Social Change, Gender and Violence


Book Description

Based on large research material collected in Hungary, Macedonia, Serbia and Bulgaria Social change, Gender and Violence is the book which explores the impact of transition from communism and war on everyday life of women and men, as well as the way how everyday life and gender related changes affect women's vulnerability to domestic violence and trafficking in women. The book also explores the impact of micro level changes on development of civil society, women's movement, and legal and policy changes regarding violence against women. This is a unique book, which tries to look at violence against women as connected to oppression of both women and men. It argues that violence against women in post-communist and war affected societies is significantly connected to the increase of social stratification, economic hardship, unemployment, instability, uncertainty and related social stresses, changes in gender identity and structural inequalities brought by new world order. Using largely accounts of more than hundred interviewed people, the author shows vividly how, in post-communist societies, the contradictions of capitalism are interlaced with the mostly negative relics of communism. Moreover, the book shows how contradictory processes in post-communist societies have led to a rather paradoxical result: political pluralism and a capitalist economic system generated both violence against women and a women's movement, albeit not the conditions for a reduction of violence.




Women, Violence and Social Change


Book Description

Women, Violence and Social Change demonstrates how refuges and shelters stand as the core of the battered women's movement, providing a basis for pragmatic support, political action and radical renewal. From this base movements in Britain and the United States have challenged the police, courts and social services to provide greater assistance to women. The book provides important evidence on the way social movements can successfully challenge institutions of the State as well as salutatory lessons on the nature of diverted and thwarted struggle. Throughout the book the Dobashes' years of researching violence against women is illustrated in the depth of their analysis. They maintain the tradition established in their first book, Violence Against Wives, which was widely accalimed.




Preventing Violence Against Women and Children


Book Description

Violence against women and children is a serious public health concern, with costs at multiple levels of society. Although violence is a threat to everyone, women and children are particularly susceptible to victimization because they often have fewer rights or lack appropriate means of protection. In some societies certain types of violence are deemed socially or legally acceptable, thereby contributing further to the risk to women and children. In the past decade research has documented the growing magnitude of such violence, but gaps in the data still remain. Victims of violence of any type fear stigmatization or societal condemnation and thus often hesitate to report crimes. The issue is compounded by the fact that for women and children the perpetrators are often people they know and because some countries lack laws or regulations protecting victims. Some of the data that have been collected suggest that rates of violence against women range from 15 to 71 percent in some countries and that rates of violence against children top 80 percent. These data demonstrate that violence poses a high burden on global health and that violence against women and children is common and universal. Preventing Violence Against Women and Children focuses on these elements of the cycle as they relate to interrupting this transmission of violence. Intervention strategies include preventing violence before it starts as well as preventing recurrence, preventing adverse effects (such as trauma or the consequences of trauma), and preventing the spread of violence to the next generation or social level. Successful strategies consider the context of the violence, such as family, school, community, national, or regional settings, in order to determine the best programs.




Vigilante Gender Violence


Book Description

In recent years, mob attacks on women by men have drawn public attention to an emerging social phenomenon. This book draws upon concepts from critical race theory and sociocultural evolutionary theory to examine this specific form of gender violence, which takes place outside the law and is a vigilante form of enforcing traditional gender norms. The author positions vigilante gender violence as a global issue produced during specific periods of sociocultural change in conditions marked by intensified social stratification. The catalyst for vigilante gender violence is the formal state’s breaching of the "gender bargain," the tacit psychological wage even non-elite men earn by at least not being female. When the state threatens to end the gender bargain by promoting women’s rights, the die is cast for low-status men to enforce this bargain themselves in mob attacks against women who are perceived to be violating the patriarchal order. Seen through independent case studies in different national settings, this book provides empirical evidence that demonstrates the existence of vigilante gender violence in times when societies are shifting from one phase to another and the social hierarchies present within are disrupted. With greater understanding of when and how to predict the occurrence of this phenomenon, the author posits notable ways to prevent it from happening altogether.







