Search

This paper considers the neglected mobilities associated with a sample of UK women reported as missing. Refracted through literatures on gendered mobility and abandonment, the paper argues that the journeys of these women in crisis are not well understood by police services, and that normative gender relations may infuse their management. By selectively exploring one illustrative police case file on Kim, we highlight how reported and observed socio-spatial relationships within private and public spaces relate to search actions. We argue that Kim's mobility and spatial experiences are barely understood, except for when they appear to symbolise disorder and danger. We address the silences in this singular case by using the voices of other women reported as missing, as collected in a research project to explore the agency, experience and meaning of female mobility during absence. We argue that women reported as missing are not abandoned by UK policing services, but that a policy of continued search for them may be at risk if they repeatedly contravene normative socio-spatial relationships through regular absence mobilities. By way of conclusion, we address recent calls for research that explores the relationships between gender and mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article unpacks the fantasy of the Russian online bride and its striking contamination with geopolitical language. Drawing on critical geopolitics and psychoanalysis, it explores the economy of desire and anxiety that accompanies British men's quest for sexually available 'traditional' housewives that are still untouched by 'modern' feminism. The paper argues that these men desire the slippery substance of Easternness - an ideal object of desire which is too elusive to be conquered or held. The paper thereby inverts existing accounts of the sexualised nature of the geopolitical gaze to expose the traces of geopolitics in sexual fantasies themselves. In doing so, it formulates the basis for a triadic understanding of otherness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents an abstract of the study `The political-economy of violence against women in prehistory,' by D.L. Martin. Prevalence and degree of violence against women among Native Americans; Analysis of remains of women; Reasons behind the violence against women.

ABSTRACT This paper reports the findings of an exploratory study of the response of social workers within a community care setting, in a large Dublin suburb, to cases involving men's abuse of women. This research aims to focus on what child protection workers do regarding this abuse, and what they say about what they do, thereby giving readers a sense of the action taking place in this social work team. The data, generated from both qualitative and quantitative methodological research, reflects this aim, as it taps into the working model of responses to men's abuse of women held by social workers, and identifies what influences that, thereby reflecting the realities and constraints of everyday work. At the time the research was carried out (2000), the results confirm that the prevalence of cases involving men's abuse of women on this team was in line with international findings. This research revealed an absence of a team policy, an agreed definition of intimate violence in this context and agency practice guidelines, and illuminated how these gaps act as a deterrent to effective intervention. This paper explores some of the ethical and practical dilemmas that may arise for child protection social workers intervening in cases where the abuse of women by men is present. Recommendations arising from this research identify a need for a clear policy and best practice guidelines for social work staff in relation to this abuse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an overview of the most significant public policy initiatives that apply to known sexual offenders who live in the community. It is argued that while registration schemes, community notification, and offender residency restrictions have become a prominent feature of contemporary sex offender policy, the evidence base supporting their implementation is, at best, limited. There is a need to develop policies which are more tailored to the needs of individual offenders and which are explicitly designed to manage risk. Policies which mandate and facilitate interagency and partnership working represent one way in which individualised and research-informed approaches can be developed. It is suggested that the implementation of this type of approach may ultimately lead to more effective community responses to preventing sexual reoffending than those which rely solely on monitoring and supervision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Empowering women victims of domestic violence has been a goal of advocacy since its inception. The concept of empowerment is also widely shared in social science disciplines where the goal of applied research is to address the lived effects of social injustice. While in some fields, such as community psychology, there has been a long history of engaging theoretically with the concept of empowerment, elsewhere theory has received less attention. In the case of addressing domestic violence, victim advocacy has often been assumed to be empowering. Advocates worked to establish support services for individual women and participate in coordinating community responses to domestic violence that included the criminal justice system so as to improve women's safety. The question of whether this kind of social action is empowering domestic violence victims has been discussed in the literature for almost a decade. In this paper, we consider a proposed theory of empowerment and recommendations of advocacy practices by Kasturirangan (2008) to consider how her conceptualisation of empowerment processes has influenced the field and whether it provides a scaffold for bridging the theoretical gaps that have been identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Please cite this paper as: Nerum H, Halvorsen L, Øian P, Sørlie T, Straume B, Blix E. Birth outcomes in primiparous women who were raped as adults: a matched controlled study. BJOG 2010;117:288–294. Objective To compare the duration of labour and the birth outcome in a group of primiparous women who had been raped after the age of 16, with a control group from the same birth cohort. Design Cohort study. Setting University Hospital of North Norway. Sample Fifty women raped as adults and 150 controls. Methods Data about birth outcomes in the first pregnancy were collected from the patient files and data concerning the assault were obtained in a subsequent pregnancy through consultations with the women who had been raped. Birth outcomes in the group of women who had been raped were compared with matched controls using a multivariable logistic regression model. Main outcome measures Caesarean section, operative vaginal delivery and duration of labour. Results During their first delivery, the women who had been raped had an increased risk for caesarean section (adjusted odds ratio 15.7, 95% CI 5.0–49.1) and for assisted vaginal delivery (adjusted odds