Afterword

Paula-Irene Villa

Gender-based violence appears to be a paradox. Equally monotonous and highly variable, it is a universal phenomenon, yet it manifests in specific and context-dependent ways. Its repetitive patterns—rooted in entrenched practices, social justifications and systemic normalisation—coexist with significant variation in its specific expression. Harassment, sexual assault, inappropriate advances and coercion take different forms across settings, influenced by factors such as age, social norms, institutional structures, historical or regional contexts and legal framings. This interplay of specificity and uniformity highlights how gender-based violence is both structurally ingrained, and (re)shaped by embodied practices in specific sociocultural environments. In other words: gender-based violence happens everywhere all the time and it is always an element of an omnipresent heteropatriarchal culture—but it happens in a myriad of different ways. According to a vast amount of research, gender-based violence is globally pervasive but takes different forms depending on history, culture, law and economic structures (Alcalde & Villa, 2022; Fileborn & Loney-Howes, 2019; Gill & Orgad, 2018; Kelly, 1987; Merry, 2006; True, 2012).

This book brings together a wide range of diverse case studies from arts, culture and media industries, exploring how gender-based violence and sexism play out in different (national) regions and contexts. The presented studies align with the overall picture, adding depth and more specific evidence: while the specifics of gender-based violence vary depending on the industry, location and legal system, the broader patterns remain strikingly similar. The same harmful dynamics keep resurfacing, reinforcing and normalising these issues in professional spaces. Understanding both the unique details and the recurring patterns is key to recognising why gendered violence persists—and what allows it to continue.

The tension between uniformity and specificity in gender-based violence necessitates empirical scrutiny—one of the key strengths of this anthology. The studies presented here make these dynamics tangible by revealing the prevalence of sexualised violence and everyday sexism alongside the distinct practices of institutions such as theatres, art academies, media organisations and informal music scenes. Moreover, they emphasise the lived realities of those affected, illustrating how gendered violence shapes educational trajectories, career opportunities, and workplace dynamics. At the same time, the book sheds light on the agency of individuals and collectives who resist these structures, forging alliances and transforming individual vulnerability into collective empowerment.

These essays situate gender-based violence within the continuum articulated by Liz Kelly (1987), asserting that such violence is not an accumulation of isolated incidents but rather a pattern embedded in professional and cultural hierarchies. Across diverse artistic and media sectors—whether in opera, theatre, film, photography or digital media—certain structural conditions create environments that facilitate and normalise sexualised violence. One key factor is the ambiguous nature of professional boundaries in the arts and cultural industries, where the division between personal and professional spheres is often blurred. The ethos of artistic genius—framed as an innate quality requiring cultivation by authoritative mentors—can legitimise hierarchical power imbalances. In this framework, transgressions, including physical and psychological violations, are often justified as part of artistic training or dismissed as necessary for creative expression. Many of the empirical studies in this collection highlight how these structural conditions impede the recognition of injustice, as victims often come to terms with their experiences only retrospectively. Even then, silence, minimisation and institutional inaction frequently prevail.

Additionally, the precarious nature of employment in the arts and cultural sectors heightens vulnerability to gender-based violence. The absence or limited applicability of labour protections—combined with freelance, unpaid, or informal working arrangements—creates an environment where individuals, particularly young or early-career professionals, lack structural safeguards. This precarity disproportionately concentrates power in the hands of a select few, exacerbating exploitative conditions.

Further compounding the issue is the deeply embedded sexist and sexualised cultural framework that has long shaped artistic representation. The objectification of women in the visual arts, the fetishisation of female roles in opera, and the gendered gaze in photography and film all reflect historical and ongoing structures of oppression. These dynamics extend beyond explicit portrayals to more subtle forms of gendered representation that reinforce hierarchical power relations. As the studies in this book demonstrate, representation is significant—but its impact is limited if structural change within institutions and production processes does not follow. As Bleuwenn Lechaux asserts, ‘Making an issue visible does not automatically mean that it will be addressed’. Similarly, Anna Bull’s research illustrates the persistent dissonance between progressive media portrayals and workplace realities, where the very industries producing critical content remain complicit in maintaining gendered power imbalances.

Ultimately, gender-based violence in the arts and cultural sectors cannot be understood in isolation from broader systems of gendered labour inequality, precarious working conditions, and heteropatriarchal cultural scripts. These intersecting structures sustain a continuum of gendered violence that spans diverse contexts, from the most affluent urban centres to marginalised rural communities, from progressive artistic subcultures to deeply conservative environments such as religious spaces (Alcalde & Villa, 2022). While specific manifestations differ, the underlying mechanisms remain strikingly consistent.

