Youth, Sexualities and Gendered Violence

• Sexuality: sexual behaviour and desire.
  

• Sexual: almost always to do with genital activity - can include any sensual experience that is ****** for an individual.
  

• Sex: sexual behaviour / anantomical differences between men and women.
  

• Sexual Orientation: sexual identity, a person's preferred sexual partner.
  

• Gender: cultural meanings, social roles and personality traits associated with sex differences.

• Gendered Violence:
  • Interpersonal - between individuals.
    
  • Structural - perpetrated by the state.
    
  • Cultural - eg. female genital mutilation.

• A lot of drugs never tested on women.
  • Men seen as norm.
  • Hip replacements used to be the same for men and women.
  • Women seen as a 'problem'.

• Words like 'effeminate' and 'emasculated' have negative connotations.

• Assumed to be natural for men to be violent:
  • Not same for women.
  • Different definitions of violence.
  • Aspirational violence eg. boxing, rugby.

• Levels of assault:
  • Harrassment
  • Battery / Common Assault
  • ABH
  • GBH

• Transexual: person who feels they are a different sex to the one they were assigned at birth, usually seek physical transformation to other sex.
  
• Transgendered: someone who has started the process of changing gender, usually taking hormones but does not want genital surgery.
  
• Two-spirited: usuall indigenous peoples way of referring to people in their cultures who are gay / lesbian / transgendered / transexual / have multiple gender identities.
  
• Intersex: a person who has both male and female genetic / physical characteristics.

• Representations of LGBTTTIQ people in media still unrealistic and under-representative.
  • Stonewall (2010) - 20 TV programmes most watched by Britain's young people only showed 46 mins out of 126 hours output of gay people portrayed positively and realisticly. BBC 1 just 44 secs out of over 39 hours.
• Ben Summerskill,Stonewall Chief exec.(2010) - young people want to see really gay people's lives on TV / mostly depicted in a derogatory or demeaning way / homophobic bullying in schools a big issue.

• Impact of ethnicity/religion on sexuality:
  • Regnerus et al (2003) - American adolescents who never attend church have more than 3 times as many sexual partners as those who attend weekly / gender and race affect level of religiosity / multiple sexualities brings tensions in the relationship between ethnicity/religion and sexuality. Article very bias!
  • Youth are independent to an extent but also socially and politically constructed.
• Impact of moving to a new country:
  • Become a minority and so stick to others the same and put up boundaries and become more religious.
  • Divorce rate high in some minorities as religion used to sustain male dominance in family.
  • When moving often man's social status falls whilst the woman's rises.
• Perspectives on religion:
  • Personal - self-directed and reflexive.
    
  • Social - action orintated.
    
  • Institutional - community / culture.

• 3 ways religion/ethnicity and sexual identities are manifested:
  • Tension and conflict - struggle to combine the two.
  • Compartmentalisation - separating sexual identity from religious identity to reduce tension.
  • Accomodation - combining both and acceptance.
• Impact of religion/ethnicity on sexuality and potential harm:
  • Sexual deviance from heterosexual norm provokes policing and panic.
  • Controlling of young people's esp. girls' and women's sexuality.
    • Honour killing / FGM.
• Indonesia:
  • Age of marriage 19 for men and 16 for women - marriage sometimes forced.
  • Youth sexuality prior to marriage seen as unhealthy and morally devastating.
  • Danger of sex: honour / pregnancy / **** / murder.

Iran Case Study

• Islamic Revolution 1979 - cultural revolution / women seen as vulnerable to anti-islamic influences / women need to be restricted in appearance and mobility / emphasis on women's motherhood and marriage.
• Policy Outcomes - compulsory veiling / gender segregation / severe cut back in family planning services.
• Possbile factors affecting youth perceptions of pre-marital relationships in Iran - fear of being labelled a nanajib (****) / affecting their personal and family honour / losing family support / losing the person they love / fear of creating unrest or divorce after marriage.
• Coercion through homogenisation of sexuality - orthodox view that women's sexuality only exists within marriage / state coerces young people to remain virgins / female purity seen as source for men's and society's collective honour.
• Impact - sexuality is gendered / hymen reconstruction / anal sex / temporary marriages / some boys and girls engage freely but unequally in premarital affairs.

