# The “Double Bind” of Gender‐Based Violence: Secondary Victimization in Courtroom Cross‐Examinations

## TL;DR

This paper explores how courtroom cross-examinations can re-victimize women by using gender stereotypes to challenge their credibility.

## Contribution

The study introduces the use of EMCA to reveal how legal interactions reproduce gendered injustice.

## Key findings

- Defense attorneys use rape myths and stereotypes to undermine victims' credibility.
- Women face a 'double bind' needing to appear both emotionally and rationally composed.
- EMCA reveals how institutional talk perpetuates secondary victimization.

## Abstract

This paper examines how secondary victimization is interactionally produced during courtroom cross‐examinations of women who have experienced sexual violence. Drawing on Ethnomethodology, Conversation Analysis and Membership Categorization Analysis, the study investigates how defense attorneys invoke rape myths and gendered stereotypes to challenge victims' credibility and moral character. Using the extracts of two cross‐examinations from the celebrity trial CA v. Winslow II (2019), the results highlight how interactional features of questioning reproduce cultural assumptions that legitimate secondary victimization, constructing victims as unreliable or complicit. The findings highlight the “double bind” faced by women in sexual assault trials: they must appear both emotionally credible and rationally composed to be believed, yet any deviation from this ideal invites disbelief. Methodologically, the paper underscores the underutilized potential of EMCA in legal‐linguistic research to reveal how institutional talk reproduces gendered injustice through ordinary conversational practices.