence, Incidence and Consequences of Violence Against Women: Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey, Washington, DC: US Department of Justice. Tjaden, P., Thoennes, N. and Allison, C.J. (1999) ‘Comparing violence over the life span in samples of same-sex and opposite-sex cohabitants’, Violence and Victims, 14: 413–425. Yu, Y., Xiao, S. and Liu, K.Q. (2013) ‘Dating violence among gay men in China’, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 28(12): 2491–2504.

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Part II

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

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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 pornification 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 challenging 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 85

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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 regulation, 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 pornographies 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 audiovisual 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 representation. 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 pornography 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 prostitution, what they are defining is not (solely) a genre of representation but rather a practice: a practice 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 contextualisation. 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 representational 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 perspective, 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 acknowledgement 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 published 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 something 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 maleprotection 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 represented 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 pornography industry tells about itself, evidence of the abuse of female performers can be used as a 88

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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 pornography 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 putdown 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 implications. 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 represented 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 conflating 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, 89

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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 performers 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 pornification 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 reallife 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 vibrators 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 women’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 90

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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 erroneous. 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 consumption 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 91

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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 empowered . . . 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 consumption 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 perspectives on the book, film or debate are presented. Whilst, at one level, this naturalises a binary 92

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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 different 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 political 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 industry. 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 93

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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 everyday 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 phenomenally 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).

References Anderson, N. (2012) I’m fetish girl living real-life 50 Shades of Grey: We enter the dark world of dungeons and dominance, Sun (Scotland), 26 August, pp. 28–29. Antevska, A. and Gavey, N. (2015) ‘Out of sight and out of mind’: Detachment and men’s consumption of male sexual dominance and female submission in pornography, Men and Masculinities, 8(5): 605–629. Ayres, C. (2012) Tie me up, tie me down, The Sunday Times (Magazine), 2 December, pp. 60–67. Banyard, K. (2016) Pimp State: Sex, Money and the Future of Equality, London: Faber & Faber. Barker, M. (2013) Consent is a grey area? A comparison of understandings of consent in Fifty Shades of Grey and on the BDSM blogosphere, Sexualities, 16(8): 896–914. Barr, H. and Bains, D. (2014) Let’s talk about sex, Sun, 9 February, pp. 10–11. Blakely, R. (2013) ‘The laundry was done, the house was clear. I needed something to fill my time. . . .’: Rhys Blakely meets Sylvia Day, suburban housewife turned multimillionaire erotic novelist, The Times, 17 August. Bosman, J. (2012) Discreetly digital, erotic novel sets American women abuzz, New York Times, 9 March. www.nytimes.com/2012/03/10/business/media/an-erotic-novel-50-shades-of-grey-goes-viral-withwomen.html?_r=0. Accessed 26 June 2016.

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Boyle, K. (2015) Fifty Shades of Grey is just an old-fashioned romance: That’s the problem, The Conversation, 11 February 2015. https://theconversation.com/fifty-shades-of-grey-is-just-an-old-fashioned-romancethats-the-problem-37440. Accessed 20 July 2017. Boyle, K. (2014a) Feminism and pornography, in M. Evans, C. Hemmings, M. Henry, H. Johnstone, S. Madhok, A. Plomien and S.Wearing (eds) The Sage Handbook of Feminist Theory, London: Sage, pp. 215–231. Boyle, K. (2014b) Buying and selling sex: Sexualization, commerce, and gender, in C. Carter, L. Steiner and L. McLaughlin (eds) The Routledge Companion to Media and Gender, Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 259–268. Boyle, K. (2012) The dark side of hard core: Critical documentaries on the sex industry, in C. Hines and D. Kerr (eds) Hard to Swallow: Hard-Core Pornography on Screen, New York and Chichester: Columbia University Press, pp. 27–41. Boyle, K. (2011a) ‘That’s so fun!’: Selling pornography for men to women in The Girls Next Door, in G. Dines and J. Humez (eds) Gender, Race, and Class in Media: A Text-Reader, Third Edition, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 293–300. Boyle, K. (2011b) Producing abuse: Selling the harms of pornography, Women’s Studies International Forum, 34(6): 593–602. Boyle, K. (2010a) Introduction: Everyday pornography, in K. Boyle (ed.) Everyday Pornography, London: Routledge, pp. 1–13. Boyle, K. (2010b) Porn consumers’ public faces: Mainstream media, address and representation, in K. Boyle (ed.) Everyday Pornography, London: Routledge, pp. 134–146. Boyle, K. (2006) The boundaries of porn studies: On Linda Williams’ Porn Studies, New Review of Film & Television Studies, 4(1): 1–16. Boyle, K. (2000) The pornography debates: Beyond cause and effect, Women’s Studies International Forum, 23(2): 187–195. Campos, A. (2012) Fifty shades of pay: Erotic novel boosts sex shop industry, Daily Mirror, 28 October, p. 31. Cole, S.G. (1989) Pornography and the Sex Crisis, Toronto: Amanita Press. Daubney, M. (2014) Fifty shares of grey: Even the WI are getting involved, well nearly, Sun (Scotland), 22 March, pp. 38–39. De Burca, D. (2014) Sex toys are us: Irish people spicing things up in the bedroom department with porn and gadgets, Daily Mirror (Ireland), 27 May, p. 19. De Burca, D. (2013) Shady ladies: Book inspires women to splash cash on sex toys, Daily Mirror (Ireland), 23 November, p. 20. Deller, R. and Smith, C. (2013) Reading the BDSM romance: Reader responses to Fifty Shades, Sexualities, 16(8): 932–950. Dines, G. (2010) Pornland: How Pornography Has Hijacked Our Sexual Culture, Boston, MA: Beacon. Duerden, N. (2013) ‘I don’t think I’m trying to escape from what I’ve done. I’m just trying to grow from it’: Could former porn star Sasha Grey be the next EL James? Independent on Sunday (New Review), 5 May, p. 26. Dworkin, A. (1981) Pornography: Men Possessing Women, London: Women’s Press. Dyer, R. (1986) Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society, New York: St Martin’s Press. Edwards, D. and Di Santo, R. (2015) This is S&M for people who shop at M&S but it’s still sexy; 50 Shades of Grey movie . . . his ‘n’ hers reviews, Daily Mirror, 12 February, pp. 16–17. Flanagan, P. (2012) Porn has 50 Shades of bias, Daily Mirror (Ireland), 13 July, p. 13. Flood, A. (2015) Fifty Shades of Grey sequel breaks sales records, Guardian, 23 June. Garner, M. (2016) Conflicts, Contradictions and Commitments: Men Speak About the Sexualisation of Culture, Unpublished PhD thesis, London Metropolitan University. Glionna, J.M. (2016) Panel about rape abruptly cancelled at porn expo amid James Deen allegations, Guardian, 22 January. www.theguardian.com/culture/2016/jan/22/james-deen-stoya-accused-rapeporn-convention-las-vegas. Accessed 26 June 2016. Helmore, E. (2012) The rise of ‘mommy porn’: UK writer lures Hollywood with bestselling erotic fiction, Observer, 25 March, p. 19. James, E.L. (2015) Grey: Fifty Shades of Grey as told by Christian, London: Arrow. James, E.L. (2012a) Fifty Shades of Grey, London: Arrow. James, E.L. (2012b) Fifty Shades Darker, London: Arrow.

