The Implications of a Narrow Understanding of Gender-Based Violence

Abstract

There is some debate about the best term to use for those who have experienced GBV (see Thompson, 2000), with some preferring the term 'victim', others using 'survivor', and others perhaps preferring a different term altogether. There is insufficient space here to discuss the debate in detail, but I have attempted to use the term 'survivor' throughout, to highlight their agency in processing and managing their experience of violence. However, I acknowledge that this may not be applicable to all those who have experienced GBV. 2 This article predominantly focuses on sexual violence and IPV when discussing GBV, largely because these are the forms of violence most commonly discussed in literature on the issue. However, the author acknowledges the very wide range of acts falling within this category of violence, as well as the lack of research and literature on such acts. These include verbal harassment, physical attacks by strangers, denial of access to health and education services (Dolan, 2014), legislated inequality, homelessness or being denied shelter (James et al., 2016), and lack of access to legal redress or justice (Crehan and McCleary-Sills, 2015).

Harassment as a consequence and cause of inequality in academia: A narrative review

“…Whatever laws we have will be only as effective as those who enforce, prosecute and apply them. Improving these practices – through education, training and embedding best practice and domestic abuse expertise – is likely to be more effective than the creation of new offences alone.” This sentiment is echoed in Bondestam and Lundqvist 8 ’s systematic review of harassment in higher education. The authors conclude that “There is actually nothing to suggest that further efforts to strengthen the impact of policy on sexual harassment (information, communication, revising policies) will change underreporting, policy awareness, or reporting behaviour as such” (p. 406).…”

“…Sexual harassment has enormous detrimental effects on targets’ mental and physical health, their careers, and their livelihoods. 8 Despite the well-established insights about the widespread experience and debilitating consequences of sexual harassment, anti-harassment and non-discrimination policies are oftentimes ineffective. 1 Experts in the field of higher education observe that over a time span of 30 years, no discernable progress has been made, with scholars still pointing to the same lacunae and recommending the same measures.…”

“… 17 Members of underrepresented groups who face intersectional disadvantages, such as women in precarious employment conditions, or foreign female scholars, are targeted by GBV more. 8 , 18 , 19 , 20 …”

“…Together, the individual costs of reporting and the institutional protection of the harassers contribute to massive underreporting of harassment in academia. 8 In turn, underreporting contributes to the preservation of organizational cultures that enable harassment in the first place. 1 …”

Violence Regimes: A Useful Concept for Social Politics, Social Analysis, and Social Theory

“…Another powerful inspiration impacting on the development of our work is the idea of a continuum of violence, from more direct physical violence to less direct "nonphysical" violence, even while these have physical, bodily effects. Such ideas developed in the 1970s and 1980s through Women's Movement activism, policy development and research on violence against women, and codified in the continuum of sexual violence (Kelly, 1988; also see Boyle, 2019;Graaff, 2021). The continuum metaphor has been elaborated in terms of a temporal and spatial continuum of violence (Cockburn, 2004(Cockburn, , 2014, spanning from personal to international, including structural violence and economic distress, militarization and arming, discursive shifts in ideology, war, political terror, mobilization, everyday life disruptions, brutalization of the body, sexual violence, peace processes -across pre-conflict, conflict, peace-making and reconstruction.…”