This thesis focuses on responses to abuse, and as such it does not attempt to come to any kind of conclusions about the causality of abuse within the military. Despite this, throughout the course of conducting interviews it became clear that it is not possible to neatly cleave responses from causality - or perhaps more accurately, from the broad perceptions of the causality of abuse which circulate in a given context. Participants interviewed for this project made multiple references to their understandings of the causes of abuse in explaining their responses to it, and such perceptions have been more broadly recognised as informing policy, the work of professional support agencies, and the views of both perpetrators and victim-survivors in relation to abuse (Hearn 1996: 33; see also Ferraro 2005: 191). Divergent perceptions of causality are the kernel of divergent approaches to abuse more broadly - including in the way that abuse is responded to by victim-survivors, their communities, support workers, and law enforcement authorities.
There is a point, here, of potential slippage and confusion, because while my empirical interest in this thesis is in perceptions of causality, the literatures I describe below aim to describe the actual causality of domestic abuse. This is an important distinction; however, in the absence of an existent literature on the ways in which the causality abuse is perceived in various military settings, the literatures outlined below provide important groundwork for the discussions of perception which follow throughout the thesis. Scholarship is neither neutral nor apolitical (see Chapter Three), and the ways in which scholars choose to study the causality of abuse - the causal associations for which they search through their research - are based upon their theoretical assumptions and, indeed, on their own perceptions of that causality. This general statement, of course, also applies to my own work - although this study does not attempt to establish causality, my approach to studying responses to abuse is underpinned and shaped in important ways by my own theoretical understandings of what domestic abuse is and how it is caused. The explorations of the literatures on causality which follow, then, have two functions. First, they serve to situate my study within the broader literature on forms of violence against women in both civilian and military/conflict settings, allying my work with feminist-informed and critical military scholarship, and positioning it against more reductionist, “problem-solving,” and positivist pieces of research.
Second, they sketch out the dominant ways in which the broad causality of abuse has been understood within the literature, thus laying the groundwork for my subsequent discussions of the perceptions of causality.
39 Literature on domestic abuse
There exist a range of explanations for domestic abuse, many of which are not underpinned by feminist approaches. These include biological explanations focused on the hormonal production of aggression; socio-biological explanations which emphasise the defence of “territory;”
psychological explanations focused on “personality types” and “disorders;” and psychoanalytical approaches centred on “projection” and “displacement” (Hearn 1998: 17; see also Gondolf 1985;
Hearn 1996: 29). Much of this scholarship has been criticised for being reductionist and overly focused on the individual, for failing to offer an account of power, and for ignorance of the gendered nature of abuse (Hearn 1996: 29; Sev’er 2002: 45). As I explore further in Chapter Four, this thesis draws upon feminist-informed theorisations as it is these which best enables me to make sense of abuse as a gendered social issue and to pay attention to the power relations by which it is underpinned.
The large and well-developed body of feminist scholarship on domestic abuse which began to emerge during the ‘second wave’ feminist movement of the 1960s-1980s has understood abuse as a gendered social issue: one which is rooted in the patriarchal organisation of society (e.g.
chapters in Hanmer and Itzin 2000; Hoff 1990; Kelly 1988; Loseke and Cahill 2005; Pizzey 1974;
Renzetti and Bergen 2005; Westmarland 2015; Yllö 1993). This is an intrinsically political approach to domestic abuse, one which highlights the social and political inequalities which underpin men’s violences towards women. In 1979, Dobash and Dobash argued that while “[t]he legal right of a man to beat his wife is no longer explicitly recognised in most western countries [...] the legacy of the patriarchy continues to generate the conditions and relationships that lead to a husband’s use of force against his wife” (1979: ix). More recent scholarship has echoed these arguments. For Harne and Radford (2008: 17), domestic abuse is a “problem with roots in women’s subordinate gender status in all cultures, and is reflected in the beliefs, norms, morals, laws and social institutions that legitimise and normalise it, and, in so doing, perpetuate this violence.” Similarly, Pain argues that within heteronormative societies, “[c]ultural expectations around the roles of women and men, financial inequalities between them, and the predominant forms of masculinity and femininity [...] both create and sustain [domestic] abuse” (2012: 18). Moreover as this scholarship has developed, a greater recognition of the multiplicity and intersectional formulation of women’s experiences of domestic abuse and of help-seeking has emerged. Intersectionalities are now widely understood to “colour the meaning and nature of domestic violence, how it is experienced by self and responded to by others, how personal and social consequences are represented, and how and whether escape and safety can be obtained” (Bograd 1999: 276; see
40 also Crenshaw 1991; Kanuha 1996; Sokoloff and Dupont 2005). By locating the roots of domestic abuse in social inequalities, this body of scholarship locates its causal factors not in the indiviudal space of a single couple but in the broader society in which such couples are embedded. That is, while indiviudal perpetrators exercise agency in making a choice to abuse their partners, these choices are, in diverse and intersectionally mediated ways, produced within and enabled by women’s disempowered structural position in society relative to men. Importantly, this means that the roots of domestic abuse are firmly identified in the normal gendered arrangements of social life, and not in out of the ordinary, the disordered, or the pathologised. As such, neither victim-survivors nor perpetrators of abuse are understood as aberrant or inexplicable; rather, such violence is woven deeply into the arrangement of contemporary societies (Hearn 1996: 34).