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James, E.L. (2012c) Fifty Shades Freed, London: Arrow. Kelly, L. (2016) The conducive context of violence against women and girls, Discoversociety, 1 March. http://discoversociety.org/2016/03/01/theorising-violence-against-women-and-girls/. Accessed 25 March 2016. Kelly, L. (1988) Surviving Sexual Violence, London: Polity. Knight, I. (2012) It may be a bestseller Mum, but it’s still porn, Sunday Times (News Review), 24 June, p. 4. Leckie, B. (2012) Bill Leckie column, Sun, 3 July, p. 11. Littlejohn, R. (2012) Richard Littlejohn column, Daily Mail, 4 September. Locke, F. and Wills, K. (2012) The women breaking the last taboo, Sun, 15 April, pp. 22, 23, 25, 26. McNair, B. (2013) Porno? Chic! How Pornography Changed the World and Made It a Better Place, London: Routledge. Millard, N. (2012) Bondage book lifts sex sales, Sun, 8 June, p. 11. Newman, R. (2012) ‘Mommy porn?’ How dare men put down women’s fantasies, Daily Telegraph, 8 December, p. 33. O’Hara, G. (2014) My life as an erotic writer laid bare, Daily Telegraph, 4 January, Weekend, p. 14. Oliver, A. (2013) British novelist teaching USA to have sex on rowing machine, Mail on Sunday, 21 July. Paasonen, S. (2010) Repetition and hyperbole: The gendered choreographies of heteroporn, in K. Boyle (ed.) Everyday Pornography, London: Routledge, pp. 63–76. Price, L. (2005) Feminist Frameworks: Building Theory on Violence Against Women, Halifax: Fernwood Publishing. Reade, B. (2012) The mother of all sexcuses, Daily Mirror, 5 July, p. 23. Skidelsky, W. (2012) Meet the author: E.L. James, Observer (Review), 15 April, p. 39. Smith, C. (2007) Designed for pleasure: Style, indulgence, and accessorised sex, European Journal of Cultural Studies, 10(2): 167–184. Snitow, A.B. (1979) Mass market romance: Pornography for women is different, Radical History Review, 20(Spring/Summer): 141–161. Sylvester, R. and Thomson, A. (2013) We’ve liberated women in the bedroom, the boardroom’s next, The Times, 14 December, pp. 44–45. Tyler, M. (2015) Harms of production: Theorising pornography as a form of prostitution, Women’s Studies International Forum, 48(1): 114–123. Tyler, M. and Quek, K. (2016) Conceptualizing pornographication: A lack of clarity and problems for feminist analysis, Sexualization, Media & Society, April–June. Warner, J. (2006) Dad envy, New York Times, 21 December. http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/ 2006/12/21/dad-envy/. Accessed 28 June 2016. Waugh, R. (2012) It’s really five shades of grey! Mail on Sunday, 12 August. Whisnant, R. (2016) But what about feminist porn? Examining the work of Tristan Taormino, Sexualization, Media & Society, April–June. Whisnant, R. (2004) Confronting pornography: Some conceptual basics, in C. Stark and R. Whisnant (eds) Not for Sale: Feminists Resisting Prostitution and Pornography, Melbourne: Spinifex, pp. 15–27. 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 remarkably 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, psychological, 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 established. 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 themselves. 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 system 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 97

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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 conviction? 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 masculinity, 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 criminal 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 chapter 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 investigative 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 98

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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 difference. 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 professionals 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 powers 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 & HamiltonGiachritis, 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). 99

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Police decision-making centres largely on confirming or dispelling doubt regarding a complainant’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 routinized 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 characterand behavioural-based criteria upon which victim credibility is determined including: having reported the assault promptly, outward expressions of trauma and fear, cooperation with investigators, 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 following 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 100

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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, expectations and attitudes of officers within that process. For example, when officers discussed complainant 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 relation 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 performance of this specialist role, officers highlighted role ambiguity with a key tension between supporting 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 investigating, 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 culture of doubt that surrounds rape allegations is unlikely to be wholly successful when SOLOs are 101

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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 problematic 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 requirements 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 securing 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 investigative 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) 102

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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 evidence: 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 stranger 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 outcomes (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 sexually 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 typically 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 supported 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 particular 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 103

