Jessica Taylor (author)

Jessica Taylor FRSA is a British feminist author and campaigner. She wrote the 2020 book Why Women Are Blamed For Everything. She has made appearances on British television, including BBC Two documentary Womanhood,^[1] and in the true crime documentary My Lover, My Killer, which aired on Channel Five.^[2]

Jessica Taylor
Taylor in 2019
Born	Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England
Education	BSc Psychology Hons, 2015, Open University PhD, forensic psychology, 2019, University of Birmingham
Known for	Campaigning for the rights of victims

Early life

Taylor grew up in a council estate in Stoke-on-Trent.^[3] She said that she was repeatedly sexually and physically abused as a teenager by men in her town, which she kept hidden from her family. As the result of her repeated rapes, Taylor gave birth to her first child at the age of 17 and reported her abuse to the police.^[3]

Career

Taylor began volunteering with domestic violence victims before earning a Bachelor of Science Hons degree in psychology from the Open University.^[4] Upon receiving her degree, she co-founded The Eaton Foundation, a Male Mental Health and Wellbeing Centre in the UK, with Alex Eaton.^[5] She eventually quit her job and founded VictimFocus, which she describes as "a company designed to challenge and change the victim blaming practices in social care, policing, mental health and support services all over the world."^[6] In 2017 and 2018, she was shortlisted for the Emma Humphreys Memorial Prize.^[7][8]

In 2019, Taylor completed her PhD in forensic psychology from the University of Birmingham with a thesis titled "'Logically, I know I'm not to blame but I still feel to blame': exploring and measuring victim blaming and self-blame of women who have been subjected to sexual violence."^[9] While working towards her doctoral degree, she was appointed to Chair of the Parliamentary Conference on Violence Against Women and Girls.^[10] Upon finishing her doctoral research, she became a Senior Lecturer in Criminal and Forensic Psychology at the University of Derby.^[11][12] She was later recognized for her "contribution to the psychology of victim blaming of women, her work in mental health and her contribution to feminism" by the Royal Society of Arts.^[13]

In 2020, she self-published her thesis as a book titled Why Women are Blamed for Everything. Based on three years of doctoral research and ten years of practice with women and girls, the book focuses on the reasons why society and individual psychology blames women for male violence committed against them.^[14] It draws on the psychometric measure Taylor developed during her doctoral research–called the BOWSVA scale–which measures the way the general public and professionals apportion blame to women and girls who have been subjected to sexual violence. The book also includes interviews with women who have been blamed for sexual assaults and professionals working in sexual violence services who are attempting to deconstruct victim blaming.^[14]

Upon the book's release, she was the target of coordinated attacks and harassment by alt-right trolls on Facebook and Twitter, and her personal computer was hacked.^[15][16][17] Why Women are Blamed for Everything sold 10,000 copies in its first two months before being bought by the publishing company Constable.^[14][18]

In 2022, she published her second book, Sexy But Psycho: Uncovering the Labelling of Women and Girls through Constable. She described it as "mixture of academic research, history, psychology and real-life stories of women and girls who have been told that they are mentally ill, instead of being listened to".^[19] The book focuses on how mental illness has historically been used to discredit women, focusing especially on the 2000s and pop artist Britney Spears.^[20]

During the Depp v. Heard case, she said that borderline personality disorder and histrionic personality disorder are "not proven medical conditions" but are instead "highly contested controversial psychiatric labels". On her website, she professed that the former is known in psychology and psychiatry as a "junk diagnosis", and the latter as a "debunked disorder".^[21][22]

Publications

• The Little Orange Book: Learning about abuse from the voice of the child (2018)^[23]
• Detoxing Taylor (2011, as Jessica Eaton)^[24]
• Why Women are Blamed for Everything: Exploring Victim Blaming of Women Subjected to Abuse and Trauma (2020)^[25]
• 'I thought it was just a part of life' Understanding the Scale of Violence Committed Against Women in the UK Since Birth (2021)^[26]
• Sexy But Psycho: Uncovering the Labelling of Women and Girls (2022)^[19]