#MeToo and the Politics of Social Change


Book Description

#MeToo has sparked a global re-emergence of sexual violence activism and politics. This edited collection uses the #MeToo movement as a starting point for interrogating contemporary debates in anti-sexual violence activism and justice-seeking. It draws together 19 accessible chapters from academics, practitioners, and sexual violence activists across the globe to provide diverse, critical, and nuanced perspectives on the broader implications of the movement. It taps into wider conversations about the nature, history, and complexities of anti-rape and anti-sexual harassment politics, including the limitations of the movement including in the global South. It features both internationally recognised and emerging academics from across the fields of criminology, media and communications, film studies, gender and queer studies, and law and will appeal broadly to the academic community, activists, and beyond.




Gender, Pleasure, and Violence


Book Description

Behind the Iron Curtain, the politics of sexuality and gender were, in many ways, more progressive than the West. While Polish citizens undoubtedly suffered under the oppressive totalitarianism of socialism, abortion was legal, clear laws protected victims of rape, and it was relatively easy to legally change one's gender. In Gender, Pleasure, and Violence, Agnieszka Kościańska reveals that sexologists—experts such as physicians, therapists, and educators—not only treated patients but also held sex education classes at school, published regular columns in the press, and authored highly popular sex manuals that sold millions of copies. Yet strict gender roles within the home meant that true equality was never fully within reach. Drawing on interviews, participant observation, and archival work, Kościańska shares how professions like sexologists defined the notions of sexual pleasure and sexual violence under these sweeping cultural changes. By tracing the study of sexual human behavior as it was developed and professionalized in Poland since the 1960s, Gender, Pleasure, and Violence explores how the collapse of socialism brought both restrictions in gender rights and new opportunities.




Change the Story


Book Description

Our Watch partnered with Australia's National Research Organisation for Women's Safety (ANROWS) and the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (VicHealth) to create Change the story: A shared framework for the primary prevention of violence against women and their children in Australia.The framework draws upon the latest international evidence and consultations with over 400 stakeholders across Australia to explore what drives violence against women and what works to prevent it. It demonstrates that, while violence against women has no single cause, it is strongly associated with particular dimensions of gender inequality, in both public life and personal relationships. It asserts that an Australia where women and their children live free from violence is an achievable long-term goal, but one that can only be realised by addressing the drivers of this violence, which are deeply entrenched in our social and cultural norms structures and practices, across our communities and in our daily lives.Change the story details the key elements required to create a strategic, collaborative and consistent national approach to preventing violence against women. The framework:* outlines 10 essential and supporting actions to prevent violence against women by addressing its gendered drivers and reinforcing factors* provides evidence-based guidance to government, the private sector, civil society and communities on how to lead, coordinate, resource and support effective prevention effort across Australia* aims to inform and support the development of policy and legislation, prevention programs, strategies and initiatives of all kinds, and advocacy.The framework demonstrates how, by working together, governments, organisations, communities and individuals can create a safer Australia built upon respect and equality.It offers a path towards this ultimate goal of social transformation, providing the necessary evidence, rationale and guidance to drive and support a significant and sustained nation-wide effort to prevent violence against women and their children.




Human Rights & Gender Violence


Book Description

Human rights law and the legal protection of women from violence are still fairly new concepts. As a result, substantial discrepancies exist between what is decided in the halls of the United Nations and what women experience on a daily basis in their communities. Human Rights and Gender Violence is an ambitious study that investigates the tensions between global law and local justice. As an observer of UN diplomatic negotiations as well as the workings of grassroots feminist organizations in several countries, Sally Engle Merry offers an insider's perspective on how human rights law holds authorities accountable for the protection of citizens even while reinforcing and expanding state power. Providing legal and anthropological perspectives, Merry contends that human rights law must be framed in local terms to be accepted and effective in altering existing social hierarchies. Gender violence in particular, she argues, is rooted in deep cultural and religious beliefs, so change is often vehemently resisted by the communities perpetrating the acts of aggression. A much-needed exploration of how local cultures appropriate and enact international human rights law, this book will be of enormous value to students of gender studies and anthropology alike.




Gender and the Violence(s) of War and Armed Conflict


Book Description

The ebook edition of this title is Open Access, thanks to Knowledge Unlatched funding, and freely available to read online.Drawing on historical and contemporary case studies, this book delves into visual and text-based materials to unpack gender-based violence(s) perpetrated and experienced by both sexes within and beyond the conflict zone.