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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 evidence, 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 forensic 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 understandings of investigations and court proceedings. This included, at times encouraging or discouraging 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 particular 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 104

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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 collection, 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 normalized, 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 interrogation 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 requirements or the attitudes and discretionary activities of the police and medico-legal professionals, 105

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investigative and evidentiary processes are imbued with uncertainty about the veracity of women’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 culture 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 personnel 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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Smith, O. & Skinner, T. (2012) Observing court responses to victims of rape and sexual assault. Feminist Criminology 7(4), 298–326. Spohn, C., Beichner, D. & Davis-Frenzel, E. (2001) Prosecutorial justifications for sexual assault case rejection: guarding the ‘gateway to justice’. Social Problems 48(2), 206–235. Spohn, C. & Tellis, K. (2010) Justice denied: the exceptional clearance of rape cases in Los Angeles. Alb. L. Rev. 74, 1379. Spohn, C. & Tellis, K. (2012) The criminal justice system’s response to sexual violence. Violence Against Women 18(2), 169–192. Spohn, C., White, C. & Tellis, K. (2014) Unfounding sexual assault: examining the decision to unfound and identifying false reports. Law & Society Review 48(1), 161–192. Tasca, M., Rodriguez, N., Spohn, C. & Koss, M. (2013) Police decision making in sexual assault cases: predictors of suspect identification and arrest. Journal of Interpersonal Violence 28(6), 1157–1177. Taylor, C. & Gassner, L. (2010) Stemming the flow: challenges for policing adult sexual assault with regard to attrition rates and under-reporting of sexual offences. Police Practice and Research: An International Journal 11(3), 240–255. Venema, R. (2016) Police officer schema of sexual assault reports real rape, ambiguous cases, and false reports. Journal of Interpersonal Violence 31(5), 872–899. Waigandt, A., Wallace, D., Phelps, L. & Miller, D. (1990) The impact of sexual assault on physical health status. Journal of Traumatic Stress 3(1), 93–102. Walby, S. & Allen, J. (2004) Domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking: Findings from the British Crime Survey. Home Office Research Study No. 276. London: Home Office. Waterhouse, G.F., Reynolds, A. & Egan, V. (2016) Myths and legends: the reality of rape offences reported to a UK police force. The European Journal of Psychology Applied to Legal Context 8(1), 1–10. Winfree Jr, L.T. & DeJong, C. (2015) Police and the war on women: a gender-linked examination behind and in front of the blue curtain. Women & Criminal Justice 25(1–2), 50–70.

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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 conclusions 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; LanghinrichsenRohling, 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 109

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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 considerably 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, intimate 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 proportion 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 comparing 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 110

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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 of stalking

Number of females experiencing stalking

Number of males experiencing stalking

SCJS 2008/09

At least 1 of 4 specific behaviours* At least 1 of 4 specific behaviours* At least 1 of 4 specific behaviours* At least 1 of 6 specific behaviours** At least 1 of 6 specific behaviours** Persistent and unwanted behaviour

6%a

6%a

6%a

5%a

6%a

5%a

6%a

6%a

6.8%a

5.9%a

17%b (5%a)

7%b (2%a)

SCJS 2009/10 SCJS 2010/11 SCJS 2012/13 SCJS 2014/15 Morris et al., 2002

* 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.  Over the last 12 months.

a

 In their lifetime.

b

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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 element (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 illuminated 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 violence 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 considering 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 violence 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 physically 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. 112

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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 physically 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 significant as Logan et al. (2007) found that women who reported stalking by their partners were experiencing 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 differ 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 stalking. 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 comparison 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 experienced 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 perpetrators, however, were more likely to leave phone messages. When thinking about context and 113

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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 generally 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 stalkers 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 stalkers 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 weakness 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 strategies’, 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 professional 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 114

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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 experience 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

Percentage of perpetrators

60% 49%

50% 40%

32%

30% 20%

15%

10%

2%

0% Stranger

Aquaintance

Ex-partner

0%

Current partner Don't know

Relationship of victim to perpetrator

Figure 8.1  Bar chart illustrating the relationship of victims to perpetrator 115

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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 generated 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  Table 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 women

Percentage of men

Changed privacy features on social media accounts, e.g. Facebook, Twitter Changed phone number

X2 = 3.63, p = 0.048, ø = 0.21 X2 = 5.41, p = 0.034, ø = 0.255 X2 = 6.82, p = 0.006, ø = 0.287 X2 = 4.57, p = 0.026, ø = 0.24 X2 = 4.18, p = 0.034, ø = 0.22

50.8% (n = 31)

27.3% (n = 6)

41.0% (n = 25)

13.6% (n = 3)

32.8% (n = 20)

4.5% (n = 1)

18.0% (n = 11)

0.0% (n = 0)

24.6% (n = 15)

4.5% (n = 1)

Warned friends/family not to give out your contact details Lock the door of your residence when you leave, even if only for a few minutes Stopped talking to mutual friends of theirs and the perpetrator

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Stalking as a gender-based violence Table 8.3  Table 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 women

Percentage of men

Mail redirected Changed e-mail address Changed or sold car Avoided going out after dark Telling someone where they going and when they would be back Leaving residence light on at night when leaving it unoccupied Refused to let unknown people into their building/house Installed caller ID on their phone Move house Change jobs Stopped going to some places Stopped going out as much

X2 = 0.37, p = 1.000 X2 = 2.80, p = 0.085 X2 = 0.739, p = 0.538 X2 = 0.12, p = 0.600 X2 = 3.19, p = 0.075

1.6% (n = 1) 19.7% (n = 12) 3.3% (n = 2) 6.6% (n = 4) 13.1% (n = 8)

0% (n = 0) 4.5% (n = 1) 0% (n = 0) 4.5% (n = 1) 0.0% (n = 0)

