“One of the ways in which these dualities affect people’s lives is through the (often unconscious) ideology, imagery, and associations that mediate our perceptions of and relations with each other. Let me provide a concrete, contemporary example here. The fall and winter of 1991-92 brought several dramatic and controversial rape and sexual-harassment cases to the... Continue Reading →
“Contrary to the disinformation promulgated in recent years by the so-called “men's rights" movements, the most important statistics about violence against women do not lie. The vast majority of credible researchers in sociology, criminology, and public health confirm that men commit the most serious intimate-partner violence and the overwhelming amount of sexual violence, including the... Continue Reading →
“Research focusing on specific violent events shows that women almost always employ violence in defense of self and children in response to cues of imminent assault in the past and in retaliation for previous physical abuse. [...] Studies of actual cases lend no support to the facile claim that homicidal husbands and wives “initiate similar acts of... Continue Reading →
“As class sizes have increased and more and more of our graduates have chosen professions dedicated to helping victims of intimate violence, there are moments when we muse about the day when books like this will no longer need to be written. We try to imagine what it would be like for women to be... Continue Reading →
“Make no mistake about it: Women want a men’s movement. We are literally dying for it. If you doubt that, just listen to women’s desperate testimonies of hope that the men in our lives will become more nurturing toward children, more able to talk about emotions, less hooked on a spectrum of control that extends... Continue Reading →
“Whereas women used the previous two strategies to try to control men’s behavior, some developed a different type of strategy through which they tried to manipulate their own subjective experiences of an oppressive sexual situation. Fearing reprisals, young women often felt they could not control the material circumstances of their unpleasant or victimizing hetero-relational encounters.... Continue Reading →
“35 per cent of women worldwide reported having experienced either physical or sexual violence by a partner, or sexual violence by a friend, family member, acquaintance or stranger. Police data consistently show that [...] women continue to represent the majority of victims of sexual violence, while perpetrators are overwhelmingly, although not exclusively, male. Young women... Continue Reading →
“The routine use of dehumanizing descriptions of people who Trump “others” has caused anxiety, despair, and anger in many people. In terms of women—many of whom are already affected by his xenophobic and racist rhetoric—his language is not only denigrating, but, because he is directly competing with a woman, often mimics the linguistic patterns of... Continue Reading →
“For some young women, getting it over with entailed, as Cynthia put it, “stroking men’s egos,” by telling their partners that they were enjoying painful or even abusive encounters, when in fact they were not. Stroking male egos was a way for participants to remain “pleasing women” by not complaining or disrupting men’s pleasure with... Continue Reading →
“Not all men need to use violence to reinforce their dominance. In fact, the more disadvantaged and marginalised men may use violence against women because it is the only form of dominance they can access. Upper-class and middle-class men often do not need to resort to violence against women as frequently because they have access... Continue Reading →
Sociological Fragments 