Crucially, the burden of change should not rest on individual victims, but on institutions and broader social structures. The imperative is to shift the focus from fixing those subjected to violence to transforming the systems that enable it. This lesson is underscored by the 2024 mass trial against Gisèle Pelicot’s rapists in Avignon, which demonstrated the necessity of structural accountability: as much as ‘shame must change sides’, the responsibility for preventing gender-based violence must shift from the potential individual victims to the organisations. In the arts and cultural industries, this concretely means moving beyond expecting individuals—particularly women, young professionals, non-hegemonic men and those in precarious positions—to navigate inherently unsafe environments. Instead, institutions must implement structural protections, such as intimacy coordination in performance industries and proactive organisational accountability measures. As some studies in this book show, such emerging efforts, including initiatives like Intimacy Directors International, are promising steps toward institutional responsibility rather than individual endurance.

The power of collective action remains key in challenging gender-based violence, as evidenced by the #MeToo movement. While many contributions in this book engage with its impact, and rightly so, #MeToo did not emerge in isolation. It is part of a longstanding continuum of feminist, LGBTQ+ and broader social justice struggles against sexualised violence. Such movements go way back, they are a core element of feminist and Civil Rights Movements, of Labour Movements and of efforts to protect migrants and refugees (Bordin, 1981; Freedman, 2013; Tilly & Scott, 1978; Walkowitz, 1980). These movements have historically foregrounded the experiences of women as victims of gender-based violence, but have also often addressed gender-based and sexualised violence against children, disabled individuals, trans* people, queer people, people of colour and further groups ‘othered’ by hegemonic masculinity (Jewkes et al., 2015). #MeToo was and remains embedded in these wider struggles, acknowledging the multiplicity of potential victims:

#MeToo reflects complex fights against sexualised and gendered violence, against everyday sexism and rape culture, and against the many shades of toxic masculinity and gendered ideologies. Although women remain a primary target of such violence, it is not limited to women and girls. Transgender, non-binary and queer people are at heightened risk for gender and sexual harassment and violence. In short, sexualised and gender-based violence serve as a display and reinforcement of institutionalised structures of power and as practices of forcing persons and entire groups into seemingly ‘normal’ gender and sexual scripts as well as into ‘normal’ power hierarchies. (Alcalde & Villa, 2022, p. 4)

Gender is itself a complex issue, a biosocial fact, a social construct and a societal structure; gender is a norm and experienced through myriads of vague, messy and ever-shifting embodied practices (Villa Braslavsky, 2023). Gender is also intersectional, i.e. inevitably linked to and co-constituted by other social differences such as class, age, sexuality, etc. (Crenshaw, 1991). Gender is never quite only one immutable thing; thus, gender-based violence could not be one simple thing either. Rather, gender-based violence is one strategy used to keep women and all others than white, bourgeois, heterosexual, not disabled men in the places that social and political order assigns them.

In sum, gender-based violence as specific practices is enabled and sustained by social structures that normalise and reproduce its existence. Addressing it requires both recognising its systemic nature and implementing concrete institutional reforms. This book contributes to that endeavour by offering empirical insights, critical analysis and pathways toward structural transformation.

References

Alcalde, C. M., & Villa, P.-I. (2022). #MeToo and beyond. Perspectives on a global movement. University Press of Kentucky. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv2mm210k

Bordin, R. (1981). Woman and temperance: The quest for power and liberty, 1873–1900. Temple University Press

Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), 1241–1299. https://doi.org/10.2307/1229039

Fileborn, B. & Loney-Howes R. (Eds) (2019). #MeToo and the politics of social change. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15213-0

Freedman, E. B. (2013). Redefining rape: Sexual violence in the era of suffrage and segregation. Harvard University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt6wpm5m

Gill, R., & Orgad, S. (2018). The shifting terrain of sex and power: From the ‘sexualization of culture’ to #MeToo. Sexualities, 21(8), 1313–1324. https://doi.org/10.1177/1363460718794647

Jewkes, R., Flood, M., & Lang, J. (2015). From work with men and boys to changes of social norms and reduction of inequities in gender relations: A conceptual shift in prevention of gender-based violence. The Lancet, 385(9977), 1580–1589. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(14)61683-4

Kelly, L. (1987). The continuum of sexual violence. In J. Hanmer & M. Maynard (Eds), Women, violence and social control (pp. 46–60). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-18592-4_4

Merry, S. E. (2006). Human rights and gender violence: Translating international law into local justice. University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226520759.001.0001

Tilly, L. A., & Scott, J. W. (1978). Women, work, and family. Holt, Rinehart and Winston. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203819395

True, J. (2012). The political economy of violence against women. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199755929.001.0001

Villa Braslavsky, P.-I. (2023, August 23). Je autoritärer die politische Haltung, desto größer die Ablehnung von Transgender und Queerness [Interview by T. Becker]. DER SPIEGEL. https://www.spiegel.de/kultur/lgbtq-interview-mit-der-soziologin-paula-irene-villa-braslavsky-zur-debatte-ueber-trans-a-ddda20e7-a577-4a3e-bee2-cf778935bedc

Walkowitz, J. R. (1980). Prostitution and victorian society: Women, class, and the state. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511583605