X2 = 2.76, p = 0.105

11.5% (n = 7)

0.0% (n = 0)

X2 = 3.19, p = 0.075

13.1% (n = 8)

0.0% (n = 0)

X2 = 0.25, p = 0.474

13.1% (n = 8)

9.1% (n = 2)

X2 = 0.02, p = 1.000 X2 = 0.59, p = 0.399 X2 = 1.45, p = 0.531

8.2% (n = 5) 9.8% (n = 6) 26.2% (n = 16)

9.0% (n = 2) 4.5% (n = 1) 13.6% (n = 3)

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. 117

Katy Proctor Table 8.4  Table showing the percentage of victims who experienced each negative impact and the percentage of each gender Area of life experiencing negative impact from stalking

Statistical results when tested against gender

Percentage experiencing a negative impact

Percentage of victims who were women

Percentage of victims who were men

Academic work Family relationships Social life Friendships Sexual relationships Confidence Finances Emotional health Physical health Paid/voluntary work

X2 = 1.35, p = 0.375 X2 = 0.34, p = 0.724 X2 = 0.96, p = 0.427 X2 = 0.123, p = 0.786 X2 = 0.02, p = 1.000 X2 = 0.469, p = 0.603 X2 = 0.02, p = 1.000 X2 = 0.027, p = 1.000 X2 = 1.05, p = 0.375 X2 = 0.16, p = 1.000

22.9% (n = 19) 14.5% (n = 12) 32.5% (n = 27) 28.9% (n = 24) 21.7% (n = 18) 34.9% (n = 29)   8.4% (n = 7) 34.9% (n = 29)   8.4% (n = 7)   7.2% (n = 6)

14.5% (n = 12)   9.6% (n = 8) 21.7% (n = 18) 20.5% (n = 17) 15.7% (n = 13) 24.1% (n = 20)   6.0% (n = 5) 25.3% (n = 21)   4.8% (n = 4)   4.8% (n = 4)

  8.4% (n = 7)   4.8% (n = 4) 10.8% (n = 9)   8.4% (n = 7)   6.0% (n = 5) 10.8% (n = 9)   2.4% (n = 2)   9.6% (n = 8)   3.6% (n = 3)   2.4% (n = 2)

As with domestic abuse, understanding the context in which stalking takes place is paramount. 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 dynamics 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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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’ discomfort 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 different motivation and ‘gendertrolling is exponentially more vicious, virulent, aggressive, threatening, 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 legitimization 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 commentators’. 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 violence 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 122

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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 inequalities 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 developments 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 preeminently 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 ‘symbolic 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 bloggers and activists. These examples demonstrate the increasingly prevalent ‘rape culture’ which incorporates aspects of popular misogyny and which entails anti-female violent expression via 123

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the threats of rape and death directed at women online. Expressions of aggressive male sexuality 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 femininity 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 messages was three years ago. I only went online to see friends and was shocked when a series of 124

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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 comments 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 expectations for displays of femininity in the public sphere. For instance, this report below demonstrates 125

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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 distraught . . . 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 lipstick, 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 participating 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 utilised 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 information 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 website. 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 invisibility 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 offending 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 middle 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 sharing 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” understandings 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, without 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 128

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within . . . media . . . by means of habitus adjustment to ensure conformity with the contemporary 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 interactions/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 ‘virtual 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’ implications 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 implementation 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). 129

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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 prosecutions 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 expression 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, sexist, 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 relationship 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. 130

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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 disabled 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 133

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member states, Ortoleva and Lewis (2012: 114) concluded that: ‘there is limited comprehensive 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 existing 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 impairments; 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 individuals 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 teenagers 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 domestic 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 disclosures. 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 disabled 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 disability 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 different 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 different 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 opportunity 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 participants 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 abusing 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 intentionally 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. 136

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Impairment specific abuse intentionally disables women further by limiting their daily function. 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 situation, 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 (HassounehPhillips & Curry, 2002). Moreover, women may be reluctant to leave their own home environment, 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 identifying 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 intimate 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 137

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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 professionals 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 impairment, 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 outcomes 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 wellbeing. 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 accessibility 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 138

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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, fourcountry 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 accessibility, 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 providing 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 carers 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 disability 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 opportunities, resources and sources of support available to disabled women are likely to be limited (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 strategies 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 139

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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 communication 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 disabilities (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 accessibility 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 concerning, 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 140

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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 participants 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 upholding 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 individuals, 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 marginalized in society. Excluding disabled people from research contributes to their continued marginalization in society, 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 intersectionality 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 developing 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 policies 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). 141

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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 organisations 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 organisations 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 comprehensive, 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 cofactors 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 relationship between disability and domestic abuse.

References Astbury, J. & Walji, F. (2014) The prevalence and psychological costs of household violence by family members against women with disabilities in Cambodia. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 29(17): 3127–3149. Balderston, S. (2014) Victimised again? Intersectionality and injustice in disabled women’s lives after hate crime and rape. Gendered violence: Macro and micro settings. Advances in Gender Research, 18: 17–51. Ballan, M.S. & Freyer, M.B. (2012) Self-defense among women with disabilities: an unexplored domain in domestic violence cases. Violence against Women, 18(9): 1083–1107. Ballan, M.S., Freyer, M.B., Marti, C.N., Perkel, J., Webb, K.A. & Romanelli, M. (2014) Looking beyond prevalence: a demographic profile of survivors of intimate partner violence with disabilities. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 29(17): 3167–3179. Bradbury-Jones, C., Breckenridge, J.P., Kroll, T., Lazenbatt, A., Devaney, J. & Taylor, J. (2015a) Disabled women’s experiences of accessing and utilising maternity services when they are affected by domestic abuse: a critical incident technique study. BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth, 15(1): 1–11. Bradbury-Jones, C., Breckenridge, J.P., Duncan, F., Kroll, T., Lazenbatt, A., Devaney, J. & Taylor, J. (2015b) Priorities and strategies for improving disabled women’s access to maternity services when they are affected by domestic abuse: a study using concept maps. BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth, 15(1): 1–17 142

