The South African HIV/AIDS pandemic exposes the hegemonic intersection of gender, power and sexuality.This qualitative study aims to explore South African rural black women's agency in intimate partnerships at a time of transition and amidst the HIV/AIDS pandemic. It explores whether there is some empirical evidence for what is a common perception, namely the lack of agency that rural black women have in negotiating their sexual relationships and the impact that this has on the risk of HIV/AIDS. One of the assumptions made was that age is a critical variable because of the changing dynamics of time figurations in gender practice. The author suggests that in non-violent partnerships the decisive variable for a woman's capacity for agency both in terms of decision-making on having sex as well as their potential for HIV self-protection strategies is marital status and not age.

Intimate Partner Sexual Violence (IPSV) is the most common type of sexual violence and a common component of domestic violence, yet most cases go unreported and service responses are often inadequate. This book brings together advice for all those professionals working with individuals who have experienced IPSV and puts forward recommendations to tackle this prevalent form of sexual violence. With contributions from leading experts on IPSV, Intimate Partner Sexual Violence is a comprehensive guide to the subject which bridges the gap between research and practice. Multidisciplinary and international in approach, the book covers key issues salient to all professionals - the impact of IPSV, reproductive coercion, the physical and psychological indicators, possible consequences of taking a case to court, and best practice service responses. One section also addresses the risks and needs of IPSV victims in different contexts, such as those in same-sex or teenage relationships, immigrant victims, and those living in rural areas or in prison. This is an authoritative resource for all professionals who work with IPSV victims including counselors, social workers, refuge workers, victim advocates, mental health professionals, pastoral workers, lawyers, police, and health practitioners.

A health-care provider is likely to be the first professional contact for survivors of intimate partner violence or sexual assault. Evidence suggests that women who have been subjected to violence seek health care more often than non-abused women, even if they do not disclose the associated violence. They also identify health-care providers as the professionals they would most trust with disclosure of abuse. These guidelines are an unprecedented effort to equip healthcare providers with evidence-based guidance as to how to respond to intimate partner violence and sexual violence against women. They also provide advice for policy makers, encouraging better coordination and funding of services, and greater attention to responding to sexual violence and partner violence within training programmes for health care providers. The guidelines are based on systematic reviews of the evidence, and cover: 1. identification and clinical care for intimate partner violence 2. clinical care for sexual assault 3. training relating to intimate partner violence and sexual assault against women 4. policy and programmatic approaches to delivering services 5. mandatory reporting of intimate partner violence. The guidelines aim to raise awareness of violence against women among health-care providers and policy-makers, so that they better understand the need for an appropriate health-sector response. They provide standards that can form the basis for national guidelines, and for integrating these issues into health-care provider education.

Oscar, physically and sexually abusive, stabbed his partner and two stepdaughters to death, buried the bodies, and fled the state with his two younger children. Paul, a respected investment banker, donned a Halloween mask and shot his wife and two children before turning the gun on himself. What drives individuals as different as Oscar and Paul to kill their families? Why does familicide appear to be on the rise? In Familicidal Hearts, award-winning author and sociologist Neil Websdale uncovers the stories behind 196 male and 15 female perpetrators of this shocking offense, situating their emotional styles on a continuum, from the livid coercive to the civil reputable. With highly detailed and riveting case studies, Websdale explores the pivotal roles of shame, rage, fear, anxiety, and depression in the lives and crimes of the killers. His analysis demonstrates how internal emotional conflict, against a backdrop of societal pressures, is at the root of familicide, challenging the widely accepted argument that murderers kill family members to assert power and control. Websdale contends instead that most perpetrators struggle with intense shame, many sensing that they failed to live up to the demands of modern gender prescriptions, as fathers and lovers, wives and mothers. What emerges is a compelling theory about the haunting effects of modern emotional struggles on perpetrators, controlling and upstanding alike. Captivatingly written and expertly researched, this provocative book weaves a gripping tale of modern-era "haunted hearts." Blending the social, the historical, and the emotional into a new way of making sense of a horrific crime, Familicidal Hearts is a provocative meditation on gender roles, social forces, and modern life itself.

While research shows that sexual agency is important, there was a gap in the literature on what strategies women can use to increase it. Reaching a better understanding of women's experiences around sexual agency not only filled these gaps but could also aid in creating essential community resources. Exploring how women theorize negotiations involved in sexual agency and how it is enhanced made it possible to create a theory, grounded in data, about this phenomenon that will improve our understanding of key strategies. The purpose of this study was to investigate how women understand their agency around sexual encounters, using a grounded theory approach. A total of 15 participants were recruited and attended in-depth 1-hour qualitative interviews. Then, data was analysed using a three-step approach: open coding, axial coding, and creation of a story-line. Participants defined sexual agency as being enthusiastic, autonomous, and relating to sexual socialization. Sexual agency factors that emerged from the study were: sexual self-esteem, body image, sexual self-efficacy, sexual assertiveness, sexual confidence, sexual communication, self-talk, and staying present. Several strategies to increase these factors emerged from the study and can help women increase their wellbeing. These findings are informative to counsellors who work with women seeking support for intimate relationships and will ultimately help inform support that empowers women.

Much domestic violence literature has called attention to the fact that women's material needs for shelter, daycare, employment, and legal protection may render them helpless to leave toxic relationships. Yet, even with the provision of these, many women remain tightly wound in their abusers' embrace. In Cupid's Knife: Women's Anger and Agency in Violent Relationships, Abby Stein draws on the gripping narratives of physically and emotionally abused women to illuminate how splitting off their own aggression undermines women's agency, making it almost impossible for them to leave violent partners. Psychology, with its focus on 'managing' men's anger in violent relationships, has had little to offer in the way of substantive critical work with women on the identification, integration and constructive use of a range of darker emotions typically labelled as antithetical to the norms for female behaviour. In this book, Abby Stein shows that although a number of psychological processes that contribute to the intractability of abusive relationships have been identified – such as trauma bonding and learned helplessness – their recognition has offered no clinical pathway out of the abyss. Stein suggests that our attention to other aspects of the internal world, the relational framework, and the cultural context in which both operate, may be more useful than current interventions in determining individual treatments that break the oft-cited 'cycle of violence'. More globally, Cupid's Knife: Women's Anger and Agency in Violent Relationships jumpstarts a provocative conversation about how female aggression can be repurposed as a catalyst for social change. It will be essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychologists, psychiatrists, sociologists, criminologists, students and the lay reader with an interest in clinical treatment, interpersonal psychoanalysis, domestic violence, gender roles, dissociation and aggression.