Jessica Taylor (author)

Jessica Eaton Taylor FRSA is a British forensic psychologist and author. She was a Senior Lecturer in Forensic and Criminological Psychology at the University of Derby.

Jessica Taylor
Born
Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England
EducationBSc Psychology Hons, 2015, Open University
PhD, forensic psychology, 2019, University of Birmingham
Partner(s)Jaimi

Early life

Taylor grew up in a council estate in Stoke-on-Trent.[1] 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.[1]

Career

Taylor began volunteering with domestic violence victims before deciding to earn her Bachelor of Science Hons degree in psychology. Upon receiving her degree, Taylor co-founded The Eaton Foundation, the first Male Mental Health and Wellbeing Centre in the UK, with Alex Eaton.[2] She eventually quit her job and founded VictimFocus, an organization that would address victim blaming practices in social care, policing, mental health and support services.[3] For her efforts, she was shortlisted for the 2017 and 2018 Emma Humphreys Award for Work Against VAWG.[4][5] Since starting in 2018, her VictimFocus blog has had an annual readership of over 1.3 million.[6]

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.[7] While working towards her doctoral degree, Taylor was appointed to Chair of the Parliamentary Conference on Violence Against Women and Girls.[8] Upon finishing her doctoral research, Taylor became a Senior Lecturer in Criminal and Forensic Psychology.[9] 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.[10] In 2020, Taylor re-published her thesis as a book titled Why Women are Blamed for Everything, for which she received large amounts of online hate. The abuse took place over Facebook and Twitter and Taylor eventually notified the police after her personal computer was hacked.[11][12] In spite of this, Why Women are blamed for Everything sold 10,000 copies in its first two months before being bought by a publishing company.[13]

Publications
  • Why Women are Blamed for Everything: Exploring Victim Blaming of Women Subjected to Abuse and Trauma (2020)[14]
  • The Little Orange Book: Learning about abuse from the voice of the child (2018)[15]

References
  1. "Championing a 'VictimFocus' World with Jessica Eaton". onestopsocial.co.uk. 16 January 2019. Retrieved 10 July 2020.
  2. "Jessica Eaton School of Psychology Doctoral Researcher". birmingham.ac.uk. Retrieved 11 July 2020.
  3. Taylor, Jessica (14 May 2020). "Why do we blame women for the actions of rapists, traffickers, and abusers?". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 1 June 2020. Retrieved 10 July 2020.
  4. "2017 shortlist". myzen.co.uk. Retrieved 10 July 2020.
  5. "Jessica Eaton – Individual Award Nominee – 2018". emmahumphreys.org. 19 January 2019. Retrieved 10 July 2020.
  6. @DrJessTaylor (September 11, 2019). "VictimFocus has 1.3 million readers per year on the blog! Eeeek" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  7. "'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. Retrieved 10 July 2020.
  8. "PhD student announced as Chair of the Parliamentary Conference on Violence Against Women and Girls". birmingham.ac.uk. 5 September 017. Retrieved 11 July 2020.
  9. @DrJessicaTaylor (20 September 2019). "Well I guess today is my first day as a /Senior Lecturer in Criminal and Forensic Psychology then....Sorry to keep the news from you all. Turns out I have a grown-up job now along with victimfocus...From now on, I will be the epitome of mature and polite" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  10. "Jessica Eaton Granted a Fellowship of the Royal Society of Arts". sateda.org. 26 April 2019. Retrieved 10 July 2020.
  11. Flood, Alison (24 April 2020). "Author of book about victim blaming bombarded with misogynist abuse". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 July 2020.
  12. 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.
  13. @DrJessTaylor (June 28, 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.
  14. "Why women are blamed for everything: exploring victim blaming of women subjected to violence and trauma". worldcat.org. Retrieved 11 July 2020.
  15. "The Little Orange Book : learning about abuse from the voice of the child". worldcat.org. Retrieved 11 July 2020.
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