• Miller et al. (2010) - reproductive coercion includes: explicit male behaviours to promote pregnancy / birth control sabotage / pregnancy coercion eg. telling woman he will leave her if she doesn't get pregnant.
• Blanc (2001) - ways power in sexual relationships is linked to sexual and reproductive health: directly / through its relationship with violence between partners / through its influence on the use of health services.
• Many reproductive health services assume partners have equal say.
  • A lot of focus on women - but no point giving women condoms if men won't wear them.
• Heise et al. (1993) - 40-47% sexual assaults perpetrated against girls aged 15 or younger.
• Evans (2000) - study in Australia / nearly 1/5 respondents experienced some level of force or pressure with their first sexual experience / if experienced force or pressure first time, more likely to experience the second time / 41% had unwanted sex to keep a partner happy / 39% indicated they had no choice.
• Barter et al (2009) - NSPCC/Bristol study: 1/3 girls reported some form of sexual partner violence / 70% of these said it had impacted negatively on their welfare.

• Maharaj and Munthree (2007) - South Africa / 46% of sexually experienced young girls in study had been coerced their first time / these girls are morely likely to have been pregnant since / less likely to have control of condom use later on / 13% reported being physically forced in to sex and 3% reported being ***** - what is the difference? use of terminology important.
• Kaplan et al. (2011) - Egypt / relatively low rate of coercion at first sex but significant control of sex by partner.
• Thiel de Bocanegra et al (2010) - 21 of 53 women were told not to use birth control by theiir partner, problems for health practitioners - financial control, confidentiality, women being able to obtain contraception safely / 33 of 53 had been forced in to sex.

• Negative consequences: women seen as responsible for their health outcomes irrespective of abuse or coercion / contradictory messages about men's involvement / fails to focus on wider gender inequality / removes focus from perpetrators.
• Key issues: individualised concept of consent / legal definition of consent struggles with notions of coercion / consequences not taken in to consideration / women often the focus.

• WHAT IS CSA?
  • No universally agreed definition - makes comparisons across research findings difficult.
  • Some include non-contact froms eg. *********** exposure / inappropriate language.
• WHO and UK Government definitions:
  • Focus on child being in a position of unequal power to abuser.
  • Include contact and non-contact forms.
  • A child not resisting and adults advances is still abuse - cannot give informed consent.
• Prevalence:
  • Gilbert (2008) in the Lancet: 5-10% girls and 5% boys will be exposed to penetrative SA / 15-30% girls and 15% boys will be exposed to any form of CSA.
  • NSPCC (2000) Child Maltreatment Survey - 16% young adults reported experiences of CA, 18-21yrs
  • NSPCC (2010) - 16% young people 11-17yrs reported contact and/or non-contact CSA / 23% young adults.

• Which children are most likely to experience CSA?
  • Girls more than twice as likely to experience CSA / varies in countries where male access to girls is restricted / boys more resistant to reporting - fear it reflects on them.
  • Sullivan and Knutson - disabled children 3 times more likely to be abused: might struggle to report because of communication problems / lack of people to turn to / people minimise impact in their minds.
  • NSPCC (2010) - children who have been maltreated previously or live with DV.
• Who are the perpetrators?
  • Most likely to be non-caregiving male relative or other adult male known to the child, or another young (usually male) person.
  • Only about 5% cases involve strangers (NSPCC,2010) in UK.
  • Females involved in around 5% cases - normally alongside male perpetrator.

• Outcomes:
  
  • Better outcomes if: they are believed esp. by main carer / they can talk about their experiences / they get instant protection from the abuser / there was no previous abuse.
  • Adverse outcomes: impacts on brain development particularly in very young children (NSPCC, 2007) / immediate and long-term effects to physical health from injuries or self-harm (Chartier et al. 2007) / impact on mental health / impact on child and adult behaviour and relationships / limited opportunities.
  • No link between being abuse and becoming and abuser.

• CSA THEORIES:
  • Biological: abnormally high levels of testosterone associated with sexual violence / LIMITATIONS - violence only see as uncontrollable act, grooming? / no significant difference in hormone levels of abusive and non-abusive men, female abusers?
    
  • Psychoanalytic / Psychodynamic: sex offenders have poor psycho-sexual dvlpmt / LIMITATIONS - fails to explan CSA other than father/child incest / ignores social/cultural factors / responsibility on 'seductive child' or mother.
    
  • Family dysfunction approach: family maladjustment / all members of family responsible / daughter takes on duties of mother including sexual / LIMITATIONS - father/daughter only /  lack of blame on perpetrator.
    
  • Psychological Profiling of sex offenders: abusers from all backgrounds/ fixed - primarily attracted to children or regressive - response to stress / females often abused by male they perpetrate with / LIMITATIONS - no social factors / control normal male behaviour.
    
  • Feminist / Sociological Approach: unequal power between sexes and adults and children / emphasis on abuser / LIMITATIONS - doesnt fit well for female abusers.
    
  • Multi-factor Integrated Approach: both psychological and sociological.