Abstract
Feminist legal theorists have had something of an uneasy relationship with law reform. Although feminist academics and lawyers have contributed much to law reform efforts that have sought to improve women’s lives, feminists have nonetheless taken divergent positions regarding the extent to which these efforts can truly dismantle the masculinist character of law through law reform projects. This article revisits these tensions and, in so doing, seeks to better understand the extent to which feminists can meaningfully contribute to law reform projects. The criminalisation of image-based sexual abuse in New South Wales (Australia) serves as a case study to examine and re-examine these tensions. In September 2016, the New South Wales government announced that it was proposing to criminalise the distribution of certain images without consent. Following a public consultation process, the government legislated for a new offense directed at the distribution of these images. Although there is certainly not one all-encompassing feminist understanding of image-based sexual abuse, the importance of understanding this practice as abuse and as existing within a culture that normalises and sustains nonconsensual activity nonetheless has been a key feminist concern in agitating for law reform in this area. This article examines the extent to which the legislative response took seriously the harms engendered by image-based sexual abuse.
Highlights
Feminist interventions in the law have made significant contributions to law reform in a range of areas where the law has historically denied or diminished the reality of women’s lived experiences
We examine the extent to which the legislative response in New South Wales takes seriously the gendered harms engendered by image-based sexual abuse
It is not especially surprising that existing legal frameworks either completely failed to provide legal redress for victims of these wrongs or failed to adequately capture the nature of the harms engendered by distributing sexual imagery without consent. Nor is it surprising that feminist lawyers and academics have sought to contribute to law reform initiatives
Summary
Feminist interventions in the law have made significant contributions to law reform in a range of areas where the law has historically denied or diminished the reality of women’s lived experiences. This paper seeks to revisit some of these debates, making use of the law reform process regarding criminalising image-based sexual violence in New South Wales as a case study. The legislative result was praised by those who had engaged with the process (and who had undertaken extensive research regarding image-based sexual abuse informed by a feminist perspective)9 This praise was in turn deployed by political actors to bolster their law reform efforts. More space will be devoted to mapping the extent to which certain feminist concerns informed the ultimate legislative response later in the paper, the point here is to emphasise that the legislative response has been well received by feminist academics who participated in the process This raises important questions that will be salutary for feminist interventions in the future: What are the preconditions for successful engagement with law reform?. How were feminist knowledges appropriated by lawmakers? What is it about image-based violence that has captured the attention of lawmakers?
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