Violence against women and girls (VAWG) is a longstanding problem that has increasingly come to the forefront of international and national policy debates and news: from the US reauthorization of the Violence against Women Act and a United Nations declaration to end sexual violence in war, to coverage of gang rapes in India, cyberstalking and "revenge porn", honor killings, female genital mutilation, and international trafficking. Yet, while we frequently read or learn about particular experiences or incidents of VAWG, we are often unaware of the full picture. Jacqui True, an internationally renowned scholar of globalization and gender, provides an expansive frame for understanding VAWG in this book. Among the questions she addresses include: What are we talking about when we discuss VAWG? What kinds of violence does it encompass? Who does it affect most and why? What are the risk factors for victims and perpetrators? Does VAWG occur at the same level in all societies? Are there cultural explanations for it? What types of legal redress do victims have? How reliable are the statistics that we have? Are men and boys victims of gender-based violence? What is the role of the media in exacerbating VAWG? And, what sorts of policy and advocacy routes exist to end VAWG? This volume addresses the current state of knowledge and research on these questions. True surveys our best understanding of the causes and consequences of violence against women in the home, local community, workplace, public, and transnationally. In so doing, she brings together multidisciplinary perspectives on the problem of violence against women and girls, and sets out the most promising policy and advocacy frameworks to end this violence.

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER Angry, opinionated, mouthy, aggressive, hysterical, mad, disordered, crazy, psycho, delusional, borderline, hormonal . . . Women have long been pathologized, locked up and medicated for not conforming to whichever norms or stereotypes are expected of them in that time and space. Sexy But Psycho is a challenging and uncomfortable book which seeks to explore the way professionals and society at large pathologize and sexualise women and girls. Utilising decades of research, real case studies and new data from her own work, Dr Taylor's book will critically analyse the way we label women with personality disorders. Why are women and girls pathologized for being angry about oppression and abuse? How have so many women been duped into believing that they are mentally ill, for having normal and natural reactions to their experiences? Sexy But Psycho argues that there is a specific purpose to convincing women and girls that they are mentally ill, as the world avoids addressing violence against women and their centuries of ignored trauma.

Women’s security in political, economic and social terms is directly linked to the pervasive problem of violence against women. Violence Against Women: Law, Policy and Practice seeks to understand this particular form of human rights violation, by situating violence against women in its historical, political, socio-economic and legal context in South Africa.

Whether in the private or public spheres, violence against women prevents women from realising a broad range of human rights that are central to full, inclusive and participatory citizenship. The authors of this volume reflect on the many forms of violence against women, the applicable laws and policies, and the challenges to effectively responding to this widespread violation of human rights.

Their contributions consider the role of law, policy and practice in relation to a broad range of themes including sexual violence, violence against women at the margins of systems and societies, and the impact on those who are working to defeat violence against women, whether as activists, practitioners or scholars.

This unique book analyses the impact of international human rights on the concept of gender, demonstrating that gender emerged in the medical study of sexuality and has a complex and broad meaning beyond the sex and gender binaries often assumed by human rights law. Ekaterina Yahyaoui Krivenko skilfully illustrates the dynamics within the field of human rights which hinder the expansion of the concept of gender and which strategies and mechanisms allow and facilitate such an expansion. Gender and Human Rights surveys the development of human rights from the creation of the United Nations up to the present day and discusses key examples of the prohibition of violence and the regulation of culture and family in the context of human rights. This multidisciplinary study also incorporates additional perspectives from medical science, feminism and queer theory. This concise yet engaging book will be a valuable resource for scholars, students and activists working at the intersection of gender law and human rights law, providing a critical overview of the topic alongside strategies for future growth.

This unique book analyses the impact of international human rights on the concept of gender, demonstrating that gender emerged in the medical study of sexuality and has a complex and broad meaning beyond the sex and gender binaries often assumed by human rights law. Ekaterina Yahyaoui Krivenko skilfully illustrates the dynamics within the field of human rights which hinder the expansion of the concept of gender and which strategies and mechanisms allow and facilitate such an expansion. Gender and Human Rights surveys the development of human rights from the creation of the United Nations up to the present day and discusses key examples of the prohibition of violence and the regulation of culture and family in the context of human rights. This multidisciplinary study also incorporates additional perspectives from medical science, feminism and queer theory. This concise yet engaging book will be a valuable resource for scholars, students and activists working at the intersection of gender law and human rights law, providing a critical overview of the topic alongside strategies for future growth.