ratio 13.1, 95% CI 4.9–34.5) when compared with controls. The group of women who had been raped had a longer second stage of labour than the control group (120 versus 55 minutes, P < 0.01). They were more often single mothers, unemployed and smokers, and had a higher body mass index and more previous pregnancy terminations and miscarriages than the control group. Conclusions The women who had been raped had a longer second stage of labour, and an increased risk of caesarean section and operative vaginal delivery compared with controls from the general birth cohort. These findings indicate that the consequences for delivery for women who had been raped as adults could be specific and may warrant particular attention. The birth experience of women who had been raped should also be illuminated in future studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim. This paper is a report of an integrated review to identify cross-cultural factors that have an impact on women's disclosure of intimate partner violence, specifically related to Mexican-American women. Background. Intimate partner violence was once recognized as a private matter. Disclosure is a complex concept; furthermore in our multi-cultural society, a woman's decision whether or not to disclose abuse can be attributed to several factors influenced by her culture. Data sources. The World Wide Web and multiple databases including Academic Premier, Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), PsychArticles, PsychInfo, Medline, Eric, MedicLatina, and Psychology and Behavioral Science Collection were searched for studies published between 1996 and 2007. Methods. A search was conducted using databases including the CINAHL, PsychINFO, MEDLINE, ERIC and MedicLatina. Both qualitative and quantitative studies published between May 1996 and July 2007 were included. Forty-two studies were included in the review. Appraisal of study quality was not undertaken. Results. Fear was the most common cross-cultural factor interfering with disclosure. Most of the literature examines factors influencing and interfering with disclosure of abuse among white and African-American women. Only one study was found to include a sample of Mexican-American women. Conclusion. Increased efforts are needed to understand disclosure of intimate partner violence in minority women so that service providers can tailor services and ways to encourage disclosure with appropriate strategies based on women's culture. Further research is needed to understand the lived experiences of minority women, including Mexican-American women living in intimate partner violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The high number of murder, rape, and child abuse cases in South Africa has led to increased numbers of bite mark cases being heard in high courts. Objective analysis to match perpetrators to bite marks at crime scenes must be able to withstand vigorous cross-examination to be of value in conviction of perpetrators. An analysis technique is described in four stages, namely determination of the mark to be a human bite mark, pattern association analysis, metric analysis and comparison with the population data, and illustrated by a real case study. New and accepted techniques are combined to determine the likelihood ratio of guilt expressed as one of a range of conclusions described in the paper. Each stage of the analysis adds to the confirmation (or rejection) of concordance between the dental features present on the victim and the dentition of the suspect. The results illustrate identification to a high degree of certainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Violence against women during pregnancy is a global problem with adverse outcomes for the mothers and their children. This paper provides a discussion of the prevalence rates of pregnancy-related violence, associated factors, and outcomes. Most of the outcome literature focuses on perinatal and postnatal outcomes, but little is known about the longer term psychological outcome of children born to women abused during pregnancy. Moreover, the question as to whether the abuse increases during pregnancy remains unanswered given the equivocal findings in the literature. Findings from a small study conducted with women in the region of northwestern Ontario, Canada, are presented. The pattern of abuse during pregnancy over the three trimesters was examined. The long-term psychological outcomes of the children born to women abused during pregnancy were also investigated by comparing these children to a sex- and age-matched cohort of children born to women who were not abused during pregnancy. Although key confounding variables were controlled in the study, the results still showed that children born to women abused during pregnancy had greater behavioral problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last 30 years, rapid social change has dramatically altered the conditions and meanings of women's lives in Bangladesh. After generations of public neglect and exclusion, women are now widely exposed to a globalised world of foreign aid, migration, trafficking, factory work, and urbanisation. The sharp rise in women's participation in the labour force, involvement in governmental and non-governmental programmes, and migration to urban centres as well as other countries augment their greater social and political visibility. The presence of women in the marketplace and public space has improved opportunities for greater access to resources and the capacity to act, but exposed large segments of the population as highly vulnerable targets of sexual violence, repression in workplaces, and religious persecution. This paper frames the realities of escalating violence against women within the contemporary discourses of gender empowerment and development. It argues that current development policy in Bangladesh assumes increased welfare for women in the process of economic development when, in fact, women are subjected to new and intensified forms of violence during these changes in the economy and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three hypotheses have been used to describe the male propensity for sexual aggression towards women: a general propensity to offend, a specific propensity lo sexually offend and a combination of both. In this paper., using structural equation modeling., we compared the relative utility of these three hypotheses in explaining criminal activity in adulthood of .sexual aggressors of women, hi total, 209 adult males who were convicted of at least one sexual offence were included in the study. Results indicate that a propensity model emphasizing the role of an early and persistent general propensity to act in an antisocial manner during childhood and adolescence is most adequate to explain sexual aggressors' criminal activity. After controlling for the role of this propensity, a specific propensity characterized by high sexualization and deviant sexual interests explained only a modest proportion of variance of the sexual criminal activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper examines imagery vividness and anxiety during Prolonged Exposure (PE) for chronic PTSD among 