Monday last week saw the announcement of a new UK national policy requiring criminal complainants to sign consent forms authorising detectives to access data in their mobile phones. Conveyed in a joint briefing by Metropolitan police assistant commissioner Nick...
Yvette Russell
CfP: New Directions in Sexual Violence Scholarship Workshop, Workshop Bristol Law School, 16 May 2019
The question of how to generate meaningful change in the area of sexual violence is a perennial problem for feminist scholars. This, however, is preceded by another question that is sometimes neglected: How do we effectively theorise what sexual violence is, what it...
Criminal Law to the Rescue? ‘Wolf-Whistling’ as Hate Crime
On July 13, 2016 Nottinghamshire police became the first force in the UK to recognise misogyny as a hate crime. Hate crime is defined as ‘any criminal offence which is perceived, by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice based on a...
Language: Notes on the Thought of Luce Irigaray
Luce Irigaray’s critique of masculine language systems follows logically from her broader critique of history and culture first elaborated 40 years ago in Speculum.Luce Irigaray, Speculum of the Other Woman, Gillian C. Gill (tr), (Cornell University Press...
Rape is Different: Academic Impact Sinks to New Lows
Two weeks ago the LSE Department of Law hosted its inaugural ‘Debating Law’ public event, drawing an audience that filled all 400 seats of its largest lecture theatre and working with the LSE’s events team to ensure the debate attracted maximum media attention. The...
Equality: Notes on the Thought of Luce Irigaray
Equality is a concept that has concerned Luce Irigaray, in various guises, throughout her work. In this post I will discuss both her critique of liberal mobilisations of equality, and her rethinking of equality through sexual difference. Irigaray’s work is often...
Suárez and Rouse: Masculinity, Sport and Rape Apologies
As Luis Suárez joined Johan le Roux and Mike Tyson in the annals of sports-biting history this week, across the water in Northern Ireland Alvin Rouse continues to play in goal for Ballinamallard United Football Club, despite facing three counts of rape, two of sexual...