Feminists Organising Against Gendered Violence

McMillan provides the first detailed account of the women's anti-violence movement in Europe, from an international comparative perspective. Exploring how feminists have responded to violence in society, this study also examines how they have organized their response, their achievements and the factors that have facilitated their calls to change.

Winner of the 2012 Gloria E. Anzaldua Book Prize presented by the National Women's Studies Association Acid attacks against women and girls have captured the attention of the global media, with several high-profile reports ranging from the BBC to The Oprah Winfrey Show. In Bangladesh, reasons for the attacks include women's rejection of sexual advances from men, refusal of marriage proposals, family or land disputes, and unmet dowry demands. The consequences are multiple: permanent marks on the body, disfiguration, and potential blindness. In Transnationalism Reversed, Elora Halim Chowdhury explores the complicated terrain of women's transnational antiviolence organizing by focusing on the work done in Bangladesh around acid attacks—and the ways in which the state, international agencies, local expatriates, US media, Bangladeshi immigrants in the United States, survivor-activists, and local women's organizations engage the pragmatics and the transnational rhetoric of empowerment, rescue, and rehabilitation. Grounded in careful ethnographic work, oral history, and theoretical and filmic analysis, Transnationalism Reversed makes a significant contribution to conversations around gendered violence, transnational feminist praxis, and the politics of organizing—particularly around NGOs—in the global South.

This book addresses the issue of domestic violence against women, drawing on research findings, policy developments and current debates to contextualise its alarming prevalence and to propose informed ways of addressing, through training and practice, the needs of both victims and perpetrators in current social and related care provision.

'Timely, necessary and important' J.K. Rowling '[This book is] guaranteed to remind us what we have still to fight for. I can't think of a single person who wouldn't benefit from reading it' Observer 'Bindel is a rock star of second-wave feminism . . . an important, courageous book' The Times 'Bindel delivers a robust call to arms in every chapter . . . this book could not be timelier . . . As a young feminist who has finally seen the light, I consider it essential reading' The Critic Feminism is a quest for the liberation of women from patriarchy. Feminism strives for a world in which women are not oppressed. Feminism prioritises exposing and ending male violence towards women and girls. This is Julie Bindel's feminism, a definition born of 40 years at the front line of the feminist movement. Why then, she asks, is feminism the only social justice movement in the world that is expected to prioritise every other issue before pursuing its own objective of women's liberation? Why does the movement appear to be moving backwards, accommodating the rights and feelings of men and leaving women in the cold? Women make up half the global population yet why is feminism still treated as a minority movement? In this searing and ground-breaking book, Bindel deconstructs the many pervasive myths about feminism - Do women really want what men have? Can men be feminists? Are women liberated by sexual violation? - assessing whether feminism has achieved its goals and debunking theories that second wave feminism is irrelevant and one-dimensional. Bindel shines a light on the most important issues, including pornography, sexual violence and prostitution. Drawing on Bindel's own experiences, as well as countless interviews with women and girls of all ages and backgrounds (as well as contributions from commentators such as Gloria Steinem and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie), Feminism for Women presents a clear-sighted view of why feminism is a proud social movement that every woman on the planet benefits from. The invisible forces of misogyny affect us all. This book is a call to arms to reclaim feminism for all women. Only together can we resist and overcome.

Some Men explores the promise of men's violence prevention work with boys and men in schools, college sports, fraternities, and the U.S. military. It illuminates the strains and tensions of such work--including the reproduction of male privilege in feminist spheres--and explores how men and women navigate these tensions.

The editors and contributors to Color of Violence ask: What would it take to end violence against women of color? Presenting the fierce and vital writing of organizers, lawyers, scholars, poets, and policy makers, Color of Violence radically repositions the antiviolence movement by putting women of color at its center. The contributors shift the focus from domestic violence and sexual assault and map innovative strategies of movement building and resistance used by women of color around the world. The volume's thirty pieces—which include poems, short essays, position papers, letters, and personal reflections—cover violence against women of color in its myriad forms, manifestations, and settings, while identifying the links between gender, militarism, reproductive and economic violence, prisons and policing, colonialism, and war. At a time of heightened state surveillance and repression of people of color, Color of Violence is an essential intervention. Contributors. Dena Al-Adeeb, Patricia Allard, Lina Baroudi, Communities Against Rape and Abuse (CARA), Critical Resistance, Sarah Deer, Eman Desouky, Ana Clarissa Rojas Durazo, Dana Erekat, Nirmala Erevelles, Sylvanna Falcón, Rosa Linda Fregoso, Emi Koyama, Elizabeth "Betita" Martínez, maina minahal, Nadine Naber, Stormy Ogden, Julia Chinyere Oparah, Beth Richie, Andrea J. Ritchie, Dorothy Roberts, Loretta J. Ross, s.r., Puneet Kaur Chawla Sahota, Renee Saucedo, Sista II Sista, Aishah Simmons, Andrea Smith, Neferti Tadiar, TransJustice, Haunani-Kay Trask, Traci C. West, Janelle White

This book maps the problems and possibilities of the policies and practices designed to tackle violence against women in the domestic sphere over the last 40 years. In 2018, the United Nations declared the home the most dangerous place for women around the word, and in early April 2020, the United Nations Population Fund predicted that for every three months that government-enforced lockdowns in response to coronavirus an additional 15 million cases of domestic violence would occur worldwide. This book asks the simple yet critical question: how can governments best ensure women’s safety in the twenty-first century? Taking its title from Elizabeth Wilson’s 1983 book and her three-level approach of considering the role of social policy, the law and ideology, Fitz-Gibbon and Walklate draw on their expertise of femicide, domestic abuse and family violence to examine the salience of global and local policy and practice responses to such violence(s), and to ask timely questions about the ongoing value of the recourse to the criminal law for twenty-first century policy. Comparative in orientation, appreciative of the importance of geographical and social context, and committed to understanding the historical processes that continue to frame policy responses, this book takes a long hard look at what has and has not been achieved in relation to domestic abuse and family violence and seeks to challenge all that has come to be taken for granted in responding to such violence(s). Published in the 40th Anniversary of Elizabeth Wilson’s ground-breaking contribution, this book is destined to become a classic in its own right. It is essential reading for all those engaged in feminist criminology, gender and crime, family and domestic violence, and violence against women.

This book investigates competing modes of thought about gender security and aims to understand the policy implications of personal-political imaginations. The work draws upon extensive research conducted by the author in Serbia to develop a comprehensive picture of how feminist and women’s organising relates to the broader national and international contexts surrounding gender security. Through an innovative analytical framework of personal-political imaginations, the book explores the role that memories, perceptions and hopes about conflict and post-conflict have upon the logics of gender security. It investigates how contrasting and competing modes of thought about ‘gender security’ are made, paying attention to how the dynamics of gender politics in Serbia shape the security discourse and narratives of activists. The volume explores in detail how feminist and women’s organisations have responded to UNSCR 1325 by analysing two policy debates and campaigns that seek to ‘achieve’ its goals and gender security in Serbia: (1) feminist antimilitarism and (2) connecting domestic violence to the abuse of small arms and light weapons. Ultimately, the book argues that the configuration of gender security discourse is intimately linked to personal-political imaginations of conflict and post-conflict. This book will be of much interest to students of gender politics, conflict studies, critical security studies, European politics and IR in general.