Authors: The Intersectional Violences Research Group
Our recent review of the UK Government’s consultation on their Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy highlighted significant limitations around its engagement with the concerns of #MeToo and the treatment of survivors. In this post, we summarise our findings and recommendations. This blog post has also been published as an open letter, which can be viewed and signed here.
Content note: This blog post discusses gendered and racialised forms of violence and contains links to materials that depict and/or discuss gendered and racialised violence.
The UK Government’s consultation on their Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Strategy for 2021-2024 ran from December 10th, 2020, to February 19th, 2021. It was re-opened for further input between March 12th and March 26th, 2021. The consultation invited responses from a range of perspectives, including those with “lived experiences”, and “relevant professionals” working in the fields of social care, education, law enforcement, local government, public health and healthcare. Additional submissions were invited from “academics and others who have interest and expertise in violence against women and girls.” In response to this call, we conducted a review on behalf of the Psychology of Women and Equalities Section of the British Psychological Society, which we briefly outline here before presenting our response.
The UK Government’s consultation on their VAWG Strategy for 2021-2024 was primarily conducted using a public-facing survey; accessible via the UK Government Consultations website. Though now closed, a paper version of the survey is accessible online. As we write this post, the survey can still be accessed via a link that can be found at the end of this review. We would caution that the survey itself contains questions/items and representations/depictions of violence that may be distressing, as we will discuss later in this review. Based on our shared expertise, the content raised fundamental concerns over the consultation and its methodology. Guided by our shared concerns, we reviewed the UK Government’s public survey. We also reviewed the existing VAWG Strategy in order to connect these concerns with the development of the Government’s 2021-2024 strategy. Our findings and recommendations focus on concerns identified around the methodology and content of the consultation, and implications for the VAWG Strategy for 2021-2024.
Issues of Concern: The VAWG Survey and Consultation
Notwithstanding the problematic representations and depictions of violence present in the survey, we argue more broadly that a quantitative, internet-mediated survey methodology is both inadequate and inappropriate for a public consultation on the topic of VAWG for various reasons. We report our three most pressing concerns here:
- A quantitative survey approach can be appropriate when seeking broad data on overarching trends in large samples. However, it is inappropriate for research exploring experiences of VAWG because quantitative measures are neither designed nor equipped to capture experiential data. Rather, qualitative methodologies are more appropriate for such aims. In relation to VAWG, a quantitative survey approach additionally obscures the sociopolitical and situational nuances and dynamics of power that shape experiences of violence.
- Quantitative surveys are blunt instruments when used for the purposes of capturing diverse perspectives and experiences. Standardised response options streamline diverse perspectives and experiences into a pre-determined framework to which respondents typically have no input. This is particularly inappropriate when inviting a range of perspectives where some respondents do, and some do not, have experiences of violence. Skip logic can be used in survey software to tailor questions to different respondent categories. However, after testing the skip logic for each potential respondent category in the Government’s VAWG survey, our review showed that the question bank did not differ substantially according to each different respondent category (e.g. those who did vs. those who did not report experiences of violence). In addition, this broad-brush approach fails to prioritise those with experiences of violence, whose voices should be at the center of strategy reform.
- Quantitative surveys can elicit a broad range of responses from the public about a particular issue, but this unidirectional approach is not appropriate in research exploring experiences of violence. This is because the researcher has no way of knowing the impact of the research process on participants. We noted an absence of resources for those with experiences of violence and no clear routes for support for respondents, except for links to external charities provided at the end of the survey. This is not sufficient in an anonymous, public-facing, internet-mediated survey on the topic of violence, especially when the age of respondents either is not – or cannot – be verified. As stated in the British Psychological Society’s Ethics Guidelines for Internet-Mediated Research (IMR):
“In general, research involving sensitive topics or procedures might be best avoided where levels of control are low and risk is potentially high. Such IMR contexts where levels of control (over who participates, and knowledge of their reactions) are at their lowest would be, for example, an open web-based survey.”
British Psychological Society (2017).
In addition to broad concerns around the survey methodology, our review also highlighted significant limitations in the survey’s content and conceptualisation of VAWG, which has serious implications for engagement with the concerns of #MeToo, and the treatment of those who experience violence. Social ‘problems’ are constructed through their representation in public spaces, including institutional documents. The survey constructs VAWG primarily through a criminal justice approach to criminality, which emphasises punitive punishment and the desirability of imprisonment of offenders. This neglects the fact that the #MeToo movement arose partially in response to a criminal justice system that has failed many people who have experienced sexual violence. A focus on individual perpetrators without a critical focus on the problems with criminal justice practices also serves to individualise the issue of sexual violence and fails to address the systemic problems with criminal justice approaches raised by #MeToo. An expansion of criminalisation without input from those who have experienced violence on what constitutes justice reproduces the very systems and practices that have failed them.