This casebook provides an overview of the main international and regional legal standards related to the human rights of women and explores their development and practical application in light of contemporary times, challenges, and advances. It navigates the nuances of the ongoing problems of discrimination and gender-based violence, and analyzes them in the context of modern challenges, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the MeToo movement and its aftermath, the growth of non-state actors, environment and climate change, sexual orientation and gender identity, and the digital world, among others. Incorporating lessons learned from her experiences as a practitioner and a law professor, the author navigates and provides snapshots of priority issues and themes in the field of the human rights of women. In each chapter, students are encouraged to reflect and answer questions alluding to the intricacies, challenges, and advances in the protection and exercise of women's rights in modern times. The chapters also include many case judgments, decisions, views, and general recommendations adopted by universal and regional bodies and courts advancing the development of women human rights issues. This analysis is complemented by key scholarship, reports, and statements produced in the area of the human rights of women and its different features. Students of issues concerning human rights, women, gender equality, and international law will attain a thorough understanding of the field through this contemporary casebook.

Feminist Frontiers in Climate Justice provides a compelling demonstration of the deeply gendered and unequal effects of the climate emergency, alongside the urgent need for a feminist perspective to expose and address these structural political, social and economic inequalities. Taking a nuanced, multidisciplinary approach, this book explores new ways of thinking about how climate change interacts with gender inequalities and feminist concerns with rights and law, and how the human world is bound up with the non-human, natural world. With contributions from leading scholars in law, feminism, human rights and politics, this book considers how equality is conceptualised experienced and used in policies, law and practice that are integral to climate justice. Chapters reveal how international and national policy and legal frameworks fall short on gender equality and climate justice. Overall, the book demonstrates that the climate crisis demands an ambitious and transformative approach to equality, including developing feminist ideas of care and social reproduction, to reconstruct law and policy towards a more just world for all. This ground-breaking book will be essential reading for scholars across many areas of law including environmental law, human rights, public international law, law and gender, and law and development. Its discussion of the international framework alongside in-depth case studies and assessments of women's mobilization strategies will also be highly relevant to social scientists, officials in international organizations, policymakers, lawyers and activists.

Guardian's Best Paperback of the Month ONE OF THE GUARDIAN'S and FINANCIAL TIMES' BOOKS OF 2020 'In intimate, often tender prose, Gevisser brings to life the complex movement for queer civil rights and the many people on whom it bears.' Colm Toibin, Guardian 'Powerful... meticulously researched' Andrew McMillan, Observer Book of the Week Six years in the making, The Pink Line follows protagonists from nine countries all over the globe to tell the story of how LGBTQ+ Rights became one of the world's new human rights frontiers in the second decade of the twenty-first century. From refugees in South Africa to activists in Egypt, transgender women in Russia and transitioning teens in the American Mid-West, The Pink Line folds intimate and deeply affecting stories of individuals, families and communities into a definitive account of how the world has changed, so dramatically, in just a decade. And in doing so he reveals a troubling new equation that has come in to play: while same-sex marriage and gender transition are now celebrated in some parts of the world, laws to criminalise homosexuality and gender non-conformity have been strengthened in others. In a work of great scope and wonderful storytelling, this is the groundbreaking, definitive account of how issues of sexuality and gender identity divide and unite the world today.

The figure of the mistress is undoubtedly controversial. She provokes intense reactions, ranging from fear, to disgust and revulsion, to excitement and titillation, to sadness and perhaps to some, love. The mistress is conventionally depicted as a threat to moral living and someone whose sexuality is considered defective and toxic. Of course, she is a woman that you would not have as your friend, and certainly not your wife, since her ethical sense, if she even has one, is dubious at best. This book subverts these traditional judgements and offers an unflinching look at the lived experience of the mistress. Here she is recast as a potentially loving, free, intimate 'other' woman. Drawing upon feminist philosophy, contemporary sexual ethics and the current cultural moment of #MeToo, Mistress Ethics moves beyond a narrative of infidelity, conventional judgment, the safeguarding of monogamy and conventional heterosex that permeates our society. It asks what happens when we let go of our insecurities, judgments and moralistic relationship philosophies and opt, instead, for an ethics of kindness. This kindness - underpinned by engaging with those deemed 'other' and learning from mistresses, both straight and queer - will teach us new ways of thinking about ethics and sex, and reveal how we have better sex, and how we can be better to each other.

More than fifty years of civil rights legislation and movements have not ended employment discrimination. This book reframes the discourse about the "glass ceiling" that women face with respect to workplace inequality. It explores the unspoken, societally held beliefs that underlie and engender workplace behaviour and failures of the law, policy, and human nature that contribute "panes" and ("pains") to the "glass ceiling." Each chapter identifies an "unspoken belief" and connects it with failures of law, policy, and human nature. It then describes the resulting harm and shows how this belief is not imagined or operating in a vacuum, but is pervasive throughout popular culture and society. By giving voice to previously unvoiced - even taboo - beliefs, we can better address and confront them and the problems they cause.

