Reassessing the Place of Criminal Law Reform in the Struggle Against Sexual Violence

Abstract

Feminist struggles against sexual violence have been identified as responsible for the development of a ‘law and order’ state form that constructs women as victims, while further criminalising and disem-powering the marginalised. In this chapter, I consider the complex outcomes of sexual assault law reform in light of recent critiques of what critics have labelled ‘carceral feminism’ (Bernstein, 2007, 2010, 2012; Bumiller, 2008; Gottschalk, 2008; Halley, 2006; Reece, 2011). While a broad objective of this book is to think beyond rape law reform, this task is best accomplished by thinking through law reform as a feminist strategy . Against those who see feminist movements as complicit in the regressive politics of the law and order state, I offer a qualified defence of feminist strategies of law reform. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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