
Dr Emma Yapp
MA, PhD
Expertise
Emma's research examines the intersection of sexual violence and mental health from a critical feminist perspective, and brings critical disability studies to bear on debates around the legitimacy of sexual violence testimony.
Current positions
Senior Research Associate
School for Policy Studies
Contact
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Biography
Emma's PhD critically examined how the interaction of feminist, legal, and psychiatric discourses shape the experiences, and testimonies, of people who have experienced sexual violence and identify with psychiatric diagnoses in England and Wales. This was an interdisciplinary qualitative project, analysing a combination of case law, legal policies, and interviews with people who identify with psychiatric diagnoses. The thesis demonstrated the ways in which societal stereotypes and norms concerning the relationship between sexual violence and mental health come to bear on sexual violence testimony, both inside and outside the courtroom. These findings were influential in both consultations on the effectiveness of legal policies, and in a feminist legal campaign concerning mental health evidence in sexual violence trials.
Research interests
I joined the School of Policy Studies in May 2024 as a Senior Research Assistant on Natasha Mulvihill's 'Powerful Perpetrators' ERC-funded project, with a primary specialism in perpetrators of sexual violence in medical contexts. I am also a PhD candidate at Birkbeck. My PhD examined how the relationship between sexual violence and mental health is discursively constructed in England and Wales through a socio-legal lens, and revealed how harmful stereotypes and norms come to bear on sexual violence testimony both inside and outside the courtroom. My research interests include critical feminist theory, sexual violence, mental health, socio-legal scholarship, and critical disability theory.
Projects and supervisions
Research projects
ERC Starting Grant: Sex, power and professionals: the nature, extent and administrative justice responses to sexual misconduct and abuse perpetrated by professionals
Principal Investigator
Role
Researcher
Managing organisational unit
School for Policy StudiesDates
01/11/2023 to 31/10/2028
Publications
Selected publications
04/05/2018A systematic review of the association between rape myth acceptance and male-on-female sexual violence
Aggression and Violent Behaviour
Recent publications
09/07/2024From brain “scar” to “bat shit crazy”
BioSocieties
Why the Cox case is significant for UK medicine
BMJ
Doctors and sexual misconduct
Doctors and sexual misconduct
Politicians and sexual misconduct
Politicians and sexual misconduct
Professionals (general) and sexual misconduct
Professionals (general) and sexual misconduct