Handbook on Sexual Violence (44 page)

1990). During the next
sections of this
chapter some key issues will be explored:

Violence against women is an element of society and part of the continuum of sexual violence;

Violence against women is complex but functions as a symbolic expression

of control;

Statistical data matters because it helps to document the extent of violence;

Rape has been known about for a long time but has only recently been focused on by sociological research;

Violence against women has a profound impact on families and communities;

Women’s role within the structure of the community means that violence against them has significance for all within that community;

Violence against women continues despite changes in legislation.

Patriarchal ideologies have the effect of disguising the reality of male power and although in recent years the flow of ideas and understandings about rape has contributed to academic knowledge (Horvath and Brown 2009) and has had an impact on social and criminal justice policy, it is important to continue to examine theoretical perspectives that remain prominent in explaining social life.

Violence against women is an element of society: structural-functionalism

Structural-functionalism focuses on the ways social institutions meet social needs. A key example is the concept of the family. All aspects of the family are seen as functional in the sense of working together to achieve a state of solidarity. Through this sociological perspective, important questions to ask include: ‘What is the function of this person/institution/system?’ Thus, we can ask, ‘What is the function of sexual violence for societal stability?’ This would yield different answers to those questions posed by psychology, which might instead pose questions of a more personal and individual nature. The sociological answer is complex and necessitates a detailed analysis of gender politics, sex-role theory, sexual relationships and criminal law, but one answer is that sexual violence functions to keep all women in a state of fear because it is impossible for a woman to tell which men are safe and which are not, thereby maintaining the status quo of patriarchy (Brownmiller 1975; Banyard 2010; Walter 2010).

Structural-functionalism has been criticised because it thinks about elements of social life in relation to their present function but gives no analysis of potential futures. It tends to support the status quo and so it is not the best perspective through which to understand why or how something might change. So in returning to our question, ‘What is the function of sexual violence for societal stability?’, structural-functionalism can tell us about the present but it does not offer a framework for how things might change.

Violence against women is complex: conflict theory

Conflict theory differs from structural-functionalism because instead of understanding society as striving for equilibrium, society is seen as in
competition
and subject to
change
. Resources (not merely material resources but also things such as power and influence) are limited and some social structures have more resources than others and so have higher status and greater ability to maintain their position. Where the structural-functionalist approach struggles to explain change in society, conflict theory argues that society is constantly in change and conflict over resources. So competition over resources is at the heart of all social relationships. Inequality is inherent in all social structures and change occurs because of competing interests. Through this sociological perspective, then, important questions to ask include: ‘Who benefits?’ Thus, we can ask, ‘Who benefits from sexual violence within society?’ Again, this sociological question has no easy answers but since the 1970s the developing answer has had a gendered analysis at the heart of it. Thinking about sexual violence this way demonstrates why both structural-functionalist and conflict theories are helpful in understanding how society works.

Many early second-wave feminists of the 1970s worked within a conflict- theory approach, analysing gender inequalities and seeking to explain why women experienced discrimination. Of course feminism was not the only social movement to take a conflict-theory approach to the issue of social discrimination. Marxist theories on the exploitation of the working class and critical theorists analysing ethnic discrimination are likely to take such an approach. However, many feminists critiqued the explanatory power of Marxism to explain the subordinate, unequal position of women in modern capitalist society. Hartmann (1981) challenged Marxist economic analysis as sex-blind in its inability to explain women’s subordinate position to men inside and outside the family. A combined sociological perspective on capitalism and patriarchy has been described as a ‘dual-system theory’ (Abbott and Wallace 1990) but Walby (1990) argued that writers often tend to keep the two distinct and separate, assigning economic production to capitalism and reproductive formation to patriarchy. This can result in a failure to account for gender inequality within the public sphere (and capitalism has undoubtedly benefited from the marginalisation of women in the workforce). Towards the end of the twentieth century Walby (1990) confirmed that while liberal feminism made many gains – from the vote, property ownership and rights in marriage – patriarchy was not defeated: a view that is being confirmed again in the early twenty-first century (Horvath and Brown 2009; Wykes and Welsh 2009; Banyard 2010; Walter 2010). Feminist perspectives have branched in many directions but one constant has been the perception of patriarchy as central to understanding gendered roles.

