Does Gender Matter?

Abstract

Sociological and historical research into sexual violence against children has reported consistently that it is girls who have most often been the subject of sexual, psychological and physical violence in both familial and institutional settings in modernity. However, more recently, public inquiries have provided evidence that during the 20th century, boys were much more likely to be abused in particular kinds of religious settings. This has been substantiated in findings from inquiries in Australia, Ireland, the UK and the USA. This reverses the trend of child sexual abuse (CSA) demonstrated in family and community environments, where girls are more likely to be abused, although perpetrators are much more likely to be men across all settings (Dowling, Boxall, et al. 2021). The question of gender in relation to the experience and management of CSA therefore requires further examination. In this article we investigate whether gender is a specific dimension of CSA in religious institutions, and specifically the Roman Catholic Church, by two methods. We begin by firstly examining the literature that addresses gender representation, religion and CSA in relation to three central evidence-based indicators: prevalence, disclosure and trauma impacts. Secondly, we link this discussion to a case study of the Catholic Church in Australia, where we identify specific patterns of gendered child violence and we ask the question: are such gendered forms of violence related to Catholic socialisation processes and if so by which specific mechanisms does Catholic culture produce the conditions that facilitate the sexual abuse of children? This article will explore these questions by looking at the ways CSA in Catholic institutions are gendered and how this produced particular forms of knowledge and truth. We argue that gender is a central organising principle in Catholic bureaucracy, culture and theology. The analysis identifies five central factors underpinning the reproduction of a discourse of power and knowledge normalizing gendered patterns of CSA and addresses a gap in current research by addressing gender representation as the central factor in the prevalence, disclosure and trauma of religiously based CSA.