S24 : Identifying and Representing Domestic Violence between Partners in European Countries (18th-21st centuries)
Round Table Organisers:
Claire Charlot (Professor of British Studies, Sorbonne Université (Lettres), Institute of English and American Studies)
Sylvie Lausberg (Historian and psychoanalyst, Director of the Department of Research and Strategy of the Centre d’Action Laïque, Brussels, Belgium).
Largely ignored before the 1970s, domestic violence between partners suddenly emerged across many European countries as a “social problem”, leading various groups (in the legal, political, charity, artistic, philosophical fields…) to lead inquiries, publish results, and eventually take action. The seminar will address the tools used to identify this social problem and will reflect on the construction of an object of inquiry from its inception to the many forms its representations might take. The framework of Cultural and Area Studies will provide an opportunity for transdisciplinary and transnational studies.
Introduction
Paper 1: 4.30 pm
Sylvie LAUSBERG (Centre d’Action Laïque, Brussels, Belgium)
”Sarah Malcom and Marguerite Japy Steinheil[1]: a comparison illustrating institutional and cultural violence towards women in England in the 18th century and at the turn of the 20th century”
Abstract: Through the case studies of two emblematic women, one French and one English, in the 18th and the 20th centuries, we shall examine how their representations in institutional discourses and their translations into art forms concurred to the creation and spread of the stereotype of the deviant, criminal female.
The first case concerns 25 year-old Sarah Malcolm, who was hanged in Fleet Street (London), on 7 March 1733, despite having always claimed her innocence. Shortly before her execution, William Hogarth had made an engraving (later an oil painting) of her which became part of his engraving series entitled “Progress”, which was inspired by modern ethnical concerns and became very popular as a result of the spread of new printing techniques.
This paper will highlight the representation of the fallen woman and the complicity of the judiciary for which the collective and moralising aim superseded the personal welfare of the accused who was known to be innocent. In the context of a “gin war”, artists such as Hogarth used morals to impress upon the people the fear of the death penalty, should they commit a crime.
The second case deals with Marguerite Japy-Steinheil, an upper middle class protestant woman, ex-mistress of French president Félix Faure. She had been accused of killing both her husband and her mother and had spent a whole year in Saint-Lazare prison from November 1908 to November 1909. Although these crime were never cleared up, they happened in the Parisian context of crimes committed by unscrupulous professional gangs, the “Apaches gangs”, which did not hesitate to kill for theft.
The accused incurred the death penalty and her criminal trial was eagerly followed and widely reported internationally. In the end, as she was obviously innocent, her trial proceedings revolved around her reputation as a lying, frivolous, and loose woman, not that of a murderer. Following acquittal, she exiled herself to England and never set foot again in France. In popular literature she has remained emblematic of the “femme fatale”, a venal, criminal woman, historical facts being wilfully distorted.
The main research hypothesis will be how the institutional legitimization of violence influenced the perception and minimization of interpersonal manifestations of violence.
Paper 2: 5.00 pm
Cansu Çakmak Özgürel (TED University, Ankara, Turkey)
“The White Family[2]: Reading the Root of the Violence in the English Hearth.”
Abstract: Being one of the most prolific authors of contemporary British novel, Maggie Gee (1948- ) deals with sundry socio-economic and socio-cultural issues in her novels. Her fiction is influenced what happens in the society and she reflects her concern over the issues she explores. In a similar vein, in The White Family (2002), a condition-of-England novel, Gee investigates violence, racism, xenophobia, misogyny, homophobia through the minds and deeds of the members of the eponymous White family in the fictitious town, Hillesden Rise. While she deals with varied aspects and issues of multicultural society of Britain, she also questions identity and belonging, represented quite problematic in the novel. Creating a wide spectrum of characters for diversity and heterogeneity, Gee advances her search “for the roots of xenophobic hatred and violence in the English hearth” (Jaggi, “Too Close” n.p.). Breaking the homogenised classification of the white people, the novel functions as a kaleidoscope of these issues reflected on the dysfunctional family of Alfred White, as it is possible to uncover the relation between domestic violence and racism in the family. From this standpoint, this paper sets out to claim that The White Familycould be read as an investigation of violence and hatred in the microcosmic unity that is family and it functions as a gateway to perpetuate themselves in the macrocosm and vice versa. Hence, each character contributes to the problematic portrayal of condition-of-England through their struggle with the contemporaneous issues.
