Fiona Vera-Gray

Dr Fiona Vera-Gray is a Reader (equivalent to Associate Professor) in the School of Social Sciences and Professions at London Metropolitan University, where she teaches on the Women and Child Abuse MA program. An activist-researcher with over a decade of experience in the Rape Crisis movement, she specializes in violence against women and girls, sexual violence, sexual harassment, and pornography's societal impact. Her work bridges academic research and policy advocacy, focusing on feminist methodologies and emotionally-engaged research practices.

Vera-Gray's research centers on how women navigate safety in public spaces, the normalization of sexual violence through pornography, and feminist responses to gendered harm. She examines women's 'safety work' in everyday life, the conceptualization of misogyny as hate crime, and the regulation of pornography, emphasizing how cultural narratives shape sexual scripts and victim experiences. Her feminist approach prioritizes survivor-centered frameworks and challenges institutional responses to gender-based violence.

Her publications from 2016-2022 reveal consistent interdisciplinary engagement with criminology, gender studies, and law. Key trends include analyzing pornography as a sexual script generator, documenting women's embodied safety practices in public spaces, and critiquing legal frameworks around hate crime and sexual violence. Her work demonstrates how feminist methodologies can transform research ethics and policy development in violence prevention.

Vera-Gray leads a UKRI-funded project on sexual violence harms and completed a Leverhulme-funded study on women's pornography experiences (to be published by Penguin in 2023). She advises Westminster and Scottish governments on pornography regulation, sexual harassment policy, and relationships/sex education curriculum. Her media engagement spans BBC documentaries, TalkRadio, Women's Hour, Vanity Fair, and major newspaper op-eds advocating cultural change to end violence against women.