Applying 'big G' and 'small g' gender to Victoria's Royal Commission into Family Violence

The 2015-16 Victorian Royal Commission into Family Violence has had a powerful effect on domestic and family violence (DFV) policy in Victoria; the government accepted all 227 of its wide-ranging recommendations and has... [ view full abstract ]

The 2015-16 Victorian Royal Commission into Family Violence has had a powerful effect on domestic and family violence (DFV) policy in Victoria; the government accepted all 227 of its wide-ranging recommendations and has committed significant funding to implementing them. In this research, I employ a problem framing approach that sees problem definition as crucial for policy prescriptions and thus for real-world outcomes. In the context of fierce public debate about the role of gender in DFV, and about the role of individual risk factors vs societal causes, how did key policy actors frame the problem of DFV in their contributions to the Commission? How did the Commission then frame the problem in its report and recommendations? And where gender is present in the analysis, what understanding of gender is being used – ‘big G’ categorical, or ‘small g’ process-based (Yates 2018 in press) – and what work is it doing?

I analyse the framing of policy actors, and the Commission’s response (in the form of its report and recommendations) using Critical Frame Analysis (Verloo 2007). This involves systematically applying a series of sensitising questions to texts in order to bring out the subtext and create a ‘supertext’, which can then be used comparatively. In this way, the framing of Royal Commission contributors can be compared to the framing of the Commission itself, to explore which actors have been successful in influencing the work of this important policy broker. Of particular interest will be debates about alcohol, drugs, mental illness, children, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, where the focus is on individual risk factors or particular population groups, and a gender and power analysis is at risk of disappearing altogether.

This work contributes to the critical frame analysis literature by extending its use to Australasia and to the quasi-judicial context of a royal commission. In this time of rising interest in 'ending' DFV in Australia, it also adds to our understanding of how this policy problem is constructed by different stakeholder groups. Lastly, the big G/small g framework for understanding policy actors' treatment of gender has useful implications for feminists and gender equality advocates working in the field of domestic and family violence.