Month: June 2015

#25GenderViolence

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Dr Emma Williamson
Dr Emma Williamson

Dr Emma Williamson, Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Gender and Violence Research, updates us on the Centre’s 25 year anniversary celebration event

On Monday 15th June (2015) the Centre for Gender and Violence Research in the School for Policy Studies celebrated its 25 year anniversary.

Set-up in 1990 with, as described by one of the co-founder Ellen Malos, “a piece of headed paper with our names typed on it”, the group has grown from its first project on housing funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation to a Centre of 10 staff and more than 10 PhD students from across the world.

The significance of the date gave us an opportunity at our yearly conference to reflect on the work of the Centre and our founding principles, to take stock of the work we have done as well as to look forward and to think about where we want to be in the future.

The group’s co-founders, Gill Hague and Ellen Malos, introduced a welcome film at the event within which they highlighted the early days of the group, the many challenges, and the personal, as well as professional, impacts of starting a group with its roots firmly in the blossoming women’s movement and activism. Key to the principles of the group was a recognition of the need to name power.
Whether that be power between abusers and survivors, participants and researchers, or the centre and colleagues overseas.

As with many of our seminar events, present throughout the day were activists, academics, survivors, and service providers, both as delegates and speakers. We heard how the work of the Centre over the years has influenced practice and continues to do so. How the role of specialist violence organisations as the ‘commissioners’ and co-producers of our work continues to influence the projects we seek funding for to ensure that it has use, purpose, and makes a difference.

The event included talks by practitioners (Steven Jackson, domestic violence lead at the College of Policing) and practitioner/ researchers (Simon Kerrs, Co-ordinator of Cambridgeshire IDVA services), as well as findings from recent research about teen dating violence both off and on-line across Europe (Barter), the plight of Yezidi women kidnapped, abused, and exploited, by ISIS (Begikhani), and the importance of ‘memorable events’ for disclosure by those with experience of childhood sexual abuse (Allnock).

Also celebrated were the books produced by the centre over the years focusing on a range of topics but always concerned with the role of gender in society and the violences associated with it. From Power to Change to the Centre’s recent edited collection, Understanding Gender Based Violence this selection of the centre’s publications illustrates the breadth of work undertaken in the Centre and the International focus of much of that work.

During the event we included Pecha Kucha slots. An idea tried and tested at the Provide conference in 2014, these short three minute presentations give an opportunity for a wide range of speakers (practitioners, phd students) to get their key points across to the audience using humour and creativity alongside the more usual presenting skills. Given the nature of our work – gendered violence is never amusing – this was an opportunity to recognise and celebrate the ways we use humour and creativity in our relationships to help us all, whether academic, survivor, specialist worker, cope with our work and to support each other. A huge thanks must go to all the pecha kuccha speakers – alongside learning more about service provision and new initiatives, we had rock chicks, rainbows, embarrassing revelations, alice in wonderland, and a call to activism to continue fighting against the austerity which impacts on the ability of the sector to support those affected by violence and abuse.

Our two main keynote speakers were Evan Stark, talking about his work on Coercive Control and the concept of gendered violence as a ‘liberty’ or Human Rights crime, and challenges of introducing the new English legislation on coercive control, and Marianne Hester, talking about the importance of Human Rights policy, such as the European Istanbul Convention, in linking gender based violence and inequality, and providing a framework to disrupt abuse at all levels – from individual to society. Introducing Marianne, Evan praised her tireless work over the years in the pursuit of knowledge which has galvanised governments and practitioners to scrutinise their own responses to abuse. Both provided an overview of the political and theoretical imperatives for challenging wider structural inequalities, as a way to inform policy and practice to tackle gender based violence.

As always we thank Evan, and Anne Flitcraft, for joining us in Bristol to share their ideas, friendship, and humour (!).

