Editorial issue 1 2021

This year marks 30 years of the Journal of Gender Studies. I have been with the Journal for around 25 years, first as a regular referee, then as an editorial board member, as well as editor, and finally, editor-in-chief. I recently took my 250^th author through to publication. Involvement in editorial work was never part of my plan and my primary qualifications were not even in the field of gender studies so, like most people, I have a sense of imposter syndrome. The key advantage of this position for me has been a good understanding of how to engage with the journal’s interdisciplinary readership; hopefully better than if I had a unique speciality in the field.

Authors submitting during 2020 had a particularly difficult time – the pandemic affected both our ability to secure reviewers and, directly and indirectly, the capacity of our editors. Rates of submissions continued at the same pace so it frequently felt that everyone wanted their work peer-reviewed but that hardly anyone was available to peer-review. We particularly thank the reviewers that helped us during 2020 and our Board members – we know that they were all swamped during this period.

In the first issue of 2021, I have brought together articles on the theme of violence and trauma. Violence is seen here in its traditional physical manifestations but also as it emerges in symbolic form through online violations. Attention should be brought here to the trivialization of the indignities perpetuated online when it is gift-wrapped as ‘humour’ or backlash – as Jackson and Sundaram (2020) recently remark the: ‘ostracisation of survivors renders banter a powerful means of invisibilising, and thus of sustaining, sexism, harassment, and violence’ (p.49).

In Family violence homicide in Australia, Komazec and Farmer analyse social reader media commentary on news articles reporting family violence published via the Facebook pages of Australian media. The study explores how the victim-offender relationship is configured and the tone of the communications. Notable differences were evident in the nature of the media coverage and reader comments on homicides that were perpetrated by male and female offenders, as well as the type of victim. Male victims received less sympathy than female victims did; whereas male offenders elicited notably more criticism. The findings highlight the challenges faced by male victims of family violence.

In Attitudes of Arab Israeli students towards honour killings, Ne’eman-Haviv looks at a particular type of homicide found in Arab and Muslim cultures. The purpose of this study was to examine the attitudes of Arab-Israeli students towards honour killings and the findings show that most participants opposed these. The attitudes towards murder, however, varied according to participant gender, and the characteristics of the event. Significant factors in attitude included, the identity of the man with whom the woman was accused, the question of sexual relations and the degree of closeness between the parties.

In Gender-related differences in the psychological impact of confinement as a consequence of COVID-19 in Spain, Ausín, González-Sanguino, Castellanos and Muňoz assess gender-related differences in the impact of pandemic restrictions in Spain. The presence of depressive symptoms, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), perceived loneliness and spiritual well-being were evaluated in participants. Women showed more symptoms of depression, anxiety and PTSD as well as more feelings of loneliness and less spiritual well-being compared to men. The psychological impact of the pandemic was found to be maintained over time and increased for depression.

In Female Geronticide: The Case of Israel, Weil and Keshet study femicide involving elderly women, or female geronticide, utilizing Israel as a case study. They find that, over the period 2006–2015, female geronticide was perpetrated solely by intimate male partners. While femicide was perpetrated in disproportionate numbers by, and towards, members of particular ethnic categories, such as Ethiopian immigrants and foreign migrants, there were no cases of female geronticide in these two groups. The likelihood of an elderly woman being murdered by a partner or family member was higher among the following groups in the following order: immigrants from the former Soviet Union, Israeli-born Jews and Israeli Arabs.

In Rape is a Man’s Issue, Myers, Metz and Wallace examine the affirmative consent policies taking hold in US universities and how gender is framed through these. #MeToo has created new avenues for survivors of assault and harassment to seek justice. People (mostly men) accused of sexual assault or harassment are publicly ‘outed’. #MeToo stresses that men can end rape by educating themselves about gendered power relations, changing their behaviour and holding other men accountable. Participants here showed understandings of consent which reinforced, rather than destabilized, how it is framed. Even when acting in ways that seemed consistent with feminist conceptualizations of bodily autonomy and affirmative consent, men in this study did so to protect their own interests. Affirmative consent was mediated through gender frames that stressed men’s sexual entitlement and this has implications for intervention strategies.

In The Conceptualisation Problem in Research and Responses to Sexual and Gender-based Violence in Forced Migration, Ozcurumez, Akyuz and Bradby identify the limitations to the current conceptualization of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) and propose a re-conceptualization in the context of forced migration. This paper argues that the existing literature has overemphasized the contexts of war zones and conflict and excluded post-flight settings. Additionally, earlier work has focused mainly on the victimization of women, excluding other at-risk groups. These factors, they say, constrain research in this field as well as protection and response strategies. Their review considers the multifaceted causes and consequences of gendered vulnerabilities that are exposed in forced migration processes in order to make sense of SGBV as gendered harm.

In Only sluts love sexting, Naezer and van Oosterhout criticize interventions aimed at preventing non-consensual sharing of sexual images among youth which often focus on (potential) victims, who are discouraged from making and sharing such images. This approach is problematic since it limits young people’s sexual freedom, encourages victim-blaming and makes perpetrators invisible. This article contributes to scholarship that shifts the focus to perpetrators through investigating young people’s motives for distributing sexual images of others without their consent. The analysis demonstrates that non-consensual image sharing is a layered, heterogeneous problem that is embedded in social norms regarding gender and sexuality.

In They don’t even think about what the girl might think about it, Hunehäll Berndtsson and Odenbring explore teenage students’ views on sexting, particularly image sharing. Among the boys, students’ sexting practices created a hegemonic and homosocial peer culture. Homosociality was expressed by boys’ sharing images of girls with their male peers without the girls’ consent. The girls expressed how the exchange of explicit images put them in a vulnerable position and discussed the threats and shaming to which they were exposed.

In ‘Rapeable’ and ‘unrapeable’ women, Andreasen explores how female victims of sexual violence are portrayed in Internet memes about #MeToo using three social media sites: 9gag, Reddit and Imgur. Using discourse analysis, the article discovers that victims of sexual violence are considered either ‘rapeable’ or ‘unrapeable’ depending on their appearance and their sexual agency. The way in which women are blamed and held responsible for men’s abuse is also considered. The author points to how sexual violence is discursively constructed within a humorous discursive space which trivializes it. As such, this article expands on existing literature on #MeToo to consider sexual violence and backlash.

In the Forum section of this issue, in A coming wave: suicide and gender after COVID-19, Standish brings our attention to suicide figures after a pandemic and suggests that COVID-19 will increase the risk of suicidal and suicidal-homicidal violence for its survivors. While facing the current epidemic has occupied us all, it is critical that we keep our eyes on the horizon for the possibility of a rise in self-harm and the causation of harm to others.

In Women’s capabilities in disaster recovery, McNamara, Clissold and Westoby assess variability in susceptibility and capacity to respond to disasters. Women, in a generalized sense, tend to bear the brunt of disasters, but they are also often at the frontline of response and recovery. Women’s experiences and capabilities, however, remain ill-recognized or poorly integrated into policies. This paper draws on a study that listens to the stories of women market vendors in Vanuatu who experienced Cyclone Pam and the severe drought that followed. The authors assert that women should be more central in recovery and resilience-building processes but warn that wider inequitable power structures must also be proactively tackled in order to improve women’s overall wellbeing.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.