From “battered wives” to “coercive control”: 35 years of understanding domestic abuse in Scotland

Nel Whiting, Scottish Women’s Aid

 

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Summary

–          Roots of SWA came from Women’s Liberation Movement

• Freedom for all women from intimidation and threat of male violence

–          The understanding of what domestic abuse is has been changed by the vocalizing of stories and the revealing of hidden voices

–          Story of changing language (changed to reflect our understanding)

• In the beginning:
  • Battered wives
  • Domestic violence

– The problem needed to be admitted

• Original language was limiting:
  • Meant in marriage and physical violence
•  Came from a criminology background
  • The Dobashes, Violence Against Wives
    • 25% of police business was around domestic violence
      • Legitimized the problem with statistical proof
      • Turn towards ‘domestic violence’:
        • ‘Women and their children’
• Hearing stories revealed domestic violence was much more than violence                 à expanded understanding of that domestic violence was more than battered wives, and also made children victims as well even if not physically touched
• Further reveals the need to look beyond the surface
  • Shame was something victims grappled with
  • A lot of investment in hiding and protecting this aspect of a person’s life who was abused
  • Personal stories revealed unexpected and unanticipated forms of abuse

–          New language:

• Coercive control (Evan Stark)
  • New framing, helps reveal impact of domestic abuse
  • New understanding of domestic abuse:
    • Coercive control
    • Isolation
    • Intimate terrorism
    • Violence that is fundamental/instrumental
    • gendered
    • Space for action, personal choices, decreased because someone else is taking that space away
      • This awareness means groups like SWA want to also help rebuild that space for action which had been taken away

–          Gender as a social structure also impacts approaches to domestic violence/abuse

• How does this impact sexuality, expectations, ways society values men and women, and relationship between men and women

–          Importance of the body when analyzing domestic violence

• Bodies are the targets and sites of attach

–          Gendered-based violence

• Any form of violence used to perpetuate gender inequalities and keep in place gendered orders

–          LGBT Domestic Youth Project

• A result of these new perspectives, language and understanding

–          SWA has broadened their work, and expanded connections

 

Questions:

Lynn Abrams: What about perpetrators and their voices?

–          There is work on this as well; also contributes to the understanding of domestic violence

Frankie McCarthy: How was the internet contributed to these developments for women’s aid?

–          Positively and negatively

• A new venue for harassment which can cause more complications for prosecution as well as help prosecute