Women's Violence

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The Menstuff® library lists pertinent books on Womens' Violence. See also books on Abuse - Boys, Abuse - Children, Abuse - Ritual, Abuse - Sexual, Circumcision, Anger, Violence, Domestic Violence, Sexual Violence, and Sexual Harassment, and our Issues section on Abuse - Ritual, Abuse - Sexual, Circumcision, Violence, Domestic Violence, Sexual Harassment, Womens' Violence and Prisons.

• Brothers, Barbara Jo, The Abuse of Men: Trauma begets trauma. This courageous book exposes a dark secret: Men are often victims of abuse. Although a great deal of attention has been paid to the victimization of women over the last 30 years, the role of men as victims - not just perpetrators - has been neglected. And, the fact is, when men are abused, everybody suffers. This book reveals the impact of physical, sexual and emotional trauma on the lives and relationships of men. This groundbreaking book shows how the negative effects of both basic training and combat may also cause lasting damage to men's self-esteem, ability to trust, personal boundaries, and ability to form healthy relationships. It explores the prevalence of other kinds of violence and abuse toward men and boys, from child-battering (of which women are the primary perpetrators) to spousal abuse. It discusses how the culture of violence and societal expectations of boys and men can help drive victims of abuse toward continuing the cycle of violence. It also offers specific suggestoins for therapists working with abused men and their partners, including an innovative step-by-step program for treating couples who have both been traumatized. By understanding how men and boys become victims and respond to trauma, you can help heal their pain and teach them to build positive, loving relationships. The Haworth Press, www.haworthpressinc.com 2001 ISBN 0-7890-1379-7 Buy This Book!
• Brown, Lyn Mikel, Raising Their Voices:  The politics of girls' anger. Two fourteen-year-old girls, fed up with the "Hooters" shirts worn by their male classmates, design their own rooster logo:  "Cocks:  Nothing to crow about." Seventeen-year-old April Schuldt, unmarried, pregnant, and cheated out of her election as homecoming queen by squeamish school administrators, disrupts a pep rally with a protest that engages the whole school. Where are spirited girls like these in the popular accounts of teenage girlhood, that supposed wasteland of depression, low self-esteem and passive victimhood?  This book, filled with the voices of young girls, corrects the misperceptions that have crept into our picture of female adolescence. Based on the author's yearlong conversation with white junior high and middle-school girls - from the working poor and the middle class, this book allows us to hear how girls adopt some expectations about gender but strenously resist others, how they use traditionally feminine means to maintain their independence, and how they recognize and resist pressures to ignore their own needs and wishes. Harvard University Press, 1998 ISBN 0-674-83871-8 Buy this book!
• Cook, Philip, Abused Men: The hidden side of domestic violence. When most people think of domestic violence, images of battered women or abused children come to mind. But there is another side of this issue that is not as familiar - abused men. This unique book in the first to comprehensively examine this important but neglected social issue. The author directly challenges common assumptions about how men and women behave in society. Already praised by a diverse spectrum of readers-from "Dear Abby's" Abigail Van Buren, to the nation's leading domestic violence researcher, to those in law enforcement and counseling-this is sure to spark controversy and discussion. It offers gripping, emotional stories, self-help for victims, provocative insight into public issues, and presents a practical approach for reducing domestic violence. While statistics show that 1.8 million American women are severely assaulted by their mats each year, few people know that the same source indicates that 2 million men are also assaulted at home. After laying the groundwork for a serious reconsideration of how society views domestic violence, the author allows a number of abused men to tell their astonishing stories. He then puts these experiences in the context of what therapists and others who have worked with such men know about domestic violence and how the male victim is similar to, yet different from, his female counterpart. After examining the reasons why so little is known about male abuse and the difficulties researchers encounter, the author shows how the abused man, his friends and family, and the abusive or abused woman can come to grips with domestic violence. Drawing from a variety of sources, he brings these diverse elements together and proposes practical solutions for reducing domestic violence, whether its victims are male or female. Praeger Publishers 1997 (Violence - Domestic) Buy This Book!
