A “Gold Standard” for Who? The Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018 as a feminist model

Praised as a ‘gold standard’ of feminist informed law, the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018 provides an interesting case study for addressing increased rates of gender-based violence. Elle Thacker discusses findings from her postgraduate dissertation reviewing literature assessing feminist influence on this law.

In 2018, Scottish Parliament voted unanimously to pass the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018 (DASA 2018) creating the nation’s first bespoke DA law and criminalising coercive control (Lombard and Whiting, 2024; Scott, 2020). This came three years after England and Wales criminalized coercive control and the same year that the Republic of Ireland enacted a similar law (Hester and Stark, 2019, Stark, 2020). Scotland’s approach has been praised as the “gold standard” due to its radical alignment of law and feminist theory (Stark, 2020). Its formulation was informed by decades of collaboration between the Scottish Government and feminists. To understand how feminists embedded themselves in the policy process and influenced the DASA 2018, my dissertation offered a critical review of academic literature on the DASA 2018, narrated the feminist historical institutionalist context of Scotland’s approach to addressing DA and highlighted dimensions of feminist influence over the formulation of the DASA 2018.

I reviewed 14 scholarly articles identified using a tested search string via social science databases Scopus and Web of Science. The narrative analysis was used in tandem with feminist historical institutionalism, a theory born out of the work of feminist institutionalist scholars like Mackay, Kenny and Chappell, 2010 and their 2010 article, “New institutionalism through a gender lens: Towards a feminist institutionalism?”. A key message in the scholarly work I reviewed was the importance of feminism being embedded at a systems level, from the outset to ensure an enduring influence (McCabe, 2024b) with many articles pointing to political devolution in 1999 as a unique opportunity for feminists to get their foot in the door and influence Scottish responses to DA. Feminists from the 1970’s Women’s Liberation Movement, supported by grassroots activist and academics like Dobash and Dobash (1979), formed lasting collaborative relationships within the newly formed Scottish government following devolution (Lombard and Whiting, 2018). 

The review revealed three dimensions of feminist influence, including their direct work on the law, feminist theory reflected in the law, and critique of the law from a feminist legal perspective. The defining feature of Scotland’s feminist-informed recognition of DA as a gendered issue: it is recognized as being predominantly used by men to male privilege and that gender-based violence is both the cause and consequence of women’s oppression (Johnson, 2007, Stark, 2007).While the DASA 2018 is gender neutral in its language, a gendered approached comes through in its creation of a bespoke DA crime that criminalizes the full spectrum of abuse including coercive control and a direct reflection of feminist theory on DA (Cairns, 2020). This is crucial for pushing criminal responses beyond discrete instances of physical violence to better mirror the everyday experience of victim survivors (Stark and Hester, 2020).  In keeping with its collaborative tradition, feminist leaders from national organizations like Scottish Women’s Aid were consulted on the language of the law and Section 2, outlining what constitutes abuse, is pulled directly from language contributed by women who have experienced DA (Scott, 2020).

The literature I reviewed supported the claim that there was an undeniable feminist influence on the DASA 2018. However, the feminism referred to throughout the literature was rarely defined, thus creating a monolithic image of feminism. Most of the literature was quite repetitive in its praise of feminists for their successful advocacy, but articles reviewed from McCabe, Christoffersen and Emejulu offered a critical appraisal of the feminist approach to DA response in Scotland and raised the question of exactly for whom the DASA 2018 is a “gold standard.” I carried out my assessment aided by the literature and liberal, radical and intersectional feminist frameworks. 

I concluded that Scotland’s DA policy has been shaped predominantly be radical feminism with liberal feminist influence. Scotland’s gendered framing of the issue can be traced to radical feminism’s acceptance of patriarchal structures as the root of women’s oppression (Guy-Evans, 2023b). Radical feminist influence can also be seen in the expansive nature of the DASA 2018 criminalization of coercive control to capture all elements of DA, as opposed to just discrete instances of physical violence (Charles and Mackay, 2013, Guy-Evans, 2023b). Feminist collaboration with Scottish Parliament following devolution echoes liberal feminism’s reformist goal to change the system from the inside despite the system having a history of patriarchal practices (Cottais, 2021, Guy-Evans, 2023a). 

Concerningly, in spite of research identifying how women with intersecting identities are at higher risk of violence (Scottish Government, 2024, Stark, 2020), both liberal and radical feminism center white women’s experience of DA as the experience of all women (Cottais, 2021, Guy-Evans, 2023b).From the start of their collaboration with the Scotland’s government post-devolution, feminists invited to help shape the nation’s first strategic response to DA had little knowledge or interest in intersectionality, and organizations representing diverse groups of women were not invited to the conversation until it was too late to contribute (Christoffersen and McCabe, 2025, McCabe, 2024a). White feminists implemented a gendered understanding of DA thus creating a single axis understanding of the issue where a woman’s gender is the only thing causing her to be abused (Christoffersen and McCabe, 2024). This poses challenges for Scotland’s “gold standard” law because feminism that prioritizes the experience of the most privileged (cisgender white women) further marginalizes those who are “multiply-burdened (p. 140)” by intersecting identities (Crenshaw, 1989).