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Breckenridge, J.P., Kroll, T., Lazenbatt, A., Devaney, J., Taylor, J. & Bradbury-Jones, C. (2014) Access and utilization of maternity care for disabled women who experience domestic abuse: a systematic review. BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth, 14(1): 1–13. Breckenridge, J.P., Duncan, F., Kroll, T., Lazenbatt, A., Devaney, J., Taylor, J., & Bradbury-Jones, C. (2017) Conducting sensitive research with disabled women who experience domestic abuse during pregnancy: Lessons from a qualitative study. Sage Research Methods Cases 2 Accessed at: http:// dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781473989139. Brownridge, D.A. (2006) Partner violence against women with disabilities: prevalence, risk, and explanations. Violence Against Women, 12: 805–822. Brownridge, D.A., Ristock, J. & Heibert-Murphy, D. (2008) The high risk of IPV against Canadian women with disabilities. Medical Science Monitor, 14: PH27–PH32. Coker, A.L., Smith, P.H. & Fadden, M.K. (2005) Intimate partner violence and disabilities among women attending family practice clinics. Journal of Women’s Health, 14: 829–838. Copel, L.C. (2006) Partner abuse in physically disabled women: a proposed model for understanding intimate partner violence. Perspectives in Psychiatric Care, 42(2): 114–129. Council of Europe (2011) Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence. Council of Europe Treaty Series no. 210. Cramer, E.P., Gilson, S.F. & DePoy, E. (2003) Women with disabilities and experiences of abuse. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 7: 183–199. Curry, M.A., Powers, L.E. & Oschwald, M. (2004) Development of an abuse screening tool for women with disabilities. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 8(4): 123–141. Curry, M.A., Renker, P., Hughes, R.B., Robinson-Whelen, S., Oschwald, M., Swank, P.R. & Powers, L.E. (2009) Development of measures of abuse among women with disabilities and the characteristics of their perpetrators. Violence Against Women, 15(9): 1001–1025. European Commission (2010) European disability strategy 2010–2020: a renewed commitment to a barrier-free Europe. COM(2010) 636 Final. Brussels: European Commission. European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (2014) Violence against women: an EU-wide survey. Accessed at http://fra.europa.eu/en/publication/2014/violence-against-women-eu-wide-survey-mainresults-report. Findley, P.A., Plummer, S.B. & McMahon, S. (2015) Exploring the experiences of abuse of college students with disabilities. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 7: 1–23. Hague, G., Thiara, R.K. & Mullender, A. (2010) Disabled women, domestic violence and social care: the risk of isolation, vulnerability and neglect. British Journal of Social Work, 41: 148–165. Haines, D. & Devaney, J. (2004) Accessing social work case files for research purposes: some issues and problems. Qualitative Social Work, 3: 313–333. Harpur, P. & Douglas, H. (2014) Disability and domestic violence: protecting survivors’ human rights. Griffith Law Review, 23(3): 405–433. Hassouneh-Phillips, D. & Curry, M. (2002) Abuse of women with disabilities: state of the science. Rehabilitating Counselling Bulletin, 45: 96–104. Hoog, M. (2010) Model protocol: safety planning for domestic abuse victims with disabilities. Washington: Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Hughes, K., Bellis, M.A., Jones, L., Wood, S., Bates, G., Eckley, L., McCoy, E., Mikton, C., Shakespeare, T. & Officer, A. (2012) Prevalence and risk of violence against adults with disabilities: a systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies. Lancet, 36(11): 61851–61855. Hughes, R.B., Lund, E.M., Gabrielli, J., Powers, L.E. & Curry, M.A. (2011) Prevalence of interpersonal violence against community-living adults with disabilities: a literature review. Rehabilitation Psychology, 56(4): 302. Kroll, T., Jones, G.C., Kehn, M. & Neri, M.T. (2006) Barriers and strategies affecting the utilisation of primary preventative services for people with physical disabilities. Health and Social Care in the Community, 14: 284–293. Martin, S.L., Ray, N., Sotres-Alvarez, D., Kupper, L.L., Moracco, K.E., Dickens, P.A., et  al. (2006) Physical and sexual assault of women with disabilities. Violence Against Women, 12: 823–838. McCarthy, M., Hunt, S. & Milne-Skillman, K. (2015) ‘I know it was every week, but I can’t be sure if it was everyday’: domestic violence and women with learning disabilities. Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities, 29: 1–14. McFarlane, J., Hughes, R.B., Nosek, M.A., Groff, J.Y., Swedlend, N. & Dolan Mullen, P. (2001) Abuse assessment screen-disability (AAS-D): measuring frequency, type, and perpetrator of abuse toward women with physical disabilities. Journal of Women’s Health & Gender-based Medicine, 10(9): 861–866. 143

