SEXUAL VIOLENCE, JUSTICE, AND THE STATE

A note on terminology
●  'Sexual violence’ is an umbrella term that acknowledges that there are a
range of experience that fit within the category.

●  ’Sexual assault’ fits within this, and is legally defined in various criminal law
jurisdictions (see lecture one for this week!)

●  ‘Victim-survivor’, ‘victim/survivor’, ‘survivor/victim’ are terms that many

sexual violence scholars use to acknowledge that range of ways that people who
experience sexual violence might identify with that experience (see also, Koss
2010).

Individualising sexual violence

Psychological and trauma framings of sexual violence

Psychological approaches: offending behaviours

Research suggests that sex offenders have:
●  Poor parental attachment
●  Greater perceived parental rejection
●  Low self-worth & loneliness
●  Intimacy deficits
●  Lack of empathy towards others
See also, the Mann & Hollin (2007) reading for this week that suggests
individual offenders’ reasons for offending should align with particular forms of
treatment.
-Individual sex offenders presented reasons for these offenders and the states
response should be to provide psychological treatment.

Psychological positivist perspective:

“Marshall (1989, 1993) hypothesized that poor parental attachments in
childhood lead to either emotional or social loneliness, with the latter
having greater implications for social interaction processes, and to
lowered self esteem or anxiety regarding perceived self- worth. These
two types of deficits in later functioning are said to result from the child
not learning the appropriate "rules of behaviour" and the typical role
expectations for interpersonal relationships. The resulting feelings of
chronic loneliness and low self-worth may lead to other problems in adult
relationships and interpersonal functioning, including intimacy deficits
and extreme frustration.” (Stinson et al, 2008: 46-47)
In focusing on psychological deficits, we miss some of the other potential
causes such as societal structures that can potentially lead to an
individual to engage in sex offending.

Trauma lenses and victim-survivors

Trauma and Recovery
• Burgess and Holstromm (1974) coin “rape trauma syndrome.”
• Brison (2002) suggests that the self is “undone by violence, but is capable
of being remade in connection with others.”
• Gavey and Schmidt (2011) suggest that a ‘trauma of rape discourse’
presents a range of scripts about experiences of sexual violence

• It is traumatising beyond our comprehension

• It is scarring
• It must be recovered from through ‘professional help’

• Victim-survivors are individually responsible for their recovery, state will

set up recovery centres, but victim I responsible for their own recovery.
• See also Herman (1992)

This pathologises sexual violence as a medical/psychological issue rather than

a crime/injustice
Medicalises women’s misery and positions the problem within the women,
who’s reasonable responses to trauma are decontextualised as psychiatric
symptoms.
This framing of sexual violence presents it as a medical rather than criminal
issue, becomes a dominant framing for victim survivors who already don’t want
to report to the criminal justice system and instead psychological options are
presented, women encouraged to pursue professional help rather than justice

Psychological and trauma lenses: individualising sexual violence?

●  Focus on individual & pathological models of sex offending
●  Focus on trauma of experiencing sexual violence that pathologises individual
victim-survivors as ‘damaged’, needing ‘treatment’ rather than justice
●  Vera-Gray (2019) comments that rape crisis centres are increasingly
individualised
●  Limited empirical research & focus on convicted sex offenders and reported
sexual violence (problems with this?) We don’t know about those who do not
report, or who are not reported about. No report = no state response.
●  Doesn’t explain how and why offenders develop these ‘distorted’ beliefs
about sex (Stinson et al, 2008)
●  Are these beliefs actually distorted? Or, are these products of society and
culture
●  What about the broader social, cultural and structural context?
Feminist approaches to sexual violence
Continuum models, gender- based theory, ecological models

Some feminist approaches…

Continuum of sexual violence (Kelly, 1987,1988)

-“All forms of abuse, coercion and force that women experience from men”
(1987, p.48).

-The continuum is non- linear, acts at one end do not necessarily have “greater
negative effects” than acts at the other end (1988, p.76). Eg. Cat calling
—————> Rape
may have same effects.

Second wave feminist theories

-Brownmiller (1975): rape is structural, affects women as a class. Gendered,
binary assumptions about SV.

-MacKinnon (1989): rape is symptomatic of heteropatriarchy. Constructs of sex,

women essentially belong to men who them have right to their bodies,
constructs women as being objects of men.

-Limitations?

Gender Inequality?
-Gender inequality has become a popular framing in contemporary government
and policy.

-Organisations such as VicHealth and Our Watch note that violence against
women (inc. sexual violence) stems from normative gender roles.
Idea that men and women have particular expectations placed on them in terms
of gender norms, which leads towards violence against women occurring. How
society condones sexual violence.

Ecological models: a whole society approach?