Violence against women functions as a symbolic expression of control: symbolic interactionism

Symbolic interactionism understands human action and interaction within

society through the exchange of meaningful communication. Therefore
meaning
and
interaction
are key concepts. The symbolic meanings relating to gendered language mean that when we speak of ‘a woman’ or ‘a man’ a tidal wave of meanings, assumptions and understandings are brought into play. The meanings we give to these words are bigger than mere biological categories. As Connell argues, ‘When an American football coach yells at his losing team that they are a ‘‘bunch of women’’, he does not mean they can now get pregnant’ (1987: 65): he is saying something which is contextually and symbolically important. The potential for violation committed by symbolically laden language should not be underestimated. From the wolf whistle in the street, to the example given here by Connell, right through to the death threat, language is an important factor in the continuum of sexual violence (Kelly 1988).

One way of understanding symbolic interactionism is through the concept of the ‘looking-glass self’ (Cooley 1902), which suggests that one’s sense of self develops from one’s interactions with others. Certainly MacKinnon (1987: 105) has argued that women understand their own position by measuring themselves ‘against every rape case she ever heard about’ and Walter makes the point that young women today ‘know they are likely to be judged not for their competence and skills, but on how closely they resemble a porn star’ (2010: 121). Yeung and Martin (2003) suggest there are three main components of the looking-glass self: first we imagine how we must appear to others, then we imagine the judgement of others of that appearance, and then we develop our sense of self through the judgements of others. Through this focus on micro-level interactions, important questions to ask include: ‘Do some people understand certain phenomena differently from others in society?’ Thus, one can ask, ‘Do men and women have different understandings of sexual violence in society?’

Banyard (2010: 106) suggests that ‘sexist violence is the Houdini of modern- day social crises’ because it evades definition, and Walter (2010: 33) adds that there is a danger that by ‘co-opting the language of choice and liberation’ we obscure the realities of sexual violence. It has been argued that it is in ‘men’s interest, as a class and as the perpetrators of sexual violence, to ensure the definitions of sexual violence are as limited as possible’ (Kelly 1988: 130). Feminists have struggled with the limitations imposed by narrow definitions and have campaigned to have different forms of sexual violence acknowl- edged by the law, including marital rape, oral penetration and ‘more ‘‘taken for granted’’ forms such as sexual harassment’ (ibid.: 27). These boundaries of definition continue to be pushed as women increasingly enter the realm of cyberspace. In virtual worlds, human-like avatars can be constructed by choosing from a palette of characteristics such as age, gender, physical shape and colour where the female form is human enough to be raped but not human enough for it to be deemed a crime (Jones 2010).

Can sociological analyses tell us anything about the extent of sexual violence?

Sociological research will employ empirical evidence from a variety of sources.

Two main data sources in the UK are official statistics based on incidents reported to the police (Walker
et al
. 2009) and the British Crime Survey which relies on self-reported experiences (Walby and Allen 2004). The prevalence and incidence rates vary depending on the source, with official rates of sexual violence almost always much lower than data from surveys and victim agencies. In understanding the continuum of sexual violence, a cautious approach needs to be taken to any statistical data on sexual violence due to the unknown level of unreported violence. From a sociological perspective we also need to be wary of focusing on the individual and think critically about how we can unmask wider social forces because the ‘collection of data is of course important but only in so far as it can be put to practical use’ (Jones 2005: 589).

