Gendered Violence in Religious Groups: Examining the Data

In this presentation, I will report on two projects I am currently involved with that address concerns about ongoing and historical gendered violence in religious organisations.

The first project is a collaboration with researchers in theology and sociology at the University of Regensburg, Germany, where we are developing two innovative methodologies to investigate and build evidence of the historical and current sexual and spiritual abuse of Catholic Women Religious (also known as nuns). Initial findings indicate low disclosure/high prevalence rates in the affected cohort, so finding ways to gather data is a challenge.

The second project is a collaboration with UK colleague Dr Sarah-Jane Page working on a comparative analysis of a small religious group - Jehovah's Witnesses - in two public inquiries into institutional child sexual abuse in the UK and Australia. Both inquiries examined evidence from survivors and church leaders of the poor management of disclosures and treatment of survivors of child sexual abuse from 1960-current. Our data suggests that different methodologies employed by the two inquiries led to very different findings and outcomes for survivors.

Bio: Dr Kathleen McPhillips is a senior lecturer in the school of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Newcastle. Her main areas of research are gender and religion. She is a sociologist of religion and gender and employs feminist, psychoanalytic and sociological frameworks to issues around gender and religion particularly around institutional child sexual abuse in religious organisations. Kathleen has extensive experience in attending, reporting on and analysing the religious organisations at the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse and has held numerous research grants. Her most recent publications are in Child Abuse and Neglect, Feminist Theology, Journal of Australian Studies, Psychoanalytic Dialogues and Journal for the Academic Study of Religion.

You can view the recorded seminar here -  CLICK HERE. 

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