Application

Nicola Gavey

Senior Lecturer, Psychology Department

University of Auckland, New Zealand

Research: Rape and the politics of trauma

Nicola Gavey, is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychology at the University of Auckland. She trained there in the 1980s as a clinical psychologist, and completed a PhD in 1991. Her research and teaching interests broadly focus on the intersections of gender, power, and sexuality. In particular, she has been interested in critically examining the cultural supports for rape and heterosexual coercion within Western society. She has recently completed a book, Just sex? The cultural scaffolding of rape, which brings together work she has been doing in this area for a number of years. Her current research is concerned with contemporary understandings of the impact of rape. She has also recently collaborated on a project investigating the sociocultural implications of Viagra.

Selected Publications

Gavey, N. (forthcoming). Just sex? The cultural scaffolding of rape. London and New York: Routledge.

Potts, A., Gavey, N., Grace, V., & Vares, T. (2003). The downside of Viagra: Women's experiences and concerns. Sociology of Health and Illness, 25(7), 697-719

Gavey, N. (2003). Writing the effects of sexual abuse: Interrogating the possibilities and pitfalls of using clinical psychology expertise for a critical justice agenda (pp. 187-209). In Reavey, Paula & Warner, Sam (Eds.) New Feminist Stories of Child Sexual Abuse: Sexual Scripts and Dangerous Dialogues. London: Routledge.

Gavey, N. & Doherty, M. (2001). Rape, desire, and gender reversal: Sex and sexuality in White Palace. International Journal of Critical Psychology, 3, 117-139.

Gavey, N. (1999). "I wasn't raped, but…": Revisiting definitional problems in sexual
victimization. In S. Lamb (Ed.) New Versions of Victims: Feminist struggles with the concept (pp. 57 - 81). New York and London: New York University Press.

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Rape and the Politics of Trauma

Less than half a century ago, rape was routinely denied and minimized within Western societies such as the United States and New Zealand. Although it seems surprising from a contemporary perspective, the notion of rape as traumatic only entered public discourse in the 1970s (e.g., Vigarello, 2001). Arguably, this kind of public acknowledgement of the trauma of rape has been crucial to the anti-rape movement - providing as it does both a framework for supporting the survivors of rape, and a strong platform for launching moral arguments against rape. The notion of trauma has come to be used as both a model and a metaphor for understanding the impact of rape. The application of a trauma model for understanding the psychological impact of rape and sexual abuse has been widely embraced by feminists working in the area. However, it has also been strongly criticized by other feminists for its potentially reductive and depolicitizing implications.

The aim of this research is to produce an empirically-informed critical feminist theory of the politics of trauma as a paradigm for understanding the impact of rape. I will ask if and how it might be possible to retain the critical recognition that rape is potentially traumatizing without the deployment of a trauma model totally eclipsing a feminist analysis of the gender politics of rape and sexual violence against women? How, moreover, might we draw on developments in the neuroscience of trauma without the seduction of this kind of science ending up overshadowing, or potentially erasing concern for addressing the sociocultural dynamics of gender that continue to support and camouflage rape and violence against women. This challenge is essential, I argue, for the prevention of rape.

Violence against women, including rape, is widely acknowledged as a global problem causing hidden burdens on the health and wellbeing of women. Not only are rape and sexual assault potentially traumatic experiences, which adversely affect a woman's health, mental health and general wellbeing, but they arguably arise from the very same dynamics of gender and power that restrict women's sexual and reproductive choices (Gavey, forthcoming). Working towards stopping rape and, in the meantime, mitigating its effects on women, is an essential component of an agenda concerned with the New Century Scholars program theme: Toward equality and the global empowerment of women.

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