• Creighton, Allan, Helping Teens Stop Violence:  A practical guide for counselors, educators & parents, Hunter House, 1992
•   Denfeld, Rene, Kill the Body, The Head will Fall:  A closer look at women, violence and aggression. This is a society that condemns aggression in women...The result is that aggression is still viewed as "naturally" male. And female aggression is, by default, considered unnatural and uncommon. The reality is this:  women can be just as aggressive as men. Is it true that women are biologically programmed to be less aggressive, less prone to violence than men?  Is it the lack of training and physical opportunities that keep women from being as "tough" as men?  Are women by nature more gentle and law-abiding?  Well, the author provides answers drawing on her perspective as a female in the nearly all-male boxing world, and overturns our culture's assumptions about: anger...why women feel guilty and out of control when enraged, and how the denial of women's anger can have devastating consequences, especially for children. Competition...how women's healthy competitive urges are repressed, keeping them at a disadvantage. Sex...what connects sex and violence and shapes women's sexual desires. Power...how recognizing women's aggression can help bring about their equality. Insisting on facts and eschewing cultural bias, she asserts that women's violence and aggression are not held in check by biology. They are waiting to be encouraged and used to create strong, active women who are serious contenders - in the boxing ring and in life. Warner Books, http://pathfinder.com/twep 1997 ISBN 0-446-51960-X Buy This Book!
• Deschner, Jeanne, How to End the Hitting Habit:  Anger control for battering couples, Free Press, 1984
• Elliott, Michele ed, Female Sexual Abuse of Children. The subject of female sexual abuse has been a dark, unexplored corner of our field. Like most adhorent aspects of human behavior, it is easier and more emotionally congruent to deny, ignore, or discredit that which we cannot accept or will not acknowledge. Historical reactions to the discovery (and rediscovery) of incest - from Freud to the False Memory Syndrome Foundation - are poignant tributes to the enduring strength of our collective resistance. There is no room in this, of all fields, for secrecy or denial about any aspect of child abuse. There is no room for cowardice, political ideology, or the focus of our attention and resources on one area to the total exclusion of others. This is a bold book and a valuable resource for our time. Guilford, 1994 ISBN 0-89862-004-X Buy This Book!
• Enns, Greg & Jan Black, It's Not Okay Anymore:  Your personal guide to ending abuse, taking charge, and loving yourself. (This book does a pretty good job of staying balanced and seldom makes a reference that points to either sex as an abuser or victim, though they slip-up from time to time. - Ed.) This practical and empowering guide offers a step-by-step path out of abuse and into life management and self-care. Written with sensitivity and respect, it contains checkpoints and action steps, survivors' stories, success tips, "Get Safe" plans and goals, and the gentle support of a nurturing personal coach. New Harbinger 1997
• Eron, Leonard, Jacquelyn Gentry & Peggy Schlegel, Reason to Hope:  A psychosocial perspective on violence & youth. The book proceeds from the empirically based conviction that violence is not inevitable. Current theory and epidemiological, clinical and empirical data on violence among youth are examined to help researchers, practitioners and policymakers make informed decisions about prevention and intervention. Experts in the field of violence explore:  The etiology of youth violence from develomental and sociocultural perspectives. The experience of violence by ethnic groups and other vulnerable populations, such as gay and lesbian youth and youth with disabilities. The influence of societal factors such as media, guns and gangs on violence among youth. The most promising, empirically supported preventive and rehabilitative interventions. The most pressing needs for research and policy development in this area. Although psychologists have made impressive stides over the past 50 years in advancing our knowledge about the origins and development of violent behavior, there is an urgent need to use and build on this knowledge today. By identifying individual and contextual factors influencing violence that are amenable to change, and by exploring how these factors can actually be changed, this book lays the groundwork for significant progress toward reducing violence among youth. American Psychological Association, 1996
• Fraser, Antonia, The Warrior Queens:  The legends and the lives of the women who have led their nations to war, Vintage Books, 1989
• Gillespie, Cynthia, Justifiable Homicide:  Battered women, self-defense & the law, Ohio State Univ Press, 1989
• Karr-Morse, Robin & Meredith S Wiley Ghosts from the Nursery:  Tracing the roots of violence.Cutting to the heart of the alarming trend of violence committed by children, this book gives startling new evidence that violent behavior is fundamentally linked to abuse and neglect in the first two years of life. In absorbing and accessible prose, the authors present case histories of "children who kiill", focusing specifically on Jeffrey, a nineteen-year-old who sits on death row for a murder committed at age sixteen, along with recent research that shows how infancy is the stage during which the foundations for trust, empathy, conscience, and liflong learning are laid down - or the predisposition to violent behavior is "hardwired" into the brain. This book makes a convincing case for the revolution in our beliefs about the care of babies. Atlantic Monthly Press 1997
• Kellerman, Jonathan, Savage Spawn:  Reflections on violent children. In this powerful, disturbing book, a noted child psychologist shines a penetrating light on antisocial youth - kids who kill without remorse - asserting that "psychopathic tendencies begin very early in life, as young as three, and they endure. Criticizing our quick impulse to blame violent movies or a "morally bankrupt" society, the author convinces us that it is the kids themselves who need to be examined. Carefully. How do children become cold-blooded killers?  The author warns that today's aggressive bully is tomorrow's Mafia don, cult leader, or genocidal dictator. Violently psychopathic youths possess an overriding need for power, control and stimulation, and all display a complete lack of regard for the humanity of others. He examines the origins of pschopathy and the ever-shifting debate between nurture and nature, offering some controversial solutions to dealing with homicidal tendencies in children. This is a provocative look at the links between society and biology, children and violence. This sobering message will remain with you long after the last page is turned. Ballantine, www.randomhouse.com/BB/, 1999 ISBN 0-345-42939-7 Buy this book!