Sexual harassment in Japanese politics examines a problem that violates women's human rights and prevents a flourishing democracy. Japan fares badly in international gender equality indices, especially for female political representation. The scarcity of women in politics reflects the status of women and also exacerbates it. Based on interviews with female politicians around the country from all levels of government, this book sheds light on the sexist and sometimes dangerous environments in Japanese legislative assemblies. These environments reflect and recreate broader sexual inequalities in Japanese society and are a hothouse for sexual harassment. Like many places around the world, workplace sexual harassment laws and regulations in Japan often fail to protect women from being harassed. Even more, in the 'workplace' of the legislative council, such regulations are typically absent. This book discusses what this means for women in politics in the context of a broader culture whereby victims of sexual violence are largely silenced.

This Open Access book aims to find out how and why states in various regions and of diverse cultural backgrounds fail in their gender equality laws and policies. In doing this, the book maps out states' failures in their legal systems and unpacks the clashes between different levels and forms of law-namely domestic laws, local regulations, or the implementation of international law, individually or in combination. By taking off from the confirmation that the concept of law that is to be used in achieving gender equality is a multidimensional, multi-layered, and to an extent, contradictory phenomenon, this book aims to find out how different layers of laws interact and how they impact gender equality. Further to that, by including different states and jurisdictions into its analysis, this book unravels whether there are any similarities/patterns in how these states define and utilise policies and laws that harm gender equality. In this way, the book contributes to the efforts to devise holistic and universal policies to address various forms of gender inequalities across the world. This volume will be of interest to scholars and students in Gender Studies, Sociology, Law, and Criminology.

Equality is often trampled on by those who believe they are, in varying ways, superior. However, identifying how government systems can protect against discrimination can assist future generations in combating the harsh realities of inequality. Social Jurisprudence in the Changing of Social Norms: Emerging Research and Opportunities delivers a collection of resources dedicated to identifying sexual orientation as a protected legal class like race, color, gender, and religion using innovative research methods and the federalist responses to the LGBT movement. While highlighting topics including judicial review, LGBT politics, and social change framework, this book is ideally designed for policymakers, politicians, academicians, researchers, and students seeking current research on the analysis of legal cases that provide evidence of LGBT citizen marginalization.

The common law action for breach of promise of marriage originated in the mid-seventeenth century, but it was not until the nineteenth century that it rose to prominence and became a regular feature in law courts and gossip columns. By 1940 the action was defunct, it was inconceivable for a respectable woman to bring such a case before the courts. What accounts for this dramatic rise and fall? This book ties the story of the action's prominence and decline between 1800 and 1940 to changes in the prevalent conception of woman, her ideal role in society, sexual relations, and the family. It argues that the idiosyncratic breach-of-promise suit and Victorian notions of ideal femininity were inextricably, and fatally, entwined. It presents the nineteenth-century breach-of-promise action as a codification of the Victorian ideal of true womanhood and explores the longer-term implications of this infusion of mythologized femininity for the law, in particular for the position of plaintiffs. Surveying three consecutive time periods - the early nineteenth century, the high Victorian and the post-Victorian periods - and adopting an interdisciplinary approach that combines the perspectives of legal history, social history, and literary analysis, it argues that the feminizing process, by shaping a cause of action in accordance with an ideal at odds with the very notion of women going to law, imported a fatal structural inconsistency that at first remained obscured, but ultimately vulgarized and undid the cause of action. Alongside more than two hundred and fifty real-life breach-of-promise cases, the book examines literary and cinematic renditions of the breach-of-promise theme, by artists ranging from Charles Dickens to P.G. Wodehouse, to expose the subtle yet unmistakable ways in which what happened (and what changed) in the breach-of-promise courtroom influenced the changing representation of the breach-of-promise plaintiff in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century literature and film.

