Book Review: New Directions in Sexual Violence Scholarship
| Published date | 01 August 2024 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/09646639241226862 |
| Author | ALICE KING |
| Date | 01 August 2024 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
Book Reviews
KATE GLEESON AND YVETTE RUSSELL (eds), New Directions in Sexual Violence Scholarship.
Abingdon: Routledge, 2023, pp. 286, ISBN 9781032051468, £96 (hbk).
New Directions in Sexual Violence Scholarship is an edited collection which is both
thought-provoking and compelling. The book comprises 13 chapters which are
grouped accordingly across four distinct themes. The constituent thematic parts, and
the chapters within them, provide a diverse but detailed consideration of a number of
issues. Some of these have been at the forefront of feminist scholarship for several
years, for example, the inadequacies of existing rape laws across a number of jurisdic-
tions. Whilst other issues are more contemporary –grounded in shifting extra-legal con-
siderations around rape and sexual violence that have emerged since the #MeToo
movement.
The first theme ‘Reconsidering power and consent’consists of three chapters. All three
chapters interrogate the limitations of consent as it is currently utilised both within exist-
ing legal frameworks and feminist scholarship, with each chapter relying upon a different
focal point in order to illustrate some of the current deficiencies as to the ways in which
sexual violence, and consent, is often conceptualised in current discourse. In her consid-
eration of ‘Change the Story’–an Australian national violence prevention model which
focuses on changing cultures, norms and attitudes, Hush highlights the ways in which
such models offer an ‘eclipsed analysis of the range of structural and material conditions
that give rise to sexual violence’(p. 20). Instead, she advocates for sexual violence to be
located ‘within the social relations of white supremacist capitalism’(p. 21), demonstrat-
ing how this is possible through the utilisation of Marxist and Black feminism. Through
an exploration of ICL cases, Dowds engages with the question as to the importance of
‘coercive environments’in rape trials and encourages us to think about the lessons that
could be learnt in domestic law. Using the case of R v Livas as a launchpad, Stardust
and Caldwell grapple with the tensions borne out in sex worker cases. In doing so,
they explore how these cases are influenced simultaneously by ideas about ‘archetypal
sluts’and ‘ideal victims’and highlight the contradictions between legal shifts that
have sought to better protect sex workers in cases of rape with the broader landscape
within which the legal status of sex work and the legal rights of sex workers remain a
contested and fraught subject.
The second theme ‘Challenging the Colonial Order’again comprised of three chapters
and is concerned with how sexual violence can be theorised and understood through the
lens of colonialism. In Chapter Four, du Toit explores how we can read from the south in
Book Reviews
Social & Legal Studies
2024, Vol. 33(4) 668–680
© The Author(s) 2024
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/09646639241226862
journals.sagepub.com/home/sls
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