With its heavy focus on ‘criminal’ forms of violence, the survey focuses narrowly on specific and sensationalised forms of violence and doubles down on criminalisation instead of structural and cultural changes to everyday practices enabling VAWG. In the survey, extreme examples of VAWG were focused on and included “so called honour-based violence”, trolling, and physical domestic abuse. Such constructions of VAWG are problematic for survivors of violence because they fail to engage with or capture the everyday dynamics and realities of it. Therefore, the survey questions support and are underpinned by a carceral framework for understanding and responding to violence that has historically failed those who experience violence. This framework simultaneously does violence to those deemed ‘criminal’ whilst at the same time allowing those engaging in routine instances of VAWG to do violence without reprise. Specifically, we noted that depictions of ‘offenders’ were heavily racialised, as were constructions of certain instantiations of domestic and sexual violence. For example, there was a heavy focus on forced marriage, female genital mutilation, and honour-based abuse more broadly, which is typically associated with raced and Othered communities. These are also common codes and markers of Islamophobic discourse in the UK (For a discussion, see: Failing victims, fuelling hate: challenging the harms of the ‘Muslim grooming gangs’ narrative).
Review of Governmental VAWG Strategy
As outlined above, the public consultation and its accompanying survey raise a number of concerns that will have implications for the development of the Government’s 2021-2024 VAWG strategy. As part of our response, we also reviewed the Government’s 2016-2020 strategy in order to connect these concerns with potential implications for the 2021-2024 strategy. The 2021-2024 strategy is yet to be released, but according to the Government, the focus and structure will remain the same as the 2016-2020 strategy. The four areas of focus in this strategy were:
- Preventing violence and abuse
- Provision of services
- Partnership working
- Pursuing perpetrators
Here, we discuss our most pressing concerns with the strategy, and their implications, before reporting our recommendations to the Home Office.
First, the Government’s approach to preventing violence and abuse in the 2016-2020 strategy highlights PSHE as one mechanism for changing normalised practices of violence. In our review, we raised caution against a bolt on approach to the existing curriculum, because recent research highlights that young people perceive existing curriculum as heavily focused on risk, danger and unwanted consequences of sexual activity in heterosexual relationships. Notions of consent are heavily biased towards a contractual agreement which is unlikely to engender open discussion of positive and healthy ways to communicate in sexual relationships (e.g. Barker et al, 2018). Moreover, the lack of focus on LGBTQIA+ individuals and issues promotes the normalisation of heterosexuality, which is heavily implicated in the secondary victimisation and erasure of LGBTQIA+ survivors, many of whom are women, as well as men and boys who experience sexual violence.
Regarding provision of services, the 2016-2020 strategy fails to adequately recognise that there is a lack of consistency across local authorities in England and Wales in relation to the funding and commissioning that is allocated to VAWG (for example, see Action for Children Report). Research suggests that different local authorities conceptualise VAWG differently, and allocate resources differentially on this basis. Our review also highlighted intersectional issues in relation to accessing services, for example, there was no consideration to how racism and racialisation becomes implicated in service access. Refugee and asylum-seeking women and children were also absent in strategy proposals. Our review also flagged disparities around urban and rural communities in relation to domestic violence strategy development. For example, physical access to places of safety/support systems in rural settings are likely to be different in comparison with urban/city settings.. Our review also highlighted the multiple long-lasting impacts of domestic violence on children’s social, emotional, psychological, and physical health. Research suggests that support for children is still largely an ‘add on’ to adult services, rather than central to domestic violence support. Our review highlighted that a ‘whole family’ approach does not always clearly embed the needs of the children affected by domestic violence and tends to work with cisgender and heteronormative understandings of families, relationships, and patterns of abuse. It should be noted that such approaches have, in some instances, insisted on perpetrator engagement in order for the rest of the family to access service. This approach risks further victimisation and harm of victim/survivors, including children, by creating barriers to accessing support (for example, see Action for Children Report). Our review advised that these issues need to be clearly addressed in the 2021-2024 strategy to reduce barriers to accessing support, and additionally argued that children should be directly consulted with to understand their needs.
