In the last few years, many countries have introduced laws combating the phenomenon colloquially known as 'revenge porn'. While new laws criminalising this practice represent a positive step forwards, the legislative response has been piecemeal and typically focuses only on the practices of vengeful ex-partners. Drawing on Liz Kelly's (Surviving sexual violence. Polity Press, Cambridge, 1988) pioneering work, we suggest that 'revenge porn' should be understood as just one form of a range of gendered, sexualised forms of abuse which have common characteristics, forming what we are conceptualising as the 'continuum of imagebased sexual abuse'. Further, we argue that image-based sexual abuse is on a continuum with other forms of sexual violence. We suggest that this twin approach may enable a more comprehensive legislative and policy response that, in turn, will better reflect the harms to victim-survivors and lead to more appropriate and effective educative and preventative strategies.Keywords Revenge porn Á Image-based sexual abuse Á Continuum of sexual violence Á Non-consensual pornography Á Online abuse

Beyond ‘scandals’ and the public testimonies of victim-survivors, surprisingly little is known about the nature and extent of the harms of ‘image-based sexual abuse’, a term that includes all non-consensual taking and/or sharing of nude or sexual images. Accordingly, this article examines the findings from the first cross-national qualitative study on this issue, drawing on interviews with 75 victim-survivors of image-based sexual abuse in the UK, Australia and New Zealand. We adopt a feminist phenomenological approach that permits more nuanced and holistic understandings of victim-survivors’ experiences, moving beyond medicalised, trauma-based accounts of harm. Our analysis develops five interconnected accounts of the harms experienced, that we have termed social rupture, constancy, existential threat, isolation and constrained liberty. Our findings shed new light on the nature and significance of the harms of image-based sexual abuse that emphasises the need for more comprehensive and effective responses to these abuses.

Despite apparent political concern and action—often fuelled by high-profile cases and campaigns—legislative and institutional responses to image-based sexual abuse in the UK have been ad hoc, piecemeal and inconsistent. In practice, victim-survivors are being consistently failed: by the law, by the police and criminal justice system, by traditional and social media, website operators, and by their employers, universities and schools. Drawing on data from the first multi-jurisdictional study of the nature and harms of, and legal/policy responses to, image-based sexual abuse, this article argues for a new joined-up approach that supports victim-survivors of image-based sexual abuse to ‘reclaim control’. It argues for a comprehensive, multi-layered, multi-institutional and multi-agency response, led by a government- and industry-funded online or e-safety organisation, which not only recognises the diversity of victim-survivor experiences and the intersection of image-based sexual abuse with other forms of sexual and gender-based violence and discrimination, but which also enables victim-survivors to reclaim control within and beyond the criminal justice system.

This paper reconsiders images of the judge and, in particular, the position of the woman judge using fairy tale and myth. It begins by exploring the actuality of women's exclusion within the judiciary, traditional explanations for this and the impact of recent changes. It goes on to consider the image of the Herculean judge, arguing that whilst we may view him as an ideological construct, or even as a fairy tale, we routinely deny this to ourselves and to others. This both ensures the normative survival of Hercules and simultaneously constrains counter-images of judges, including that of the woman judge, who becomes almost a contradiction in terms, faced with the need to shed her difference and fit the fairy tale. Like the little mermaid, the woman judge must trade her voice for partial acceptance in the prince's world.This image of silencing which Andersen's tale so vividly captures highlights a paradox in current discourses of adjudication. On the one hand, women judges are viewed as desirable in order to broaden the range of perspectives on the bench, thus making the judiciary more representative; on the other hand, judges are supposed to be without perspective, thus suggesting there is little need for a representative judiciary. Feminists and other commentators negotiate their way uncomfortably through this territory, acknowledging a gender dimension to adjudication, but failing fully to confront its implications. This paper seeks to ‘undress’ the judge, to flush out images of adjudication which deter or prevent women from joining the judiciary and constrain their potential within it. It highlights both the role of the imagination in existing conceptions of adjudication and the increasing necessity for a re-imagined Hercules – an alternative understanding of the judge which women and other groups currently underrepresented on the bench can comfortably and constructively occupy.

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Taking the media reaction to Brenda Hale's appointment to the appellate committee of the House of Lords in January 2004 as its starting point, this article considers the impact difference might have on understandings of both the judge and judging. It argues that beneath the surface of the somewhat simplistic personality-based alternatives posited in the British press lies a more organic response to the woman judge generally and her perceived difference. Drawing on Hale's potential for difference in relation to familial (dis)connection, unwanted parenthood and indecent assault, the article concludes that, far from being a malevolent threat, the perceived difference of the woman judge offers an opportunity to consider the possibility of alternative adjudicative approaches and new understandings of the judge.

Le Projet de jugements féministes a permis à des chercheuses en droit féministes de rédiger en groupe des jugements féministes alternatifs pour des causes majeures en Angleterre et au Pays de Galles. Plutôt que de se limiter à des critiques théoriques de décisions existantes, les participantes se sont inscrites dans la tradition du Tribunal des femmes du Canada pour se lancer dans un exercice pratique et « réaliste » de rédaction de jugements. En exprimant la théorie féministe sous forme de jugements, le Projet visait à démontrer de façon systématique et rigoureuse que le pouvoir et l'aspect distinct de la rédaction pouvaient influencer l'issue des causes et modifier la rédaction des jugements. Jusqu’à maintenant, les commentaires universitaires ont porté principalement sur le fond féministe des jugements alternatifs ou, plus largement, sur ce qui rend un jugement féministe, plutôt que sur l'importance d'avoir des chercheuses féministes pour rédiger les jugements. À partir d'exemples tirés du Projet de jugements féministes, le présent article soutient que le Projet et le Tribunal des femmes ont non seulement montré comment l'éclairage théorique féministe peut (et devrait) s'appliquer dans la pratique, mais ont aussi soulevé des questions sur la nature des jugements et les possibilités offertes par la rédaction pour les chercheuses en droit féministes. En considérant la valeur de la rédaction de jugements comme une forme de science critique féministe, l'article aborde la présentation du Projet de jugements féministes comme une forme de « militantisme universitaire » et soutient qu'il existe de bonnes raisons théoriques, pédagogiques et politiques pour que des chercheuses en droit féministes rédigent les jugements.

The story of the woman judge as one of exclusion and isolation plagued with allegations of bias is well documented. Interestingly, despite significant differences in time and place, a common theme unites these tales: the woman judge is a dangerous outsider, a threat to the aesthetic norm. The judicial climate, at least in most of the common law world, is somewhat chilly: reactions to her presence on the bench vary from the largely indifferent to the downright hostile. Why is this? After all, most people, perhaps acknowledging the political and democratic gains underlying calls for a more representative judiciary, would wish to encourage – or at least not discourage – judicial diversity. Taking the stories of the woman judge as its starting point, this paper contends that underlying these tales is an image of the judge that is as much intuitive as it is reasoned; that our understanding of the judge and judging is as much derived from the imagination as from what is conventionally considered as rational thought. Thus, the paper deploys the narrative strategies of fairy tales in an attempt to disrupt the imaginative hold of familiar yet particular images that infuse and distort current discourses on adjudication. It suggests that despite the Department for Constitutional Affairs’ ongoing quest to increase diversity within the judiciary, current initiatives do not confront fully these instinctive images. As a result, their narrative of inclusiveness and difference fails. In response, the paper appeals to the imagination as a route toward engendering new conceptions on the judge and judging, the possibility of truly diverse judiciaries and, perhaps, a fairy tale ending to the woman judge’s story.