What to read after Gender Violence?

How gender and sexuality can be life threatening

Though violence against women has received increasing attention from scholars and the general public alike, much of the literature on the subject is scattered in monographs, journals, and books focusing on specific forms of gender violence. In their path-breaking anthology Gender Violence: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, editors Laura L. O'Toole and Jessica Schiffman have brought together central articles and authors to construct a remarkably broad understanding of the gender-related manifestations of violence.

Gender Violence is composed of three sections—one examining the roots of male violence and victimization of women, another exploring forms of sexual coercion and violence, and a third offering a number of perspectives on promoting nonviolence in the context of gender relations. Chapters consider topics including sexual harassment, rape, children and gender violence, battering in intimate relationships, and pornography. The list of contributors includes such diverse and well known scholars as Friedrich Engels, bell hooks, Diana Scully, Harry Brod, and Linda Gordon, and poets such as Audre Lorde and Margaret Randall. The book also contains a number of original pieces with novel approaches to subjects such as domestic violence and its effects on children. With its interdisciplinary perspective and wide-ranging subject matter, Gender Violence is an excellent primary text as well as an invaluable reference for scholars in the field of women and violence.