ABSTRACT

The international feminist contributors to this book look through the lens of poststructuralism at how child sexual abuse is differently represented and understood in the populist, academic, clinical, media and legal contexts. Reworking earlier feminist analyses, they show how child sexual abuse is not just about gender and power but also about class, race and sexuality. The first, theoretical section of the book critiques normative theories of the 'effects' of abuse, explores the impact and consequences of feminist interventions and critically examines the potential usefulness of a feminist post-stucturalist approach. In the second part, these understandings are applied to specific arenas of practice with the aim of providing a framework for critical intervention and alternative and better ways of working with child sexual abuse.

chapter |12 pages

Introduction

part |115 pages

Exploring the cultural and political landscape of child sexual abuse

chapter |19 pages

Feminism's restless undead

The radical/lesbian/victim theorist and conflicts over sexual violence against children and women

chapter |17 pages

Traumatic revisions

Remembering abuse and the politics of forgiveness

chapter |14 pages

Creating discourses of ‘false memory'

Media coverage and production dynamics 1

chapter |21 pages

The vigilant(e) parent and the paedophile

The News of the World campaign 2000 and the contemporary governmentality of child sexual abuse

part |114 pages

How we theorise and intervene in the lives of women who have experienced child sexual abuse

chapter |17 pages

The ‘harm' story in childhood sexual abuse

Contested understandings, disputed knowledges

chapter |19 pages

When past meets present to produce a sexual ‘other'

Examining professional and everyday narratives of child sexual abuse and sexuality

chapter |20 pages

Diagnosing distress and reproducing disorder

Women, child sexual abuse and ‘borderline personality disorder'

chapter |23 pages

Writing the effects of sexual abuse

Interrogating the possibilities and pitfalls of using clinical psychology expertise for a critical justice agenda

chapter |16 pages

Working at being survivors

Identity, gender and participation in self-help groups

chapter |18 pages

Disrupting identity through Visible Therapy

A feminist post-structuralist approach to working with women who have experienced child sexual abuse 1