Disclosing Gender-Based Violence: A Qualitative Analysis of Professionals’ and Women’s Perspectives through a Discursive Approach

Isabel Goicolea (), Carmen Vives-Cases, Esther Castellanos-Torres, Erica Briones-Vozmediano and Belén Sanz-Barbero
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Isabel Goicolea: Department of Epidemiology and Global Health, Umeå University, 90187 Umea, Sweden
Carmen Vives-Cases: Department of Community Nursing, Preventive Medicine and Public Health and the History of Science, University of Alicante, 03009 Alicante, Spain
Esther Castellanos-Torres: Public Health Research Group, University of Alicante, 03009 Alicante, Spain
Erica Briones-Vozmediano: Group of Studies in Society, Education and Health (GESEC), Nursing and Physiotherapy Department, University of Lleida, 25008 Lleida, Spain
Belén Sanz-Barbero: CIBER of Epidemiology and Public Health (CIBERESP), 28029 Madrid, Spain

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 22, 1-13

Abstract: Supporting women to disclose gender-based violence (GBV) is a central feature of how healthcare and other welfare services address this problem. In this paper we take a discursive approach to analyse the process of disclosing GBV from the perspectives of young women who have been subjected to GBV and professionals working in the welfare system. Through a reflective thematic analysis of 13 interviews with young women who have been subjected to GBV and 17 with professionals working in different sectors of the welfare system, we developed four themes about how disclosure is perceived: (i) as a conversation between acquaintances; (ii) as ‘no solution’; (iii) as a possible prerequisite for action; and (iv) as difficult because GBV is normalised. Even if disclosure is not the solution per se, it makes it possible to respond institutionally to GBV on an individual basis through the figure of the expert professional who is alert to signs, knows how to support disclosure, and has the power to legitimate women’s claims of GBV. We acknowledge the possibilities that supporting disclosure brings for women subjected to GBV, but at the same time, problematise that it can re-centre expertise in the professional and place the responsibility on women.

Keywords: gender-based violence; disclosure; reflexive thematic analysis; Spain; discourse (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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