Argues that understanding resistance to countermeasures against domestic violence requires recognizing the tension within liberalism between preserving the privacy of the family and protecting vulnerable individuals. [back cover].

A look at gun control, campus sexual assault, immigration, and more that considers the future of responses to domestic violence Domestic violence is commonly assumed to be a bipartisan, nonpolitical issue, with politicians of all stripes claiming to work to end family violence. Nevertheless, the Violence Against Women Act expired for over 500 days between 2012 and 2013 due to differences between the U.S. Senate and House, demonstrating that legal protections for domestic abuse survivors are both highly political and highly vulnerable. Racial and gender politics, the move toward criminalization, reproductive justice concerns, gun control debates, and political interests are increasingly shaping responses to domestic violence, demonstrating the need for greater consideration of the interplay of politics, domestic violence, and how the law works in people’s lives. The Politicization of Safety provides a critical historical perspective on domestic violence responses in the United States. It grapples with the ways in which child welfare systems and civil and criminal justice responses intersect, and considers the different, overlapping ways in which survivors of domestic abuse are forced to cope with institutionalized discrimination based on race, gender, sexual orientation, and immigration status. The book also examines movement politics and the feminist movement with respect to domestic violence policies. The tensions discussed in this book, similar to those involved in the #metoo movement, include questions of accountability, reckoning, redemption, healing, and forgiveness. What is the future of feminism and the movements against gender-based violence and domestic violence? Readers are invited to question assumptions about how society and the legal system respond to intimate partner violence and to challenge the domestic violence field to move beyond old paradigms and contend with larger justice issues.

For women who have experienced domestic violence, proving that you are a “good victim” is no longer enough. Victims must also show that they are recovering, as if domestic violence were a disease: they must transform from “victims” into “survivors.” Women’s access to life-saving resources may even hinge on “good” performances of survivorhood. Through archival and ethnographic research, Paige L. Sweet reveals how trauma discourses and coerced therapy play central roles in women’s lives as they navigate state programs for assistance. Sweet uses an intersectional lens to uncover how “resilience” and “survivorhood” can become coercive and exclusionary forces in women’s lives. With nuance and compassion, The Politics of Surviving wrestles with questions about the gendered nature of the welfare state, the unintended consequences of feminist mobilizations for anti-violence programs, and the women who are left behind by the limited forms of citizenship we offer them.

place of prosecutorial discretion. Protection orders that prohibit all contact between suspected abusers and their partners are designed to end relationships - even over victims' objections. The law's rapidly changing picture of the home has fundamentally moved the boundary between public and private space. The result, unintended by domestic violence reformers, is to reduce the autonomy of women in relation to the state." --Book Jacket.

What are the factors that shape domestic violence policy change and how are variable gendered meanings produced in these policies? How and when can feminists influence policy making? What conditions and policy mechanisms lead to progressive change and which ones block it or lead to reversal? The Gender Politics of Domestic Violence analyzes the emergence of gender equality sensitive domestic violence policy reforms in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Tracing policy developments in Eastern Europe from the beginning of 2000s, when domestic violence first emerged on policy agendas, until 2015, Andrea Krizsán and Conny Roggeband look into the contestation that takes place between women’s movements, states and actors opposing gender equality to explain the differences in gender equality sensitive policy outputs across the region. They point to regionally specific patterns of feminist engagement with the state in which coalition-building between women’s organizations and establishing alliances with different state actors were critical for achieving gendered policy progress. In addition, they demonstrate how discursive contexts shaped by democratization frames and opposition to gender equality, led to differences in the politicization of gender equality, making gender friendly reforms more feasible in some countries than others.