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This is an amazing read which documents a study of sixty women undertaken by the author and their experiences of and responses to sexual violence of varying kinds. Kelly sets out the idea of a spectrum of sexual violence ranging from harassment to domestic violence to rape to incest, she also stipulates that all of these forms are potentially harmful.
This study firstly sets out the different perspectives on sexual violence (it should be noted here that it only deals with acts committed against women, by men. Kelly shows historically how different offenses have been viewed and offers a range of perspectives which explain the victimisation of sexual violence. She then offers her own thoughts on the subject and introduces the concept of a spectrum of sexually motivated acts. It offers a critique of the existing research and suggests ideas for further development.
The study itself consisted of in-depth interviews with 60 women, 30 of whom had already made it clear they had survived incest, rape or domestic violence. The women were asked to identify what they thought fitted into a particular category and the results are both extremely telling and startling. This study is an amazing look at the prevalence of sexual violence and I would recommend it to anyone interested in the area.
This amazing (if not a little dated, it was published in 1996) book is an excellent review and challenge of the tendency of criminology to be gender blind. It undertakes critical reviews of different feminist attitudes to the subject of crime and criminology and shows still prevalent attitudes of the subject of criminal law and how it is influenced by the male-dominated school of thought of criminology.
The author of this book is a Reader in Laws in Adelaide with lots of experience writing around the topics of criminal law and feminism. This book begins with a critical look at the history of criminological thought with its beginnings in criminological positivism followed by radical and then realist criminologies late in the 20th century. These viewpoints are all assessed both from the stance which they took and the absence or near-absence of gender in their theories and areas of research (with the obvious exception of the growth of feminist criminology). The book offers a critique in particular of the positivist introduction of the scientific method which has seen an increase in recent times with many major criminological journals (at the time of this book) only accepting massive empirical studies from apparently bipartisan, almost all male researchers. Naffine also looks at the significance of males researching males as the norm without looking at the culture of masculinity within their own research rather than as a norm (and thus females as a weird aside).
Following this is a significant discussion of Foucalt's influence on the little feminist criminology there is taken from his research on power and knowledge and the growth of Derridean feminist views which look at the very limits of language and culturally "appropriate" labelling theory. An interesting look into studies of rape as a male-perpetrated female-victimised stereotype is also looked at in depth and critically evaluated. The book ends with an analysis of a quicker growing enterprise - that of female fictional crime novels about females who incorporate and rise above the female stereotype as either females in high positions, as investigators or females who turn the very concept of gender on its head.
I found this book extremely interesting and it heightened my interest in the subject. For anyone interested in feminism, criminology or any other social science I would highly recommend this book. Despite the fact it was published over a decade ago, I think many of its points are still highly relevant.
