Gender-based Violence: Research Matters

How is gender-based and sexual violence characterised? How do we measure it? How are organisations, justice and public policies addressing it? Six extensive interviews conducted in 2021 with social scientists shedding light on these issues.

Uncovering French gender-based violence and harassment legislation enforcement

The #MeToo movement has made visible the scope and frequency of sexual harassment and sexual and gender-based violence in very diverse settings - employment, education, family, access to housing, health, etc. It made it possible to amend civil law and criminal law. It also allowed, in labour law, to show that sexual harassment could be handled like a professional risk, as part of an objective goal of prevention, like any other risk to the health and safety of workers.”

— Marie Mercat-Bruns, Affiliated Professor at Sciences Po Law School. Read the interview.

 Approaching the history of sexual violence

“Sexual violence is a very specific form of assault that links violence and sexuality. Here too, it starts with words and gestures that sexualise persons or body parts, extending to forced undressing and unwanted touching, to coerced prostitution, sexual torture, and rape. [...] Sexual violence is highly subjective and, at the same time, also fundamentally social, as it is informed by cultural norms of sexuality and aggression.”

— Elissa Mailänder, Associate professor at the Center for History at Sciences Po. Read the interview.

 Sexual Violence and the French Justice System

“It is certainly true that, despite the strong general condemnation of sexual violence, crimes of this kind are not often reported or convicted. Complaint rates in France vary between 8% and 15%, according to different sources, which means that the large majority of these offences are never brought to the attention of the judiciary. It will be interesting to see how that trend evolves in the wake of the #MeToo movement. Then of the small number of cases brought to court, only 10 to 15% are tried in the Cour d’assises, France’s criminal court for serious crimes (as opposed to misdemeanours). There are therefore two factors to account for: under-reporting of offences and low rates of criminal prosecution.”

— Véronique Le Goaziou, researcher at the Mediterranean Laboratory of Sociology and Sciences Po Press Author. Read the interview.

 Making Sense of Gender-based Violence Statistics

“There is certainly a before and an after Enveff [the first French survey on violence against women]. Since this survey, the indicator of domestic violence, namely that one in ten women is a victim of such violence, has been evoked by politicians in successive bills and action plans. This indicator was constructed taking into account the continuum of violence, thus integrating psychological, economic, sexual and physical violence. The Enveff survey not only showed the scale of this violence that affects women regardless of their social category, but also made it possible to better understand the context within which it occurs.”

— Sandrine Dauphin, project director at the French Institute of Demographic Studies (INED) and teacher at Sciences Po. Read the interview.

 From State Feminism to Neoliberal Feminism

“The issue of violence tends to be isolated, separated from other social issues [...] It is as if the possibility of denouncing and the solutions proposed to break out of contexts of violence or harassment, in the professional or in the private sphere, were completely disconnected from living, working and employment conditions.”

— Pauline Delage, sociologist at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), Sciences Po Press Author. Read the interview.

Let's talk about consent

“Omnipresent in public debates, consent permeates social space: almost everyone has already been exposed to this concept. Moreover, individuals all assign the same meaning to it. For them, it is an essential agreement to access sexuality. In other words, consent is a rule of conduct which includes moral value. What differs, however, is the use made of it, which depends on the position in social relations and on lived experiences.”

— Rébecca Lévy-Guillain, Ph.D. student at the French Institute for Demographic Studies (Ined) and at the Centre for Research on social InequalitieS (CRIS) of Sciences Po. Read the interview.