Violence constitutes and regulates bodies according to normative notions of sex, gender and sexuality (Butler 1999, 2004). These norms ‘usually remain implicit’ and are ‘discernible most clearly and dramatically in the effects that they produce’ (Butler 2004: 41). The attribution of femininity to female bodies and masculinity to male bodies is not as readily understood as a form of violence. It is this lack of intelligibility and illegibility, I would argue, which has left a theoretical gap in the Scottish Government’s National Violence Against Women Strategy ‘Safer Lives, Changed Lives’ (2009). In this paper I will critically examine the‘Safer Lives, Changed Lives’ document in light of Butler's ideas. Does the strategy maintain and extend binary representations of men and women? How is gender defined, approached and presented in this strategy? What counts as violence and what is the relationship between women, gender and violence?