The British Crime Survey

The British Crime Survey is a tool for gathering statistical data and defines sexual assault as that part of their intimate violence typology that includes ‘indecent exposure, sexual threats and unwanted touching (‘less serious’), rape or assault by penetration including attempts (‘serious’), by any person including a partner or family member’ (Coleman
et al
. 2007). Findings from the 2005/06 British Crime Survey show that almost a quarter (24 per cent) of women reported having experienced sexual assault since age 16. Serious sexual assaults were less prevalent with five per cent of women reporting rape since age 16 and the prevalence rates of sexual assaults were considerably lower among men (Coleman
et al
. 2007).

Survey data provides evidence that sexual violence is strongly gendered

and that the majority of perpetrators are male (Powis 2002; Kimmel 2004; Walby and Allen 2004). This does not mean that all perpetrators are male or that all men are sexually violent. Indeed, the majority of men are non-violent and some women are sexually violent. ChildLine’s (2009) research showed that calls in 2008 about sexual abuse of children by women had risen and of the 16,094 children who called, 2,142 told of abuse by a woman, up 132 per cent on 2004–5. Of course, it has been long known that a small percentage of all known offenders are women. Vanessa George, who in 2009 stood trial on sexual abuse offences, gained access to the children she abused through her employment in a nursery: ‘She sexually assaulted them and used the camera on her mobile phone to record the abuse. She used objects found at the nursery in the assaults, but also smuggled a sex toy in for at least one attack’ (Morris and Carter 2009). Research from the 1990s shows that female perpetrators tend to commit fewer and less intrusive acts of sexual abuse compared with males (Saradjian 1996). But while we acknowledge this we also recognise that although some sexual offending by women remains hidden, it is still a very small percentage of the overall total. Any search for equivalence in male and female offending rates runs the risk of detracting from the need to acknowledge fundamental issues of male power in society (McLeod and Saraga 1988; Forbes 1992).

Official statistics

Serious sexual crime is defined by the police as including ‘rape, sexual assault and sexual activity with children’ (Walker
et al
. 2009). The Sexual Offences Act 2003, introduced in May 2004, altered the definitions of all three categories and so the comparison of present-day data with previous data is complicated and any patterns in recorded sexual offences should be considered with regard to this. The police recorded 40,787 serious sexual offences in 2008/09 compared with 41,440 similar offences in 2007/08 (Roe
et al
. 2009). Within this 2008/09 total, police recorded 12,165 rapes of a female and 968 rapes of a male.

However, sociological critique suggests that even seemingly hard data requires critical examination. Certainly on the release of the Stern Review into the handling of rape complaints (March 2010), a key focus was on the number of rapes which resulted in a conviction in the courts. This is of course just the most recent of a long line of reviews, reports and evaluations conducted by government over the years, many of which can be found listed on the website of the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit (h
ttp://www.cwasu.org/). One of the aims of the Stern Review was to ‘explore ways in which the attrition rate in criminal cases can be reduced, and how to fairly increase the conviction rate’ (Stern 2010: 6). While it is useful that both the attrition rate and the conviction rate are features of the review, the media and other social commentators remain confused about the differences in these two terms. The attrition rate refers to the number of convictions secured compared with the number of rapes reported to the police (Lovett and Kelly 2009). The conviction rate refers to the number of convictions secured against the number of persons brought to trial for rape.

Of every 100 cases reported, about 15 were eventually not recorded as crimes, were retracted or were withdrawn very quickly by the complainant. Of the remaining 85, about 20 were subsequently withdrawn by the victim, 23 were not proceeded with because the evidence was felt to be not strong enough and about 14 were not proceeded with for other reasons. In about 26 cases a suspect was charged with the offence of rape. That figure was reduced to 19 at the time the decision was made to go ahead with a prosecution. A number of the prosecutions were unsuccessful because the complainant decided not to continue or did not attend, the evidence of the victim did not support the case, or there was a conflict of evidence or an essential legal element missing. Some cases were withdrawn because of fears of the effect on the complainant’s mental health. Finally of those taken to court around 12 were found guilty of rape
or a related offence
.