References

1. "BBC Two - Womanhood". BBC. Retrieved 27 November 2021.
2. Graffius, Catriona; Sun, The (1 June 2021). "Millionaire kills lover over sex video". news.com.au. Retrieved 9 January 2022.
3. . onestopsocial.co.uk. 16 January 2019. Archived from the original on 11 July 2020. Retrieved 10 July 2020.
4. ""Why women are blamed for everything" book review". from the original on 25 February 2021. Retrieved 28 March 2021.
5. "Jessica Eaton School of Psychology Doctoral Researcher". birmingham.ac.uk. Retrieved 11 July 2020.
6. Taylor, Jessica (14 May 2020). . The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 1 June 2020. Retrieved 10 July 2020.
7. "2017 shortlist". myzen.co.uk. Retrieved 10 July 2020.
8. "Jessica Eaton – Individual Award Nominee – 2018". emmahumphreys.org. 19 January 2019. Retrieved 10 July 2020.
9. Eaton, Jessica (12 December 2019). 'Logically, I know I'm not to blame but I still feel to blame': exploring and measuring victim blaming and self-blame of women who have been subjected to sexual violence. etheses.bham.ac.uk (d_ph). Retrieved 10 July 2020.
10. "PhD student announced as Chair of the Parliamentary Conference on Violence Against Women and Girls". birmingham.ac.uk. 5 September 2017. Retrieved 11 July 2020.
11. Janes, Matt; Rodger, James (8 September 2021). "Psychologist's warning to parents sharing back to school photos of children". Chronicle Live. In 2019 Dr Taylor received her doctorate in forensic psychology from the University of Birmingham, and has since qualified as a chartered psychologist. She was formerly a senior lecturer in forensic and criminal psychology at the University of Derby and has authored a number of books including Why Women are Blamed for Everything, which sold 10,000 copies in its first two months.
12. "Victim focused approaches and combating victim blaming for professionals". University of Birmingham. Dr Taylor, a feminist and Psychologist with a PhD in Forensic Psychology is a Senior Lecturer in Forensic and Criminal Psychology.
13. . sateda.org. 26 April 2019. Archived from the original on 10 July 2020. Retrieved 10 July 2020.
14. "Constable claims self-publishing success Why Women Are Blamed for Everything | The Bookseller". www.thebookseller.com. Retrieved 19 October 2021.
15. Flood, Alison (24 April 2020). "Author of book about victim blaming bombarded with misogynist abuse". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 July 2020.
16. "Author of victim-blaming book targeted by misogynist trolls". The Independent. 25 April 2020. Retrieved 9 June 2022.
17. Slisco, Aila (24 April 2020). "Author of Book Explaining Why Women Are Victim-Blamed Targeted by Online Hacking, Harassment". newsweek.com. Retrieved 10 July 2020.
18. @DrJessTaylor (28 June 2020). "My self-published book sold 10,000 copies in 2 months, got picked up by an awesome publisher and will be going everywhere soon! I'm so excited! Can't believe how well the book has done. Thank you so much to everyone who has supported the book so far" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
19. "Constable scoops Taylor's Sexy But Psycho | The Bookseller". www.thebookseller.com. Retrieved 19 October 2021.
20. Knox, Kirsty Blake (26 March 2022). "Britney was called crazy but men have done much worse". Irish Independent. Retrieved 29 April 2022.
21. "'Debunked' psychological diagnoses of Amber Heard 'must be discounted'". The Independent. 28 April 2022.
22. "Predictably, Amber Heard Just Got Diagnosed With BPD and HPD". www.victimfocus.org.uk. 29 April 2022.
23. The Little Orange Book : learning about abuse from the voice of the child. OCLC 1054886898. Retrieved 11 July 2020 – via worldcat.org.
24. Jessica Eaton. Detoxing Taylor. OCLC 941734695. Retrieved 26 August 2021 – via worldcat.org.
25. Why women are blamed for everything: exploring victim blaming of women subjected to violence and trauma. OCLC 1159730638. Retrieved 11 July 2020 – via worldcat.org.
26. Victim Focus (2021). 'I thought it was just a part of life' Understanding the Scale of Violence Committed Against Women in the UK Since Birth (PDF). Birmingham: Victim Focus.