Structural Violence
Hidden Brutality in the Lives of Women
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Challenges the notions that “violence against women” is synonymous with “domestic violence” and that violence affects all women equally
Description
Gold Medalist, 2013 Independent Publisher Book Awards in the Women's Studies category
Structural Violence seeks to redraw the conventional map of violence against women. In order to understand violence as a fundamentally heterogeneous phenomenon, it is essential to go beyond interpersonal partner violence and analyze the workings of institutional and structural violence. Self-help books, some shelters, the courts, federal and state legislation, empirical studies, therapeutic models, and even some mainstream feminist polemics presume that all women face the same kind of violence. This assumption masks violence that does not conform to the imagined norm, such as violence against women who are sex workers, lesbians, homeless, and/or undocumented. Joshua M. Price's exploration of these issues is based on several years of research involving participant-observation in domestic violence courts and extensive interviews with activists, advocates, incarcerated women, and women who have faced various forms of violence. Both conceptually and methodologically, the book challenges narrow notions of violence against women and demonstrates implications for judicial intervention and other forms of public involvement.
Joshua M. Price is Associate Professor and Director, Program in Philosophy, Interpretation, and Culture at Binghamton University, State University of New York. He is the cotranslator (with María Lugones) of Rodolfo Kusch's Indigenous and Popular Thinking in América.
Reviews
"This is an important book that provides a novel perspective on issues of women and violence. Price importantly points out that although structural violence produces enormous inequality and disadvantage, it often remains invisible from the standpoint of the dominant culture. " — Kristin Bumiller, author of In an Abusive State: How Neoliberalism Appropriated the Feminist Movement against Sexual Violence