• Lamb, Sharon, ed, New Version of Victims:  Feminists struggle with the concept. Must one be subject to long-standing suffering to be called a victim?  How are we to explain rape victims who seemingly "get over" their experience with no lingering emotional scars?  The contributors grapple with the complexities of these issues rather than play into oversimplified popular debates. They critique exaggerated claims by victim advocates about the long lasting harm of victimization, while simultaneously taking on the claims of writers such as Katie Roiphe and Camille Paglia and offering tools for rebutting their backlash assertions. Can a book that refuses to take an extreme position enter this debate?  Indeed it can, and it is a must-read for clinicians, theorists, victims and activists. Written in clear, accessible language, this book offers a critical analysis of pupular debates about victimization that will be applicable to both practice and theory. New York University Press, www.nyupress.nyu.edc 1999
• Leon, Vicki, Uppity Women of Ancient Times. 200 uproarious pirates, pyramid builders, poets, poisoners, panderers, power brokers and princesses. Full of piquant details on sex, sporst, madness, celebrites, gossip and gore, this, like its companion Uppity Women of Medieval Times (below), excavates a treasure of little-known or long-suppressed facts about biblical babes, classical consorts, and Mesopotamian maids for the armchair archaeologist in all of us. It is sure to inspire all women to take history into their own hands. MJF Books, 1995 ISBN 1-56731-249-7 Buy This Book!
• Leon, Vicki, Uppity Women of Medieval Times. 200 daring damsels who dazzled the dark ages and rocked the Renaissance. From blacksmiths, bankers, plague-ridders, and sheep thieves to secret agents, pirates, holy women and holy terrors, medieval women around the world used wits, wiles, patrons, and networking to make a winning hand of their lives. Like its companion, Uppity Women of Ancient Times (above), this offers a riot, a romp, a rousing tour through a crowd of strong-minded and stong-willed women of history, many of them suppressed, some of them denied, but none lost to us forever, thanks to the author's tireless research and infectiously witty writing. MFJ Books, 1997. ISBN 1-56731-250-0 Buy This Book!
• Lobel, Kerry, Naming the Violence: Speaking out about lesbian battering, Seal, 1986
• Lorimer, Sara, Booty: Girl pirates on the high seas. A treasure of high adventure and bad behavior, this book tells the all true tales of real women pirates who prowled the seas in search of easy prey and ill-gotten profit. Raiding ships, boozing, brawling, and looting, they struck terror in the hearts of men from the Mediterranean to the South China Sea, from the Indian Ocean to the coasts of Europe to the waterways of New York. Their stories are the stuff of legend: Rachel Wall, who traded her devout Presbyterian upbringing for lewd and wicked company; Cheng I Sao, who led a fleet of 2,000 ships and made her men drink a fiery cocktail of wine and gunpowder; Mary Read, who killed one pirate for the love of another; and Sadie the Goat, who moved her street gang to the more lucrative waters of the Hundson River. Their exploits and those of more swashbuckling women fill these pages, along with salty illustrations and an informative look at the finer points of pirate life (flogging, victuals, grog, fashion, etc.) Arrrr. Chronicle Books, www.chroniclebooks.com, 2002, ISBN 0-8118-3237-6 Buy This Book!
• Miller, Alice, For Your Own Good:  Hidden cruelty in child-rearing & the root of violence, Farrar Straus Giroux, 1984
• Myers, Alice, No Angels: Women who commit violence. A provacative exploration of women who commit violence against men, this book looks at high-profile violent women, contemporary and historical, real and fictional, and examines society's attitudes towards these women and their crimes. Originally inspired by the Lorena Bobbitt cases and the reactions it caused, this book also includes essays on Myra Hindley, Winnie Mandela, Rosemary West, Lindy Chamberlain, Ruth Ellis and the "Brookside Two", amonst others. The contributors tease out the real women behind blurred images and attempt to demolish the old simplistic explanations of powerless victim or evil demon. Pandora, 1996 ISBN 0-04-440957-5 Buy This Book!
