What’s in a name? Drawing on women’s lived experiences to introduce and define cyber-located sexual violence (CLSV)
Hayman, Lorraine
Hayman, Lorraine
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2024-12-05
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journal article
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Hayman, Lorraine. (2024). What’s in a name? Drawing on women’s lived experiences to introduce and define cyber-located sexual violence (CLSV). Dearcadh: Graduate Journal of Gender, Globalisation and Rights, 5. https://doi.org/10.13025/29193
Abstract
Feminists have long since drawn on women’s lived experiences to support advancing the concept of Violence Against Women (VAW) to incorporate previously overlooked behaviours/actions. Still, finding the right language to use when naming and defining VAW facilitated by technologies presents a challenge. For example, stretching the concept of sexual violence to include non physical behaviours/actions occurring online and via Internet-connected devices is questioned within dichotomous binary thinking advocating an offline/online, real/not-real duality. This paper reflects my attempt to meet the aforementioned challenge, providing a working term and definition that applies continuum(s) thinking to the various unwanted negative, sexually-based behaviours/actions occurring online and via Internet-connected devices that women in Ireland experience. I draw on findings from a quantitative multiple-choice questionnaire distributed in Ireland in October 2023 that invited women to share their understandings and experiences of the various behaviours/actions outlined in the questionnaire. N=397 women participated, including N=281 who had experienced unwanted negative, sexually-based behaviours/actions occurring online and via their devices. The respondents unequivocally understood the behaviours/actions outlined, both comment-based and image-based, as sexual violence. I interpret these findings through the lens of continuum(s) thinking, recognising that all forms of sexual violence exist on continuum(s) of experiences, making them episodic and maintaining a sense of fear and threat in women’s lives. This paper offers an insight into the lived experiences of women in Ireland and the potential to shift how we understand safety and (sexual) violence. It contributes to the expansion of our legal, social and cultural understandings of sexual violence.
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School of Political Science and Sociology, University of Galway
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Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International