Sharon Hayes

Why do they Keep Going Back? Exploring Women's Discursive Experiences of Intimate Partner Abuse

This paper explores how different discourses of intimate partner abuse (IPA) may impact womens decisions to stay or leave their partners. More specifically, we ask: 1) what narratives are available to and used by heterosexual and non-heterosexual female survivors of IPA to make sense of their experiences? 2) How might these narratives impact womens ability, or lack thereof, to disengage from their abusive partners? Prior literature suggests that there are four possible discourses on which women may draw including psychological (victim and offender), gendered political, and the narrative of romantic love. Analysis of discussion forums from online social networking sites revealed that while each of these discourses are utilised by women, scripts of romantic love may provide the strongest motivation for accepting and maintaining an abusive relationship. In contrast, understanding the psychological motivations of their abusers may empower female survivors to extricate themselves from the violence.

Female Sex Offenders and Pariah Femininities: Rewriting the Sexual Scripts

This paper aims to analyze the way in which the media reports of sex offences tend to reinforce traditional sexual scripts and gender identities. Compared to investigations into male sex offenders, female sex offending is relatively underresearched, undertheorized, and misunderstood (Hayes and Carpenter, 2013). We argue that the media’s reinforcement of traditional scripts has hindered the development of awareness of sex offending by women, depicting them as aberrations, that is, as “female pariahs.” As Harris (2010) notes, female sex crimes cannot be explained by male theories of crime. To address this issue, we examined 487 media reports from Australia and the United Kingdom and found that, as key stakeholders in public debate, the media does indeed play a crucial role in shaping the public perceptions of female sex offenders as aberrations and pariahs. This distorted view influences approaches to understanding and acknowledging sex offending by women as well as hindering the safe and timely reporting of offences by victims.

Sexuality in a criminal justice curriculum: a study of student conceptualisations of gay identity

Abstract Heteronormative discourses provide the most common lens through which sexuality is understood within university curricula. This means that sexuality is discussed in terms of categories of identity, with heterosexuality accorded primacy while all ‘others’ are indeed ‘othered’. This article draws on research carried out by the authors in a core first year university ethics class, in which a fictional text was introduced with the intention of unpacking these discourses. An ethnographic study was undertaken where both students and teachers engaged in discussions over, and personal written reflections on, the textual content. In reporting the results of that study this article uses a post-structural framework to identify how classroom and textual discourses might be used to break down socially constructed categories of sexuality and students’ conceptualisations of non-heterosexual behaviour. It was found that engaging in discussion in the context of the fictional text allowed some students to begin to recognise their own heteronormative views and engage in an informed critique of them.

Sexism and Misogyny

This chapter examines contemporary constructions of masculinity and femininity and how they relate to sexual assault of women. While much progress has been made over the past decades thanks to feminist scholars’ and activists’ efforts to counter traditional gender stereotypes, several recent events in the UK, North America and Australia suggest that Western society is experiencing a backlash against feminism. While it has been argued that our post-modern society has moved on to become post- feminist, these recent events, among others, challenge the commonly held belief that we no longer “need” feminism. The first event involves what is called “Freshers’ Week” in universities across the UK and North America. Freshers’ Week is an orientation period for new students at tertiary institutions, characterized by a range of university and student-run activities aimed at making new students, who may be experiencing their first view of adult life in a new city, feel more at home.

Recovering from Romantic Terrorism

This fourth and final chapter explores the journey to recovery from romantic terrorism, the ongoing impact and strategies for regaining identity and subjectivity. The authors suggest that one of the key strategies for raising awareness in victims is a form of guided narrative therapy, which helps the victims explore their experiences while shedding light on the nature of abuse and highlighting the impracticality of trying to “help” or “fix” the abusive partner. Awareness is the only the first step, however. The process of recovery may be long, especially for those victims who share children with their offenders. Recovery for these women requires a suite of restorative practices aimed at rebuilding the victim’s sense of self and place in the world. On the back of these strategies, this chapter also makes suggestions for restorative practices in policy as well as in domestic violence service provision and legislation.

