Women's Views on News |
| Looking closely at coercive control Posted: 15 Feb 2016 11:42 AM PST
Women's Aid and Avon have launched a new campaign 'Love Don't Feel Bad' as new research indicated a worryingly high number of young women have experienced controlling behaviour in their relationships. In a survey of 2,000 16-24 year-old women, over one third said they had experienced controlling behaviour from a partner. The research also revealed that those affected often blame themselves, or don't know something is wrong. One in 10 believe that controlling behaviour happened because their partner didn't trust them. Only 1 in 3 women understand what "coercive control" means, and 1 in 20 young women regarded being scared of their partner as normal and acceptable. While over a third (39 per cent) of those questioned considered themselves as having been in controlling relationships, 37 per cent only knew this in hindsight – and 10 per cent only when it was highlighted to them by their friends and family. The 'Love Don't Feel Bad' campaign was launched to coincide with Valentine's Day, a time when many are thinking about their relationships. The campaign aims to help young women recognise coercively controlling behaviour and to spark discussion about what is acceptable in relationships, raising awareness of what healthy relationships and love really look like. For example on its FAQs page the campaign explains how you prove this is happening to you. It can be tricky to prove coercive control because a lot of it is unseen and happens in private. More information about the law, and the framework that the police will use in England can be found here. We must stress that if you feel scared for your safety then you must call the police. If you are feeling afraid and unsure of what is happening to you, then call, text or email one of these helplines for further advice. If the police or the professionals on a helpline suggest that you are in a controlling relationship, they will suggest that you start to gather evidence. The types of evidence that will be used in a coercive control case are: text messages and screenshots of messages on social media; copies of emails or letters; details of previous threats; phone records; 999 tapes; records of interaction with services such as support services; medical records; CCTV / body-worn video footage from when police attend a domestic abuse situation; witness testimony from family, friends or neighbours; bank records or evidence of isolation such as lack of contact with family, friends, or other agencies you were previously in contact with. Chlo, an 18 year-old survivor of domestic abuse, said: "My ex was my first boyfriend, and I think it's often the case that young people don't have the experience of healthy relationships to know that what's happening isn't normal. "It's so easy just to think "all couples argue" – especially when someone is telling you that you provoked them all the time. "And once they start wearing down your self-esteem and isolating you, it spirals to a point that you can't see a way out. "Having experienced coercive control, I know it's very easy not to recognise those early signs of abuse, and end up staying in a relationship that's dangerous. "Raising awareness with young people is so important, because it'll empower them to recognise signs of control early on, and know what they are experiencing isn't normal or their fault." Andrea Slater, managing director of Avon, said the sad reality is that too many women, especially younger women, simply don't know that it's not normal or right to be in a relationship where both partners aren't equal. This, she pointed out, is something we need to change. And Polly Neate, chief executive of Women's Aid, said: "Women's Aid know that many girls are abused in their very first relationships, and do not know what a healthy relationship looks like. "Coercive control underpins the vast majority of all abusive relationships. "We are grateful to Avon for working with us to raise awareness of coercive control and to develop resources for young women, and for their parents and guardians, to make sure that there is relevant information and support available." Click here for a list of helpline numbers where you can talk to someone about coercive control and domestic abuse if you think it is happening to you or a friend. In an emergency, please call the police on 999 for immediate help.  |
| Feminist Review archive online Posted: 15 Feb 2016 11:24 AM PST
The complete Feminist Review archive, starting with Issue 1 from 1979, is now available online: 30 years of sophisticated, passionate feminist writing. The Feminist Review is edited by a collective who have selected 20 articles as a small sample from that extensive archive. These papers are available free to read and download: click here. Issue 112, Violence, is now live online too. This special issue explores the complicity of social structures, inequalities, economic arrangements, legal language, men's perceptions and everyday practices in the perpetuation of gender-based violence. It provides a platform for innovative feminist approaches to develop understanding of the problem of violence, with a particular emphasis on intersectional and interdisciplinary frameworks that interrogate the various forms of gendered violence, while facilitating preventive efforts as well as new theoretical structures for understanding such violence and its' the effects of violence. The ‘Violence’ issue was inspired by the articulation of the notion of coercive control in recent scholarship on gender-based violence. Notably, Evan Stark's book, Coercive Control, offers both practical and theoretical responses to violence that are linked to understanding gender-based violence as an embedded social and cultural phenomenon: reproduced and reflected at a multitude of levels that extend well beyond specific physical acts. The collected papers in this special issue are based on the premise that understanding violence, and gendered violence in particular, therefore requires paying close attention to the continuum of violence that begins in the everyday. Yet there is equally a need to understand how everyday violence is linked to governmental and institutional decisions, so that challenges to gendered violence must be exerted at every level, from the local to the international. It is the editors’ hope that the readers will write themselves into the future of the feminist responses to gendered violence by writing their views into policy, law and social transformation, spurred on by the detailed, complicated and diverse approaches of the various authors of this collection. Feminist Review is a peer reviewed, interdisciplinary journal setting new agendas for feminism. It invites critical reflection on the relationship between materiality and representation, theory and practice, subjectivity and communities, contemporary and historical formations. The Feminist Review Collective is committed to exploring gender in its multiple forms and interrelationships. Feminist Review resists the increasing instrumentalisation of scholarship within British and international higher education and thus supports the generation of creative and innovative approaches to knowledge production. As well as academic articles the Feminist Review publishes experimental pieces, visual and textual media and political interventions, including, for example, interviews, short stories, poems and photographic essays. When Feminist Review first appeared in 1979 it described itself as a socialist and feminist journal, 'a vehicle to unite research and theory with political practice, and contribute to the development of both'. Challenges of race, class and sexuality have been central to the development of the journal. And more than thirty years later, the Feminist Review remains committed to these core values.  |
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