Back to our roots and into the 21st century: why gender and feminism matter in responses to VAWG

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Back to our roots and into the 21st century why
gender and feminism matter in responses to VAWG

• Prof Liz Kelly
• Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit
• London Metropolitan University
• NE SV Conference
• November 2012

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Reflections and challenges

• Almost 40 years as a feminist
• Most working on VAWG
• Importance of roots, principles and change
• Ideas that motivate and challenge me
• Am not standing outside, but include myself in
  the questions and tensions

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Feminisms and feminists

• Minimal definition understanding womens
• subordination in order to change it theory
  and practice
• Not one but many
• The diversity of us
• In multiple spaces and locations
• Have always been argumentative
• Need to dare to ask hard questions, to know the
  uncomfortable
• New and old - ideas and practices
• More reflexive?
• Still in movement?
• Some of us now have positions of influence
• What is feminist integrity?
• How do we use the power we have?

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The second wave - 1970s

• Re-discovery of VAW
• Telling our own stories, naming and speaking,
  questioning shame and self-blame,
• The personal as political crimes of
  dominion/power
• Creativity, vision, optimism
• Creating what did not exist services that
  supported and believed women
• New ways of organising anti-hierarchy, activism
• A we violence affects all women, inviting
  women we supported to join movement

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Gender analysis and VAW

• Disproportionality in victimisation and offending
• Perpetrators usually known men
• Violence as the exercise of power and control
• Over our bodies and our sense of self and safety
• Constructs masculinity and femininity
• Female offenders access to more limited forms
  of power
• Not exceptional everyday/everynight
• safety work in our everyday routines
• Inadequate and inconsistent institutional
  responses linked to the lower status of women and
  girls
• Impunity

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VAW and womens inequality

• UN a cause and consequence of womens
  inequality
• Limits our space for action in public space,
  workplaces, families
• Lost opportunities and projects
• Symbolic meanings
• Worth less than men and other women spoiled
  identities
• Barriers to disclosure, under-reporting
• Harms - to sense of self, safety in world and
  connections to others
• Betrayals of trust, breaking social connections
• Survival and coping strategies
• violence work that victim-survivors have to do
  just to get by, let alone rebuild their lives
• Trajectories for many into drug misuse,
  criminality, mental health problems and suicide

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VAW and womens equality

• The crucial thing is the structure of society
  the fact that a woman cannot drive or travel
  without authorisation, for example gives a
  special sense of strength to the man, and this
  strength is directly connected to the violence.
  It creates a sense of immunity, that he can do
  whatever he wants, without sanction.
• Rania al Baz, 2005

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Naming and speaking

• feminism is concerned with finding a voice,
  with working against cultural exclusion (Linda
  Gordon)
• Bringing into language
• Listening and beginning from women
• Early challenges about who speaks/is heard
  race, class, sexuality disability and age came
  later

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The complexity of speaking out/silence

• In many countries violence and abuse is no longer
  unspeakable
• Some forms of violence are more speakable than
  others
• Some women have more possibilities to speak
• BUT when women and children tell, safety and
  support for them and sanctions for perpetrators
  are not always forthcoming
• AND in some contexts speaking can create further
  danger/ potential for harm
• honour based violence
• sexual violence in conflict
• May choose silence or be silenced

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Listening to women

• When you want help you dont want to be
  bombarded with bruised women, it makes you feel
  even more dirty and horrible about yourself
• We need public education with more Black and
  Asian women. If you dont see yourself , you
  dont relate to it
• Its about lifting the lid, not to be ashamed

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Problematic imagery
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The 21st century
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Changed discourses

• VAW or GBV ? hate crime, interpersonal
  violence
• Loss of gender and power analysis
• Discrimination/inequalities ? disadvantage or
  vulnerability
• Loss of intersectional analysis
• Telling/speaking ? disclosure
• Shifts focus from agency of woman to agency
  response
• Victimisation ? victimhood
• From a material reality to a stigmatised
  identity
• For professionals being a survivor is no longer a
  resource but a weakness
• Language can change what we know and speak

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Unintended consequences

• Success in placing VAW on national and
  international
• policy agendas BUT
• Dominance of domestic violence - and shift to
  family violence
• Domestic violence as crime incidents rather than
  pattern of coercive control (including in
  prevalence studies)
• The neglect of sexual violence and sexual
  harassment
• Culturalising of harmful practices
• Marginalisation of gender analysis
• Funding of services has improved quality and
  distribution
• Emphasis on standards and policies eclipsed
  engaging with women?
• Making states responsible, embracing multi-agency
• Tempered feminist voices?
• Who sets the agenda?

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Who is silencing who, about what?

• Which women can speak about what kinds of
  violence?
• How is what they say heard and responded to?
• How do we maintain feminist voices and
  perspectives?
• Within womens services
• In multi agency contexts
• Where are the voices of resistance?
• Importance of young women, survivors forums,
  blogs, Twitter naming misogyny and sexism

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Neo-liberal agendas

• The current context we have to work in
• But need critical awareness not just adaption
• From womens safety and needs to the language of
  rationing and risk
• Do we accept in principle that support needs to
  be limited as are too many cases?
• Whose assessment of risk counts?
• New public management
• Measurement and outcomes
• Evidence based policy what counts as
  evidence?
• How many anecdotes does it take to become data?
• Costs of violence - public purse rather than
  womens lives

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Knowledge claims

• Mossman et al 2009 New Zealand review of sexual
  violence services
• Three framings to establish
• Proven effective through research evidence
• Practice reflecting current trends
• Knowledge based practice which recognises
  skilled practitioners and experiences of
  survivors (pxi)
• Womens organisations should claim and value
  knowledge based evidence

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What women want

• Focus groups with 300 diverse women as part of
  consultation for Westminster government VAWG
  strategy in 2009
• Even though not asked directly many referred to
  importance of women only services
• What women valued was safety, holistic support,
  when and for as long as they need it
• Want better statutory responses AND womens
  services
• Huge challenge to maintain what we have built

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Susan Brison

• I develop and defend a view of the self as
  fundamentally relational capable of being
  undone by violence. But also of being remade in
  connection to others... Learning to fight back is
  a crucial part of this process, not only because
  it enables us to experience justified, healing
  rage... the confidence I gained from learning to
  fight back not only enabled me to walk down the
  street again, it gave me back my life... a
  changed life, a paradoxical life. (Aftermath,
  2002, pxi)
•  

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The whole place self

• From Fiona Elvines MA dissertation,
• Rape Crisis Centres - standing alongside and
  working with women
• To rebuild a self fragmented by violence
• Active participants in exploring what violence
  meant and means for their whole selves not just
  a story of abuse, a collection of effects
• The relational self
• Women only who women can relate to/with
• Create new meanings in conversation
• Rebuilding the self
• Empowerment as extending womens space for
  action, including the power to speak out, resist,
  be part of a collective movement against sexual
  violence and for womens equality

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Challenges

• Need feminisms for the 21st century
• Renew and reclaim
• Gender theory and intersectionality
• Respectful relationships in the VAW sector
• Space for debate, disagreement, change
• Practicing solidarity (Mohanty, 2003)
• Actively committing ourselves to listen louder
  to victim-survivors
• Must be a critical voice so long as violence and
  impunity continue

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At the same time

• Htun Weldon 2012
• Datasets for 70 countries over 4 decades
• It is strong autonomous feminist movements that
  have
• Challenged social norms on male dominance in the
  family, sexuality and more broadly
• Changed international norms on VAW
• Produced enduring impacts at national policy
  levels
• Through a focus on everyday politics

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