In spite of tort law’s ‘architecture of bias’, some feminist scholars and activists have argued that there is potential for tort law to be expanded to encompass and redress harms which more often and more greatly affect women and other marginalised people. While this can be important for some survivors to meet material needs and provide recognition for a wrong and harm, Martha Chamallas argues that it is not only a matter of individual compensation. It is connected to addressing systemic injustices because harm and violence are not equally inflicted and experienced, varying with intersecting forms of oppression. 

Feminism is a political methodology that can help us name the structural, interpersonal and otherwise murky forces which make up a social landscape. It does so by enabling an examination and analysis of the material conditions which underpin social organisation, it helps us understand the ways that capitalism’s operation is specifically gendered and racialised in its arrangement of labour, social relationships, the economy as well as prisons and the police.

abolitionist strategies, if given support, would be able to address some of the complex root causes of sexualised street harassment which include misogyny, patriarchy, economic inequality, and intersecting forms of marginalisation. It is these structures and norms that render some women more vulnerable to harm, particularly since that harm reflects entrenched norms emerging out of histories of “heterosexism, colonialism, and slavery.”

Mainstream feminism in Britain is commonly preoccupied with the desire for a seat at the table of power; for a stake in the empire, for legislative wins and more women in board rooms and on parliamentary benches. Yet multiple, competing feminisms exist—arguably, feminist work has always been characterised by fragmentation and internal dissent. The halcyon years of the women’s liberation movement (WLM) in the 1970’s is also wrought with dissent and disagreement.

Recording & Transcript of the public launch of the Abolitionist Strategies VS Carceral Reforms Gender Based Violence Resource. Event was held in June 2024 and the speakers were Leah Cowan, Lola Olufemi and Billy

Gender Based Violence Series launch will draw on some of the focus of the Abolitionist Strategies to Gender Based Violence resource, while also teasing out some of the problems found in our current ways of conceptualising responses to gender based violence.