How can we understand and contest the global wave of violence against women? In this book, Alison Brysk shows that gender violence across countries tends to change as countries develop and liberalize, but not in the ways that we might predict. She shows how liberalizing authoritarian countries and transitional democracies may experience more shifting patterns and greater levels of violence than less developed and democratic countries, due to changes and uncertaintiesin economic and political structures. While a combination of international action, law, public policy, civil society mobilization, and changes in social values work to decrease gender violence, Brysk assesses the potential, limits, and balance of these measures.

• List of Figures


• List of Tables


• Acknowledgements


• Chapter 1: Violence Against Women


• Chapter 2: Constructing Human Rights


• Chapter 3: Acting Globally: The International Rights Repertoire


• Chapter 4: Standing Up for Security: Mobilization


• Chapter 5: Freedom: From Sexual Slavery to Self Determination


• Chapter 6: The Right to Life: Femicide and Intimate Partner Violence


• Chapter 7: The Right to Bodily Integrity: The Struggle to End Sexual Violence


• Chapter 8: Ending Impunity: Law and Its Limits


• Chapter 9: Expanding Rights: Gendered Public Policy


• Chapter 10: Norm Change: Pathways of Persuasion


• Chapter 11: Conclusion. The Quest for Freedom from Fear


• Notes


• Bibliography


• Index

Alison Brysk is Mellichamp Professor of Global Governance at University of California, Santa Barbara. She is the author or editor of fourteen books on human rights, including Speaking Rights to Power, From Tribal Village to Global Village, and Human Rights and Private Wrongs.