Gender Based Violence

SOC296: lecture 4 Gender based violence Structural Dimensions of violent crimes recap o Most likely victims of violent crime: o Men (most likely by a stranger) o Adults aged 16 to 24 o Mixed or multiple ethnic background (5.8%) (White 1.8%, Asian/Asian British 1.2%, or Other ethnic group, 1.2%) o Full-time students o Renters compared to home owners (2.7% of social renters and 3.0% of private renters compared with 1.2% of home owners) o Adults in low income households (less than £10,000) compared with households with higher incomes o Most likely offenders of violent crime: o Men (81%) o Most likely between 25 and 39 (in just under half of violent incidents, 46%) o What violence, looks like, who experiences it the most, very robust o Problematic= under reported, could do these things differently when asking what violence is Masculinities and Violence o “First, it is in no way a contentious claim that men commit the majority of recorded and unrecorded interpersonal violent crime. And second to this, neither is it ‘contentious to claim that the majority of these men come from working-class, marginalised or excluded social locations’ o … The validity of these two statements is borne out by a large amount of empirical evidence: men are far more likely than women to commit violence… o Though paradoxically, these trends are mirrored when one looks at violent victimisation, as socio-economically marginalised men are more likely to be victims of violence, particularly in public settings” (Ellis, 2016: 2-3)= these are the ones affected by capitalism, and find it difficult to cope in these conditions. o Violence is identified as a mechanism which is used to define men o Ellis Does not pay attention to gender violence, especially against women, known for not paying attention to gender, private spaces, or women See also Ellis (2019): rising violent crime, austerity and the neoliberal economyfocuses on the experience of working class men and their experience with working with each other, what it means to be “a man” Defining gender-based violence See also: Walby, et al. (2017) – chapters 3 and 4 See also: World Health Organisation (2009: 3) – section 1 o Walby, et al. (2017) o An aerial view of the problem: women and girls experience gender-based violence at a far great rate (internationally) than men. SOC296: lecture 4 o “violence against women and girls is also called ‘gender-based violence’. It is rooted in inequality between the sexes; it is overwhelmingly perpetrated by men against women. o Importantly, we must note that it takes many different forms including: o sexual violence; o domestic violence; o human trafficking and modern slavery; o forced marriage; o female genital mutilation and; o so-called ‘honour’ violence.” o All gender based violence is against the law o Understand action, intension, harm and non-consent o understand that victimisation is not a single event, it is a a series of events captured over time o need a joined up thinking o (Refuge, 2019) Sexual offences o First complete overview of sexual offending as derived from a combination of recorded data from across the criminal justice system: o Crime Survey of England and Wales o Police Recorded Crime o Police National Computer (PNC) o Court Proceedings Database (prosecutions, convictions and sentencing) o Offender management Data (i.e. prisons) o Probation Service o Lack of data recorded o Overall overview that estimates gender violence o Table 2.2= Women more likely to be victims of sexual violence more than men o Table 2.2= Looking at a different type of data set and defining violence different gives us a different perception of violence. Redefining what violence is o Females between 16-19, decreasing with age; o Females from lower income households, fulltime students and the unemployed; o Females with limiting disabilities or illnesses, or those economically inactive due to long term illness; o Prevalence rate higher in ‘city living’, flats, maisonettes, urban areas and rented accommodation; o Higher for those visiting the pub once or more per week; or a night club three times per month; o Highest victimisation rate those visiting a club four times a month. SOC296: lecture 4 o This type of accounting should be looked at more closely, not about vicitim claiming, not about women putting own bodies under surveillance, should be about people not perpetrating violences and offences, not about blaming people for where they are, we should be looking at how to prevent it o (Mathieson, 2013) o (Flatley, 2016) o Increase in police recorded sexual offences by 37% (March 2015) o 88,106 police recorded sexual offences, highest since 2002 (introduction of National Recording Crime Standards) o Overall increase in recorded offences of rape by 41% (29,234) o Overall increases in other sexual offences by 35% (58,872) o Rise in historical sexual offences post Operation Yew Tree (2012) o Independent Panel Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (Gray and Watt, 2012) Defining domestic abuse o Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act (2004) “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. The abuse can encompass, but is not limited to: Psychological; Physical; Sexual; Financial; Emotional” o