Feminist work has pointed to the connections which exist between domestic abuse and other types of violence against women, such as sexual harassment, rape and sexual assault, stalking, trafficking for the purposes of the sex trade, and female genital mutilation. In 1988, Kelly identified a “continuum” of diverse forms of violence against women, all of which are underpinned by “the abuse, intimidation, coercion, intrusion, threat and force men use to control women” (Kelly 1998: 76, emphasis in original). For Kelly, the concept of a continuum does not imply a hierarchical ranking of severity in forms of gendered violence against women; rather, it identifies both the connections between various forms of violence and “how ‘typical’ and
‘aberrant’ male behaviour shade into one another” (ibid. : 75). Several scholars have either explicitly taken up the concept of a continuum of violence against women (see, for example, chapters in Brown and Walklate 2012) or have otherwise recognised the connections between various forms of violence against women, for example, through the production of academic volumes which deal with its multiple forms (e.g. Fawcett et al. 1996; Lombard and McMillan 2013; Radford et al. 2000; Renzetti and Bergen 2005; Westmarland 2015). This approach is very useful in enabling scholars to make sense of domestic abuse as part of wider arrangements of gendered social power and inequality.
Literature on sexual and gender-based violence in conflict and post-conflict settings
Scholarship on SGBV in conflict and post-conflict settings has a more recent history than that on domestic abuse more broadly, and much of it - although not all - is informed by the insights of earlier feminist work. It is unfortunately beyond the scope of this chapter to offer anything but a brief and targeted discussion of this literature. Indeed, for the purposes establishing the ground from which my thesis develops, there are just two major observations that I want to make here.
41 First, feminist-informed literature on the various forms of SGBV which occur in conflict settings has changed the way in which much of this violence is understood. Previously, SGBV in conflict and post-conflict settings was largely considered to be irrelevant to the conduct and to the understanding of war and militarism60 - a side effect, perhaps, or a form of “collateral damage,”
but of no consequence in making sense of war and of international relations more broadly (UNDP 2008). Feminist scholarship and campaigning, however, has challenged this, and some forms of SGBV - in particular rapes which occur in conflict zones - are now widely understood as an integral and significant part of war itself, relevant to the study of foreign policy, of conflict, and of international relations (Eriksson Baaz and Stern 2013; Kirby 2012; UNDP 2008). Scholars interested in wartime SGBV have drawn attention to the ways in which the perpetration, experience, and meaning of SGBV is shaped in particular ways in war and post-war settings.
Scholars working on wartime rape have argued that this form of violence may be motivated and shaped through the militarised forms of masculinity which characterise times of war. In this understanding, soldiers rape because the institutional culture of militaries, and the norms of masculinity which they promote, are conducive to rape; and moreover, rape itself is a site at which perpetrators performatively construct themselves as soldierly subjects (Boesten 2014: 53-63; Enloe 2000: 108-52; Eriksson Baaz and Stern 2009; Goldstein 2001; Kirby 2012: 811-13; Morris 1996). Morris, for example, argues that military masculinity revolves around “attitudes of hypermasculinity, adversarial sexual beliefs, sexual promiscuity, rape myth acceptance, acceptance of violence against women, hostility toward women, and sex-role stereotyping” - and this is “correlated with rape and rape proclivity” (1996: 700-701). Similar arguments have been made about servicemen’s use of prostitutes as a site at which militarised forms of masculinity are both expressed and performatively constructed (Enloe 1989: 81; 1992; 2000: 51-62; Sturdevant and Stoltzfus 1992; Yuh 2002). Moreover, scholars who identify rape as a “weapon of war” have discussed soldiers’ rape of enemy women in particular as a part of warfare specifically aimed at the humiliation and demoralisation of a whole ethnic or national collective through the use of sexual violence against the bodies of its women - that is, these scholars have argued that rape can take on different meanings in conflict zones (Benshoof 2014; Buss 2009; Cain 1999: 284; Card 1996; Diken and Lausten 2005; Goldstein 2001; Kirby 2012; Maedl 2011; Meger 2010; Rehn and Sirleaf 2002; Salzman 1998; Trenholm et al. 2011). Similarly, scholars have uncovered an increased prevalence of domestic abuse in conflict and post-conflict settings (e.g. Rehn and Sirleaf 2002: 14-15), and some have argued that this can be attributed to the militarisation of
60 ‘War’ and ‘militarism’ are not the same, although they are closely related. The relationship between the two will be explored in Chapter Four.