Break
Paper 3: 5.30 pm
Louisa PERREAU (Sorbonne Université (Lettres), HDEA, Paris, France)
“Withstanding Closed Doors: a case study of the Domestic Abuse Bill 2017-19”
Abstract: Two million people are victims of domestic abuse a year, two-thirds of whom are women, and more than one in ten of all offences recorded by the police are domestic abuse related, a huge, costly and devastating social and economic flaw. In 2017 the Conservative Party was returned to power with a manifesto commitment to introduce a landmark bill to transform the approach of the judicial system and wider statutory agencies towards domestic violence. But the Brexit question shortened the life of Theresa May’s Government thereby causing the Domestic Abuse Bill (2017) to be dropped and the new Prime Minister, Boris Johnson to call for a new general election. Along with the new no-fault divorce category supposed to end allegations to end the marriage, Boris Johnson’s Queen Speech in December 2019 included a commitment to reintroducing the Domestic Abuse legislation. This bill would ‘help transform the response to domestic abuse, to prevent offending, protect victims and ensure they have the support they need’, a first ever statutory definition meaning harm caused is not just physical or sexual, but can also involve emotional and economic abuse, and controlling behaviour. Furthermore, the bill is meant to be the instrument which ratifies the 2011 Istanbul Convention, a pan-European convention tackling violence against women. Yet, some campaigners warned that the bill did not do enough to tackle cuts, affecting refuges for domestic abuse victims or life-saving services. In many cases, they are running on their reserves to keep open, which is not a sustainable situation. This paper will both examine the reasons for the government to introduce legislation on a question which has been seen as a “social problem” since the 1970s and see whether the proposed measures will be enough to counteract the effect of “abuse as a pattern” in Britain today.
Paper 5: 6.00 pm
Erzsébet BARÁT (Director of TNT, Gender Studies Research Group, University of Szeged, Institute of English and American Studies, Budapest, Hungary)
“Domestic Violence as Hysterical Reaction of Gender Craze: a case study in the hostile context of right-wing populist political discourse in contemporary Hungary.”
Abstract: In my presentation I would like to look at the efforts made by women NGOs to keep domestic violence on the agenda. This reflection is of immediate relevance in a political system that is hostile to any (legal) document that should mention ‘gender’ as a category of analysis. The actual example is going to be the most recent homicide that eventually pushed the (young female) minister of justice (appointed in June 2019) to revisit her hostile evaluation of feminist organizations efforts to make the Hungarian government to ratify the Istanbul Convention (2011) and their concern over the dramatic increase in reported cases of violence as ‘hysteria’. I want to reflect on the emergence of this discourse of hysteria in relation to domestic violence and other forms of sexual violence with a focus on the ways it discredits and silences ‘gender’. As a corollary to that, I want to explore if and how much the choice to self-silencing ‘gender’ by NGOs (and academics) is a useful strategy. I will argue that calling the criticism of violence hysteria is a form of hate-speech that is part of the European right-wing populist discourse that tries to deny the political relevance of (domestic) violence against women and through that, indirectly, the value of women’s actual life.
Discussion
[1] Sylvie Lausberg. Madame S., Genève, Ed. Slatkine & Co., 2019, 300p.
[2] Work cited: Jaggi, Maya. “Too Close to Home.” The Guardian. 25 May 2002. Accessed 1 Nov 2019.
[3] Boğaziçi University Scientific Research Fund (BAP).