• Nadeua, Barbie Latza, Angel Face: The true story of student killer Amanda Knox. Despite all the airtime devoted to Amanda Knox, it's still hard to reconcile the fresh-faced honor student from Seattle with the sexually rapacious killer convicted of the November 2007 murder of her British roommate. Few Americans have heard all the powerful evidence that convinced a jury that Knox was one of three people to sexually assault Meredith Kercher, brutalize her body, and cut her throat. In Angel Face, Rome-based Daily Beast senior writer Barbie Latza Nadeau- who cultivated personal relationships with the key figures in both the prosecution and the defense - describes how the Know family's heavy-handed efforts to control media coverage distorted the facts, inflamed an American audience, and painted an offensive, inaccurate picture of Italy's justice system. An eye-opener for any parent considering sending a child away to study. This book reveals what really went on in this incomprehensible. crime. Beast Books, www.thedailybeast.com, 2010, ISBN 978-0-9842951-3-5
• Nelson, Pam, Cool Women:  The thinking girl's guide to the hippest women in history. This book is not about heroine worshop - on the contrary, it's about taking our heroines down from their pedestals where we can get a good, hard look at them. Because only there, at eye level, can we see what's truly inspiring, even stratling, about their stories - that they're not all that different from our own. Because with the exception of a few fictional characters, what made each of these women glorious was not her flawlessness, but her humanity. Look into the eyes of their pictures - the courage that stares back at you is not about fearless ness, it's about fears that have been overcome, mistakes that have been made, and lives that have been lived from the sheer adventure of it. So, sure, this book is about great stories from the past, but more importantly it's about stories still to come. It aims for that moment of recognition that Eureka that comes when a girl or woman finds the story that sings to her. That instant is about more than inspiration, or even transformation, that instant is about takeoff. Girl Press, 1998 ISBN 0-9659754-0-1 Buy This Book!
• Patai, Daphne, Heterophobia:  Sexual harassment and the future of feminism. Heterophoia is the fear of and antagonism toward heterosexuals and heterosexuality. Once confident in the potential of feminism to create a more equitable and just society, the author persuasively demonstrates how the efforts of some feminists - members of what she calls the "sexual harassment industry" - have created an environment that stifles health natural interactions between the sexes. The trememdous growth of sexual harassment legislation represents feminism's greatest contemporary success, but this victory has dubious consequences - a world where kindergarten boys face legal action for kissing female classmates and men are sued by coworkers for offenses such as unwanted hugs, uninvited compliments, or glances that last too long. The Feminine Mystique, The Second Sex, Sexual Politics, Sexual Personae, Bachlash - These are widely regarded as the most influential statements of feminism ever written. Read this book and you will understand why it will soon join this pantheon as the most powerful and eloquent analysis of contemporary feminism of this decade. Rowan & Littlefield, 1998 ISBN 0-8476-8987-5 Buy This Book!
• Pearson, Patricia, When She was Bad: Violent women and the myth of innocence. In this groundbreaking book, the author examines a subject that is often deliberately ignored, particularly by the feminist front: the issue of women's violence and aggression. Not merely as a response to an abusive husband, society, culture or parent, but on their own, requiring no more provocation than their male counterparts. Guiding us gently through the rough waters of women's anger, the book starts off with an examination of violence in girls and ends with an overview of the social structure of women's prisons. The author demands that women hold themselves accountable for their actions; she makes them see women as fully equal to male murderers and rapists; as cold-blooded as anyone who would perform multiple murders for profit. The sexist court system likes to ascribe women's acts of violence to being coerced, seduced, cornered. It sees women as victims or survivors (that new catch phrase of the therapy-and-twelve-step generation). Sometimes this is true - but often it is not. Frequently women discover violence as an answer all on their own, the way men do, because of the way our culture is set up, the way our brains are wired, or the lessons we learned at our parents' knees. The stories presented here are graphic and disturbing and a far cry from the women's-violence-is-sexy voyeurism of cat fights and mud wrestling. We meet female sex offenders, women who kill their own children and women with Munchausen syndrome who caused their children repetitive illness and sometimes death. The author helps to open the doors and allows us the space to examine a side of women no one wants to acknowledge but that, if left unobserved will, like a cancer, continue to spread. We list over 340 "Alternatives to violence" programs in the U.S., 36 of which also include support for female perpetrators coded 89, and male victims coded 86, plus dozens of books on sexual harassment, domestic violence and abuse, and media and governmental contacts. Viking Press 1997 Hard back. ISBN 0-670-85925-7 Buy this book!
