Gender-Based Violence and Young Homeless Women

Femininity, Embodiment and Vicarious Physical Capital

Dados Bibliográficos

ID3554445
AutoresJuliet Watson (0000-0002-0855-8944, RMIT University, autor correspondente)
Ano2016
Volume64
Fascículo2
Páginas256-273
Data de publicação2016-05-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoThe Sociological Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0038-0261 • E-ISSN: 1467-954X
EditoraSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1111/1467-954x.12365
OpenAlexW2298571917
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas29
Referências citadas37

This article discusses how the gender-based violence of homelessness contributes to young women engaging in bodily alliances with men as a strategy for physical protection. The embedding of individualized and postfeminist discourses through the conditions of neoliberalism and the structural disadvantage of homelessness have meant that young women are required to adopt self-regulatory practices and take personal responsibility for their physical safety. Drawing on Bourdieu's social capital theory and its development by Skeggs and Shilling, and based on qualitative research undertaken with fifteen young women who had experienced homelessness in Australia, I suggest that feminine capital is mobilized through necessity by young homeless women through the formation and maintenance of intimate relationships with men to access a sense of safety in an environment that is hostile to the female body. However, as the narratives presented here demonstrate, the value and privilege ascribed to (certain) male bodies is only accessible vicariously to young women, it is inherently precarious, it can undermine access to other types of capital and these intimate relationships can also be a source of gender-based violence

Capital (architecture) · Disadvantage · Femininity · Masculinity · Narrative · Neoliberalism (international relations) · Political science · Privilege (computing) · Social capital · Social science · Sociology · Value (mathematics) · Gender Studies · Homelessness and Social Issues · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Law · Youth Education and Societal Dynamics