Abstract
Gender-based relations of power and attributions of blame for child sexual abuse have been longstanding in child welfare policy and practice. Nonoffending mothers continue to be ascribed responsibility through the ideologically and institutionally entrenched doctrine of failure to protect. Feminist critical discourse analysis was used to (a) expose and disrupt dominant discourses of gender, motherhood, and risk that operate to construct and reinforce notions of blame and failure to protect, as enacted by way of child welfare text in context; and (b) build a credible case for social and organizational change grounded in an alternative discourse with greater explanatory power. Progressive avenues for resistance, negotiation, and transformation are proposed.
Highlights
Blame for child sexual abuse (CSA) has historically been attributed to nonoffending mothers, at least in part, by reason of complicity or negligence (Azzopardi et al., Violence Against Women 0(0)2018)
Most commonly enacted in cases of sexual and domestic violence, failure to protect (FTP) standards are firmly entrenched in child welfare and criminal justice systems, have a disproportionate effect on women, and come with serious social and legal repercussions (Strega et al, 2013)
Child protection service (CPS) substantiation of FTP occurs in the minority of CSA investigations and generally involves a determination of abuse by omission or supervisory neglect, whereby a caregiver knew or should have known of the risk of abuse, yet failed to take reasonable action to protect the child (Coohey, 2006)
Summary
Blame for child sexual abuse (CSA) has historically been attributed to nonoffending mothers, at least in part, by reason of complicity or negligence (Azzopardi et al., Violence Against Women 0(0)2018). Blame for child sexual abuse (CSA) has historically been attributed to nonoffending mothers, at least in part, by reason of complicity or negligence (Azzopardi et al., Violence Against Women 0(0). Overt insinuations of conscious or unconscious maternal collusion have diminished since early psychoanalytic and family systems theory eras, the legacy of mother-blame lives on in gendered child welfare policies and practices through the contemporary doctrine of failure to protect (FTP). A widely adopted “commonsense” principle and statute, FTP is grounded in the assertion that caregivers have a moral and lawful duty to protect the child in their care from avoidable harm, deeming those who fail to fulfill this duty as liable for the resulting harm or risk of harm. With little purposeful engagement with fathers, caregiver capacity to protect tends to be synonymous with maternal capacity to protect in a system where gender-biased policies and practices have been pervasive and enduring (Scourfield, 2006; Scourfield & Coffey, 2002)
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