This book examines the strength of laws addressing four types of violence against women--rape, marital rape, domestic violence, and sexual harassment--in 196 countries from 2007 to 2010. It analyzes why these laws exist in some places and not others, and why they are stronger or weaker in places where they do exist. The authors have compiled original data that allow them to test various hypotheses related to whether international law drives the enactment of domestic legal protections. They also examine the ways in which these legal protections are related to economic, political, and social institutions, and how transnational society affects the presence and strength of these laws. The original data produced for this book make a major contribution to comparisons and analyses of gender violence and law worldwide.

This book engages legal and literary texts in order to examine acquaintance crimes, such as rape, sexual harassment, stalking, and domestic abuse, and to challenge how the victim’s physical or psychological "freeze response" is commonly and inaccurately mistaken for her consent. Following increased interest in the #MeToo movement and the discoveries of sexual abuse by numerous public figures, this book analyzes themes in law and literature that discredit victims and protect wrongdoers. Interpreting a present-day novel alongside legislation and written court cases, each chapter pairs a fictional text with a nonfictional counterpart. In these pairings, the themes, events, and arguments of each are carefully unpacked and compared against one another. As the cross-readings unfold, we learn that a victim does not "ask for it," and she should not arouse suspicions just because she does not fight, run away, or report the crime. Instead, and as this book demonstrates, the more common and most practical response is to become physically and mentally paralyzed by fear; the victim dissociates, shuts down, and remains stuck in the fright and captivity of abuse. This book will interest scholars and students working in, and especially at the intersection of, law, literature, gender studies, and criminology.

The United Nations has called violence against women "the most pervasive, yet least recognized human rights abuse in the world" and there is a long-established history of the systematic victimization of women by the state during times of peace and conflict. This book contributes to the established literature on women, gender and crime and the growing research on state crime and extends the discussion of violence against women to include the role and extent of crime and violence perpetrated by the state. State Crime, Women and Gender examines state-perpetrated violence against women in all its various forms. Drawing on case studies from around the world, patterns of state-perpetrated violence are examined as it relates to women’s victimization, their role as perpetrators, resistors of state violence, as well as their engagement as professionals in the international criminal justice system. From the direct involvement of Condaleeza Rice in the United States-led war on terror, to the women of Egypt’s Arab Spring Uprising, to Afghani poetry as a means to resist state-sanctioned patriarchal control, case examples are used to highlight the pervasive and enduring problem of state-perpetrated violence against women. The exploration of topics that have not previously been addressed in the criminological literature, such as women as perpetrators of state violence and their role as willing consumers who reinforce and replicate the existing state-sanctioned patriarchal status quo, makes State Crime, Women and Gender a must-read for students and scholars engaged in the study of state crime, victimology and feminist criminology.

Based on a series of international workshops sponsored by the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundations, this cutting-edge volume advances theories, methodologies, and policy analyses relating to various forms of violence against women. Under the skillful editorship of Rebecca Emerson and Russell P. Dobash, Rethinking Violence Against Women is the joint effort of recognized anthropologists, psychologists, philosophers, sociologists, and historians in the field. Divided in three parts, this text takes a comprehensive examination of the following topics: +

Violence against women is one factor in the growing wave of alarm about violence in American society. High-profile cases such as the O.J. Simpson trial call attention to the thousands of lesser-known but no less tragic situations in which women's lives are shattered by beatings or sexual assault. The search for solutions has highlighted not only what we know about violence against women but also what we do not know. How can we achieve the best understanding of this problem and its complex ramifications? What research efforts will yield the greatest benefit? What are the questions that must be answered? Understanding Violence Against Women presents a comprehensive overview of current knowledge and identifies four areas with the greatest potential return from a research investment by increasing the understanding of and responding to domestic violence and rape: What interventions are designed to do, whom they are reaching, and how to reach the many victims who do not seek help. Factors that put people at risk of violence and that precipitate violence, including characteristics of offenders. The scope of domestic violence and sexual assault in America and its conequences to individuals, families, and society, including costs. How to structure the study of violence against women to yield more useful knowledge. Despite the news coverage and talk shows, the real fundamental nature of violence against women remains unexplored and often misunderstood. Understanding Violence Against Women provides direction for increasing knowledge that can help ameliorate this national problem.

A provocative investigation of how fathers' rights groups are trying to erode the gains of the battered women's movement

Taking the Hippocratic paradigm as backbone of the analysis, the book conceptualises a new notion under international law, 'violence against women's health', which allows the reader to reflect on two interrelated dimensions of violence, the horizontal 'inter-personal' and the vertical 'State policies' ones, and on obligations States must abide by.

"This book explores how women from diverse backgrounds interact with the law in response to intimate partner violence, over time. Every year, millions of women globally turn to law to help them live lives free and safe from violence. Women engage with child protection services and police. They apply for civil protection orders and family court orders to help them manage their children's contact with a violent father, and take special visa pathways to avoid deportation following separation from an abuser. Women are often compelled to interact with law, through their abuser's myriad legal applications against them. While separation may seem like a solution, it often accelerates legal engagement providing new opportunities for continued abuse. Countless women who have experienced Intimate Partner Violence are enmeshed in overlapping, complex and often inconsistent legal processes. They have both fleeting and longer-term connections with legal system actors. Their stories demonstrate how abusers harness multiple aspects of the legal process, and its actors, to continue their abuse. They highlight the regular failure of legal processes and actors to comprehend the significance of non-physical abuse. Women show how legal system actors' common expectation that separation is a single event, rather than a process, has implications for their connections with law and the outcomes they achieve. From time to time, the women in this study attained the safety and closure they sought from law, sometimes in circular and unexpected ways, but their narratives demonstrate the level of endurance, tenacity and time this often required"--

Women, Crime and Criminal Justice is the winner of the Division of International Criminology’s Distinguished Book Award 2014 and the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences International Section's 2015 Outstanding Book Award and the first fully internationalised book to focus on women as offenders, victims and justice professionals. It provides background, as well as specialized information that allows readers to comprehend the global forces that shape women and crime; analyze different types of violence against women (in peacetime and in armed conflict); and grasp the challenges faced by women in justice professions such as the police, the judiciary and international peacekeeping. Provocative, highly topical, engaging and written by an expert in the field, this book examines the role of women in crime and criminal justice internationally. Topics covered include: the role of globalization and development in patterns of female offending and victimization, how a human rights framework can help explain women ́s crime, victimization and the criminal justice response, global women’s activism, international perspectives on violence against women, including femicide, violence in conflict and post conflict settings, sex work and sex trafficking, women’s access to justice, as well as the increased role of women in international criminal justice settings. This book will be essential reading for those involved in the study of development, human rights, governance, security sector reform, international relations and public health, as debates about these subjects are intrinsically linked to the issues surrounding women, crime and justice. It will also be useful for students taking courses on gender, crime and criminal justice, violence against women, international criminal justice and gender studies.

Abusive Endings offers a thorough analysis of the social-science literature on one of the most significant threats to the health and well-being of women today—abuse at the hands of their male partners. The authors provide a moving description of why and how men abuse women in myriad ways during and after a separation or divorce. The material is punctuated with the stories and voices of both perpetrators and survivors of abuse, as told to the authors over many years of fieldwork. Written in a highly readable fashion, this book will be a useful resource for researchers, practitioners, activists, and policy makers.