Type:	Non-Fiction
Title:	Coercive control : how men entrap women in personal life
Authors:	Stark, Evan
Keywords:	Theories of violence;Measurement
Year:	2007
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Notes:	General overview: In this book, Stark charts, from a United States (US) perspective, why the early progress of the women’s movement in achieving positive responses to domestic violence has stalled. The author argues that the emphasis placed on violence as the defining feature of domestic violence means that we have overlooked coercive control as the fundamental function of domestic violence. This has implications for how we understand domestic violence, particularly its gendered dimensions. The book is divided into four parts. It first surveys the achievements of the women’s movement and the ‘domestic violence revolution’ that they generated in the US. The author explains why he thinks progress has stalled: namely, that the lens of ‘violence’ is too narrow. By adopting this narrow perspective on violence, researchers and service providers focus on acts of violence at the expense of fully recognising other forms of abuse and control. The author refers to this broader understanding of domestic violence as ‘coercive control’. It is not simply about listing the acts themselves but understanding the way they function to control and entrap. The second section of the book, ‘the enigmas of abuse’, explores: the ‘proper measures of abuse’; what is meant by entrapment; how it manifests itself; how it might be measured; and the representation of battered women. The third and fourth sections detail the main components of the author’s argument – the need to move from domestic violence to coercive control as a framework for understanding domestic violence. An outline of coercive control and how it operates in a relationship is offered. The author emphasises that coercive control is inextricably linked to women’s inequality in society, and explains what living with coercive control means for women, their lives and their ‘choices’. Conclusion: The author proposes ways to move forward. One of these is creating a criminal offence for coercive control. He proposes that this could be a ‘course of conduct crime’ in much the same way that we have offences for ‘harassment, stalking or kidnapping’.
URI:	https://anrows.intersearch.com.au/anrowsjspui/handle/1/11397
ISBN:	9780195154276
Physical description:	xii, 452 p.
Appears in Collections:	Books

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