Serious Crime Act 2015 (Section 76) “Domestic abuse isn’t always physical. Coercive control is an act or a pattern of acts of assault, threats, humiliation and intimidation or other abuse that is used to harm, punish, or frighten their victim. This controlling behaviour is designed to make a person dependent by isolating them from support, exploiting them, depriving them of independence and regulating their everyday behaviour” (Women’s Aid, 2018) o See research by Barlow; Walklate; Fitz-Gibbon o Keep in mind the issue of cohesive control= attendant crime to domestic violence/abuse. Look at charlotte barlow Gendered dimensions of violence (CSEW) o Women were more likely to be a victim of domestic violence than men (0.4% compared with 0.2%) o Domestic violence was more common among separated adults (1.9%) compared with married/civil partnered adults (0.1%) o Stranger violence was more likely to affect adults who were single (1.5%) than those who were married /civil partnered (0.6%) o The large majority of incidents of domestic violence occurred around the home (67%), compared with incidents of stranger violence which were most likely to occur in an ‘other’ location (32%) and in pubs or clubs (28%); incidents of acquaintance violence were most likely to take place at work (30%) o Young women from low income households three times more likely to be victims of domestic violence o Domestic violence more likely to take place within the home and by women o Spaces such aa the home may be seen as the safest places. However, for women it can be the most dangerous place SOC296: lecture 4 o o o o o o o o o o Intimate Violence (CSEW) Intimate violence self completion module (est. 2005): proportion of 16 – 59 year old Domestic abuse (non-sexual (partner or family), sexual and stalking) in last year 8.2% female = 1.3 million 4% male = 600,000 Partner abuse (any type) in last year (2015-16) 27.1% women = 4.5 million 13.2% men = 2.2 million Proportions remain the same (6.1%) between last year and previous year Proportion fluctuated between 6.1% and 7% since 2009, but ‘underlying trend’ is downwards o Women most likely to experience domestic abuse o 12.6% of women aged 16 – 19 were victims of domestic abuse (2015-16) o NOT LIMITED TO THAT PARTICULAR AGE RANGE Under-recording sexual (and violent) offences o Crime Recording: Making the Victim Count (HMIC, 2014) o 1 in 5 offences (19%) that should have been recorded as crimes were not o Great levels of under-recording for sexual and violent offences o 1 in 4 (26%) of sexual offences not being recorded as crime (not been recorded as they should have been) o Variable (bad) practice for recording sexual crimes and crimes against vulnerable people across police forces o 1 in 3 (33%) violent offences not being recorded as crime o Recording practices of different acts of violence and crime within England and Wales Gender-based violence and criminology o “Women are not only invisible actors in criminological literature; they also constitute an absence as victims. They are unrecognised victims of criminal acts and enterprises (such as rape and prostitution) but also of the criminal law, penal policy and criminological theories…= women as victims in the CJS have tried to engage and been rendered as invisible for the things they have been reported because of the hegemonic masculinity. o Discpipline of criminiology should also be held for account here o Even the actual occurrence of of wife-beating and rape has been largely ignored in criminological literature until very recently. o This is perhaps because women have been reticent to complain about the assaults they have suffered, knowing quite well they would receive little sympathy from the police or legal system, but as both offences are well known to occur with some frequency the silence of criminologists on the subject is strange indeed (Smart, 1977: 180) o Role women have with the discipline of sociology and criminology o Study of feminism is significantly displaced SOC296: lecture 4 Privatisation of violence o Privatisation of violence (see Cooney, 2003): o Violence becomes contained within intimate relationships from premodern to modern societies o Shift of where violence takes pave the most turns into privatised spaces o Violence has not declined over time, just become privatised, less state intervention, violence between non state actors o Shifted from public domain to private domain, consistent form of social arrangements o This shifts proportionally from being stranger-based violence to violence experienced from an intimate other (i.e. spouse, family member, etc.) o Ellis did not account for this, despite violence going down, it has shifted to different places o Potential causes (Ray, 2011, chapter 6): o Informalisation (qua Elias, 1987)= more privatised consumption in the home, social relations have revaluated themselves over time o Increasing equality – ‘new castration’= men are threatened by equality as it effects hegemonic masculinity and power o Violence emerging and power becomes under threat o Maintaining male domination, threatened masculinity and what it means to be “a real man” or show “manliness” o Responses to its seriousness: o Second wave