Book review: The Struggle for Freedom from Fear: Contesting Violence Against Women at the Frontiers of Globalization
| Published date | 01 May 2020 |
| Date | 01 May 2020 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0269758020902888 |
| Author | Daniel Sailofsky |
| Subject Matter | Book reviews |
Book reviews
Alison Brysk
The Struggle for Freedom from Fear: Contesting Violence Against Women at the Frontiers of
Globalization
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018, 386 pp.; ISBN 9780190901516386 (hardcover).
Reviewed by: Daniel Sailofsky, McGill University, Canada
DOI: 10.1177/0269758020902888
In The Struggle for Freedom from Fear: Contesting Violence Against Women at the Frontiers of
Globalization, Alison Brysk presents a vast and thorough examination of the prevalence, patterns,
and drivers of violence against women throughout the world. She accomplishes this through an
analysis of international and national treaties and legal reforms, public policy, social justice
campaigns, and norm changes across a variety of rapidly globalizing countries. Framing violence
against women as a ‘gendered form of human rights abuse’ (p. 27), Brys k’s goal is to ‘map
pathways of response’ to this violence for countries that fall into what Brysk labels ‘semi-
liberal gender regimes’ (p. 6), in order to better understand how to reduce and prevent gendered
violence and other human rights abuses. The book is largely successful in this ambitious endeavor.
States with ‘semi-liberal gender regimes’ (p. 13) are used as the sites for this study, due to
common characteristics of ‘rapid growth, inequality, neoliberal political economy, weak democ-
racy and limited citizenship, diminished state capacity, and contested gender roles’ (p. 27) that are
linked to higher rates of violence against women. These states and gender regimes are situated
between Brysk’s categorization of ‘patrimonial’ regimes and ‘developed’ democracies. Patrimo-
nial regimes, found in North Africa an d Central Asia, are historically il liberal, and gendered
violence is ‘pervasive, disciplinary and widely legitimized’ (p. 13). On the other hand, in liberal
‘developed’ democratic regimes such as Canada, the USA, and those in Western Europe,
‘women’s public labor and citizenship serve essential functions’ (p. 14), and while violence against
women still exists, it is legally sanctioned and at least theoretically delegitimized. Semi-liberal
states present a middle ground, where the role of the patriarchy seems to be diminishing, economic
production is increasing, and social and political incentives for increasing women’s autonomy are
rising. However, they are also still marked by inequality, uneven gender roles and citizenship
rights, and rigid norms surrounding femal e empowerment. These states, which inc lude BRIC
countries Brazil, Russia, India and China, as well as Turkey, South Africa, Colombia, Mexico,
and the Philippines, are also culturally, regionally, and religiously diverse. This allows for an
analysis of trends of violence against women related to state-specific legislative, policy, and norm
changes in the context of globalization.
Using a human rights and feminist framework, Brysk examines gendered violence in these
semi-liberal states through a nested ecological model. This approach analyzes the effects of
International Review of Victimology
2020, Vol. 26(2) 253–258
ªThe Author(s) 2020
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