'Long admired for her pioneering work on gender, neo-liberalism and human rights, in this volume Ratna Kapur builds on that scholarship to offer a bold and wide ranging set of arguments that will add immensely to the many current debates about human rights and their efficacy in this age of inequality. Kapur' s trenchant critique of rights and her vision of an alternative to the liberal concept of freedom offer strikingly original arguments that make this an indispensable volume for all who are interested in the future of human rights.' - Tony Anghie, National University of Singapore and University of Utah, US 'Gender, Alterity and Human Rights: Freedom in a Fishbowl is located within the best of critical theory traditions - thinking and rethinking orthodoxies around sexuality, rights and freedoms. Kapur not only deploys a late Foucauldian rethinking of freedom, but inherits the very spirit of intellectual engagement - of ''shak(ing) up habitual ways of working and thinking, dissipate(ing) conventional familiarities, to reevaluate rules and institutions'' (Foucault). It is a compelling, provocative read that will make its readers rethink what they think they already know.' - Brenda Cossman, University of Toronto, Canada 'Ratna Kapur is one of the most important international legal scholars working today. Gender, Alterity and Human Rights is brilliant, provocative and ground breaking - I cannot think of any other book published today that centers radically 'other' approaches to political and ethical agency as the epistemological anchor for analysis of international law. She advances this ambitious new ground by showing how dominant approaches to human rights and feminism are themselves invested in political subjectivities and agendas that seek to redeem international law and authorize global governance. With theoretical rigor and a radical sensibility, she quarries through material as diverse as human rights case law and Sufi poetry to excavate the plurality of ways in which freedom is envisioned, challenged and inhabited.' - Vasuki Nesiah, New York University, US Human rights are axiomatic with liberal freedom. This book builds on the critique of this mainstream and official position on human rights, drawing attention to how human rights have been deployed to advance political and cultural intents rather than bring about freedom for disenfranchised groups. Its approach is unique insofar as it focuses on queer, feminist and postcolonial human rights advocacy, exposing how such interventions have at times advanced neo-liberal agendas and new forms of imperialism, and enabled a carceral politics rather than producing freedom for their constituencies. Through a focus on campaigns for same-sex marriage, ending violence against women, and the Islamic veil bans in liberal democracies, human rights emerge as forms of governance that operate through normative prescriptions, which bind even as they purport to free, and establish a hierarchy of the human subject: who is human and who is not; who qualifies for rights and who does not. This book argues that the futurity of human rights rests in a transformative engagement with non-liberal registers of freedom beyond the narrow confines of the liberal fishbowl. This book will have a global appeal for students and academics concerned with international and human rights law, jurisprudence, critical legal theory, gender studies, postcolonial studies, feminist legal theory, queer theory, religious studies, and philosophy. It will appeal to political activists and policymakers in the global justice arena concerned with the freedom of disenfranchised groups, human rights, gender justice, and the rights sexual and religious minorities.

This book is an account of the concept of equality from the perspective of both theory and practice, and presents methods of quantifying values. It considers both arguments and evidence, and tackles equality in its different forms, including economic equality, education, equality before the law, equality of opportunity, and gender equality. The book shows that inequality is a profoundly moral question, noting that there are good practical reasons for its adoption. It presents a consideration of classical theories from Aristotle to Hume, as well as contemporary approaches such as those offered by Rawls, Haidt, Temkin, and Parfit. It also contemplates issues such as the naturalistic fallacy, and considers what is different about the Goleman view of moral sensitivity and the ethical personality. The array of evidence includes the impact of climate and various plants such as sugar and cotton on the slave trade, the concept of Gaia, Darwinism, sex inequality, personality, culture, psychological issues, and the quantification of ethics. The book concludes with some practical suggestions for improving equality. It aims to raise awareness of the ways in which equality can be understood, and achieved. It will be relevant to students and scholars in philosophy, human rights, and law.

Courts can play an important role in addressing issues of inequality, discrimination and gender injustice for women. The feminisation of the judiciary - both in its thin meaning of women's entrance into the profession, as well as its thicker forms of realising gender justice - is a core part of the agenda for gender equality. This volume acknowledges both the diversity of meanings of the feminisation of the judiciary, as well as the complexity of the social and cultural realisation of gender equality. Containing original empirical studies, this book demonstrates the past and present challenges women face to entering the judiciary and progressing their career, as well as when and why they advocate for women's issues while on the bench. From stories of pioneering women to sector-wide institutional studies of the gender composition of the judiciary, this book reflects on the feminisation of the judiciary in the Asia-Pacific.

Is prostitution immoral? In this book, Rob Lovering argues that it is not. Offering a careful and thorough critique of the many-twenty, to be exact-arguments for prostitution's immorality, Lovering leaves no claim unchallenged. Drawing on the relevant literature along with his own creative thinking, Lovering offers a clear and reasoned moral defense of the world's oldest profession. Lovering demonstrates convincingly, on both consequentialist and nonconsequentialist grounds, that there is nothing immoral about prostitution between consenting adults. The legal implications of this view are also brought to bear on the current discourse surrounding this controversial topic.

