Rarely does a day go by in which global news does not alert us to the brutal exercise of patriarchal state power and injustice. States around the world are guilty of both abject abuse of women and girls, and a complete failure to protect them from violence of every form. In Autumn 2022, the murder of Masha Amini in Iran by ‘morality police’, and the subsequent deadly reaction to protests, reveals the harrowing persistence of this state-perpetuated violence.
However, where there is injustice and harm, there exists resistance and activism. That this resistance is necessary highlights the lived reality for women and the vast scale of global violence against women. The COVID-19 pandemic ushered in a new global war on women, in exploding rates of domestic violence and image-based sexual abuse. The home, where generally there was a reactivation of prescribed gender roles, and the space where women and children were confined, was, for many, also the least safe place to be. The global conditions of lockdowns were a recipe for disaster in terms of abuse. Pertinent here though is not only to focus on, and critique, the entitlement of men to the bodies of women and children, but to question why, knowing what they do about the rates of gendered violence, not one single state power prioritised the safety, and ultimately the lives, of women and children in their lockdown plans.
The murder of Sarah Everard and the devastating police response to the murders of sisters Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman exposed the relentless misogyny and violence of police culture in Britain and cement the argument that policing is a feminist issue. The murders of Sabina Nessa and Ashling Murphy, as well as being examples of the prevalence and fatal result of men’s violence against women, are further stark reminders of the failures of the state to address institutional racism and men’s violence against women. Women in Britain and Ireland, including pregnant women and new mothers, continue to be imprisoned for non-violent offences in institutions where self-harm and suicide continue to be commonplace. Criminalised women are likely to have experienced domestic violence and/or childhood abuse. Furthermore, women are harmed by the violence of austerity, while across Britain and Ireland, women are continually denied access to free, safe and legal abortion services.
The instances above are merely a selection of recent examples which plainly demonstrate the continuum of violence experienced by women and supported and maintained by the state and its institutions. However, the tireless work of survivors and activists ensures that these issues will not be ignored. It is through listening to the voices of those who have experienced violent injustice that radical transformation may occur. Accepted academic narratives, political complacency and popular ‘common sense’ notions around profound gendered harms, have begun to be challenged by feminist scholars and activists who are concerned particularly with intersectional resistance.
For five decades and longer, feminists have provided challenges within the discipline of criminology. ‘Feminist praxis’ rejects the divide between theory and research, centralising methodological and epistemological concerns. In short, how we research, who we research with and importantly who we research for is central to feminist enquiry. Furthermore, to understand criminal and social (in)justice, feminist criminologies must address cross-cutting regimes of inequality and the effects that these systems of power, and the role of state institutions, have on each other. Black and racially minoritised women, in particular, have appealed for an end to the compartmentalisation of identity, experience and structural inequalities. People are characterised by a multitude of social divisions including ‘race’, ethnicity, social class, age, sexuality and disability which impact upon experiences of criminal law, criminal justice and social justice.
Yet, while feminist praxis has made huge gains, not least in the discipline of criminology, simultaneously, and helped in large part by technology, we have seen ‘common sense’ ideas around masculinity and femininity, sex, violence and crime put into normative discourse, reinforcing and regulating the gendered social order. The murder of Grace Millane provides one such example, where ‘sex-positive’ feminist discourses were co-opted and claims of ‘sex games gone wrong’ used as a defence for fatal men’s violence. It is the job of intersectional feminist praxis, therefore, to challenge and resist cultural norms and contemporary regimes of ‘truth’.
As regards the role of the state and its institutions, our examples highlight the importance of an analysis of the state’s response to behaviours which transcend the public/private divide. Yet, this challenging of the state’s inactions in which certain forms of violence are sanctioned (particularly within the ‘private sphere’) also draws attention to feminist calls for anti-carceral solutions, which challenge intersectional harm while arguing for fewer police and less (or no) imprisonment. These arguments are made at a critical juncture and acknowledge the need for immediate change within current systems and essential long-term structural revolution.
Justice ultimately equates to the prevention of harm. The safety and protection of women and girls from harms experienced at multiple levels, in public and private, is the goal of feminist praxis. As argued by Sim (2020) there is a need to challenge dominant discourses of safety and protection and to make the connections between harms experienced by a range of marginalised groups. Overall, it is essential that harm and (in)justice are considered beyond limited, individualised and punitive frameworks. Feminist praxis must continue to challenge the brutal and persistent maintenance of the dominant gendered social order – the violent repercussions of which, outlined by Dobash and Dobash (1979) over 40 years ago, remain depressingly familiar.
Katie Tucker is Associate Lecturer at The Open University and Úna Barr is Lecturer in Criminology at Liverpool John Moores University.
Feminist Responses to Injustices of the State and its Institutions Edited by Kym Atkinson, Úna Barr, Helen Monk and Katie Tucker is available on the Bristol University Press website. Order here for £80.00.
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