Coercive Control How Men Entrap Women in Personal Life

by Stark, Evan

• ISBN13: 9780195384048
• ISBN10: 0195384040
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-03-01
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

One of the most important books ever written on domestic violence, Coercive Control breaks through entrenched views of physical abuse that have ultimately failed to protect women. Evan Stark, founder of one of America's first battered women's shelters, shows how "domestic violence" is neither primarily domestic nor necessarily violent, but a pattern of controlling behaviors more akin to terrorism and hostage-taking. Drawing on court records, interviews, and FBI statistics, Stark details coercive strategies that men use to deny women their very personhood, from "beeper games" to food logs to micromanaging dress, speech, sexual activity, and work. Stark urges us to move beyond the injury model and focus on the real victimization that allows men to violate women's human rights with impunity. Provocative and brilliantly argued, Coercive Control reframes abuse as a liberty crime rather than a crime of assault and points the way to bringing "real" equality for women in line with their formal rights to personhood and citizenship, freedom and safety.

Author Biography

Evan Stark is an award-winning researcher and has served as an expert in over l00 cases involving battered women and their children. He teaches at the Rutgers School of Public Affairs and Administration and Chairs the Department of Urban Health Administration at the UMDNJ School of Public Health. With Dr. Anne Flitcraft he is the coauthor of Women at Risk: Domestic Violence and Women's Health. He lives in Woodbridge, Connecticutt.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 1
The Domestic Violence Revolution: Promise and Disappointment
The Revolution Unfolds	p. 21
The Revolution Stalled	p. 50
The Enigmas of Abuse
The Proper Measure of Abuse	p. 83
The Entrapment Enigma	p. 112
Representing Battered Women	p. 133
From Domestic Violence to Coercive Control
Up to Inequality	p. 171
The Theory of Coercive Control	p. 198
The Technology of Coercive Control	p. 228
Living with Coercive Control
When Battered Women Kill	p. 291
For Love or Money	p. 314
The special Reasonableness of Battered Women	p. 339
Conclusion: Freedom Is Not Free	p. 362
Notes	p. 402
Index	p. 441
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