Analyzing what is known about violence against women, this book centers on the contrast between the U.S.’s historic focus on a criminal legal framework and the human rights lens used globally by feminist activists.

Distilling the existing evidence base and literature on violence against women in the United States, this book includes an overview of forms of violence, the prevalence of violence, contexts in which violence occurs, and debates about intervention and prevention. It engages with how human rights frameworks define violence against women as a cause and consequence of women’s inequality, and explores how race, ethnicity, class, citizenship status, and sexual orientation shape experiences of victimization, perpetration, and institutional responses. Chapters synthesize prevalence methods and data, key feminist concepts, impacts and aftermath of violence, what is known about perpetrators, the history of anti-violence activism, violence against women on college campuses and in the media, and how the criminal legal systems respond. Contested issues, such as prostitution and pornography, and the extent to which commercial sex can be understood as a form of, and/or context for, violence against women, are also explored. The book closes with a final chapter offering directions for adopting a human rights approach to ending violence against women in the United States.

By offering an analysis of how violence against women has come to be named in activist, policy, and academic arenas, Violence Against Women in the US is an essential resource for students, scholars, and practitioners.