feminism (1970s onwards) o Women’s Refuges – making the invisible, visible o Women’s Aid – increased political visibility o Feminist scholars (i.e. Smart; Dobash and Dobash; Messershmidt; Heidensohn; Walklate; Stanko; Carlen; Chesney-Lind; Renzetti) o Expression of male entitlement Gender, violence and social order o “Violence is seen as a powerful means of subordinating women, thus serving as a key mechanism of social control… o Violence against women is widespread, it exists throughout the class structure and is viewed by both men and women as a means of control” (Mooney, 2000: 216 o Violence takes place at all levels of the social structure o “…if we examine the class position of the man, we find domestically violent men occur in all sections of the class structure. Professional and working-class men were equally as likely to be violent to their partners (lower-middle class men less so)… o …however, professional women are likely to be more able to get out of a relationship before it becomes violent…less likely to have children which would bind the relationship…more likely to define mental cruelty as domestic violence than other groups of women, mental cruelty being found to be a feature in the early stages of a violent relationship before the onset of physical violence…also more likely to move out early in that relationship… o Such findings do not corroborate the realist notion of a class link, which is a function of displaced economic deprivation amongst lower-class men” (Mooney, 2000: 219) SOC296: lecture 4 Gendered first- institutional and institutionalised barriers o • Rise in historical sexual offences post Operation Yew Tree (2012) Independent Panel Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (Gray and Watt, 2012) o “For Savile’s victims, fear, shame and self-blame and underpinned by rape myths, silencing agents and authorities all ensuring poor reporting and recording and significant levels of attrition as attempts to expose and speak out fell on deaf ears” (Davies, 2014: 32). o Victim blaming – vulnerable victims poorly understood (and blamed) o ‘Gatekeepers’ and ‘good victims’ – sifting in the CJ process as a barrier o Hegemonic masculinity in place - institutionalised, socio-structural and cultural factors o Institutionalised denial of victimhood o (See also Silvestri and Crowther-Dowey, 2008, chapter 4) o Put gender at the front, start to see things that may have been side lined o CJS will try to blame women for the victimisation that they have witnessed, putting themselves in the vulnerable position. o Victim blaming, people may not come forward because they believe that they may be blamed Preventing gender-based violence o Walby, et al. (2017): o Conceptualising gender in measuring gender-based violence: o Gender (in)visibility: o ‘Neutralising’ gender and making women invisible o Not there in the first place, if it is there cannot be biased o Becomes unidimensional o Focus on women: o Dedicating recognition at the risk of essentialising ‘women’ and ‘men’ as categories o Gender mainstreaming: o Disaggregating gendered dimensions of harm within existing or new data o The purpose? “… to combat violence against women and men” (Walby, et al., 2017: 159) o Sex of the vicitim, sex of the perpetrator, domestic context which it has taken place, violence takes place in context all the time, sexual aspect to the violence, it overlaps into sexual violence, different motivations for violence o Combat violence for men and women o o o o o o Preventing gender-based violence World Health Organisation (2009) – chapter 5: Promotion of gender equality within social, cultural, political and economic life: Education / School Community interventions Media “When gender roles become more flexible, most women enjoy greater power, status and economic independence and the threat of violence against them decreases. It is important, therefore, to engage both men and women and boys and girls in SOC296: lecture 4 interventions that promote gender equality and prevent violence against women.” (WHO, 2009: 13) o Challenge male attitudes towards gender norms Summary o Although men are statistically the most likely to be both the victims and perpetrators of ‘violent crime’ we must not let this distract our analysis of ‘violence’ merely to the interactions of men o Violence against women and girls is ubiquitous and frequently rendered as a ‘privatised’ problem, particularly within criminology o The social ordering of violence against women can be evidenced by unpacking publically available crime data which illustrates (underreported and) disproportionate experiences of sexual and domestic violence experienced by women and girls, most frequently perpetrated by men o Some criminological approaches have established violence against women and girls as being embedded in the socioeconomic arrangement of society, so this violence is more than just about patriarchy and power, it is about social structures and economic arrangements o However, for the likes of Sylvia Walby, the way forward to prevent violence against women and men is to ‘mainstream gender’ into the ways in which gender-based violence is research using existing and new forms of data (both quantitative and qualitative)