Finally, the event was an opportunity to recognise the contribution of survivors to guiding the direction of our work, to their bravery in taking part in research, and in holding us all accountable. Many survivors were in attendance on the day and reported feeling energized, inspired, and enthused by the conference. For that, we would like to thank everyone who attended and contributed on the day – both speakers and delegates. We would also like to thank all of the individuals and organisations who have worked with the centre of the past 25 years. Whilst we hope that a Centre like ours will no longer be necessary in another 25 years, we will none the less continue to respond to those at the front line to produce academic work that is rigorous, relevant, and that makes a difference.

Presenting at academic conferences: embracing discomfort

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Natasha Mulvihill, Andrea Matolcsi, and Catherine Briddick reflect on their experiences of academic conference presentations in the field of prostitutiongvr-slider

The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable […]. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers. (M. Scott Peck)

The academic conference is an established forum for colleagues to present early findings and to road-test theories.  Ranging from mutually affirming spaces, thronged with like-minded and well-acquainted delegates to more diverse, loosely-knit events where participants strike up haphazard groups, conferences offer different opportunities for communication and intellectual challenge.  But how far should we actively seek out academic conferences that engender some discomfort to, in Peck’s terms, nudge us out of our particular research perspectives?

In April, we attended the first international conference organised by PROSPOL (Comparing European Prostitution Policies:  Understanding Scales and Cultures of Governance), a funded strand of work under the European COST Action IS1209 initiative.  Held in Vienna, delegates were asked to submit papers under the conference banner ‘Troubling prostitution: Exploring intersections of sex, intimacy and labour’.  As researchers on prostitution policy for a number of years, we submitted and each had an individual paper accepted, as well as panel proposal, co-presented with a colleague at Oxford.

The delegate list boasted many of the contemporary researchers across the world writing on prostitution and prostitution policy: and was for this reason a landmark event.  For those unfamiliar with this field of work, there is common demarcation made between researchers who understand selling sex as labour which deserves a statutory footing, with attendant rights and work to reduce harm, and researchers who understand prostitution as a reflection of patriarchy, characterised often by exploitation and abuse, and who lobby for measures to reduce demand for paid sex and support for women to exit.  While this division glosses over the significant diversity of views within and across these positions, it is palpable in its effects.  Researchers adopt terms consistent with the polar perspective (“sex work”, “prostitution”) and first encounters with other researchers can involve a few moments of careful neutrality, like poker players trying to read the other’s hand.  Differences in standpoint have at times been personal and appear increasingly to be played out beyond the academic journals and in to social media.  Institutions on name badges and delegate lists can suggest allegiances: ‘Centre for Gender and Violence Research at the University of Bristol’, for example, positions us as likely ‘prohibitionists’.  Broadly, the PROSPOL conference was sympathetic to the sex work perspective.

We offer three observations.  First, the discussion on prostitution and sex work can echo the story of the blind men and the elephant: researchers are often talking about different aspects of the sex industry and projecting their findings across the piece.  For example, the experience of migrants working in parlours, female street workers, single mothers working independently from home, internet workers ‘on tour’, male escorts or female sex tourists are all characterised by different individual circumstances and different relations of power.  So all researchers need to be careful about how they evidence their claims.

Second, as researchers writing from a feminist perspective, we are nevertheless interested in the interconnections between experiences of women and men across the sex industry and how these relate to gender-power relations.  We are mindful that despite some diversity in those selling sex, and despite the intersectional relations of race, economic status, migration status (or lack thereof), sexuality or disability within the prostitution encounter, the purchase of sex remains an overwhelmingly masculine practice.  This deserves further analysis.

Third, we note that prostitution as a practice rooted in patriarchy has been re-envisioned through the sex work movement and imbued with new meanings of freedom, choice, rights and transgression.  Much of the current research is exploring the tensions between this understanding of prostitution and a less sympathetic legal and political context.   However, rather than a brave new world, our concern would be that that this perspective reinforces prevailing power relations.  For example, there was discussion within one panel that gender equality within sex work would mean more equal numbers of men and women paying for sex.  Yet, this is surely the old gender politics where role equity for women has required women to move in to male constructed domains (politics, the workplace, front-line combat etc.) but rarely requires role change for men, or a significant challenge to the rationale, operation or normative status of those domains.

