Feminist theories of violence attempt to highlight the different experiences of women and men in society. International condemnation of sexual violence increased in the 19th-20th centuries with rising women's rights, but statistics continue rising. Feminist theory describes and analyzes why and how sexual violence exists and varies worldwide. Greater awareness is still needed to show these acts are socially unacceptable in both public and private spheres.

2. It is important that
distinct theories of
female violence are
constructed in order to
highlight the different
places women and men
occupy in society,
whether violence can
be observed or not.

3. Violence
 The expression of physical or verbal force
against self or other, compelling action against
one's will on pain of being hurt. It is used as a
tool of manipulation and also is an area of
concern for law and culture which take
attempts to suppress and stop it;
Sexual violence
 The use of physical force to compel a person to
engage in a sexual act against his or her will,
involving a person who is unable to understand
the nature or condition of the act, to decline
participation, or to communicate unwillingness
to engage in the sexual act either because of
illness, disability, or the influence of drugs, or
because of intimidation.
 Victims often normalise sexual violence,
defining such behaviour as normal or
inevitable.
Sexuality
 A domain of exploration, pleasure, and agency as well as a domain of
restriction, repression, and danger.

5. Patriarchy
 A familial-social, ideological, political system in
which men – by force, direct pressure or
through ritual, law and language, customs,
etiquette, education, and the division of labour,
determine what part women shall or shall not
play, and in which the female is everywhere
subsumed under the male (Rich 1977; 57).
Pornography
 Derived from ancient Greek porne and graphos,
mean ‘writing about whores’. It involves the
portrayal of explicit sexual subject matter for the
purposes of sexual excitement and erotic
satisfaction.
Feminism
 A political, cultural or economic movement
aimed at establishing equal rights and legal
protection for women. It involves political,
cultural and sociological theories, as well as
philosophies concerned with issues of gender
difference.

6.  Within the field of feminism
sexuality is generally seen as
a socially constructed
phenomenon, and not as
biologically determined. This
means that sexual structures
including sexual preferences
and tendencies are
constructed and contextually
determined, whereas
biological determinism is the
perspective that sexuality is
something unchangeable.

7.  1878 Matrimonial Causes Act: law in England against
abusive partners
 Victorian feminists: fought for women’s rights to both divorce
and legal separation on the grounds of a husband’s violence.
 Frances Power Cobbe: wife beating  wife torture
“violence against women is not the pathological behavior of
a few sick men”
 1850 – 1900: In America a lot of women
supported the temperance demand for
restrictions on alcohol. Excessive drinking
 wife beating.
 Male violence has always been one of the
main issues of feminism
 Has become a key area of study for
feminist theorists

8.  One out of three women worldwide has experienced rape or sexual assault.
 In some countries, up to one-third of adolescent girls report forced sexual initiation
 One preliminary study in eight different countries found a 24.7 per cent rate of
sexual violence in dating relationships.
 Studies show that 5-10 per cent of men report a history of childhood sexual abuse.
 Hundreds of thousands of women and girls throughout the world are forcibly
trafficked and prostituted each year.
 A report of seven different countries found that more than 60 per cent of sexual
assault victims know their attackers.
 A large number of sexual assault victims are less than age 15.
 In a randomly selected study of nearly
1,200 ninth grade students in Geneva,
Switzerland, 20 per cent of girls revealed
they had experienced at least one incident
of sexual abuse.
 In Bosnia and Herzegovina, alone,
estimates of the numbers of women raped
range from 10,000 to 60,000.
 A survey in the United Kingdom found that
19.4 per cent of women had been victims
of sexual violence.

9.  200.000 people a year in are victims of serious domestic violence.
 60 per cent are female victims and 40 per cent are male victims.
 The percentage of male victims is getting higher every year.
 83 per cent of the perpetrators are men.
 75 per cent of the domestic violence is physical and sexual.
 1 in 5 women and 1 in 20 men have experienced sexual violence since the age of 15 years.
 93 percent of offenders are male.
 Family Violence costs Australia about $8 billion per year, a substantial proportion of which is borne by
the victims themselves.
 1 in 6 reports to Police of rape and less than 1 in 7 reports of incest of sexual penetration of a
 child result in prosecution.
 Only 19 per cent of adult Turkish women are literate .
 42 per cent of women are exposed to domestic violence.
 49.1 per cent of women are beaten by their partners.
 46.6 per cent is experienced in rural areas while 40.3 per cent of acts are perpetrated in cities.
 Over half of the victims fail to report their experience to the authorities.
 Victims are four times as likely to attempt suicide after experiencing sexual violence.
 38.6 per cent of women who did report the crime blamed themselves.

