The politics of normalising gendered violence: feminised austerity and masculinised wealth creation

Abstract

According to United Nations data, one in three women worldwide are subject to violence. Yet, the systemic embedding of male sexual violence often fails to be part of public discussion. To explore this relative silencing of mediated discussion is to consider how media normalise male violence towards women. This structural obfuscation serves to reinforce the gendered violence upon which these structures are located. This is the context in which hegemonic masculinity now takes a reified neoliberal form, which serves to normalise the violence of gendered power relations. Illustrating this, we explore the way in which austerity has been positioned as a policy of violence. We argue that by exposing how neoliberal hegemonic masculinity is central to the construction of gender, and exploring how this is disseminated, we are able to show how male violence towards women is legitimated in mediated political discourse.