• Pearson, Patricia, When she Was Bad:  How and why women get away with murder. In this groundbreaking book, (the paperback version of "When She Was Bad: Violent women and the myth of innocence,) the author examines a subject that is often deliberately ignored, particularly by the feminist front: the issue of women's violence and aggression. Not merely as a response to an abusive husband, society, culture or parent, but on their own, requiring no more provocation that their male counterparts. Guiding us gently through the rough waters of women's anger, the book starts off with an examination of violence in girls and ends with an overview of the social structure of women's prisons. The author demands that women hold themselves accountable for their own actions; she makes women see women as fully equal to male murderers and rapists; as cold-blooded as anyone who would perform multiple murders for profit. The sexist court system likes to ascribe women's acts of violence to being coerced, seduced, cornered. It sees women as victims or "survivors" that new catch phrase of the therapy-and-twelves-step generation). Sometimes this is true - but often it is not. Frequently women discover violence as an answer all on their own, the way men do, because of the way our culture is set up, the way our brains are wired, or the lessons women learned at our parents' knees. The stories presented here are graphic and disturbing, and a far cry from the women's-violence-is-sexy voyeurism of cat fights and mud wrestling. We meet female sex offenders, women who kill their own children, and women with Munchausen syndrome who caused their children repetitive illnesses and sometimes death. Pearson helps to open the doors and allows women the space to examine a side of themselves no one wants to acknowledge, but that, if left unobserved will, like a cancer, continue to spread. (Click here and look for centers coded 89 - resources for women perpetrators.) Penguin USA Paperback, 1998 ISBN 0-14-024388-7 Buy This Book!
• Robbins, Trina, Tender Murderers: Women who kill. They did it for love or for money or both. Some of them are fabled femme fatales of yesteryear. Some headliners in yesterday's newspapers. Ture-life who, where, why, when and howdunnits. Bandit queens, gun molls, mothers, and widows (often self-made) - this array of real-life women who murdered makes for fascinating reading. Thoroughly researched, with archival photos and illustratoins. A page-turner you'll wnt to read with your back against the wall. Conari Press, www.conari.com, 2003, ISBN 1-57324-821-5
• Sage, Violence & Abuse Abstracts, Vol 1 # 1, Current Literature in Interpersonal Violence, Sage, 1995
• Sikes, Gini, 8 Ball Chicks:  A year in the violent world of girl gangs. Carrying razor blades in their mouths and guns in their pockets, and ferciously guarding their home turf, girl gang bangers are frequently as violent and dangerous as their male counterparts. The author, a veteran journlist, spent almost two years in Los Angeles, San Antonio and Milwaukee, following three girl gangs and exploring their lives. In doing so, she reveals the fear and desperate desire for safety and status that drive girls into gangs in the first place - and the dreams and ambitions that occasionally help them to escape the catch-22 of their existence. Shocking, poignant, and deeply affecting, this book is unlike any book yet written. Anchor Books www.anchorbooks.com 1998 ISBN 0-385-47432-6 Buy this book!
• Stanko, Elizabeth, Everyday Violence:  How women & men experience sexual and physical danger, Pandora, 1990
• Steinmetz, Suzanne, Behind Closed Doors:  Violence in the American family, Anchor, 1980
• Steinmetz, Suzanne, Violence in the Family, Harper & Row, 1974
• Strean, Herbert & Lucy Freeman, Our Wish to Kill:  The murder in all our hearts. In America, over four hundred murders are committed each week, as the human capacity for violence seems to increase exponentially in the 1990s. The authors examine not only the causes of America's homicidal obsession, but also speculate on the hundreds of thousands of murders that - luckily - never come to be, existing only in fantasied action. In this final decade of the twentieth century, envy, greed, rage and revenge stand at all-time highs, and, more and more, lovers no longer seem just to quarrel. Inexorably, unalterably, the clash of wills and emotions becomes fatal. This book examines human life as it proceeds through the chronological stages of psychological development, proving the violence and extreme rages that form, develop and fester - from childhood on. The authors contend that violent murderous impulses lurk in the unconsciousnes of all of us, and that crimes committed by three of the more violent murderers of our time - Joseph Kallinger, Willie Bosket and Jurgen Bartsch - are merely the darkest expressions of the urge to murder that lies within all our hearts. This is an important book that sheds considerable light on how our turn-of-the-century society has evolved, and how our fractured nuclear family has become the vast spawning ground for the hatred and murder that lie in everyday life. St Martins, 1991 ISBN 0-312-05488-2 Buy this book!