Academic literature on the topic 'Women's violence'

The study examines women's use of violence, focusing on the experiences of seven women who disclosed that they had perpetrated serious indictable crimes. The crimes included murder, accessory to murder after the fact, manslaughter, child sexual and physical assaults, grievous bodily harm, stalking and threats to kill. The narratives of the seven women form the central focus of the study and these stories contribute to our understanding of the lives of individual women who perpetrate violence. I also include the narratives of one hundred and twenty workers, analyse relevant sentencing comments, and draw on key insights from other research. I began the study believing that I would discover a single truth as to why women hurt other people. My original hypothesis was that women perpetrate violence because of their previous experiences of violence perpetrated by men and/or disadvantage due to structural oppression. In part this assumption has been borne out, with all of the women who participated in the study disclosing that they have been victims of serious violence as both children and adults. However, during the course of the study, I discovered that women's lives and their choices to perpetrate or participate in violent crimes are more complex and contradictory than my simple original hypothesis suggested. I found that the women whom I interviewed and the women whom the workers worked with, were active agents in their own lives, they made choices and engaged in activities that met some of their own needs. Sometimes these choices meant another person suffered extreme pain, injury or death. I came to the conclusion that all of us have the potential to seriously assault others. Drawing on a feminist analysis of male violence, I believe that women's, like men's, violence is also 'individually willed' and 'socially constructed' (Dankwort and Rausch, 2000: 937). I locate women's behaviour in an analytical framework that views violence as a deeply embedded part of our shared ideology, beliefs and social activities. This social fabric contributes to, and fundamentally influences, the choices of individual women who perpetrate violence. The familial, social, cultural and individual factors that contribute to women choosing to perpetrate violence against others are complex and challenging. The study critically examines these factors and describes how different factors intersect with each other.

There is a growing interest in females who commit acts of violence with the mass media claiming that we are witnessing the emergence of a breed of new violent females. This thesis, however, challenges the argument that we are seeing the emergence of sassy, independent, violent females who are imitating, or in some circumstances being more violent, than males. Based on narrative interviews with a group of young women in the North West of England, this thesis reveals the pervasive nature of social control mechanisms that are at play in these young women's lives. In order to adhere to entrenched ideas of appropriate female behaviour, these young women employ a variety of preventative strategies in order to avoid or negotiate violence, sexual or otherwise. As such these strategies were not only employed to prevent violence by males, but also to prevent violence from other women, thus demonstrating women's universal fear of men and their particular fear ofother women. This thesis also builds on Kelly's (1988) continuum of violence theory, suggesting that a matrix of violence is better able to capture the subtleties and complexities ofviolence in the everyday lives ofthese young women. As such, there is no clear-cut distinction between victims and perpetrators, thus disrupting the dichotomy in which women are seen either as innocent victims or as offenders. Rather, the young women may fmd themselves at various places in this matrix as the dynamics of a conflict change. These conflicts are not only evident with regard to physical violence but also with the young women either being victims, or perpetrators of, what was termed 'mean' or 'bitchy' behaviour. However, the author suggests that we should be careful not to conflate the severity of this 'mean' behaviour with the harm inflicted by physical violence. The young women's motivations for using violence are also explored. Important here is the concept of 'respect', which, it is argued is not gender specific. Rather the young women regarded respect in the same marmer as boys and men; it gave them status among their peers. However, it was found that ideas of respectability and respectable femininity were gender specific. It was also evident that these latter terms carried different meanings for the young women at various times in their lives depending upon the circumstances and situations they found themselves in.

Master of Arts<br>Department of Sociology<br>Robert K. Schaeffer<br>The intention of this thesis was to understand why and how women organized or participated in peaceful movements aimed at stopping collective, organized male violence in the public sphere. Historical archives were used to examine four social movements – Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, Greenham Common Peace Camp, Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers of Russia, and the Antimafia Movement – that attempted to end violence from male organizations. The findings from this thesis discovered that through the process of framing, which was permitted by increased power obtained in society through the workforce, women took a peaceful, self-invested, but overall altruistic, role in social movements.

The primary objective of this research was to understand what role women thought alcohol played in their partners' violence to them, from the perspective of women who experienced violence from men partners. It aimed to: 1) question whether women blamed alcohol for their partners' violence, as anecdotal claims suggest, 2) establish whether the women made allowances for their partners' violence because of their partners' drinking, 3) determine the extent to which the women believed alcohol played a key role in such violence, 4) explore any differences in the women's beliefs about alcohol's role in violence when it was directed at others, and when it was directed at them, 5) develop theory, grounded in the women's views, that offers an explanation for alcohol's role in the violence they experienced. In order to meet these aims, in-depth, semi-structured, interviews were conducted with 20 women who suffered violence or abuse from their partners. Due to the subject of this research and the absence of women's views in research on this subject, a grounded theory approach was used, located within a feminist research framework. In addition, the women completed a supplementary checklist relating to their alcohol use and their violent and abusive experiences. The key findings include the women's beliefs that: 1) alcohol has an impact on behaviour, often seen in extremes of behaviour, 2) alcohol's role in violence depends on many factors, 3) alcohol is not responsible for their partners' violence and, 4) they would not forgive their partners more easily if they were violent after drinking. The quantitative data demonstrated a significant increase in physical violence after their partners had been drinking. The main conclusion of this study is that while the women accept that alcohol has disinhibiting effects, they do not blame alcohol for their partners' violence and abuse. They hold their partners responsible for their behaviour regardless of the alcohol consumed.

This thesis considers ways in which African women writers are exploring the subject of violence against women. Any attempt to apply feminist criticism to novels by African women must be rooted in a satisfactorily African feminism. Therefore, the history of black feminist thought is outlined showing how African feminisms have been articulated in dialogue with western feminists, black feminisms (developed by women in the African-American diaspora), and through recognition of indigenous ideologies which allowed African women to protest against oppression. Links will be established between the texts, despite their differences, which suggest that, collectively, these novels support the notion that gender violence affects the lives of a majority of African women (from all backgrounds) to a greater or lesser extent. This is because it is supported by the social structures developed and sustained in cultures underpinned by patriarchal ideologies. A range of strategies for managing violence arise from a cross-textual reading of the novels. These will be analysed in terms of their efficacy and rootedness in African feminisms’ principles. The more effective strategies being adopted are found in works by Ama Ata Aidoo and Lindsey Collen and these focus particularly on changing the meanings of motherhood and marriage.