The 2016-2020 strategy also indicates that a commitment to ‘partnership working’ is key to tackling “deep-rooted social norms, attitudes and behaviours that discriminate against and limit women and girls across all communities”. This objective should be a strategic area of intervention given that practices which normalise sexual violence and discrimination have been identified as a key mechanism for enabling its continuation. The Government Equalities Office (GEO) has planned a programme for tackling gender norms by working with partners in the advertising industry around body image and low self-esteem. Our review identified problems with the phrasing of this strategy, which risks making unwarranted connections between women’s sense of their own body image, self-esteem, and VAWG. Specifically, we note that the strategy could be interpreted as suggesting that women’s’ and girls’ body dissatisfaction plays a key role in and essentially blames women and girls for their victimisation.
In its focus on pursuing perpetrators, the 2016-2020 strategy emphasises criminal justice approaches to tackling perpetration. The 2016-2020 strategy highlights that victim/survivors face a series of complex barriers to seeking justice via criminal justice approaches. Our review concurs that an overhaul of existing criminal justice practices is necessary given the persistence of sexual violence myths in standard processes, re-traumatisation through cross examination/police and court processes, and low conviction rates (for example, see the Government’s End-to-end Rape Review Report). However, our review cautions against a reliance on criminalisation. This is because a focus on criminalisation and punitive criminal justice approaches risks excluding everyday forms of sexual violence that are not considered or treated as ‘criminal’, and so-called ‘grey area’ violence, to which criminalisation may appear unnecessary or heavy-handed, which #MeToo has highlighted. A reliance on or expansion of criminalisation is likely to compound barriers for those who have experienced less extreme forms of sexual violence, particularly where prosecution and imprisonment is unlikely, or viewed by victims/survivors as an inappropriate application of justice. On this basis, we recommend that victim/survivors understandings of appropriate forms of justice are incorporated into the strategy. For example, McGlynn and Westmarland (2018) present evidence suggesting that a multi-faceted approach to justice (e.g. restorative justice; transformative justice), underpinned by victim/survivor perspectives and wishes, would better serve justice reform efforts.
Intersectional Violences Research Group Recommendations for Strategy Reform
Based on our findings, we offer the following, non-exhaustive, recommendations to the Home Office for strategyreform:
- To support cultural change via PSHE, we recommend sustained engagement with the literature and expert guidance on health practices around relationships and consent to avoid a bolt-on approach to existing curriculum.
- We recommend that the GEO considers working with advertising agencies to produce images and messages that counteract victim-blaming, objectification, and forms of sexualisation of all people.
- We recommend a review of current strategy to embed the needs of children as a clear priority in domestic violence reforms. The strategy would benefit from a nuanced approach to domestic violence which considers barriers to accessing support which result from conflicting requirements from support agencies and which recognises postcode lottery issues.
- We recommend that future reforms consider the limitations of criminal justice approaches, and address problems with current criminal justice practices, rather than expanding the goal of criminalisation. We urge that future strategy development incorporates a multi-faceted approach to justice which recognises the limits of carceral approaches to perpetrators in producing change and embeds victim/survivor perspectives around justice.
In this review, we have discussed a non-exhaustive range of concerns in response to the UK Government’s consultation on their Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy 2021-2024. We invite readers who share these concerns to sign a public open letter based on this review, which is linked at the top of this article.
The Intersectional Violences Research Group (alphabetically listed) are: Dr. Tanya Beetham, Lois Catrin Donnelly; Dr. Lisa Lazard; Dr. Lucy Thompson; Dr. Emma Turley
References
Barker, Meg-John; Gill, Rosalind and Harvey, Laura (2018). Mediated intimacy: Sex advice in media culture. Sexualities, 21(8) pp. 1337–1345.
British Psychological Society (2017). Ethics Guidelines for Internet-mediated Research.
INF206/04.2017. Leicester: Author. Available from: www.bps.org.uk/publications/policy-and-guidelines/research-guidelines-policy-documents/researchguidelines-poli
McGlynn, C. & Westmarland, N. (2018). Kaleidoscopic Justice: Sexual Violence and Victim-Survivors’ Perceptions of Justice. Social & Legal Studies, 28(2), 179-201. https://doi.org/10.1177/0964663918761200.
Resources
At the time of publication, a paper version of UK Government Survey can be accessed here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/969124/VAW_G_survey__V4-15_02_21_interact_.pdf
Psychology of Women and Equalities Section 