LEC 9 - Sexual and Gender-Based violence Flashcards
What is the difference between Sex and Gender?
The terms “sex” and “gender” are often used interchangeably, but they actually refer to different concepts:
- Sex refers to the biological differences between males and females, such as chromosomes, hormones, and reproductive organs. For example, males typically have one X and one Y chromosome, while females have two X chromosomes.
- Gender, on the other hand, refers to the roles, behaviors, activities, and expectations that society considers appropriate for men and women. It is a social and cultural construct that can vary widely across different cultures and over time.
What were early theories on sexual and gender-based violence?
- Private Problem
Domestic violence as disturbance
Early rape laws
- Emphasis on property like aspect of chasity
- Women put on trial to prove they resisted
- Protect elite against others - Psychopathology (Mental Illness)
Dominant explanation in most sexual violence research until the 1970 - Victim Precipation Theories
* Particularly popular in the 1960s and 1970s
* Women as (partially) accountable for domestic violence
How did the feminist movement see sexual violence?
- Late 1970s: shift from sexual liberation to sexual oppression as focus of feminist
movements - Greater sexual openness and acceptance of
sexuality brought sexual abuse into sight - Rape became one of the central issues of the 1970’s feminist movement
How did feminists criticise previous theories on sexual and gender based violence?
- 1970s: feminist understanding of violence developed against:
- Victim-precipitation theory
- Violence as psychopathology
**Main critiques:
*** Structural gender inequalities not taken into account
* Unbalanced focus on point of view of aggressor leads to “victim blaming” (Ryan
1971)
What is the meaning behind “Violence against women”
- Term popularized in the 1970s
Most important point: Rape is about power. A process of intimidation of man to keep women under control. - Susan Brownmiller (1975):
- Structuralist perspective: analyze causes of violence beyond level of
individual interaction
“Rape is not about sex. Rape is about power.”
Violence against women = “a conscious process of intimidation by which
all men keep all women in a state of fear” - Susan Griffin (1971), “Rape: The All-american Crime.”
“Rape and the myths built around it – only ‘bad girls’ are raped ; rape only happens when women go outside alone – are tools used by men to control women.
What is the meaning behind “Rape Culture”
Widespread cultural practice of blaming victims.
“Just as under other total ideologies, control in patriarchal society would be imperfect, even inoperable, unless it had the rule of force to rely upon, both in emergencies, and as an ever-presentinstrument of intimidation” (Millett 1972, 43)
“That the basic elements of rape are involved in all heterosexual relationships may explain why men often identify with the offender in this crime” (Griffin 1971, 29)
What is the “Pure Victim”
Constructing the “pure victim” against victim-blaming
* Establish seriousness and severity of domestic
and sexual violence
* Garner public sympathy and counter victim-blaming
- Construct sympathetic image of “pure victim”
- Passive and not violent themselves (except in self-defense)
- Wives who adhere to traditional gender roles
- Economically and emotionally dependent on abusers
- Fearful of abuse
What is the continuum of violence against women?
A sociological definition of violence needs to include both **the use of force and its threat to both compel or constrain women to behave or not to behave in given ways” **
What is the Shadow Effect?
Continuum from the victim’s point of view
- Fear of sexual attack influences all
aspects of women’s lives - Sexual assault as “master offense”
among women, that heightens fear
of other victimizations - Fear of sexual assault substantially
increases variance in fear of
personal crime
What are the Sex Wars of the 1980’s?
The 1980s sex wars, also known as the feminist sex wars or porn wars, were a series of debates within the feminist movement about sexuality and sexual expression.
Main divide in Anti-Prostitution and Pro-Sex Worker and Anti-pornography and Pro-pornography movement.
Anti Prostitution
Connecting rape to prostitution.
- “Perception of sexual access as an adjunct of male power and privilege”
- “Theory of aggressive male domination over women as a natural right”
Pro-sex-worker
Sex work as labor
Anti-porn
Radical feminism
* Man-dominant paradigm: for men by men
*“Pornography is the theory, rape is the practice” (Morgan 1980, 182)
Pro-porn
Sex-positive
What is the role of street harrassment in sexual and gender-based violence?
- Expansion of societal and legal definitions of violence
- Street harassment and the “shadow effect” (Ferraro 1996)
- Reminds women and LGBTQI+ people of their vulnerability in public space
- Street harassment explains paradox: while most victimization
surveys indicate that women are less frequently victim of violence
than men, their fear of attack is much higher
What were the dominant images of domestic abuse before and after the 90’s.
What is the role of bystander intervention?
- Increasingly central in sexual violence prevention
- Shifts responsibility of individual victims, as well as perpetrators, to the broader
community - Challenging broader cultural norms (Banyard et al. 2004)
- Combat “rape culture” that condones or ignores violence
- Informal justice response
- Linked to reduced levels of sexual violence (Coker et al. 2016)
What explains bystander (non-)intervention?
- Ability to identify sexual violence or harassment: street harassment particularly
hard to distinguish - Adherence to rape myths
- Diffusion of responsibility (“bystander effect”)
- Bystander skills
- Perceived risk or embarrassment
