The Language of Violence

‘Violence’ is an essentially contested concept (De Haan 2008; Mider 2013). What causes ‘violence’ is similarly subject to debate (Cavanaugh 2012; Lawson 2012). Both matters have piqued the interests of critical social theorists who posit that the signification and use of ‘violence’ are saturated with, expressive of, and instrumental in, practices of power (Galtung 1969; Young 1990). Relatedly, feminist theorists have long argued that dominant discourses of violence reflect masculine interests (Easteal et al. 2012; Smart 1990), whilst ‘violence against women and girls’ (VAWG) plays a significant role in the realisation of patriarchal social arrangements (Dobash and Dobash 1979; Heise 1998; Kelly 1988). Indeed, resistance to, and theorisation of, masculine violence has animated feminist activism and scholarship for decades (Mooney 2000). This animation has, in turn, led to the development of a VAWG ‘movement’, a feminist policy project which seeks to mobilise the power of domestic, supranational, and international polities against the victimisation of women and girls (Frazer and Hutchings 2020). This movement has accomplished a great deal—particularly with regards to criminal justice and human rights reform (Qureshi 2013). Indeed, the passage of the United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women (DEVAW) (1993) marked an important milestone not only for feminist activism, but for human rights law itself. By framing violence against women as a violation of human rights, DEVAW unseated an erstwhile liberal fixation with state action as the sole location of ‘political’ misconduct. Domestically, the VAWG movement has spawned a political and institutional landscape comprised of specialised policies and third sector organisations, e.g. Women’s Aid (Dustin et al. 2013). Indeed, many of the abolitionists interviewed for this research were affiliated with, or worked for, organisations established to address VAWG and informed by feminist social and political theory.