10.  Text

11.  1980 higher profile because of
women survivors sharing their
experiences
 Past 30 years – 98% are
committed by men (‘normal’ men)
 Fundamentally related to the power
of disparity of the adult-child
relationship.
 But not only ‘misuse of power’.
 How can we determine child sex
abuse?
Three key elements: betrayal of
trust and responsibility, the abuse
of power and the inability of
children to consent (Macleod and
Saraga 1988).

12.  By Luce Irigaray.
 Objects of male desire:
female sexuality itself is
constructed
phallocentrically.
 ‘Penis envy’: “penis being the only sexual
organ of recognized value”.
 “…a hole-envelope that serves to sheathe and
massage the penis in intercourse, a non-sex”

13.  by Diane Richardson
 Male-defined sexuality has gained new urgency with the
spread of HIV
 New meanings for sex and the erotic which are not focused
on intercourse or having a orgasm
 Saver for women (aids, pregnancy, abortion, sexual
diseases, cervical cancer) and maybe more satisfying
 Less penis envy  no penetration

14.  By Patricia Collins
 What’s the perspective/history about
(sexual) violence from black women?
 Key pillar on pornography
“more ancient roots of modern
pornography are to be found in the almost
always pornographic treatment of black
women who, from the moment they
entered slavery, were subjected to rape as
the “logical” convergence of sex and
violence.”
 Sarah Baartman (‘Guy with a beard):
Hottentot Venus 18th century Europe
 Black whores made white virgins possible:
stereotypes created

15.  Domestic violence between lesbian couples
makes analyzing male violence harder (just
like race – black women, age – child sex
abuse and so on)
 Sheila Jeffreys (Anticlimax): “Heterosexuality
as an intuition is founded upon the ideology
of ‘difference’.”
 Structured in the society
 True feminists, women with freedom, should
be lesbian?
 “Demolition of heterosexual desire is a
necessary step on the route in women’s
liberation”
 Bell Hooks (Ending Female Sexual
Oppression): “Just as the struggle to end
sexual oppression aims to eliminate
heterosexism, it should not endorse any one
sexual choice.

16.  Queer Theory originates,
in large, from feministic
and homosexual
research. Its main aim is
to question “truthful”
and objectively natural
categories by challenging
the hetero-normative as
a reproducer of societal
structures.

17.  Many feminist theorists believe that sexual
orientated violence is used as a form of control.
 “Social control is the purpose and may also be the
outcome, of gendered social relations” (L. Kelly).
 “Male control of
female sexuality is
the foundation of
patriarchal societies
and the result of this
is sex colonization”
(C. MacKinnon).

18.  Pornography is perceived
as a phenomenon which
degenerates women’s
sexuality by articulating it,
as something “dirty”.
Pornographic visuals are
deeply integrated in, and
widely distributed
throughout society, which
continuously leads to the
objectification and
deliberated stagnation of
women’s sexuality. (A.
Dworkin)

20.  International condemnation of sexual violence became widespread in
many western democracies with the rise of women’s rights in the 19th
and 20th centuries.
 Local and international private groups have been founded throughout
the world in response to growing sexual violence statistics.
 Responsible governments have also created
entities to promote women’s rights and counter
the increasing budgets needed to prosecute
offenders.
 Events and groups such as White Ribbon Day,
Freedom From Fear, Hurriyet Man Up, Australia
Says No! work to prevent sexual violence.
 However, some groups are only solely dedicated
to treating victims and helping them recover
from traumatic events.

22.  As the heart of feminist theory, gender
equality remains the true goal of feminists
everywhere.
 Domestic abuse and sexual violence
present the single biggest challenge to
women’s rights.
 Despite decades of advancements and
international condemnation, sexual
violence statistics continue to rise.
 Feminist theory attempts to describe and
help us understand why and how sexual
violence exists.
 Key theories highlight how sexual violence
is not a single experience and varies
worldwide.
 To continue to combat sexual violence in
both the public and private spheres,
greater awareness is required to signify
how these acts are socially unacceptable.

23. Essed, P, Goldberg, D T & Kobayashi, A 2005,
‘Domestic Violence’, A Companion to Gender
Studies, Blackwell Publishing, United Kingdom.
Kemp, S & Squires, J 1997, ‘Sexualities’, Feminisms,
Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Robinson, V & Richardson, D (eds.) 1997, ‘Sexuality
and Feminism’, Introducing Women’s Studies,
Palgrave, New York.
Robinson, V & Richardson, D (eds.) 1997, ‘Women,
Violence and Male Power’, Introducing Women’s
Studies, Palgrave, New York.
Jackson, S (ed.) 1993 , ‘Sexuality’, Women’s Studies,
Essential Readings, New York University Press,
New York.