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Mikton, C. & Shakespeare, T. (2014) Introduction to special issue on violence against people with disability. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 29: 3055–3062. NICE (2014) Domestic violence and abuse: how health services, social care and the organisations they work with can respond effectively. NICE Public Health Guidance 50. Nosek, M.A., Howland, C.A., Rintala, D.H., Young, M.E. & Chanpong, G.F. (2001) National study of women with physical disabilities: final report. Sexuality and Disability, 19: 5–39. Nosek, M.A., Hughes, R.B., Taylor, H.B. & Taylor, P. (2006) Disability, psychosocial, and demographic characteristics of abused women with physical disabilities. Violence Against Women, 12: 838–850. O’Doherty, L., Hegarty, K., Ramsay, J., Davidson, L.L., Feder, G. & Taft, A. (2015) Screening women for intimate partner violence in healthcare settings. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 7. Ortoleva, S. & Lewis, H. (2012) Forgotten sisters – a report on violence against women with disabilities: an overview of its nature, scope, causes and consequences. North Eastern Public Law and Theory Faculty Research Paper Series, no. 104. Oschwald, M., Renker, P., Hughes, R.B., Arthur, A., Powers, L.E. & Curry, M.A. (2009) Development of an accessible audio computer-assisted self-interview (A-CASI) to screen for abuse and provide safety strategies for women with disabilities. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 24(5): 795–818. Plummer, S.B. & Findley, P.A. (2012) Women with disabilities’ experience with physical and sexual abuse: review of the literature and implications for the field. Trauma, Violence & Abuse, 13: 15–29. Powers, L.E., Renker, P., Robinson-Whelen, S., Oschwald, M., Hughes, R., Swank, P. & Curry, M.A. (2009) Interpersonal violence and women with disabilities: analysis of safety promoting behaviors. Violence Against Women, 15(9): 1040–1069. Radford, J., Harne, L. & Trotter, J. (2006) Disabled women and domestic violence as violent crime. Practice: Social Work in Action, 18: 233–246. Saxton, M., Curry, M.A., Powers, L.E., Maley, S., Eckels, K. & Gross, J. (2001) ‘Bring my scooter so I can leave you’: a study of disabled women handling abuse by personal assistance providers. Violence Against Women, 7(4): 393–417. Shah, S., Tsitsou, L. & Woodin, S. (2016) Hidden voices: disabled women’s experiences of violence and support over the life course. Violence Against Women, 1–22. Shakespeare, T. (2014) Disability rights and wrongs revisited (2nd edn). Abingdon: Routledge. Strid, S., Walby, S. & Armstrong, J. (2013) Intersectionality and multiple inequalities: visibility in British policy on violence against women. Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society, 20(4): 558–581. Thiara, R.K., Hague, G. & Mullender, A. (2011) Losing out on both counts: disabled women and domestic violence. Disability and Society, 26: 757–771. Thiara, R.K., Hague, G., Bashall, R., Ellis, B. & Mullender, A. (2012) Disabled women and domestic violence: responding to experiences of survivors. London: Jessica Kingsley. Thomas, C. (2006) Disability and gender: reflections on theory and research. Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research, 8(2–3): 177–185. Trevillion, K., Oram, S., Feder, G. & Howard, L.M. (2012) Experiences of domestic violence and mental disorders: a systematic review and meta-analysis. PLOS one, 7(12): e51740. United Nations (2007) Convention on the rights of people with disabilities. UN. World Health Organization (2011) World report on disability. Geneva: WHO. Young, M.E., Nosek, M.A., Howland, C., Chanpong, G. & Rintala, D.H. (1997) Prevalence of abuse of women with physical disabilities. Archive of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, 78: S34–S38.

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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. 145

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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 separating 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 exercising 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 continuing 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 representation 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 intersections 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 difference 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 146

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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 concern 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 violent physical and sexual assaults of their mother, led researchers to assert that exposure to domestic 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 domestic 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 consideration 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 importance 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 counterproductive (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). 147

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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 barrier 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 contact. 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 partner 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 completed 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, including 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

The child’s mother is in the same space as her former abusive partner

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

The child’s mother is subjected to ‘eyeballing’ and gestures from 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

Legal Aid Board will not assist in funding the mother’s action

The child’s mother may be assaulted by her former partner

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The child’s mother may be followed by former partner within the court building and outside

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

Child’s mother may be unable to work/work longer hours as she supports child/ren to deal with trauma from abuse/abusive 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

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

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 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 selfesteem 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 feelings 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: 152

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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 ‘potential’ 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 letters 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. 153

