People in labour have a right in law and policy to say no to vaginal examinations. This should be uncontroversial: in almost no other space is it acceptable to penetrate another’s body without their say-so. Yet reports abound of women in labour having fingers inside their vaginas even after saying ‘no’. Some describe their experiences as being akin to rape.
This article argues that the framing of vaginal examination as routine may be seen as a form of authoritative speech that severely limits the ability of women and birthing people to say no to unwanted examination. Routine vaginal examination creates and determines the routine of labour care, delivers finding of fact in relation to progress of labour and creates normative and practical expectations of birthing people and clinicians. This constrains birthing people’s ability to prohibit vaginal examination on their body. This framing also presents a limited and inadequate conception of what a vaginal examination is, which further limits people’s ability to successfully say ‘no’.
Current understanding and conceptualisations of obstetric violence typically focus on abuse carried out on pregnant women during births in medical facilities. However, data from an empirical study of freebirthing in the UK (intentionally giving birth without health care professionals present) inadvertently exposed examples of obstetric violence during births at home. This is an under-researched area and such empirical examples are rare. The article introduces the literature on obstetric violence, highlighting some of its limitations with regards to understanding the phenomenon within the home setting. Using archival examples, it also demonstrates how obstetric violence in the home is not a new phenomenon, thus problematising any presumption that this type of violence is rooted in the hospital as institution. Further, data from The Freebirth Study both reaffirms and challenges current understanding of obstetric violence, particularly around consent, the temporal nature of the abuse and the ways it can manifest. Finally, with recent moves towards legislating against obstetric violence, the article argues for legislative change to recognise abuse in the home.
A crisis creates a time when normal problem-solving mechanisms are thrown into disarray. The COVID-19 pandemic plunged individuals and service systems into crisis. While recognising the destructive impact on health and well-being for those involved, the aim of this study was to explore opportunities for change created during a crisis, addressing the question: What has been learnt under COVID-19 about delivering domestic abuse services to perpetrators in the UK and Australia? Documentary analysis (31 documents reviewed in Australia, and 180 searched and analysed in the UK) and interviews (24 interviews with practitioners and policy and practice leads in the UK, and 11 interviews, and one focus group in Australia) were used to explore innovations in responses to perpetrators. Two key shifts in the delivery of services to men who use violence were identified: the pivot to remote delivery; and the emergence of interventions to provide accommodation and support for perpetrators. The study demonstrated that the policy window could open at a time of crisis to support innovative developments. Early evaluations highlighted positive developments. However, further research is needed to understand more fully the implications for safety and accountability.
Thomas Mathiesen’s theories, his activism and his scholarship are needed, important and useful for contemporary researchers concerned with social change and social justice. At this moment in time, when strong social movements and abolitionism are back on the agenda, Mathiesen’s theories can not only be revitalised, but moved forward in the everlasting unfinished fashion. Mathiesen’s work might be of support to researchers and activists confronted with the ‘system members’ as he calls them, to identify the structures of power one is up against and its strategies. His work provides a roadmap of how to handle repressive powers to reach the long-term goal of penal abolition. In this article, I will outline Mathiesen’s central theories of penal abolition as they are connected to political activism, then trace the role of the police in his abolitionism and, finally, I will argue for the relevance and development of Mathiesen’s abolitionist thinking in the contemporary and burgeoning field of transformative justice and police abolitionism. I aim to show the continuing relevance of Mathiesen’s theories for contemporary abolitionist movements and scholarship, and how they contribute to push these theories forward into new areas.
Thomas Mathiesen has been a source of inspiration for research in critical sociology, criminology, and the sociology of law for many decades. Mathiesen’s impact extends far beyond the academic realm, as his action research lives on. This intervention discusses the ongoing influence of Mathiesen’s action research approach, which integrates research, education, and societal impact. This is illustrated through an action research project we conducted in Denmark’s largest marginalised living area, where over 1,000 public housing units are being demolished, affecting approximately 2,500 residents. In the project, we experimented with different outreach legal aid approaches, considering our own positionalities, to gain knowledge about how to establish a legal aid infrastructure that could reach the unreachable. An ethical dilemma we faced was how we could engage with the people without inadvertently naming issues, particularly legal problems, of which they might not be aware. If the residents were unaware of these issues or did not consider them important, could we then inadvertently create and juridify new problems for them? Moreover, this intervention discusses how, in alignment with Mathiesen, we combined legal aid with legal clinical education, that is, training law students to become legal aid workers. We conclude that Mathiesen’s approach remains relevant, and by integrating his action research with decolonial thoughts, new insights may emerge to reach the seemingly unreachable.
Post-vaginal birth protocols frequently require women and other birthing persons to undergo rectal examinations. Protocols for these examinations, which we refer to as PVREs, vary widely, however, and there is a lack of agreement within the medical community concerning whether they are needed at all. This article explores women’s experience of PVREs in light of this ambiguity which, we argue, reflects and reproduces aspects of gendered power relations that are implicated in systemic sexual violence. We show that some women experience PVREs as sexual violence, the effects of which include guilt, self-blame, shame and sexual humiliation. Given its defining characteristics, we further argue that PVREs constitute a form of obstetric violence.
There has been increased awareness of the unique challenges faced by those researching gender-based violence (GBV) in recent years. While much of the literature has rightly focused on the needs of participants (as victim/survivors), less has been written around the needs of researchers. Yet we know that researching GBV can have both positive and negative impacts on researchers (Nikischer, 2019) and it has recently been recommended that researchers have access to clinical supervision when regularly exposed to traumatic material (Williamson et al, 2020). This article draws on reflections from research carried out during the COVID-19 pandemic regarding the reasons why victims of domestic abuse and/or sexual violence may withdraw from the criminal justice process. The research team were provided with independent clinical supervision by a qualified therapist with expertise in interpersonal abuse throughout the duration of the project. Analysis of the researchers’ reflections suggest that while the move to remote research during the pandemic created opportunities in terms of flexibility there were additional emotional challenges to those experienced pre-pandemic. Importantly, this exploratory article shares reflections on the value of clinical supervision for addressing these challenges and recommends that all GBV researchers have access to this vital resource.
In late 2021, some six months after his death, the University of Oslo held a commemoration of the work of Professor Thomas Mathiesen. As this issue of Justice, Power and Resistance will attest, Mathiesen cut across definitions of theorist, scholar, pedagogue and archetypal academic activist. In this short intervention, I pay tribute to the influence Thomas’ work has had not only on my own, but on so many interventions around injustice and ever-expanding aspects of surveillant social controls which proliferate contemporarily. In doing so, this short article will highlight an overview of his most recognised work, before delving into a perspective that I consider to be more relevant than ever: Mathiesen’s conceptualisation of ‘silent silencing’ (Mathiesen, 2004). Overall, this contribution seeks to remind those new to studies of harm and social control of the value of critical work which came before us, and the need to engage, reflect and rebuild perspectives such as Mathiesen’s in ways which are meaningful to contemporary problems and optimal (abolitionist) solutions.
