Dr Fiona Vera-Gray - Men’s Violence against Women, Street Harassment, and Pornography

What role can men play in ending violence against women and girls? Sarah Everard, Sabina Nessa, Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry – and many other women – were all murdered by men in the UK in 2020-21. This led to an outpouring of anger about the extent of men’s violence, the pervasiveness of sexism and misogyny that underpins it, and the failure of key institutions to respond effectively. In this episode we talk to Dr Fiona Vera-Gray, formerly an Assistant Professor at Durham University and now the Deputy Director of the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit at London Metropolitan University. She is an expert on sexual violence, street harassment and pornography, and we ask about her research, what it means for men, and what needs to change.

You can find out more about Fiona’s work here: https://www.londonmet.ac.uk/profiles/staff/fiona-vera-gray/

• Follow her on Twitter: https://twitter.com/VeraGrayF
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fveragray/

The episode covers the following topics:

• The potential impacts of recent heightened awareness and public debate about men’s violence against women in the UK (02:48 - 04:45)
• The response of the police, criminal justice system, and UK government to calls for a sea change in efforts to tackle men’s violence against women and girls (04:45 - 08:54)
• What men need to do to become part of the solution (08:54 - 14:50)
• Problems that can arise when men do get involved in work to end violence against women (14:50 - 18:13)
• Fiona’s research on the impacts of men’s intrusions in public spaces, and how this constrains women's freedom (18:13 -26:52)
• Her research on the content of mainstream online pornography (26:52 - 33:19)
• The influences that pornography is having on society, including on ideas of masculinity and male sexuality, and what we can do about it (33:19 - 32:12)
• Preventing violence against women from happening in the first place (42:12 - 43:56)
• The impact that feminism and the movement to end violence against women and girls has had on Fiona (43:56 - 47:57)

Resources:

• If you have been affected by sexual violence, information and support is available from Rape Crisis: https://rapecrisis.org.uk/get-help/
• Fiona has recently written an article for the Guardian, ‘If we’re serious about ending violence against women, we need to talk about culture’: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/04/violence-against-women-culture-true-crime-pornography-onscreen
• You can buy her 2018 book, ‘The Right Amount of Panic: How women trade freedom for safety in public’ (Policy Press), here: https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/the-right-amount-of-panic
• And her 2016 book, ‘Men's Intrusion, Women's Embodiment: A critical analysis of street harassment’, here: https://www.routledge.com/Mens-Intrusion-Womens-Embodiment-A-critical-analysis-of-street-harassment/Vera-Gray/p/book/9781138360327
• You can read her latest journal article, ‘Sexual violence as a sexual script in mainstream online pornography’ (2021), in the British Journal of Criminology here: https://academic.oup.com/bjc/article/61/5/1243/6208896
• She has a new book coming out soon called 'Women on Porn': https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/454201/women-on-porn-by-vera-gray-dr-fiona/9781911709435

An article on what men can do to help end violence against women by Stephen, Sandy and Nicole Westmarland, ‘How men can be allies to women right now’, was published in March 2021: https://theconversation.com/how-men-can-be-allies-to-women-right-now-157126

Explainers:

• Dominic Raab (UK Justice Secretary) was widely criticised when he commented on the BBC Breakfast Programme (October 6th, 2021): ‘Misogyny is absolutely wrong, whether it’s a man against a woman, or a woman against a man’: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/oct/06/dominic-raab-confuses-meaning-of-misogyny-in-bbc-interview
• Professor Liz Kelly, who devised the concept of women’s ‘safety work’, is a Professor of Sexualised Violence and Director of the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit (CWASU) at London Metropolitan University: https://www.londonmet.ac.uk/profiles/staff/liz-kelly/
• Dr Evan Stark is the author of the book ‘Coercive Control: The Entrapment of Women in Personal Life’ (2007): https://evanstark.weebly.com