42 masculinity and the exaggeration in inequalities between women and men which occurs during conflict (e.g. Adelman 2003; Albanese 2001; Copic 2004; Horn et al. 2014; Korac 1998; Zannettino 2012). For Albanese, for example, conflict functions to “repatriarchalize” social and gender relations more broadly, and thus leads to an increasing risk of domestic abuse in affected societies (2001). The first point I want to make about this diverse body of literature on forms of conflict-related SGBV which is relevant to my own study, then, is that draws attention to the ways in which war and militarism reshape gender norms and thus, reshape the perpetration, experience, and meaning of forms of SGBV in particular ways. This scholarship demonstrates the importance of paying attention to the interconnections between war, militarism, and SGBV: an insight which is important for my study because it suggests that the gendered, military context in which it occurs is likely to be of relevance to understanding domestic abuse in the British military.
Second, while a significant amount of work recognises the connections - the “continuum of violence” - between various forms of militarised and peacetime SGBV (Boesten 2014: 152;
Cockburn 2004; Kelly 2010; Leatherman 2011: 63-64; Pankhurst 2007: 3-8, 32-35), without painting too neat or homogenised a picture of this body of literature, I want to argue that there remains, to a certain extent, a broad divide within it. On the one hand, forms of violence which are perpetrated against women of ‘enemy’ ethnic or national collectives, such as rape in war, have been understood as part of the gendered pratices of war fighting; often, as an act of war.
For example, while there are diverse literatures on rape in war which explain it in a range of ways - from “war booty,” or the lawlessness of war, to the result of psychological trauma, or the militarisation of masculinity (for an overview, see Pankhurst 2007: 44-53; 2010: 152-56) - the dominant narrative in contemporary scholarship and activist work understands rape in war as a strategic tool which aims to achieve instrumental purposes in the pursuit of military objectives (Eriksson Baaz and Stern 2013: 2; Kirby 2012). Much of the literature which describes rape as a strategic weapon of war draws upon feminist theorisations of nationalism (e.g. Elshtain 1987: 67;
McClintock 1995; Yuval-Davis 1997) to argue that the “ultimate targets” of such rapes are not the individual victim-survivors themselves but “entire peoples” (Card 1996: 7; see also Albanese 2001; Benshoof 2014, 146; Buss 2009: 148-49; Cain 1999: 284; Diken and Lausten 2005, 111;
Goldstein 2001; Kirby 2012: 807-08; Maedl 2011; Meger 2010; Rehn and Sirleaf 2002, 2; Salzman 1998; Trenholm et al. 2011). That is, rape in war is not only an attack on a woman’s body, but an attack on the group to which she belongs - “a message passed between men” (Brownmiller 1975:
13) which intends to “destroy the morale of [the victim’s] family and ethnic community” (Sharlach 2000: 89). In this understanding, rape is not only a side-effect of or a co-occurrence with war, it is
43 part of the gendered practices through which wars are fought. On the other hand, forms of violence which are perpetrated against women of the same ethnic or national collective as the perpetrator are not generally understood as an act of war or as part of the gendered pratices of war fighting, even when they occur within periods of armed conflict, and even when the acts of violence perepetrated are similar. In what is perhaps the most dominant narrative, the increasing prevelence of domestic abuse in conflict and post-conflict settings is understood as a side effect of the impact of the war itself - which has militarised masculinities, normalised violence, traumatised perpetrators, or broken down systems of accountability (Adelman 2003: 1132; Al-Krenawi et al. 2007; Albanese 2001; Annan and Brier 2010; Catani et al. 2008; Copic 2004;
Enarson 1999; Haj-Yahia and Clark 2013; Horn et al. 2014; Korac 1998; Rehn and Sirleaf 2002: 11-16; Rydstrøm 2003; Saile et al. 2013; Usta et al. 2008; Zannettino 2012). Rehn and Sirleaf, for example, identify a number of factors which contribute to an increase in domestic abuse in the post-conflict period, including “the availability of weapons, the violence male family members have experienced or meted out, [and] the lack of jobs, shelter, and basic services” (2002: 14). In these arguments, domestic abuse is understood as a ‘knock-on effect’ of war, a form of ‘collateral damage,’ which is caused by war, but which does not itself play a role in the gendered practices of war fighting. The second point I want to make about the literature on SGBV in conflict and post-conflict settings, then, is that while forms of SGBV perpetrated against women of an ‘enemy’