This book argues that past inattentive treatment by state criminal justice agencies in relation to domestic abuse is now being self-consciously reversed by neoliberal governing agendas intent on denouncing crime and holding offenders to account. Criminal prosecutions are key to the UK government's strategy to end Violence Against Women and Girls. Crown Prosecution Service policy affirms that domestic abuse offences are 'particularly serious' and prosecutors are reminded that it will be rare that the 'public interest' will not require of such offences through the criminal courts. Seeking to unpick some of the discourses and perspectives that may have contributed to the current prosecutorial commitment, the book considers its emergence within the context of the women's movement, feminist scholarship and an era of neoliberalism. Three empirical chapters explore the prosecution commitment on the one hand, and the impact on women's lives on the other. The book's final substantive chapter offers a distinctive normative conceptual framework through which practitioners may think about women who have experienced domestic abuse that will have both intellectual appeal and practical application.

This volume brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars from the United States, the Middle East, and North Africa, to discuss and critically analyze the intersection of gender and human rights laws as applied to individuals of Arab descent. It seeks to raise consciousness at the intersection of gender, identity, and human rights as it relates to Arabs at home and throughout the diaspora. The context of revolution and the destabilizing impact of armed conflicts in the region are used to critique and examine the utility of human rights law to address contemporary human rights issues through extralegal strategies. To this end, the volume seeks to inform, educate, persuade, and facilitate newer or less-heard perspectives related to gender and masculinities theories. It provides readers with new ways of understanding gender and human rights and proposes forward-looking solutions to implementing human rights norms. The goal of this book is to use the context of Arabs at home and throughout the diaspora to critique and examine the utility of human rights norms and laws to diminish human suffering with the goal of transforming the structural, social, and cultural conditions that impede access to human rights. This book will be of interest to a diverse audience of scholars, students, public policy researchers, lawyers and the educated public interested in the fields of human rights law, international studies, gender politics, migration and diaspora, and Middle East and North African politics.

The fact that domestic violence is a serious and ongoing social problem has been well recognized since the women's movement made the hitherto private experience of violence against women in the home into a political issue in the 1960s and 1970s. In Australia, a major national prevalence study of violence against women conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 1996 found that 23% of women who had ever been married or in a de facto relationship-1.1 million women-had experienced violence from their partner at some stage during the relationship. Feminist legal scholarship, however, has highlighted the many failures of criminal law to respond adequately to women's experiences of domestic violence. Civil remedies for violence and abuse seem to offer better possibilities: there is a lower standard of proof, and the woman is the subject of her own action rather than merely being the object of proceedings. The availability of civil remedies has, in many cases, resulted from feminist campaigns to fill the gaps in protection left by the criminal law. It has also been argued that civil actions provide scope to change public discourses and legal understandings of violence against women. Listening to women's stories might force a revision of traditional conceptions and myths about what constitutes violence, its causes and effects, and "appropriate" reactions to it. This study investigates the ways in which women's experiences of domestic violence are heard and understood in civil court settings, and examines women's experiences of telling their stories (or at least attempting to do so) in those settings. The two areas on which the study focuses are intervention order proceedings in State Magistrates' Courts, and residence, contact, and property matters in the federal Family Court in Australia. The relevant legislation in the two jurisdictions is either partly or wholly a product of feminist legal activism. The study, therefore, seeks to determine whether the feminist claim that the criminal law silences women also pertains in the context of new civil claims specifically designed to respond to women's experiences. The general history and theory of law reform suggests that reforms often strike problems in the process of implementation. But because law does not operate monolithically, the exact nature of those problems is not necessarily predictable. In the context of this study, implementation problems may arise from social and legal discourses about domestic violence and about victims of violence which tend to operate constantly across the legal system, and/or they may arise from the particular rules and structures found in each institutional setting. There is thus a need for detailed examination and analysis of how these various elements operate and interact in different court settings. In undertaking this task, the study has two objectives. First, it draws conclusions about the nature of implementation problems in the two jurisdictions in order to inform future feminist activism around violence against women. Secondly, it makes a more general point about the importance of procedure in feminist legal theory and praxis. In Australia in particular, feminist legal scholars and advocates have placed a heavy emphasis on doctrinal revision and have largely ignored issues of implementation. The study argues that procedure (conceived broadly to encompass the what, where, how, and who of legal proceedings) crucially shapes women's experience of the legal process, and is neglected by feminists at their peril. This book will be of interest to feminist jurisprudence and law and society scholars and researchers, and to activists and advocates in the field of domestic violence.