69 female survivors of sexual or nonsexual assault. All participants received between 9 and 12 individual sessions of either PE alone or in combination with cognitive restructuring. As hypothesized, vividness and anxiety ratings from early imaginal exposure sessions were moderately to highly correlated, but these correlations decreased in later sessions. Both subjective distress and vividness decreased significantly with exposure. Greater reductions in subjective distress between the first and last exposure session were related to better outcome. However, contrary to hypothesis, vividness was not related to outcome. Theoretical implications of the results are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes how the values of a feminist research team influenced methodological decisions in a study of rape survivors. Building upon concepts from community psychology and urban sociology, the authors created a community-based research design that respected the emotional needs of rape survivors without sacrificing methodological rigor. We developed relationships with community members in diverse settings, such as nail and hair salons, child care centers, churches, and bookstores, to advertise the study and recruit participants. Consistent with feminist approaches to interviewing, our goal was to create a safe setting for survivors to tell their stories. Although the purpose of this study was research rather than intervention, most survivors reported that participating in these interviews was healing. Our experiences in this project suggest that allowing values to influence the process of research may have beneficial outcomes for both researchers and participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The paper summarizes the activities of the WHO in response to violence against women. These focus on research and development of norms and standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper describes how violence against women has become part of the United Nations agenda. It focuses on violence as a human rights issue, analyzing the mechanisms and agreements relevant to addressing it. It also looks at implementation at a national level, focusing on national legislation and responses of the judicial system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper discusses the experiences of the Khonkaen provincial hospital, which has been selected as an intervention case site for a one‐stop crisis service for women who have been physically or sexually assaulted. It will be compared with another provincial hospital where no intervention has taken place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problem of violence against individuals with severe mental illness (SMI) has received relatively little notice, despite several studies suggesting an exceptionally high prevalence of victimization in this population. This paper describes the results of an investigation of the prevalence and correlates of past year physical and sexual assault among a large sample of women and men with SMI drawn from inpatient and outpatient settings across 4 states. Results confirmed preliminary findings of a high prevalence of victimization in this population (with sexual abuse more prevalent for women and physical abuse more prevalent for men), and indicated the existence of a range of correlates of recent victimization, including demographic factors and living circumstances, history of childhood abuse, and psychiatric illness severity and substance abuse. The research and clinical implications of these findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychologists have neglected the role of the social, economic and political systems in determining behaviour. Rather, our field, consciously or unconsciously, has been instrumental in upholding the status quo. We have accepted society's ruling ideas that perpetuate exploitation, especially of women in the world of work. Women are often the last to be hired and the first to be fired. They are employed part-time and fired early to avoid the cost of fringe benefits and retirement costs. Ideas about women's roles, generated by capitalism and patriarchal religions, are responsible for widespread sexism and the exploitation of many powerless groups, but especially girls and women. This paper reviews several examples of sexist exploitation that have an economic base. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates police officers' definitions of different rape situations. On the basis of the concept of 'cognitive prototypes' a methodology is developed which elicits consensual feature lists describing six rape situations: the typical, i.e., most common rape, the credible, dubious, and false rape complaints as well as the rape experience that are particularly hard v's,.. relatively easy for the victim to cope with. Qualitative analysis of the data allows the identification of the characteristic features defining the prototype of each rape situation, as well as comparisons between the situations in terms of their common and distinctive features. It is shown that police officers, while sharing some of the widely held stereotypes about rape, generally perceive rape as a serious crime with long-term negative consequences for the victim. The quantitative analysis of prototype similarity between the six situations corroborates this conclusions by demonstrating a high similarity between the prototypes of the typical and the credible rape situation. In addition, subjects general attitude towards rape victims is measured to compare the prototypes provided by respondents holding a positive v's, negative attitude towards rape victims. findings for the two groups, however, reveal more similarities than differences in their descriptions of rape prototypes. The paper concludes with a discussion of the feasibility of the prototype approach presented in this study as a strategy for investigating implicit or common-sense theories of rape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides information on the relation between victimization status, crime factors, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and several other psychological disorders among a community sample of women. Results indicated that victims of crime were more likely than nonvictims to suffer from PTSD, major depressive episode, agoraphobia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, social phobia, and simple phobia. Furthermore, life threat was associated with increased risk of major depression, agoraphobia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and social phobia. Completed rape was strongly related to almost every disorder assessed, while robbery and burglary were not related to any disorder. When demographics, victimization status, and crime factors were entered hierarchically into multivariate logistic regressions with PTSD in the final step, associations between victimization status, other crime characteristics (e.g., life threat, injury), and non-PTSD Axis I disorders were greatly reduced. This suggests that PTSD may be an important mediating factor in the victimization-psychopathology relation for many disorders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]