Despite our different viewpoints, we learnt a great deal from the breadth of research presented.  We got to meet the people behind the printed word and exchanged stories of how we found ourselves researching this difficult area.  We had common experiences on methods, on ethics, and on working with other organisations such as the police and health services and indeed with the women and men selling sex.  There was universal agreement that these individuals should not be criminalised.

So while our experience at the conference was at times taxing, we came away from Vienna with new knowledge, new friendships and the recognition that a little discomfort can be a good thing.

Authors                                                                              

Dr Natasha Mulvihill is a Research Associate and teacher at the University of Bristol’s Centre for Gender and Violence Research.

Andrea Matolcsi is a third-year PhD student at the University of Bristol’s Centre for Gender and Violence Research. Her participation in this conference was fully supported by the University of Bristol Alumni Foundation.

Catherine Briddick is studying for a DPhil in Law at the University of Oxford where she teaches international law and the protection of refugees, migrants and displaced persons.

Nothing about us without us

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medium-313746Agnes Bezzina, Teaching Fellow in social work in the School for Policy Studies, discusses her research on service user involvement of people with a disability.

Parliamentary discussions last month featured an interesting debate on the setting up of a Sign Language Council to advise government on issues related to the development of Maltese sign language.

There was a level of excitement that Maltese sign language, the language of the deaf community in Malta, may receive deserved recognition.

Yet, there was also a sense of disillusion as questions arose concerning this council’s five-member composition, with a requirement for only one of these to be a deaf person.

How can this token representation be considered acceptable in Malta, one of the first countries to sign the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities? Should there not be a legal requirement for the council to be made up of a majority of deaf persons as experts of their language?

The Nothing About Us Without Us collective slogan advocated by people with disability worldwide and radically promoted in Malta at the turn of the millennium contributed to the interest in studying service user involvement (SUI) in social work.

Through my research, I tried to identify the major prerequisites for nurturing service user participation in social work education, policy and practice by using a mixed methods approach in my doctoral study entitled ‘Service user involvement in social work: emergent dynamics in the Maltese context’.

Initially, an online survey was undertaken with social workers in Malta, examining their attitudes towards SUI and their experiences of it. In the second phase, semi-structured interviews were conducted with social work senior managers, educators and policymakers, reviewing their understanding of SUI and its implementation at an organisational level.

Finally, semi-structured interviews were carried out with actively involved service users, exploring their conceptualisation of SUI and their involvement experience. One of the objectives of my study was to examine the nature and extent of SUI in the social sector.

The study exposed the lack of SUI in social work and services in Malta. Despite various conferences and seminars on the subject being organised by social work organisations, its implementation remains sparse.

While the majority of social workers (97.2 per cent) agreed that service user involvement is of value to the social work profession, 80.7 per cent believed that there was room for more contribution by service users in their particular agency or department.

An examination of the social and cultural factors that may impact on the development of SUI revealed three central factors: the smallness of Malta, the dominance of patronage and paternalism and the prevalence of charity and voluntarism.

An analysis of these features brought to light the importance of face-to-face personal relations within a small country. There were indications of the enduring nature of patronage systems highlighted by research in the 1960s, with evidence of patronage and paternalism also permeating service user relations. The charity model was still seen to prevail, although voluntarism was considered essentially desirable and deemed to differ from a patronising charity perspective.

This research also brought to light the difference in perspectives of service users and professionals in relation to SUI. Professionals generally adopt a consumerist perspective, one in which participation is outcome-oriented, has a functional purpose and in which there are no power considerations.

In contrast, service users advocate for a more democratic outlook to SUI, one that is motivated by principle, in which the participatory process itself is crucial and where the focus is on transforming power relations.

Interestingly, the disability sector emerged as an exemplar of SUI in the social sector. Advances in the 90s and the first decade of the new millennium saw individuals from a range of impairment groups, including physical and sensory impairments, as well as intellectual disabilities, being actively involved in various forums. This brings us back to the initial questions regarding the setting up of the Maltese Sign Language Council and the potential impact of not including – or, rather, excluding – people with disability in issues that relate to them.

