NCJ Number
143961
Editor(s)
P B Bart,
E G Moran
Date Published
1993
Length
311 pages
Annotation
These 20 articles examine the types and extent of violence that women experience, contemporary society's structural supports for violence against women, the politics of institutional responses to violence against women, and the research implications of experiencing and studying violence against women.
Abstract
The book's major theme is that all forms of violence against women are interrelated and that although this violence is not a conscious male plot, it results from a tradition of male supremacy and coalesces to keep women in a position subordinate to men. Individual papers examine the relationship between pornography and mass murder of women, rapists' perspectives, the experiences of incest survivors, and sexual harassment in the workplace. Additional papers examine the sexual politics of black womanhood, the structural supports and institutional abuse of women in religious and medical institutions, and campus fraternities and rape. Further papers focus on the reasons why the police, courts, and other social institutions are unable to respond fairly to women's charges of harassment or assault; on women's personal safety; and on feminist jurisprudence. Other papers examine issues related to battered wives, methodological issues in a national survey of families and households, social science debates on wife abuse, issues related to survivors of violence, and the politics of research and activism. The authors suggest ways in which women can understand, confront, and change the routine pattern of violence against women. Tables, author biographies, and chapter notes and reference lists