A plethora of feminist research into menâs violence against women (such as intimate partner violence, sexual harassment/violence, female genital mutilation, trafficking, forced marriage, femicide, female infanticide and âhonourâ killings) has exposed the inherently gendered nature of this harm. Importantly, research has shown that there are very few places women can consider as safe from male violence, especially when in the home, and that menâs fatal violence rarely comes âout of the blueâ (Dobash et al. 2009). Central to this work has been highlighting the ubiquity of misogyny, primarily through exposing the patriarchal infrastructures which inform and sustain the commission of gendered harms (Walby 1989). This section explores misogyny using a range of feminist literature on menâs interpersonal and institutional violence against women. The primacy of gender advanced understandings around gendered relations but negated to address other relevant aspects of identity (such as race, religion or sexuality). The emergence of greater intersectional analyses of gendered violence because of these critiques added both nuance and depth of insight, and are explored more fully in the subsequent section.
Situating misogyny: fear, safety and space
Feminist theorising on womenâs safety in public and private spaces highlighted the primacy of (gendered) expectations around individual responsibility. Crime control, personal safety and avoiding violence had always been conceptualised as womenâs responsibility (as the potential victim) on both a formal and informal basis. This was often rendered evident in so-called âsafetyâ campaigns and literature, aimed at women, which informed them how to act, dress and behave to lessen their vulnerability to male violence (Stanko 1992). These messages inferred that some degree of such violence was inevitable and that the targets would be (lone, inebriated) women. Furthermore, this state of affairs was not considered unusual or uncharacteristic; rather, it was carefully constructed to fit the culturally familiar âstranger dangerâ narrative (Stanko 1995).
These patriarchal discourses successfully individualised and pathologised particular aberrant male assailants in a way that allowed masculinity as a potential cause of violence against women to remain unproblematised. Contrastingly, all women are expected to assume the role and responsibility of potential victims and protect themselves accordingly; failure to do so can result in victim-blaming and accusations of culpability (Burt 1980). How women are supposed to protect themselves from male sexual predators is also heavily influenced by patriarchal ideas. So pervasive are societal expectations of femininity that recourse to masculinisation was as likely to incur male wrath, albeit of a different, less sexualised, nature (Corteen 2002). Male violence towards lesbian, bisexual and queer women â particularly those who present in a way that has been socially coded as âbutchâ or androgynous â is often more physical than sexual in nature (homophobia is explored further in the following section). Instead, women are expected to perform femininity for the male gaze but remain alert and ready to police this when necessary. Such efforts reinforced the focus on âstranger dangerâ despite overwhelming evidence indicating that the most dangerous place for most women is in the home (Aldridge and Browne 2003).
Feminists had to fight long and hard to have womenâs vulnerability to male victimisation in the private (domestic) sphere taken seriously. Patriarchal conceptualisations of gender hierarchies in the home situated the male in a position of authority and with control over his wife and children. The majority of domestic violence cases involve women as victims and men as perpetrators (UN Women 2013). In cases where the violence proves fatal, the overwhelming majority of victims are women and perpetrators are men. The growth and diversity in domestic violence research has led to greater awareness and understanding of how experiences may differ for victims who are in same-sex relationships (Donovan and Hester 2014), from minority cultures (Day and Gill 2020), or are male (Gadd et al. 2002). However, attempts to neutralise the gendered aspect of domestic violence perpetration are dangerous: compared to men, women engage in domestic violence less frequently, less severely and with far fewer fatal consequences. Women are much more likely to be harmed or killed by their current or former male partner than vice versa (Long et al. 2018). With a death toll averaging two women a week, domestic violence remains one of the most pervasive and sustained forms of misogyny in the UK (Long et al. 2018).
Similarly, the failure to consider rape within marriage a crime in England and Wales until 1991 demonstrated the patriarchal notion of women (wives) as male property. Upon saying âI doâ, wives were considered to have consented to all future sexual intercourse with their husbands. Russellâs (1982) study with married women demonstrated the impact of this on rape victims. Despite finding that 14% of her sample had experiences that were commensurate with legal definitions of rape (at the time), fewer than 1% of these women described it as ârapeâ (1982, p. 67). For many, the repeated nature of their victimisation (along with the identity of their assailant) may also have disabused them of the idea that it was rape due to the pervasiveness of ârape mythsâ (Burt 1980). Cultural stereotypes of isolated incidents, occurring at night, involving young women being violently attacked by a male stranger came to popularise the imagery surrounding rape. A vital breakthrough in challenging this came from Liz Kellyâs (1988) seminal work which showcased that many women experience sexual violence on a âcontinuumâ. She proved that sexual victimisation was a constant feature in most womenâs lives, committed by men who were strangers or acquaintances (including partners), and evolved as they moved through the life course.
Importantly, Kellyâs research also showed how ongoing exposure to this violence led to the development of internalised (often unconscious) coping mechanisms. Women minimised, overlooked, excused, rationalised and justified male violence in ways that suggested either that ânothing really happenedâ (Kelly and Radford 1990) or that the woman was in some way responsible for what had happened to her. Feelings of responsibility coupled with rape myths were powerful social regulators, ensuring that women conformed to patriarchal gender roles that demarcated between âgoodâ (i.e. chaste, married and compliant) and âbadâ (i.e. promiscuous, provocative or prostituted) women. They also worked in menâs favour, allowing them to commit sexua...