What Will It Take to End Gender-Based Violence?

IntroductionIn 2006, Andrea Smith and colleagues argued that the question for anti-violence movements to grapple with should not be, 'What is the best model of violence intervention?', but rather, 'What will it take to end the violence against us all?' (Smith, Richie, Sudbury, & White, 2006, p.10). They argued that the strategies of addressing violence against women, which rely on the state and the criminal justice system, are inadequate and often perpetuate violence against women of colour. In this essay, I want to engage with this question in order to move towards effective strategies for transformative change and gender justice in Aotearoa/New Zealand.Building on the work of other feminist writers, scholars and activists who have proposed directions to tackle the roots of the problem, I make a call to action to think and act beyond current institutionalised strategies of addressing gender-based violence. In particular, I want to raise the significance of gendered structural violence in the lived experiences of young South Asian survivors of family violence and propose some strategic directions for feminist antiviolence movements. I suggest a refocusing in terms of the conceptual tools used by feminist advocates, including intersectionality. I argue that gender-based violence is fundamentally a political and structural problem, and that the gender system itself should be abolished.I write from the perspective of a 1.5 generation Asian feminist who has been involved in grassroots feminist activism, worked in the non-government organisation (NGO) family violence sector for Shakti - a feminist organisation for Asian, Middle Eastern and African women - and engaged with feminist research and theory in academia through disciplinary training in social anthropology and women's studies. These are the three places that inform my understandings of the issues and what needs to be done. I want to acknowledge all the people who have worked tirelessly to challenge patriarchy and gender violence across various communities and cultures. This is often thankless and stressful work, especially when dealing with intense trauma and violence. My aim is to build on previous and existing strategies for a more effective movement - building from the grassroots to widen the impact of anti-violence work.I especially want to acknowledge the work of Maori women in the women's refuge movement in having to confront patriarchy entrenched by colonisation in their own communities, as well as racism in the Pakeha feminist movement. They first argued for the need for separate and culturally appropriate responses to domestic violence that are self-determined (Haldane, 2009). Their work has led the way for the setting up of Pasifika refuges in 1989 and later 'ethnic' women's refuges in 1995 (Haldane, 2009). It is often indigenous women who are most impacted by the combination of inter-personal and structural gender-based violence (Rose, 2012).What makes violence gender-based?I want to first clarify the meaning of gender-based violence. From an anthropological perspective, gender-based violence is 'an interpretation of violence through gender' (Merry, 2009, p.3). When thinking about gender-based violence, there can be a tendency to highlight the interpersonal men's violence against women in terms of domestic or sexual violence (Watts & Zimmerman, 2002). Indeed, the women's refuge movement and rape crisis and prevention organisations focus on the provision of social support services and prevention programmes targeting interpersonal gender-based violence. Wies and Haldane (2011, p.2) define genderbased violence as 'violence against an individual or population based on gender identity or expression.' Furthermore, this includes 'multiple forms of violence and reflects the politicaleconomic structures that perpetuate gender-based inequalities among people and populations' (Wies & Haldane, 2011, p.2). In their definition, gender-based violence is not solely violence against women and considers the wider political-economic context in which gender-based violence occurs. …

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