Socio-Legal Discussion Group: The politics and practices of listening in law reform addressing violence against women: Australian and UK perspectives

Event date
6 February 2025
Event time
12:30 - 14:00
Oxford week
HT 3
Audience
Postgraduate Students
Venue
Manor Road Building - Seminar Room B

Notes & Changes

The CSLS discussion group is organized by students, with each session focused on a different research topic, presented by internal or external speakers.

If you cannot attend in person, please join online via Zoom.

Abstract

Establishing an institutional law reform and policy development process has become a default mode of government response to increased public attention on and demand for action regarding violence against women. The voices of victim-survivors are routinely elicited as part of these processes, but there is little understanding of whether and how their voices are listened and responded to within law reform and policy development processes. This presentation will examine the politics and practices of listening within two trajectories of workplace sexual harassment law reform in response to the #MeToo movement in Australia and the UK. Identifying hierarchies of attention within law reform and legislative change processes reveals structural inequalities in how the voices of victim-survivors are heard, used and responded to, and consequent influences on law reform recommendations. Greater attention to the politics and practices of listening is required within law reform processes to enable the transformative change that is needed to address violence against women.

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