Abstract
Despite the pervasive nature of street harassment, there is currently little research exploring who perpetrates street harassment and why. Drawing on interviews with Australians who have ...experienced street harassment, we examine their insights into perpetration. Participants identified individual-level, social/cultural, structural and contextual factors that facilitate street harassment. While existing theoretical explanations of gendered violence help to account for the perpetration of street harassment, these were not sufficient in accounting for participants’ experiences. Participants often drew on gendered, aged, classed and racial stereotypes in their perceptions of perpetrators. We argue that a nuanced understanding of power that accounts for multiple, intersecting forms of marginalisation is needed to understand who perpetrates, as well as who is perceived to perpetrate street harassment.
In this article, we applied a ‘sex critical’ lens to discursively analyse online sex advice available to Australian readers in the first 3 months of ‘lockdown’ during the COVID-19 pandemic ...(March–June 2020). We explored how sex and intimacy were being talked about within the pandemic context, examining if and how this was different to pre-pandemic sex advice. We found both the perpetuation of dominant discourses that limit understandings of sex and sexual practices, and challenges to these which open exciting possibilities for new sexual intimacies.
Media representation of sexual violence and sexual consent communication in cases involving queer people is an area that has been overwhelmingly overlooked by research thus far. Research looking at ...heterosexual instances of sexual violence has given us valuable insights into how (hetero)normative gender roles are constructed in news media, and how these work to excuse and minimise the actions of heterosexual men. But how does this change when at least one of the men involved is queer or homosexual and does not fit into the (hetero)normative gender role paradigm which is commonly used to excuse men’s sexually violent behaviours? This research examined three celebrity cases of alleged sexual violence from the #MeToo movement where the communication of sexual consent (or lack thereof) played a primary role in media reporting. This includes the heteronormative case of Aziz Ansari, and two cases involving homosexual men including Kevin Spacey and Tom Ballard. Our research found that with an absence of cultural intelligibility around queer sex and queer negotiations of consent, problematic and damaging stereotypes about homosexual ‘deviancy’ were instead used by news media in attempts to make sense of these cases. It ultimately found that in both the heterosexual and homosexual cases that news media reporting was overwhelmingly protecting and perpetuating norms of hegemonic masculinity, namely through legitimising any homosexual advance on a heterosexual man as violence, and any heterosexual male advance on a woman as non-violence.
Technology-facilitated abuse (TFA) is a growing problem. This article explores lifetime victimization experiences of TFA, presenting findings from the first study to establish a reliable national ...prevalence estimate for victimization in Australia, using a general adult population sample ('n' = 4,562) and 20 qualitative interviews with adults who have experienced TFA. Key findings include an overall high lifetime victimization prevalence (one in two Australians), high negative emotional impacts and severe mental distress among some marginalized groups. Our findings lend support for the utility of marginalization and intersectional theories in understanding the prevalence and negative impacts of TFA and address gaps in knowledge of how TFA victimization may differentially impact marginalized groups within an adult population. We argue that TFA research, policy and practice must be more attentive to intersecting and marginalized identities including and beyond gender.
Sexual violence has predominantly been discursively constructed as bounded and binary, leaving little room for ambiguous or uncertain experiences. The #MeToo movement, however, saw some highly ...contested cases enter into mainstream news coverage that challenged these dominant understandings, including the divisive case of Aziz Ansari. This research uses a post-structural feminist framework to examine Australian news media reporting of this case in order to understand how discourses around sexual violence and sexual consent are (re)produced by news media following the #MeToo movement. The study found that whilst some discourse was more nuanced, the majority of reporting still perpetuated limited and binary understandings of sexual violence. Much reporting constructed pressure and coercion as the normal and acceptable "reality" of (hetero)sex, failing to acknowledge coercion as potentially harmful and problematic, as well as failing to consider the possibilities for doing consent differently. Reporting also (re)produced narrow and stereotypical understandings of gender roles, with women primarily seen as bearing the onus of gatekeeping sexual experiences, and men seen as "naturally" aggressive pursuers of sex. Ultimately, we argue that news media works as a site of erasure for particular forms and experiences of sexual violence.
Most research on street harassment has focused on the experiences of heterosexual, cisgender women, shaping our understandings of street harassment as a problem of sexism and men’s violence against ...women. In this article, we examine semi-structured interviews with 25 LGBTQ+ Australians who detailed their experiences of street harassment. We found that LGBTQ+ people experience unique forms, contexts, and trajectories of street harassment that a cisheteronormative gendered framework cannot fully account for. Homophobia, transphobia, and heterosexism are drivers that have been under-theorized in street harassment literature. Our findings reiterate the importance of moving beyond over-simplified understandings of gender-based violence and the need to analyze other intersecting forms of marginalization beyond binary conceptualizations of gender.
Technology-facilitated abuse (TFA) is a growing problem with serious harms and implications, yet laws and legal responses often fail to keep pace. The policing of TFA poses unique operational ...challenges, such as resourcing and cross-jurisdictional difficulties. But it is further challenged by a fixed belief that physical abuse is more harmful than digital forms of abuse, with reports that police do not treat TFA seriously. This article explores problems with the policing of TFA drawing on a three-stage study examining the extent, forms and impacts of TFA in Australia. The study findings are informed by a survey of workers from support and service sectors (n = 242), including domestic violence, sexual assault, health, behaviour change, legal and specialist diversity services; qualitative interviews with adult victim/survivors (n = 20) and perpetrators (n = 10) of TFA; and a subset of respondents (n = 2,325) from a nationally representative general population survey of victimisation and perpetration (n = 4,562). The study found a reluctance to report TFA to police, or in circumstances where a report was made, overwhelmingly negative experiences from doing so. It also found low levels of confidence in the policing of TFA. We argue that additional police training and resources are needed on how to recognise and understand the harms of TFA, which laws apply to TFA, and importantly, how to respond to disclosures and provide a supportive environment for the diversity of victim/survivors who experience TFA.
Anonymous reporting tools for sexual assault contribute to gathering intelligence, reducing crime, increasing reporting and supporting survivors. This article examines victim survivors' knowledge of ...and experiences using alternative reporting options, drawing on data collected from a broader study of alternative reporting options for sexual assault. Focus groups with victim-survivors and interviews with support service staff reveal that survivors and support staff are unclear about how authorities use data from alternative reporting tools but can identify preferred designs for a form. Victim-survivors in particular strongly support having an alternative reporting option available.
Anonymous reporting tools for sexual assault contribute to gathering intelligence, reducing crime, increasing reporting and supporting survivors. This article examines victimsurvivors' knowledge of ...and experiences using alternative reporting options, drawing on data collected from a broader study of alternative reporting options for sexual assault. Focus groups with victim-survivors and interviews with support service staff reveal that survivors and support staff are unclear about how authorities use data from alternative reporting tools but can identify preferred designs for a form. Victim-survivors in particular strongly support having an alternative reporting option available.