My research revealed that it was generally the activism of individuals from select service user groups that generated the momentum for greater participation and influence. Participation gives rise to increased involvement and control.

Non-participation, however, results in powerlessness and an acceptance of the ‘observer’ status. This timely research challenges the authorities to reflect on the proposed minimal – arguably tokenistic – involvement of deaf persons on the Sign Language Council and to consider instead a genuine participation on this important body.

Only with such concrete measures will the Nothing About Us Without Us slogan translate into effective SUI that rebalances the power disparity between the social services bureaucracy and those whose well-being depends on it.

Agnes graduated from the University of Nottingham with a PhD in social work. Her degree was funded by the Strategic Educational Pathways Scholarship (Malta), which is part-financed by the EU Social Fund under Optional Programme II – Cohesion Policy 2007-2013, ‘Empowering people for more jobs and a better quality of life’. This was first posted on the Times of Malta.

 

Men experiencing or perpetrating domestic violence linked with two to three-fold increase in mental health problems

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Marianne Hester, from the Centre for Gender Violence Research in the School for Policy Studies is leading research on domestic violence involving men as perpetrators or victimsMH

Men visiting their GP with symptoms of anxiety or depression are more likely to have experienced or carried out some form of behaviour linked to domestic violence and abuse, according to a new University of Bristol study. Researchers say the findings highlight the need for GPs to ask male patients with mental health problems about domestic abuse.

The study, led by Professor Marianne Hester OBE, and involving Dr Emma Williamson from the School, and published in BMJ Open, aimed to find out whether there is an association between men who have experienced or carried out domestic violence and abuse with men visiting their GP with mental health problems or who are binge drinking and using cannabis.

Researchers distributed a questionnaire across 16 GP practices in the South West that was completed by 1,368 men aged 18 years and above. The survey asked the men whether they had experienced or perpetrated any of four negative behaviours linked to domestic violence and abuse, such as feeling frightened, physically hurt, forced sex, or having to ask permission from a partner.

The survey then asked about experiences of these negative behaviours, followed by questions about their relationship with the perpetrator, frequency and escalation of the experience. Subsequent questions were then asked about the perpetration of any of the four negative behaviours towards a current or former partner in the past 12 months.

The study found 309 men, [22.7 per cent or nearly a quarter] of the 1,368 participants  experienced at least one of the four negative behaviours associated with domestic violence and abuse, and 212 [16.9 per cent or one-sixth] of 1,294 respondents reported perpetration of these behaviours at least once.

Researchers also found that men who used some form of negative behaviour towards their partners were three-to-five times more likely to report symptoms of anxiety than non-perpetrators. However, the study found no strong association between domestic violence and abuse with excessive drinking or cannabis use.

These findings indicate there is a higher likelihood of men who present symptoms of anxiety and depression in primary care could be the victims or perpetrators of domestic violence and abuse.

Professor Marianne Hester OBE, lead author of the study “Research on domestic violence and abuse has largely focused on women and there is a lack of research on men, both as victims and perpetrators.  The findings from this study are important as they suggest that when men present to GPs with anxiety or depression, they should be asked about domestic violence and abuse as there is a higher likelihood that they will be victims or perpetrators. The findings are consistent with previous studies, which found that mental health problems are more common in men who either perpetrate or experience domestic violence and abuse, and serve as an important indicator to clinicians.”

Professor Gene Feder, co-author on the study from the Centre for Academic Primary Care  at the School for Social and Community Medicine said: “The extent and health impact of negative behaviours consistent with domestic violence and abuse among male patients is largely invisible to GPs.  Our study will help focus attention on this hidden problem in general practice and provides a basis for training GPs in how to identify and respond safely to men experiencing or perpetrating domestic violence and abuse.”

Paper

Occurrence and impact of negative behaviour, including domestic violence and abuse, in men attending UK primary care health clinics: a cross-sectional survey by M Hester, G Ferrari, S K Jones, E Williamson, L J Bacchus, T J Peters and G Feder in BMJ Open.

Further information:

National DVA help service for men:

http://respect.uk.net