Women have made significant inroads into political life in recent years, but in many parts of the world, their increased engagement has spurred attacks, intimidation, and harassment. This book provides the first comprehensive account of this phenomenon, exploring how women came to give these experiences a name: violence against women in politics. Tracing its global emergence as a concept, Mona Lena Krook draws on insights from multiple disciplines--political science, sociology, history, gender studies, economics, linguistics, psychology, and forensic science--to develop a more robust version of this concept to support ongoing activism and inform future scholarly work. Krook argues that violence against women in politics is not simply a gendered extension of existing definitions of political violence privileging physical aggressions against rivals. Rather, it is a distinct phenomenon involving a broad range of harms to attack and undermine women as political actors, taking physical, psychological, sexual, economic, and semiotic forms. Incorporating a wide range of country examples, she illustrates what this violence looks like in practice, catalogues emerging solutions around the world, and considers how to document this phenomenon more effectively. Highlighting its implications for democracy, human rights, and gender equality, the book asserts that addressing this issue requires ongoing dialogue and collaboration to ensure women's equal rights to participate--freely and safely--in political life around the globe.

The Oxford Handbook of U.S. National Security frames the context, institutions, and processes the U.S. government uses to advance national interests through foreign policy, government institutions, and grand strategy. Contributors examine contemporary national security challenges and the processes and tools used to improve national security.

This book directly challenges the stereotype that women are inherently peaceable by examining female combatants’ involvement in ethno-national conflicts. Drawing upon empirical case studies of Sri Lanka and Northern Ireland, this study explores the ways in which women have traditionally been depicted. Whereas women have predominantly been seen as victims of conflict, this book acknowledges the reality of women as active combatants. Indeed, female soldiers/irregulars are features of most modern conflicts, and particularly in ethno-nationalist violence – until now largely ignored by mainstream scholarship. Original interview material from the author’s extensive fieldwork addresses why, and how, some women choose to become violently engaged in nationalist conflicts. It also highlights the personal / political costs and benefits incurred by such women. This book provides a valuable insight into female combatants, and is a significant contribution to the literature. This book will be of great interest to students of political violence, ethnic conflict, gender studies and international relations in general.

Women have participated in political violence throughout history, yet the concept of women as active proponents and perpetrators of political violence and terrorism is not widely accepted. Viewed as being forced by partners, sexually abused or brainwashed, the possibility of political motives is not often considered. Paige Whaley Eager addresses this to establish whether the stereotypical view is misplaced. She utilizes a framework to analyze women engaged in political violence in different contexts in order to examine structural variables, ideological goals of the organization and personal factors which contribute to involvement. Case study rich, this informative book provides an indispensable guide to examining women's role in left/right wing engagement, ethno-nationalist/separatist violence, guerrilla movements and suicide bombers.

This volume presents and interrogates both theoretical and artistic expressions of the revolutionary, militant spirit associated with "1968" and the aftermath, in the specific context of gender. The contributors explore political-philosophical discussions of the legitimacy of violence, the gender of aggression and peaceability, and the contradictions of counter violence; but also women’s artistic and creative interventions, which have rarely been considered. Together the chapters provide and provoke a wide-ranging rethink of how we read not only "1968" but more generally the relationship between gender, political violence, art and emancipation. This work will be of great interest to students and scholars of protest and violence in the fields of history, politics and international relations, sociology, cultural studies, and women’s studies.

Violence against women is a major problem in all countries, affecting women in every socio-economic group and at every life stage. Yet, when women enjoy good social and economic status they are less vulnerable to violence across all societies. This book develops a political economy approach to understanding violence against women - from the household to the transnational level - accounting for its globally increasing scale and brutality.

A woman did that? The general reaction to women's political violence is still one of shock and incomprehension. Mothers, Monsters, Whores provides an empirical study of women's violence in global politics. The book looks at military women who engage in torture; the Chechen 'Black Widows'; Middle Eastern suicide bombers; and the women who directed and participated in genocides in Bosnia and Rwanda. Sjoberg & Gentry analyse the biological, psychological and sexualized stereotypes through which these women are conventionally depicted, arguing that these are rooted in assumptions about what is 'appropriate' female behaviour. What these stereotypes have in common is that they all perceive women as having no agency in any sphere of life, from everyday choices to global political events. This book is a major feminist re-evaluation of women's motivations and actions as perpetrators of political violence.