Women's and their children's experiences of sexual violence: Rethinking the links

Abstract

This article takes a new look at the theory that evidence that many women whose children are sexually abused (by men) have been sexually abused themselves in childhood is indicative of a “cycle of abuse.” It reviews the evidence on the experiences of sexual violence, past and present, reported by women whose children have been sexually abused, and argues that the concept of a “cycle of abuse” misrepresents existing findings and their significance, diverts attention from the responsibility of abusive men for child sexual abuse, pathologises and stigmatises women who have been sexually abused as children, and obscures recognition of the present context of domestic violence within which intrafamilial child sexual abuse often takes place. It then draws on a qualitative study of 15 women whose children had been sexually abused by a male relative to explore the ways in which they made connections between their own and their children's experiences of sexual violence, connections which are not causal but meaningful, that is, they reflect the meaning the women attributed to events in their own and their children's lives. The article argues that we need both to reject the “cycle of abuse” concept and to pay attention to the links women and their children may make between their own and each other's experiences, links which are more variable in meaning and, therefore, in impact than the concept of a cycle suggests.