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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 representation 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 foodstuffs, 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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References Beck, C.J.A. and Raghavan, C. (2010) Intimate partner abuse screening in custody mediation: the importance of assessing coercive control. Family Court Review 48(3), 555–565. Booth, A. and Edwards, J.N. (1990) Transmission or marital and family quality over the generations: the effect of parental divorce and unhappiness. Journal of Divorce 13(2), 41–58. Brandon, M. and Lewis, A. (1996). Significant harm and children’s experiences of domestic violence. Child and Family Social Work 1, 33–42. Brown, T., Frederico, M., Hewitt, L. and Sheehan, R. (2000) Revealing the existence of child abuse in the contact of marital breakdown and custody and access disputes. Child Abuse & Neglect 24(6), 849–859. Callaghan, J.E.M., Alexander, J.H., Chiara Fellin, L. and Sixsmith, J. (2015) Beyond ‘witnessing’: children’s experiences of coercive control in domestic violence and abuse. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 1–31. Coy, M., Scott, E., Tweedale, R. and Perks, K. (2015) ‘Its like going through the abuse again’: domestic violence and women and children’s (un)safety in private law contact proceedings. Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law 37(1), 53–69. Douglas, G., Murch, M., Miles, C. and Scanlan, L. (2006) Research into the Operation of Rule 9.5 of the Family Proceedings Rules 1991. Cardiff: Cardiff Law School. Available at www.dca.gov.uk/family/familypro crules_research.pdf. Fortin, J., Hunt, J. and Scanlan, L. (2012) Taking a Longer View of Contact: The Perspectives of Young Adults Who Experienced Parental Separation in Their Youth. Sussex: Sussex Law School. Fraser, P. (1866) A Treatise on the Law of Scotland Relative to Parent and Child and Guardian and Ward. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark. Geffner, R. and Daley Pagelow, M., (1990) Mediation and child custody issues in abusive relationships. Behavioural Sciences and the Law 8, 151–159. Gray, A. (2001) ‘Making work pay’: devising the best strategy for lone parents in Britain. Journal of Social Policy 30(2), 189–207. Harne, L. (2011) Violent Fathering and the Risks to Children: The Need for Change. Bristol: Policy Press. Harrison, C. (2008) Implacably hostile or appropriately protective? Women managing child contact in the context of domestic violence. Violence Against Women 14(4), 381–405. Hester, M. (2011) The three planet model: towards an understanding of contradictions in approaches to women and children’s safety in contexts of domestic violence. British Journal of Social Work 41, 837–853. Holt, S. (2015) Post-separation fathering and domestic abuse: challenges and contradictions. Child Abuse Review 24, 210–222. Holt, S., Buckley, H. and Whelan, S. (2008) The impact of exposure to domestic violence on children and young people: a review of the literature. Child Abuse and Neglect 32, 797–810. Humphreys, C. and Thiara, R. (2003) Domestic violence and mental health: ‘I call it symptoms of abuse’. British Journal of Social Work 33(2), 209–226. Hunt, J. and Macleod, A. (2008) Outcomes of Applications to Court for Contact Orders. London: Ministry of Justice. Katz, E. (2016) Beyond the physical incident model: how children living with domestic violence are harmed by and resist regimes of coercive control. Child Abuse Review 25, 46–59. Kelly, J. (1993) Current research on children’s postdivorce adjustment. Family and Conciliation Courts Review 31(1), 29–49. McGuckin, B. and McGuckin, A. (2004) Contact Disputes Involving Allegations of Domestic Abuse: Feasibility Study. Edinburgh: Scottish Executive. McIntosh, J., Smyth, B., Kelaher, M., Wells, Y. and Long, C. (2010) Post-separation Parenting Arrangements & Developmental Outcomes for Infants & Children. Victoria: Attorney-General’s Department. Mackay, K. (2012) The Child’s Voice in Contact Disputes: Genuine Participation in Private Law Court Actions. Saarbrück: Lambert Academic Publishing. Mackay, K. (2013a) The Treatment of the Views of Children in Private Law Child Contact Disputes Where There Is a History of Domestic Abuse. Commissioned report. Edinburgh: Scotland’s Commissioner for Children and Young People. Mackay, K. (2013b) A plea from Scotland: preserving access to courts in private law child contact disputes. Child and Family Law Quarterly 25(3), 294–313. Mair, J., Wasoff, F. and Mackay, K., (2013) All Settled? Legally Binding Separation Agreements and Private Ordering in Family Law in Scotland. Final Report. Edinburgh: Centre for Research on Families and Relationships. 156

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Muirhead, J. (1947) An Outline of Roman Law. 2nd edn. London: Hodge. Mullender, A., Hague, G., Imam, U., Kelly, L., Malos, E. and Regan, L. (2002) Children’s Perspectives on Domestic Violence. London: Sage. Neale, B. and Smart, C. (2001) Good to Talk? Conversations with Children after Divorce. London: Young Voice. Norrie, K. (1999) The Law Relating to Parent and Child in Scotland. 2nd edn. Edinburgh: W. Green. Overlien, C. (2013) The children of patriarchal terrorism. Journal of Family Violence 28, 277–287. Parkinson, P., Cashmore, J. and Single, J., (2007) Parents and children’s views on talking to the judge in parenting disputes in Australia. International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family 21, 84. Radford, L., Hester, M., Humpries, J. and Woodfield, K.-S. (1997) For the sake of the children: the law, domestic violence and child contact in England. Women’s Studies International Forum 20(4), 471–482. Rhoades, H. (2011) Annex G. Helen Rhoades evidence in relation to shared parenting. Submission in response to the Family Justice Review – interim report. In Norgrove, L.J., Family Justice Review: Final Report. Ministry of Justice (MoJ). Rodgers, B. and Pryor, J., (1998) Divorce and Separation: The Outcomes for Children. York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Saunders, H. (2004) Twenty-Nine Child Homicides: Lessons for Domestic Violence and Child Protection. Women’s Aid Federation. Scottish Government (2008) 2007 Scottish Child Contact Survey. Edinburgh: Scottish Government Social Research/Scottish Government Justice Directorate. Scottish Government (2009) Growing Up in Scotland: Sweep 3 Non-resident Parent Report. Edinburgh. Scottish Government (2013) Domestic Abuse Recorded by the Police 2012–2013. Statistical Bulletin, Crime and Justice Series. Stark, E. (2009) Rethinking custody evaluation in cases involving domestic abuse. Journal of Child Custody 6, 287–321. Trinder, L., Firth, A. and Jenks, C. (2010) ‘So presumably things have moved on since then?’ The management of risk allegations in child contact dispute resolution. International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family 24(1), 29–53. Wallerstein, J. and Kelly, J. (1980) Surviving the Breakup: How Children and Parents Cope with Divorce. London: Grant McIntyre. Wallerstein, J. (2005) Growing up in the divorced family. Clinical Social Work Journal 33(4), 401–418. Women’s Aid (2016) Nineteen Child Homicides. Bristol: Women’s Aid.

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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 158

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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 backgrounds; 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.’ 159

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The deaths of over 600 UK women killed by men, or where a man is the principle suspect, 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 individually 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 perpetrator, 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 countries 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 geographically 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 160

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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 victimisation 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 161

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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 systemic 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 gynaecology 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 unparalleled 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 femicide 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 information 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 references. 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 (specifically 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 sexspecific murder was recognised in a legal context, if not as a specific crime. However, the earlier 162

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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 conspicuously 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 generated 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). 163

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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 hierarchy 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: 164

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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 trafficking, 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 normalisation 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 killings 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 mainstream 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 patriarchal 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. 165

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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/girlfriend, 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 compared 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 violence 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 women’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 equivalence 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 expartners, 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, 166

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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 authority ‘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 violence 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 ‘specialise 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 repeatedly 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 featuring 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 167

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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 ‘becoming 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 168

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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).