ethnic or national collective may well be understood both as shaped by war and as a part of the gendered practices of war fighting, forms of SGBV perpetrated against women of the same ethnic or national collective are more likely to be understood as shaped by war but not as part of the gendered practices of war fighting. That is, the notion that domestic abuse itself might play a role in the gendered practices of war fighting has not received serious attention in the literature or in activist work focused on conflict and post-conflict SGBV. This point is important because I go on to argue in this thesis that viewing domestic abuse in military settings as an enactment of gendered militarism is a very useful lens for making sense of how such abuse is experienced.
Literature on the causality of abuse in military institutions
As I show above, there exist significant and dynamic bodies of feminist-informed work on domestic abuse and on SGBV in conflict/post-conflict settings. It is, however, fairly striking that only a very small amount of the published literature on the causality of domestic abuse in military institutions shows recognition of these broad and influential bodies of literature. As I explore below, the literature on domestic abuse in militaries tends to attribute it to gender-neutral, individual factors - those which feminist scholarship has long argued against. Some of this
44 literature - which does not, generally speaking, draw on a gender analysis - attributes the higher rates of perpetration of domestic abuse among military personnel to non-military specific factors such as the over-representation of young men of relatively low-economic status in military populations (e.g. Caliber Associates 1994; Graves and Moriarty 2000: 31; Jones 2012; Marshall and McShane 2000; Mercier 2000: 4-5; Sharps et al. 2000: 76) or the use of alcohol or drugs by military personnel (Bell et al. 2004; Brewster et al. 2002; Hurlbert et al. 1991; Martin et al. 2010).
However, the larger body of work, and that which is of most interest to this thesis, is that which identifies military-specific causal factors. Most-often, these factors are related to the out-of-the-ordinary impacts of deployment, and in general, this scholarship does not draw upon a critical approach to militarism.
Williamson and Price’s study of domestic abuse in the British military began from the premise that abuse is likely to increase when personnel return from deployment, and that this is caused by the traumas of the deployment itself and/or the difficult process of servicemen’s reintegration back into family life (Williamson and Price 2009: 3). The authors suggest that “Sometimes the stresses of [reintegration], potentially coupled with PTSD and flashbacks (which can affect sleep patterns) can exacerbate issues of domestic abuse, coercion and control” (ibid.: 3). The work points to two types of tension which may occur in the post-deployment period and cause or worsen abuse - tensions which arise because returning personnel find it difficult to negotiate a significant role in a family which has been coping without them, and the exacerbation of controlling behaviour by combat-related mental health problems such as PTSD (ibid.: 3).
Williamson’s later article based on the study provides somewhat more of an emphasis on domestic abuse as control (see Chapter Four), and also points very briefly to the impact of gendered roles and expectations on the process by which power and control within a relationship is renegotiated following a period of deployment separation, although a focused and in-depth consideration of these issues is absent from the published work (Williamson 2011: 14-16).
Moreover, while it recognises the potential impact of military service upon domestic abuse, Williamson and Price’s article does not discuss the impact of militarism or take a critical approach to the military. Military service and the realities of life in the military community are taken in the research report as a given, something which happens and which should be coped with, but which is not itself open to question or to political analysis. For example, there is some discussion of the
Moreover, while it recognises the potential impact of military service upon domestic abuse, Williamson and Price’s article does not discuss the impact of militarism or take a critical approach to the military. Military service and the realities of life in the military community are taken in the research report as a given, something which happens and which should be coped with, but which is not itself open to question or to political analysis. For example, there is some discussion of the