Young Women's Silencing-Type Behaviors in Heterosexual Relationships.

Feminist researchers have demonstrated that engagement in silencing of the self (i.e., self-restrictive and sacrificial behaviors reflecting how women "should" be in relationships) remains a prevalent strategy for relationship maintenance. However, little is known about (young) women silencing themselves in relationships where abuse is present. Young women's experiences of silencing and other partner-focused behaviors (e.g., sexual compliance) within their relationships were thus explored. Young, partnered women (Mage = 21; N = 146) completed an online survey and open-ended questions about their current intimate relationships. Comparing between groups (abuse, n = 108; non-abuse, n = 38), the former scored higher on measures of total self-silencing, sexual compliance, and non-constructive communication and lower on measures of constructive communication (all p < .001). A mixed inductive and deductive content analysis found that while the importance of communicating with their partner was a preferred strategy for conflict management, multiple participants still emphasized self-suppression as an important part of their experience of relational conflict. Also, most participants indicated feeling as though they could be their authentic selves in their relationships, which suggests that their silencing may be situational and strategic in nature. These findings nuance previous understandings of self-silencing as inherently harmful and instead frame it as something sporadic and done strategically. They also bring forth questions about the extent to which young women's emphasis on communication and insistence that they can be authentic are a product of changing societal expectations of women in today's society compared to the 1980s/1990s when much of the foundational work on self-silencing was being done.

Justice for Women After Sexual Assault: A Critical Interpretive Synthesis.

Justice after sexual assault is often understood and enacted through the criminal legal system such that the outcomes are binary (i.e., justice is achieved or not achieved). Previous research indicates that survivors have specific wants and needs following an assault in order to experience justice, which may or may not align with current practices. We conducted a critical interpretive synthesis of 5 databases to create a sampling frame of 4,203 records; the final analysis included 81 articles, book chapters, and policy documents. Results indicate that justice is an individualized and dynamic process which may include the experience of voice, connectedness, participating in a process, accountability, and prevention. The experiences of safety and control are central to each of these domains. Survivors may seek and enact these justice domains through several avenues, including the criminal justice and legal systems, restorative justice, medical/mental health spaces, activism, art, and social media. Existing actors within currently available justice systems, including legal, medical, and mental health personnel should encourage survivors to identify and define their own experience of justice, including locating helpful behaviors rooted in safety and control, and resist a binary model of justice. Extant systems should therefore be flexible and accessible to help survivors realize their preferred modes of justice.