Susan D. Rose

Going Too Far? Sex, Sin and Social Policy

This paper examines the impact of the Religious Right on American social policy as it relates to family, sexuality and reproductive health. The article focuses on the current debates and practices of abstinence-until-marriage programs vs. comprehensive sex education programs – and the ways in which they reflect and affect cultural attitudes about sexuality, teenagers, parents and rights. The manuscript is based on comparative fieldwork, including participant observations in schools and interviews in the United States and Denmark with teenagers, teachers and sexuality educators. We question whether it is sex education that goes too far in promoting early and promiscuous sex or the Religious Right in attempting to censor vital information and services from young people.

Understanding Gender Based Violence: National and International Contexts edited by Nadia Aghtaie and Geetanjali Gangoli

Over the last three decades, gender violence has increasingly become recognized as a human rights issue, yet it continues to be pervasive in both developing and developed societies. Understanding Gender Based Violence: National and International Contexts, edited by Nadia Aghtaie and Geetanjali Gangoli, offers a range of short essays concerning gender-based violence in the United Kingdom and India. All the chapters are contributed by people associated with the Centre for Gender and Violence Research (CGVR) in the School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol, United Kingdom. The introduction, by the coeditors, provides a useful overview of the key concepts and complexities of gender-based violence and the intersection of structural factors, cultural contexts, and personal identities. Subsequent chapters address various methodological and theoretical concerns related to gender violence. As is common in edited volumes, the essays are of varying quality. Some of the chapters are primarily descriptive in nature and could benefit from more specific, illuminating examples and a deeper analysis. Others are quite interesting. For example, Morgan’s critique of conflating feminist and qualitative research and her consideration of the ethics of revealing one’s own experiences when interviewing others is thoughtful and useful for beginning and veteran scholars. She considers the benefits of reciprocity in the context of qualitative interviewing, but also the potential for exploitation of vulnerable narrators. Likewise, Sardinha and Fahmy’s chapter on the process of designing survey measures that examine attitudes toward domestic violence among young people in India is very thoughtful and informative—so much so that it would have been great to include the survey in an appendix! Drawing on data from two studies—one that examines young people’s attitudes toward interpersonal violence (IPV) and the other, young men’s experience of perpetrating IPV—McCarry analyzes the ways in which hegemonic masculinity (Connell) and the coercive control of women reinforce one another. Mulvihill too examines the social construction of hegemonic masculinity as it plays out and informs parliamentary debates and policy regarding pornography in the United Kingdom. Using discourse, thematic, and what McCarry terms translational analyses of parliamentary debates and legislative clauses, she shows how gender and power are implicated in the policy-making process that continues to support men’s practice of buying sex. An excellent article by Thiara and Hague reveals the complex pattern of abuse often experienced by disabled women and the disconnect between disability services and domestic violence services. The essay makes important theoretical and empirical contributions to the need for understanding the intersectionality of these two fields and experiences. In summary, Understanding Gender Based Violence presents a number of valuable essays and should be recommended for libraries. Its limitation is that it lacks a coherent narrative as is the case in many edited volumes. Nonetheless, it is clear that the Centre for Gender and Violence Research (CGVR) is engaging scholars in important research regarding gender violence that is useful both within the context of the United Kingdom and beyond.

Trauma Narratives: Breaking the Silence of Childhood Sexual Abuse

This is a theoretical chapter that plays off of an essay by Georg Simmel, “The Adventure” It considers the ways in which trauma may be seen as the shadow-side of adventure that draws one in rather than out. The research literature on trauma and gender violence and excerpts from memoirs inform this micro analysis of childhood sexual abuse narratives from the Global Clothesline Project. Breaking silence and bearing witness are central to the healing process, not only for the individual but also for the restoration of social order.

Abuse Is Not Traditional: Culture and Colonization

This chapter provides a comparative (historical and cross-cultural) analysis of societies that experience very little gender violence and those that are violence-prone. It focuses on case studies of Maori and Native American peoples, both of whom now have the highest rates of family and sexual violence within their respective societies even though abuse was not common prior to colonization. The ways in which socio-economic inequality leads to increased violence against women and children and how the dynamics of family violence parallel those of colonization (power, control, and patronage) are discussed. This chapter examines Native American shirts and interviews that speak to the impact of intergenerational trauma. The chapter ends with a discussion of decolonizing methods and the ways in which Maori and Native Americans are re-claiming culture as a resource rather than an excuse in challenging gender violence within their communities.

Gender Violence: The Problem

This chapter examines the problem (definitions, prevalence, and consequences) of gender violence. Long a significant cause of female morbidity and mortality, gender violence has increasingly become recognized as a human rights and public-health issue, especially within the last three decades. Still, it continues to be a pervasive danger to women and children in both developing and developed societies as data from multi- and cross-national studies indicate. Female infanticide and femicide, domestic violence, rape, mutilation, sex trafficking, dowry deaths, honor killings, incest, and breast ironing—all of which constitute gender violence—are part of a global pattern of violence against women, a pattern supported by educational, economic, and employment discrimination.

Facing the Challenges: Creating and Sustaining Healthy Relationships and Societies

This chapter examines effective strategies (from international treaties, government legislation, media and educational campaigns to NGOs) being used in Cameroon, Iceland, New Zealand, and the United States to support victim-survivors of gender violence, raise awareness, and challenge (de-normalize) gender violence. The most common argument used to defend the practice of violence against women and children is a cultural relativist one—that such practice is a part of “the culture” This defense values the preservation of the patriarchal family over the human rights of women and children. Drawing upon the research literature on inequality and masculinity studies, the chapter explores how healthier relationships and societies can be built. The argument reinforces the importance of a positive relationship between economic and gender equality in breaking the cycle of gender violence.

Difficult Decisions: Staying, Leaving

So many people ask, “Why doesn’t she just leave?” Those who have been in abusive relationships or work with those entangled in such relationships know that leaving is not as easy or straightforward as it sounds. Both staying and leaving can be very complicated, both emotionally and strategically, and dangerous. Children, along with financial and safety considerations, are often central to deciding whether to stay or leave—and how to leave once and for all. Presenting a number of women’s stories as they reflect upon the difficult process of leaving as well as staying, this chapter also includes interviews from family members whose loved ones were murdered in the process of staying in and attempting to leave abusive relationships. With greater understanding of the dynamics involved, a critical question focuses not so much on women’s decision-making but on men’s choices; this reframes the question of “why does she stay?” to “why does he abuse”?