The DASA 2018 only criminalizes partners/ex-partners because leading feminists argued that expanding criminalization to family members would diminish a woman’s gendered experience of DA (McCabe 2024b). Agencies like Shakti have pushed back against this because it does not offer a culturally competent response to DA perpetrated by family members (McCabe, 2024a). While elements of intersectionality are finding their way into Scottish strategies, they are done so additively in line with “diversity-within” intersectionality (Christoffersen and Emejulu, 2023). This approach prioritizes gender as the key factor in a woman’s oppression while adding on marginalizing factors thus failing to view inequalities as interlocked and continually shaping each other (Christoffersen, 2021).  

While affirming of the novel nature of the DASA 2018 and the role of feminist influence, my literature review raised questions about the “gold standard” accolade this law has received. To me, it is concerning that white feminists who have succeeded in gaining power in the policy making process are using it in ways that mirror practices of patriarchy and white supremacy to exclude the crucial expertise of marginalized women. 

Author bio 

Elle Thacker is a feminist, harm reductionist and sex worker rights advocate passionate about ensuring health policy is informed by intersectionality and by those with lived/living experience, particularly those most marginalized. 

References

Cairns, I. (2020) “The Moorov doctrine and coercive control: Proving a ‘course of behaviour’ under s. 1 of the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018,” The international journal of evidence & proof, 24(4), pp. 396–417. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/1365712720959857.

Cottais, C. (2021) Liberal Femism. Available at: https://igg-geo.org/en/2021/03/23/liberal-feminism/.

Crenshaw, K. (1989) “Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics,” The University of Chicago legal forum, 1989(1), p. 8. Available at: http://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/uclf/vol1989/iss1/8 (Accessed: August 6, 2025).

Charles, N. and Mackay, F. (2013) “Feminist politics and framing contests: Domestic violence policy in Scotland and Wales,” Critical social policy, 33(4), pp. 593–615. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/0261018313483488.

Christoffersen, A. and McCabe, L. (2025) “Operationalising intersectionality in equality and domestic abuse policy in Scotland: Contradictions, contestations and erasure,” Critical social policy, 45(2), pp. 234–258. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/02610183241249696.

Christoffersen, A. and Emejulu, A. (2023) “‘Diversity within’: The problems with ‘intersectional’ white feminism in practice,” Social politics, 30(2), pp. 630–653. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/sp/jxac044.

Emerson Dobash, R. and Dobash, R. (1983) Violence against wives: A case against the patriarchy. London, England: Macmillan.

Guy-Evans, O. (2023a) Liberal feminism: Definition, theory & examples, Simply Psychology. Available at: https://www.simplypsychology.org/liberal-feminism.html (Accessed: August 6, 2025).

Guy-Evans, O. (2023b) Radical feminism: Definition, theory & examples, Simply Psychology. Available at: https://www.simplypsychology.org/radical-feminism.html (Accessed: August 5, 2025).

Lombard, N. and Whiting, N. (2024) “Scotland and the feminist framing of Domestic Abuse,” Scottish affairs, 33(1), pp. 54–71. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3366/scot.2024.0488.

Johnson, M.P. (2007) “Domestic violence: The intersection of gender and control,” in J. Schiffman et al. (eds.) Gender violence: Interdisciplinary perspectives. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, pp. 257–268.

Mackay, F. (2015) “Political not generational: Getting real about contemporary UK radical feminism,” Social movement studies, 14(4), pp. 427–442. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2014.963545.

Mackay, F., Kenny, M. and Chappell, L. (2010) “New institutionalism through a gender lens: Towards a feminist institutionalism?,” International political science review, 31(5), pp. 573–588. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/0192512110388788.

McCabe, L. (2024a) “An intersectional analysis of contestations within women’s movements: the case of Scottish domestic abuse policymaking,” Policy and politics, 52(3), pp. 521–545. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1332/03055736y2023d000000021.

McCabe, L. (2024b) “How are feminist policy frames challenged and resisted, and with what effects? Exploring the Scottish domestic abuse policy case,” European journal of politics and gender, pp. 1–30. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1332/25151088y2024d000000040.

Scottish Government (2024) Minoritised ethnic women’s experiences of domestic abuse and barriers to help-seeking: A summary of the evidence, Gov.scot. The Scottish Government. Available at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/minoritised-ethnic-womens-experiences-domestic-abuse-barriers-help-seeking-summary-evidence/pages/6/ (Accessed: August 6, 2025).

Scott, M. (2020) “The making of the new ‘gold standard’: The domestic abuse (Scotland) act 2018,” in Criminalising Coercive Control. Singapore: Springer Singapore, pp. 177–194.

Stark, E. (2007) Coercive control: How men entrap women in personal life. Interpersonal violence series. Cary, NC: Oxford University Press.
Stark, E. (2020) “The ‘coercive control framework’: Making law work for women,” in Criminalising Coercive Control. Singapore: Springer Singapore, pp. 33–49.

Stark, E. and Hester, M. (2019) “Coercive control: Update and review,” Violence against women, 25(1), pp. 81–104. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801218816191.