Profile of a “Victim”

In this chapter, the authors begin their ethnographic journey. Their experiences are outlined in the third person, partly as story, and partly as thematic illustration of the tactics of abuse within the context of romantic love described in Chapter 2. First they explore the making of a victim, then move on to discuss how the abusive relationship is maintained, addressing the “big question” of “why does she stay?”. The illustration of tactics is interspersed with psychological and sociological analyses, which illuminate the juxtaposition of terrorism and domestic violence. They conclude with some poignant observations about the social construction of domestic violence in the public sphere.

Tools and Tactics

Coercive control includes, but goes beyond, an examination of physical violence by considering a plethora of on-going non-physical methods intentionally employed by perpetrators of romantic terrorism to maintain power and control over their victims. This chapter explores some of these power and control tactics under the following headings: (1) Threats and intimidation; (2) Humiliation, degradation and emotional unkindness; (3) Restricting personal territory and freedom; and (4) Crazy making. These categories were constructed from a range of models, including methods of coercive control identified by Stark (2007), perpetrator tactics highlighted by Jones (2000) in her comparative work on terrorism/torture and intimate partner violence and tactics identified by Murphy (2014, 2009, 2002) in her in-depth interviews with perpetrators and victims of intimate partner violence in Australia and New Zealand.

From Distortion to Abuse

This chapter seeks to explore the relation between discourses of romantic love and women’s acceptance of abuse in relationships. Elsewhere, I have argued that relationship abuse is not only a problem for women in heterosexual relationships (Hayes and Jeffries 2013) and there is much research demonstrating that female victimization by both male and female partners occurs across the spectrum of sexualities (e.g. see Mouzos and Makkai 2004; Pitts et al. 2006; Johnson et al. 2007; Ball and Hayes 2010). Domestic abuse has negative and long-lasting costs to female survivors including physical ill health, increased levels of anxiety, depression, fear, feelings of incompetence, eating and sleeping disorders, increased misuse of drugs and alcohol, loss of self esteem, elevated feelings of insecurity, general loss of quality of life and damaged life opportunities. (Hayes and Jeffries 2013)

Sexual Predation and Gendered Norms

This chapter explores the concept of the sexual predator and how it relates to gendered subjectivities and love distortion. Contemporary discourses suggest that women cannot be predators and men cannot be victims. Females are almost always victims in the public eye; males can only be victims if they are children — and the line between childhood and manhood is very fine indeed. Transition between childhood and manhood is often crossed fairly abruptly. Males tend to go from being little asexual boys to pubescent young men in a very short space of time, their deepening voice, facial and body hair, and increased bulk a clear delineation of manhood and an indication of readiness for sexual activity (Driscoll 2002; Care Notes 2013). Females on the other hand, tend to transition to womanhood much more slowly, equivocating back and forth over a number of years. A girl never becomes a woman in any univocal or unidirectional sense. Feminine adolescence is not a transition from one state to another but a contingent and in some senses reversible movement. (Driscoll 2002: 198)

From Disney to Distortion

This chapter explores how media depictions of femininity and romantic love impact culture and influence the way we think about gender and relationships. The mass marketing of films such as the Twilight series and the Disney Princesses franchise, for example, illustrates how seemingly innocuous storylines and characters idealize pain, tragedy, and sacrifice as necessary and acceptable components of romantic love. This chapter will explore how such phenomena distort our perceptions and expectations of intimate relationships, creating cultural narratives around the inevitability of, and transformative power of, abuse. This chapter also analyses media influence on young girls and boys, especially with respect to their self-esteem, and perceptions of body image and gender normativity. It will explore media representations of gender and gendered bodies and how these contribute to the development of hegemonic stereotypes. The term “young girls and boys” includes pre-school, pre-pubescent and pubescent children.