In a misogynistic world, it is likely that most females have been subjected to
male violence and misogyny.
This exercise directly challenges current theories and statistics around which
types of women become victims of male violence – and how common so-
called ‘revictimisation’ is.
There is a statistic that suggests that 2 in every 3 women who have been
abused by men will be subjected to male violence again (Classen et al.,
2005).
There are entire theories and fields of expertise that focus on explaining
revictimization rates of women and girls. Most of those revictimization
theories focus on vulnerability, behaviour or character of women and girls
(Eaton, 2019). In line with traditional positivist perspectives of victimology,
many theories suggest that there is something specific about certain women
and girls which means they will be a repeated target of male violence.
Not surprisingly, there are few theories which argue that the reason for such
high revictimization rates of women and girls is due to the sheer prevalence
of male violence across the world. If each woman in a diverse room full of
professionals can recount ten, thirty or fifty instances of when she was
subjected to male violence, it is surely not something internal or specific to
that woman that is causing or precipitating that revictimization.
Maybe, revictimization of women is so likely because male violence is so
embedded into society.
Maybe all women are likely to be revictimised? Maybe it has nothing to do
with our behaviours or upbringing or what we were wearing or how we
walk down the street (as suggested by some researchers such as Kikue
Sakaguchi et al.).
Maybe it has nothing to do with the women at all. Maybe revictimization
theory needs to consider the scale on which male violence is being
committed, endorsed, minimised, ignored or denied.
