Making sense of ‘horizontal violence’ in midwifery

Abstract

Within the Australian midwifery world there is increasing use of the term ‘horizontal violence’, a term which has a similar impact to the 1970s use of ‘domestic violence’. The intent of such terms is not merely to compel the attention: they represent a shorthand for a political analysis of specific forms of oppression. ‘Horizontal violence’ is not just a description of intergroup conflict or various forms of ‘bullying’: it embodies an understanding of how oppressed groups direct their frustrations and dissatisfactions towards each other as a response to a system that has excluded them from power.