Convicted Survivors

When a woman survives a deadly assault by her male abuser by using lethal self-defense, she often faces a punitive criminal justice system—one that largely failed to respond to her earlier calls for help. In this book, Elizabeth Dermody Leonard examines the lives and experiences of more than forty women in California who are serving lengthy prison sentences for killing their male abusers. She contrasts them with other women prisoners in the state and finds substantial differences. Leonard's in-depth interviews reveal that the women are slow to identify themselves as battered women and continue to minimize the violence done to them, make numerous and varied attempts to end abusive relationships, and are systematically failed by the systems they look to for help. While in jail, these women receive liberal dosages of psychotropic drugs, damaging their ability to aid in their self-defense. Moreover, trials and plea bargains feature little or no evidence of the severe intimate abuse inflicted upon them. Despite a clear lack of criminal or violent histories, the majority of women found guilty of the death of abusive men receive first- or second-degree murder convictions and serve long, harsh sentences. Leonard concludes the book with a discussion of policy implications and recommendations arising from this research.

Documenting Gendered Violence explores the intersections of documentary and gendered violence. Several contributors investigate representations through grounded textual analyses of key films and videos, including Sex Crimes Unit (2011) and The Invisible War (2012),and other documentary texts including Youtube, photographs, and theater. Other chapters use analysis and interviews to explore how gender violence issues impact production and how these documentaries become part of collaborations and awareness movements.

Aims to provide information on a variety of traditional and breakthrough issues in the complex phenomenon of domestic violence.

In 2004, Michael Burawoy challenged sociologists to move beyond the ivory tower and into the realm of activism, to engage in public discourses about what society could or should be. His call to arms sparked debate among sociologists. Which side would sociologists take? Would "public sociology" speak for all sociologists? In this volume, leading Canadian experts continue the debate by discussing their discipline's mission and practice and the role that ethics plays in research, theory, and teaching. In doing so, they offer insights as to where their discipline is heading and why it matters to people inside and outside the university.

In The Battle and Backlash Rage On: Why feminism cannot be obsolete edited by Stacey Elin Rossi, hot topics include: misogyny, antifeminism and/or bigotry in "men's rights" groups and "feminist" groups (such as ifeminists); critiques of the mainstream view that feminism is an outdated idea and no longer needed; contemporary obstacles to overcoming backlash, such as corrupt manipulation of data in antifeminist rhetoric; and the like. Issues covered include: Rhetorical denial that men hold the responsibility to end rape Me-too-ism by some men in regard to women's only programs, such as healthcare Distortion of the image of the father by mens rights groups Implicit and explicit misogyny and antifeminism among ifeminists and mens rightists Sexism and the patriarchal birthright in divorce and its harm to children manifest in the custodial decisions taking away children from their mothers and leaving them in the hands of the abuser Prevalence of domestic violence and its impact on the nations children Backlash against an ill-informed view of affirmative action and political correctness that allegedly gives privilege, particularly to women The compendium presents a combination of scholarly and nonscholarly works, a blend that appeals to both academics and nonacademics alike. Its ultimate purpose is to demonstrate that feminism works for the benefit of all humankind and *not*, as claimed, to the detriment of men. These articles and essays will hopefully demystify the issues, give a desperately needed more powerful force in favor of feminism, and serve to controvert rampant antifeminism, which can be, in effect, cleverly masqueraded misogyny. This material is all rather cutting-edge. No volume to date has encompassed these very current developments in the sexual political landscape. All over the westernized world, the cultural melee surrounding the issue of sex/gender sounds like a cacophony of agitated voices screaming in rage. From angryharry blaming global warming on feminists, as well as rape on women, the very victims themselves,1 to MS Magazine bulletin board participants claiming that men hate women2, the ideological battle seems to be at a greater intensity than ever before. However, this battle remains relatively confined to the fringes of society and to academe; feminism per se is no longer part of our cultural mainstream. While women all over the world, particularly in developing countries, are increasingly associating themselves with the label feminist, women in the United States seem to be abandoning the term in droves. From boardrooms to bedrooms, not the four letter version but the eight letter F-word appears verboten. As criticized by some European feminists, American women, particularly those otherwise-would-be feminists, dont like to offend their men. Standing by their men, they have begun to increasingly eschew feminism and even have begun to join the ranks of the enemy the mens rightists. A search on the internet for articles and essays may produce thousands of hits on the obsoleteness of feminism; however, polls and general trends indicate that the vast majority of women, as well as men, believe in gender equity. One might hear a young woman say, contradictorily, Sure, I believe women should be equal to men, but Im not a feminist. According to Geni Hawkins, Somehow, the term nazi has gotten tacked onto the end of the word [feminist], and the prevailing opinion seems to have become that the word connotes a shrill, man-hating, bra-burning (I'm surprised they're not still going off about us bobbing our hair), unfulfilled female.3 One major unresolved and possibly unresolvable problem is, unsurprisingly, just how to proceed in such a splintered and alienating movement, and one that has been given such a bad reputation. Like so many other cultural stereotypes, such as the shad

Shows how battered women's personal theologies help them survive and heal, despite the women's knowledge that religion may also have contributed to their oppression.

Based on five years of fieldwork in Boston, Can’t Catch a Break documents the day-to-day lives of forty women as they struggle to survive sexual abuse, violent communities, ineffective social and therapeutic programs, discriminatory local and federal policies, criminalization, incarceration, and a broad cultural consensus that views suffering as a consequence of personal flaws and bad choices. Combining hard-hitting policy analysis with an intimate account of how marginalized women navigate an unforgiving world, Susan Sered and Maureen Norton-Hawk shine new light on the deep and complex connections between suffering and social inequality.

Gendered Justice addresses the complex questions that arise regarding female offenders and criminal justice policy. It raises serious questions about current criminal justice policy and practice that ignore gender, as well as practices that have been widely accepted by mainstream criminologists, policy makers, and practitioners, without regard for their implications for women and girls. Bloom discusses the special circumstances faced by female offenders and the "equal treatment" tradition that has guided criminal law and practice for the past century and has generated the phenomenon known as "vengeful equity." The book challenges mainstream policies of "gender neutrality" in terms of their implications for women and girls in conflict with the law. With the dramatic rise of women and girls in the criminal justice system, gender-based issues are now receiving attention in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere.