Secret Things and the Confinement of Walls

Abstract

This article explores the under-examined issue of sexual abuse of children by women. It asks what are the conditions under which such things become knowable or when are they rendered unthinkable? The private sphere, marked by domestic walls, has been identified as the space most influenced and shaped by women. Its walls symbolise shelter and protection, and they are associated with the safety of all within. At the same time, however, the walls which constitute the private also enable a space within which women's actions can take place with limited oversight by others. Walls foster secrecy and what happens within can include elements of transgression. The sexual abuse of children by women—either their own or those entrusted into their care by others—is one such transgression. This article analyses a series of case studies derived from different historical sources in order to highlight how walls and the understandings of privacy that they support help to perpetuate a widespread belief that women can be unquestioningly trusted in their relations with children.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank my two reviewers for their careful reading of the draft. Maryanne Dever has given invaluable feedback. Ongoing robust discussions with my work colleagues, and you know who you are, have helped me shape my argument. I am particularly indebted to Peter Cryle, Elizabeth Stephens and Karin Sellberg. I could not have written this article without your support.

Notes

1. The Queensland Child Protection Commission of Inquiry (2013) notes about the tension between aspiration to protect children and the respect for family privacy:

Given the complexity of the factors involved and subjective quality of much risk assessment, keeping every child safe in their family home at all times is an unachievable aspiration. This is particularly so given that child protection systems are restricted in a liberal democracy by the deference traditionally shown to family privacy and parental autonomy. Official intrusion into the private realm has to be justified by law, and parents must be given the resources they need to make sustainable change over time to ensure that their children remain safe at home.(6)

2. In this context, much of what is called prophylaxis or preventive efforts in an attempt to reduce the likelihood of further occurrence of child sexual abuse, namely the teaching of ‘protective behaviours’ to children, rests heavily on the assumption that females are ‘safe’ persons: helpers, supporters, and protectors. As an example, an illustration used for an information brochure published by Family Planning Queensland called ‘I have the right to be safe’ depicts a woman as a safe person to talk to in the event a child feels unsafe. Acknowledging that some women may be ‘unsafe’ for children might have dire practical consequences and contribute to further confuse children rather than teach a simple strategy. If women abusers overall are considered to be few in number, it might still be ‘on average’ a better policy to teach children to trust them.

3. With the one exception of occasional reporting of cases where female teachers are found to have had sex with an adolescent male student. For a thorough discussion, see Angelides, (2007) article.

4. As an example, in the preface to their extensive book Assessing Risk in Sex Offenders (2008), Craig, Browne and Beech make mention of sex offender gender only through a brief attribution to the mother in the family as ‘the non-abusive carer in the vast majority of cases’ (XV), thus contributing to the prevalent view that the sexual abuse of children perpetrated by females is minimal.

5. I would like to clarify that my professional commitment to helping those affected by child sexual abuse takes precedence over the ethical question of whether or not adult–child sexual interactions should be considered differently. For example, Angelides takes this angle in his 2004 article ‘Feminism, Child Sexual Abuse, and the Erasure of Child Sexuality’. Some argue that after centuries of relative ignorance, the recent ‘hype’ about child sexual abuse has prompted hypersensitivity and we are now forced to see ‘a child molester behind every tree’ (for comprehensive literature review see Masson 1984, 14–54). In the context of my approach to the historical inquiry, the question of whether or not adult–child sexual interactions could be interpreted as something other than harmful is not one I am attempting to answer. I am much more interested in teasing out how our understanding of child sexual abuse emerged and formed over time, in particular in relation to implicit messages and taken for granted practices.

6. In her 1997 book, Bobbie Rosencrans put forward a large collection of case studies identifying mothers who had sexually abused their children.

7. Ainsley (2000) has argued that the assumption only insane/pathological women could be capable of harming children was denying ‘women's agency in violent criminal acts and reinforc[ing] the negative stereotype of women as mentally and emotionally weak’ (37).

8. For example, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse Interim Report (2014) has identified that around 13.3% of disclosures included sexual abuse by a woman (121).

9. See, for example, Donzelot (1979), for more detail.

10. I have included texts from disciplines such as Social Work, Psychology, Criminology, Sociology, Gender Studies, History, and Philosophy.

11. Allen (1990); Jackson (2000); Egan and Hawkes (2010); Finch (1993); Goldstein (2010); and Hall (1991); are examples of texts which engage with source material in this way.

12. See http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/privacy.

13. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 12, states: ‘No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.’ See http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/edumat/hreduseries/hereandnow/Part-5/7_udhr-full.htm.

14. Ian Hacking has written about a ‘looping effect’ in The Social Construction of What? describing how the flow of information influences future expectations until something is ‘taken for granted’ or becomes an unspoken rule, in particular in relation to ‘kinds’ of people. See page 104.