References Academic Council on the United Nations System (ACUNS) (2013). Femicide Volume I: A Global Issue that Demands Action. Adoni, H. and Mane, S. (1984). Media and the social construction of reality toward an integration of theory and research. Communication Research 11(3), 323–340. Charkowski, E. (2013). Malespeak with radical feminist translations. [Online] Available at: www.lesbian caucus.com/?p=624 [accessed 4 April 2015]. Corradi, C. and Stockl, H. (2014). Intimate partner homicide in 10 European countries: statistical data and policy development in a cross-national perspective. European Journal of Criminology 11(5), 601–608. Daly, M. (1999). Quintessence . . . Realizing the Archaic Future. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Dobash, R.E. and Dobash, R.P. (2015). When Men Murder Women. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dugan, L., Nagin, D. and Rosenfeld, D. (2003). Exposure reduction or retaliation: the effects of domestic violence resources on intimate partner homicide. Law & Society Review 37(1), 169–198. Garcia-Moreno, C. (2013). Global and Regional Estimates of Violence Against Women. World Health Organization Gracia, E. and Merlo, J. (2016) Intimate partner violence against women and the Nordic paradox. Social Science and Medicine 157, 27–30. Heise, L. and Kotsadam, A. (2015). Cross-national and multilevel correlates of partner violence: an analysis of data from population-based surveys. The Lancet Global Health 3(6), 332–340. Heise, L., et al. (1999). Ending violence against women. Population Reports, December Population Information Program, Center for Communication Programs, The Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health. Home Office (2012). Cross-government definition of domestic violence: a consultation summary of responses. London: The Home Office. Ingala Smith, K. (2016). 150 UK women killed by men, or where a man was/is the primary suspect, in 2014. [Online] Available at https://kareningalasmith.com/counting-dead-women/2014 [accessed 26 August 2016]. Kelly, L. (1988). Surviving Sexual Violence. London: Polity Press. Kelly, L. (2016). The conducive context of violence against women and girls. Discover Society, Issue 30, London. Krug, E.G., Mercy, J.A., Dahlberg, L.L. and Zwi, A.B. (2002). The world report on violence and health. The Lancet 360(9339), 1083–1088. 169

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McLellan, M. (1983). Feminist Mary Daly returns to BC. The Heights, Boston College, 3 October. [Online] Available at: http://newspapers.bc.edu/cgi-bin/bostonsh?a=d&d=bcheights19831003.2.16. Manjoo, R. (2012). Report of the Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, Its Causes and Consequences. United Nations, Human Rights Council. Radford, J. and Russell, D. (1992). Femicide: The Politics of Women Killing. New York: Twayne. Russell, D.E.H. (2008). Femicide: politicizing the killing of females. [Online] Available at: www.igwg. org/igwg_media/femicide/russell.doc[accessed 6 April 2015]. Russell, D.E.H. (2011). The origins and importance of the term femicide. [Online] Available at: www. dianarussell.com/origin_of_femicide.html[accessed 30 March 2015]. Small Arms Survey (2012). Femicide: A Global Problem, Number 14. Yllö, K. (1984). The status of women, marital equality, and violence against wives: a contextual analysis. Journal of Family Issues 5(3), 307–320.

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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 frameworks 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 neoliberalism. 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 individualistic, 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 international 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’ 171

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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, shaping 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 communities. 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 conversation, 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 antirape 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 172

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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 blissfully 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 historical 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 politics 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, conceptualising 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 generalised 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 conceptualisation 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 feminists 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 practice 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 heterosexuality. 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 representation 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 173

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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, sexuality 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 subjectivity, 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 heterosexualised, 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 education 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 disruptive, 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 disruption, the sexist ‘lad culture’ which has been identified recently in the social and sexual spheres 174

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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 highprofile 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 feminism, 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 numbers 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 middleclass ‘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 counterpoise 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 175

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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, nonbinary 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 representation, 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 laddism 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 adaptability 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 sensationalist 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 middleclass 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 victimisation 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 dominating 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 176

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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 neoliberal 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 suggested 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 patriarchal and neoliberal rationalities of the institution. A retribution-restitution approach which is itself embedded in these frameworks may be entirely inappropriate in this context. 177

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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 injustices. 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 provision 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 relationship between a rather one-dimensional gender theory and neoliberal projects which, in protecting 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 sexual 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 multiple 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 particular 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). 178

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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 violence 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 perpetrators 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 sexual 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 183

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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 typically 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 variable 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 possible 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 antidepressants 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 limitations 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 inconsistently 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. 184

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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 invisible. 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 intimate 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 violence 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% psychological 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 prevalence 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 attempting 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 185

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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 ‘serious 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 indicated 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 victim. 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

All ages Victims 60+ Proportion

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Rape

Assault by penetration

Total

74,036 474 0.6%

13,194 181 1.4%

87,230 655 0.75%

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UK have also focused on female victims. Only one study has looked specifically at sexual violence 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 impairment (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 flashbacks (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 187

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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, generational 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 practitioners 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 188

Violence against older women

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 neighbours 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 enabling factors. Motivating factors were generally based on realisations or life events and underpinned 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 fundamental 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 mortality 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 wanting 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

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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 perpetrator 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 consistent 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%), however 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. 190

Violence against older women Table 14.2  Location of assaults Location

n

%

Victim home Perpetrator home Victim and perpetrator home Care home, hospital or nursing home Public outside Public indoor Other

299 38 36 117 26 9 16

54% 7% 6% 21% 4% 2% 3%

Most of the offences occurred in the victim’s home, however the second most common location 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

74 41

91

33

87

76 48

29

7

14

16
80%

51–80%

26–50%

10–25%