See screenshot in uni folder labelled ‘crim eco model’

Considering rape culture

Cultural scaffolding and ‘grey-area’ sexual violence

Cultural Scaffolding and Rape Myths

What is rape culture?
Gavey (2005): a social and cultural “scaffolding”“The divide between rape and
what was once ‘just sex’ has well and truly begun to crumble. Rape is no longer
rare. It is almost ordinary ...everyday, taken-for-granted, normative forms of
heterosexuality work as a cultural scaffolding for rape” (2005, p.1-2).
Divide between rape and sex has begun to crumble, blurred lines.

Some typical rape myths

●  Stranger rape is “real rape” Media framings- conceptualising ‘stranger rape’
ideal perpetrators
However rape within dating relationships is seen as a lesser form of SV.

●  Women are victims and men are perpetrators (binary myths)

Function to deny victimhood to males.
●  Sexual violence is the victim-survivor’s fault Society often blames victim-
survivors for what they are wearing, whether they had consumed alcohol, etc

● Gender norms around sex, dating and consent often lead to blaming victim-
survivors
For instance, in rape trials victim survivors are questioned on promiscuity,
impacting how the jury will perceive them, so the conviction is linked to
sexuality and how much sex they have.

What does this scaffolding produce?

Grey-area sexual violence
“Sexual grey areas...the murky interface of sex and coercion”
(Gunnarsson, 2018, p.6).
Question or not if it was just sex, or sexual violence.
Rape myths are normative scripts and if survivors don’t fit within them,
they are denied justice or victim status or particular experiences being
enough to constitute ‘real rape’.

#MeToo and Aziz Ansari

As some of the commentary around the Ansari incident illustrates,
attempting to construct very firm boundaries around what sexual
violence ‘is’ suggests that sexual violence can be easily delineated from
non-violence (or in this case, consensual sexual activity). Under this line
of thinking, what sexual violence ‘is’ tends to be informed by
stereotypical notions, often referred to as rape myths. These myths and
stereotypes typically paint ‘real’ sexual violence as requiring the use of
physical force or overt violence, as perpetrated by a monstrous stranger
and as involving penetration” (Fileborn and Phillips, 2019, p.103).

The state, ‘justice’ and alternatives for victim-survivors

Victim survivors have negative perceptions of the justice system and this
often leads to a lack of will to report their experience

Justice for victim-survivors?

“The wishes and needs of victims are often diametrically opposed to the
requirements of legal proceedings...Victims need an opportunity to tell
their stories in their own way, in a setting of their choice; the court requires
them to respond to a set of yes-or-no questions that break down any
personal attempt to construct a coherent and meaningful narrative. Victims
often need to control or limit their exposure to specific reminders of the
trauma; the court requires them to relive the experience. Victims often fear
direct confrontation with their perpetrators; the court requires a face-to-
face confrontation between a complaining witness and the accused.
Indeed, if one set out intentionally to design a system for provoking
symptoms of traumatic stress, it might look very much like a court of law”
(Herman, 2005, p.574).

Victim survivors need knowledge that they will have a voice and be believed.
Need to reconsider the role of the state in administering victim justice.

Alternatives?
Restorative justice

Restorative justice can provide opportunities for victim-survivors and offenders

to conference and seek outcomes not provided through adversarial justice.
Allows for needs and wants of victims and offenders to come together and
provide mutual solutions.

“[Restorative justice] is much more likely than the present system to provide for
a balance between the needs and rights of both offenders and victims” (Hudson,
1998, p.241)

Transformative justice

Transformative justice sees crime as an opportunity to build a more caring,

more inclusive, more just community. Safety doesn’t lie in bigger fences,
harsher prisons, more police, or locking ourselves in till we ourselves are
prisoners. Safety and security — real security — come from building a
community where because we have cared for and included all, that community
will be there for us, when trouble comes to us. For trouble comes to us all, but
trouble itself is an opportunity (Morris, 2000, p.21).

More of a community based response rather than individual based. Find ways to
have compassion and look for a longer term solution for sexual offending rather
than just locking people up.

Decolonising justice

What “justice” and justice system are we invested in?

Consider the role of colonisation in justice, and how justice might be

decolonised (Blagg & Anthony, 2019; Ryan, 2019). Extension of the colonial
state.

To do this, the relationship between justice and the state may need to change.

These types of crimes are highly emotional for both the victim and wider
society. We attach very particular meanings to SV and it evokes in us a need for
a populist response, a desire for vengeance and a law and order response.

Theres a need for us to balance community needs, victim survivor needs

(opportunity to be heard and believed, perpetrator to be held accountable and
for story to be acknowledged by both broader community and offender).
Balance needs of offenders too; rehabilitation, treatment, what other approaches
could we take? Could they be more community based?

Overall, these alternatives advocate for a range of ways to tell the story,
acknowledges offenders and community may have those needs too.

Must consider justice as extending beyond the state, and how we could better
balance everyones needs so everyone gets what they want and need from
reporting or going through some sort of justice process.