Policing Men, Policing Women: Responsibility and Accountability for Violence Against Women and Girls, Including Domestic Abuse and Femicide

Existing legal responses to violence against women and girls (VAWG) often focus on the behaviour of the victim as much as, or sometimes more than, that of the alleged perpetrator. The laws that are supposed to protect women and girls from abuse are used to ‘police’ the behaviour of women; access to remedies and redress can seem to be contingent on whether the victim has adhered to stereotypes of an ‘ideal/real’ or ‘deserving’ victim. Female victims of male violence, including femicide, are often judged for their own behaviour; what they ‘ought’ to have done to keep themselves safe. This ‘responsibilisation’ is evident in both the substantive law and in the implementation of the law in practice. This article will highlight some of the examples of victim blaming in existing legal responses to VAWG in England and Wales. It will consider the question: how can we focus less on victim behaviour and more on perpetrator responsibility and accountability? Jayne Cowie’s book After Dark offers a useful lens for examining this question. The article will explore the parallels between some of the existing preventative measures for domestic abuse in England and Wales and some of the fictional measures enacted in Cowie’s world, in particular cohabitation contracts and domestic violence disclosure schemes.