Are women's lives (fully) grievable?

gendered framing and sexual violence

Dianna Taylor

pp. 147-165

in: Clara Fischer, Luna Dolezal (eds), New feminist perspectives on embodiment, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018

Abstract

This chapter begins by drawing upon Judith Butler's work in order to analyze how gender frames women's lives as not fully livable and, in doing so, differentially exposes women to sexual violence. It proceeds by presenting the ambivalent moral and emotional responses with which sexual violence against women is met within contemporary Western societies such as the United States as an effect of such framing. The chapter concludes by considering how the author's own analysis is framed and to what effect, and reflects upon possibilities for countering the gendered framing that promotes ignoring, minimizing, and excusing sexual violence against women.

Cited authors

Butler Judith