States of Denial: Gendering Policy & Practice in Domestic Abuse and Mental Health Services - Professor Linda McKie, Glasgow Caledonian University

States of Denial: Gendering Policy & Practice in Domestic Abuse and Mental Health Services Professor Linda McKie Glasgow Caledonian University & Centre for Research on Families and Relationships

Overview
Problem representation
Gender
Violence and abuse
Mental health
Denial: symmetry / asymmetry
Intervention and prevention

Situating the day
Jackie & Lisa
Women’s lived experiences as a central point in and for our work
Need to continually highlight male cultures and oppressions
Power of alliances & power of voices
WE OBJECT – power of words and images
Yet the omnipresent role of numbers. Liz

Situating the day
Liz
Naming; the power of language
Definitions
Trauma (medical)
Empowerment and spaces for action
Social suffering; “crimes of dominion”
Stigma, spoiled identities
Time; to tell to be silent to have space to control

Situating the day
Marai
Difference
Exotic
Strange
Dangerous
Diversities within groups and “identities”
Developing bridges with foundations that recognise & challenge assumptions

Scottish Government
Violence is not, of course, a homogenous phenomenon ….. Tackling violence in its varied forms, and dealing with its consequences, requires an understanding of its motivations and its wider social contexts.
Abuse and gender for over a decade

Forwards, backwards …. Onwards
There is no theoretical place for “patriarchy” or analysis in terms of gender and power in explanations of cross-gender violence. Hines and Douglas, 2010
Public campaigns should focus on men and women equally as instigators and victims of violence …….

Carol Bacchi (1999: 2) asserts that policies constitute ‘competing interpretations or representations of political issues’, and proposes an approach to policy analysis that is more commonly known as ‘what’s the problem?’: ‘what presuppositions are implied or taken for granted in the problem representation which is offered; and what effects are connected to this representation of the “problem”?’

How do problems emerge?
Linda Gordon (1988: 27–8) in her work on the history of violence in families argues that a social problem emerges when ‘policymakers perceive it as threatening to social order, and generate widespread conviction that organised social action is necessary to control it’.
But what if the possibilities of gendering such issues pose threats to the current social and gender orders?
Varied standpoints in politics, research and policy.
Seemingly gender neutral nature of policy

Gender
Wider context
Power: e.g. representation in politics
Income: e.g. gender pay gap, pensions, poverty
Care and domestic labour
Time
Safety: public, private, conflicts

Violence and abuse
Rigour, precision, clarity and messy nature of everyday life
Act-based approach
Scales and scores: Conflict Tactic Scales
Equivalence of an act
Context
Intentions
Single or multiple acts

Violence and abuse (2)
Context based approach
Power
Time
Nature of acts
Perspectives
Abuse
Threats
Emotional
Financial
Friendship and family

Mental health
WHO: Mental health is a state of well-being in which an individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and is able to make a contribution to his or her community. In this positive sense, mental health is the foundation for individual well-being and the effective functioning of a community.
Dominance of medical model & psychiatry
Social models and social care (Lewis, 2009)
Socio-economic empowerment of women

Mental health, user involvement research
“ recognising common and differentiated identities and experiences” (Lewis, 2009: 88)
Family Violence and Violence against Women Research
Highly political debates; why suggest different findings and proposals?

Cohen (2001) ‘states of denial’
Literal
Interpretive
Implicatory
States of denial
Weight of knowledge
Self-deception
Inability of grasp evidence
Avoid moral realities

Reshaping policy base
Recognising gender
Recognising the paradigms in concepts
Gender
Violence
Mental health
Policy as ideas and discourses and the implications of problem representation in policies and networks (Hearn and McKie, 2008)

Conclusions
Insert mental health (MH)
“ The gendered nature of violence (MH) is still seemingly taken for granted and managed through services and policies that avert their gaze to gender, preferring to concentrate on, or unable to go beyond, the experiences of women as victims, survivors and potential agents of change. Likewise, the gendered nature of policy generally appears taken for granted; this is all the more ironic and damaging in the case of domestic violence (MH) policy and policies on violence more generally” (Hearn and McKie, 2008: 85).

Way forward …
What’s the problem is an ever present dialogue
Silos of government
Silos of thinking; blinkers, limitations (recession)
Tackling the exhaustion
Recognising the movement forward

States of Denial: Gendering Policy & Practice in Domestic Abuse and Mental Health Services - Professor Linda McKie, Glasgow Caledonian University

by British Sociological Association on Sep 20, 2011

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States of Denial: Gendering Policy & Practice in Domestic Abuse and Mental Health Services - Professor Linda McKie, Glasgow Caledonian University — Presentation Transcript