15. These variations, though important for other contexts, can in some ways constitute a hindrance when exploring the history of child sexual abuse. As for the notion of ‘class’, French forensic physicians who examined abuse cases for the courts have provided evidence that child sexual abuse seems to affect people across classes. In particular, Auguste Ambroise Tardieu's Étude médico-légale sur les attentats aux moeurs comes to mind, which was first published in 1857. It is a collection 632 cases of sexual abuse with female and 302 cases with male victims, most of them children (Tardieu 1867)—there are cases from the working-class quarters, as well as cases, as I am citing here, which occurred in bourgeois households.

16. Ben Davies has explored this idea in his 2011 book chapter on hymenal exceptionality. See: Davies (2011).

17. The belief that children are indeed sexual beings form one foundational assumption for psychoanalytic theory. Freud's (1896) paper ‘Zur Ätiologie der Hysterie’ (The Aetiology of Hysteria) proposed that hysteric symptoms displayed by his female patients manifested as direct results of repressed childhood memories of sexual and often incestuous encounters with adults. Nine years later, in ‘Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie’ (1905), (three essays on the theory of sexuality) he revoked this suggestion, strongly emphasising that his patients’ symptoms were based on merely incestuous fantasies, introducing the Oedipus and Electra complexes.

18. Toulalan (2011) has traced this back to the seventeenth century. Her comment about masturbation can be found on page 131.

19. This view about women's sexuality is by no means particular to Lombroso. Richard von Krafft-Ebing expressed similar sentiments in his Psychopathia Sexualis; Eine klinisch forensische Studie (1893) As another example, Wulffen (1923) is citing Wilhelm Stekel's Die Geschlechtskaelte der Frau (1921) (Woman's frigidity):”Zwischen Madonna und Dirne pendelt das Gefuehlsleben einer jeden Frau.” (The emotional life of every woman is situated between ‘Madonna’ and ‘whore') (326).

20. For more information on why this might be so, I refer to Oliver (2007).

21. A report by the Children's Protection Society in Victoria, estimated that 20–40% of child sexual assaults are the responsibility of those aged under 18 years (Flanagan and White as quoted in Australian Childhood Foundation and Deakin University 2005). Barbaree and Marshall (as quoted in Tidefors et al. 2010) estimated a more conservative 20%.

22. For detailed descriptions of categories of sexual offending see Smallbone, Wartley, and Marshall (2008) and Levenson and Morin (2006). Some raise concerns that we warn children and young people about ‘stranger danger’ when most sex offenses—around 95%—are committed within the family. See Australian Bureau of Statistics (2005); ‘Child Sexual Abuse Practice Paper', (2005); and Levenson and Morin (2006).

23. Lyn Finch discusses the shift in focus from parent–parent to parent–child relationships, drawing on Donzelot's work (1991, 19).

24. The following authors have commented about the role of disguise in sexual abuse dynamics, particularly in relation to women offenders: Boroughs (2004); Ford (2006); Groth and Birnbaum, as quoted in Vandiver and Walker (2002, 284); Rosencrans (1997).

25. With the exception of French forensic medical texts as mentioned above. For a comprehensive literature review, see Masson (1984, 14–54).

26. Freud writes about sexually abusive caregivers in ‘Zur Atiologie der Hysterie’ (The Aetiology of Hysteria) (1896), mentioning cases where physical closeness to the child was used to initiate sexual relations, when ’eine das Kind wartende Person – Kindermaedchen, Kindsfrau, Gouvernante, Lehrer, leider auch allzu haeufig ein naher Verwandter – das Kind in den sexuellen Verkehr einfuehrte [ … ]’(a person in charge of the child – nanny, nursemaid, governess, teacher, unfortunately all too often a close relative, initiated the child into sexual relations); Tardieu mentions nursemaids (1867); Moll does, as quoted, and there are also literary texts such as Henry James, The Turn of the Screw (James 1967), which hint at the possibility.

27. Stopes papers in the Contemporary Medical Archives Centre (CMAC) at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, CMAC/PP/MCSD/A.146, dated 12 March 1923. Note Hall (1991) cites the same letter on page 41.

28. See also endnote 26, quoting Freud. Interestingly, Freud mentions teachers and educators in ‘Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie’, 1905, (35 and 41), in the context of discussing regulation, but not anymore in relation to sexual molestation and abuse.

29. The Queensland-based service ‘Living Well’ offers services exclusively to men and boys who have experienced child sexual abuse. This notion was discussed during a forum organised by Living Well in October 2014. More information can also be found on www.livingwell.org.au.

30. For more information, see the website: https://www.communities.qld.gov.au/gateway/reform-and-renewal/child-and-family/working-better-with-families-in-the-child-protection-system.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Andrea Josipovic

Andrea Josipovic is currently working on her Ph.D. thesis ‘Child Sexual Abuse Perpetrated by Women: A Genealogical Approach to the Constitution of an Unthinkable Crime', at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Queensland. She works as a senior advisor in a child protection agency.