Abstract
This paper explores the ways in which particular forms of violence, namely violence against women and one-punch assaults, are framed in discourses of violence prevention in Australia. In denouncing certain acts, individuals and groups, I show that condemnatory responses—what I refer to here as ‘tough talk’—serve to reinforce, rather than challenge, hierarchical (gendered, raced, classed) difference as normative. Based on assumptions that link violence to particular ‘types’ of men, such approaches overlook the nuance, complexity and contextual meanings of violence. Preventing violence, I argue, requires that we engage with cultures of violence by focusing less on some men’s violence, instead recognising the interconnectedness of gender and other hierarchies of identity as the critical context for violence.
Highlights
This paper explores the ways in which discourses of gender and violence shape contemporary ‘violence‐talk’ in relation to both men’s violence against women and men’s violence against men, namely one‐punch assaults, in Australia
In this paper I have explored the ways in which particular forms of violence, namely violence against women and one‐punch violence, are framed in everyday discourses, including those of violence prevention in Australia
I have argued that these framings, conceptualised as ‘violence‐ talk’ and in the form of diverse media texts, provide a critical context for identity work
Summary
This paper explores the ways in which discourses of gender and violence shape contemporary ‘violence‐talk’ in relation to both men’s violence against women and men’s violence against men, namely one‐punch assaults, in Australia. Violence‐talk is, I argue, an important means of identity work, simultaneously accomplishing masculinity and marking the boundaries between ‘types’ of men and masculinity. Fiske and Rai’s specific focus on ‘virtuous violence’—or violence as morally motivated—is not the argument presented in this paper Rather, their broader emphasis on the ‘normative cultural practices’ that render violence ‘natural and necessary’ (Fiske and Rai 2015: 2) in particular situations, is central to the analysis pursued here. Whereas Fiske and Rai largely overlook gender, ‘race’/ethnicity and social class, I treat these as integral to the normativity of violence, focusing on the ways in which violence is talked about and written about. Violence‐talk concerns the accomplishment of identity, this recognising that the ways in which we talk about violence work to fix ‘particular meanings and practices’ (Nayak and Suchland 2006: 470), and troubles the conceptualisation of violence as, merely, individual acts and incidences. Like Hearn, though, I am interested in the ‘things’ that this talk ‘does’: the ways in which violence‐ talk (re)produces dominant discourses of (gendered, raced, classed) identity that are, in themselves, productive of violence (see Shepherd 2009)
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