Men's Intrusion, Women's Embodiment: A critical analysis of street harassment (Routledge Research in Gender and Society)

Research on violence against women tends to focus on topics such as sexual assault and intimate partner violence, arguably to the detriment of investigating men’s violence and intrusion in women’s everyday lives. The reality and possibility of the routine intrusions women experience from men in public space – from unwanted comments, to flashing, following and frottage – are frequently unaddressed in research, as well as in theoretical and policy-based responses to violence against women. Often at their height during women’s adolescence, such practices are commonly dismissed as trivial, relatively harmless expressions of free speech too subjective to be legislated against. Based on original empirical research, this book is the first of its kind to conduct a feminist phenomenological analysis of the experience for women of men’s stranger intrusions in public spaces. It suggests that intrusion from unknown men is a fundamental factor in how women understand and enact their embodied selfhood. This book is essential reading for academics and students involved in the study of violence against women, feminist philosophy, applied sociology, feminist criminology and gender studies. Cover......Page 1 Title Page......Page 4 Copyright Page......Page 5 Dedication......Page 6 Table of Contents......Page 8 List of illustrations......Page 10 Foreword......Page 11 Preface......Page 14 Acknowledgements......Page 15 1 Introduction......Page 17 Bringing back Beauvoir......Page 18 The problem of naming......Page 21 Counting the continuum......Page 22 Men’s stranger intrusion: a phenomenological framing......Page 25 Chapter overview......Page 27 A note on terminology and translations......Page 28 The continuum of men’s intrusive practices......Page 36 Towards a feminist phenomenology of violence against women and girls......Page 39 Feminist phenomenological methodologies: principles......Page 42 Feminist phenomenological methodologies: practice......Page 44 Researching the ordinary: conversation and notebooks......Page 45 Representing the ordinary: poetic transcription......Page 47 Sample characteristics......Page 49 Situating Beauvoir......Page 61 Situation, sex and gender......Page 67 Our living body......Page 70 Our bodily self......Page 73 The habit body......Page 77 Ordinary interruptions......Page 87 Verbal intrusions......Page 92 ‘We can see you’: the gaze......Page 101 Physical intrusions......Page 111 Flashing and masturbation......Page 116 Following......Page 119 ‘When is it going to happen to me?’: rape, the fortunate lack......Page 124 ‘It works together doesn’t it?’: connecting the continuum......Page 127 Written in the body......Page 137 ‘It happens before you even know what it is’: childhood intrusion......Page 141 ‘I didn’t feel like I tried at all and I still got it’: adolescent intrusion......Page 143 ‘I didn’t walk home that way again’: developing a habit body......Page 148 ‘It’s never really made me augment the way I live’: projected impact......Page 156 ‘The other forty-nine’: projected frequency......Page 159 The right amount of panic: external awareness......Page 161 ‘Don’t be in your body, watch your body’: external perspective......Page 167 ‘I’d never really thought of my body as me’: bodily alienation......Page 171 Policy and practice......Page 179 Habits of resistance......Page 182 Habits of restoration......Page 184 Inhabiting ourselves......Page 187 Afterword......Page 191 Index......Page 192 Research on violence against women tends to focus on topics such as sexual assault and intimate partner violence, arguably to the detriment of investigating men's violence and intrusion in women's everyday lives. The reality and possibility of the routine intrusions women experience from men in public space - from unwanted comments, to flashing, following and frottage - are frequently unaddressed in research, as well as in theoretical and policy-based responses to violence against women. Often at their height during women's adolescence, such practices are commonly dismissed as trivial, relatively harmless expressions of free speech too subjective to be legislated against. Based on original empirical research, this book conducts a feminist phenomenological analysis of the experience for women of men's stranger intrusions in public spaces