Book Review: Women's Encounters with Violence: Australian Experiences
| Author | Gill Hague |
| Published date | 01 September 2000 |
| Date | 01 September 2000 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/026975800000700407 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
International Review of Victimology,
2000, Vol. 7, pp.333-338
0269-7580/00 $10
© A B Academic Publishers —Printed in Great Britain
BOOK REVIEW
WOMEN' S ENCOUNTERS WITH VIOLENCE: AUSTRALIAN EXPERIENCES
Sandy Cook and Judith Bessant (eds.) Sage (Series on Violence Against Women),
1997, pp. 280. ISBN 0761904328. £15.99.
This excellent book details experiences of violence against women in Australia,
and has immediate relevance there to debates and controversies in the field.
However, it also offers cogently and, in places, quite deeply argued contributions
to similar debates in other countries (partly due to Australia's inter-connected-
ness with many countries worldwide, as explored at the beginning of the collec-
tion). The book encompasses a particularly wide range of issues, all of which are
placed within the context of the growth of the women's movement and of
feminist activism on violence against women. The issues discussed are also
situated within the historical framework of Australia's past and present, including
its violent treatment of aboriginal peoples. Interestingly, the book includes
beautiful black-and-white illustrations. (Perhaps unusually in a book of this
type, these were produced by a male artist, and are made available here as a
donation through a peace project).
There are three sections in the book, namely: sexual violence; law and criminal
justice; and cultural and social issues, and each consists of a series of detailed
chapters. The book is particularly strong overall on gendered violence within
oppressed indigenous communities. For example in a brave piece, Melissa
Lucashenko, who herself identifies as an indigenous woman, highlights the
silencing (by a rhetoric of condemnation of the state for oppression and violence
against aboriginal communities overall) of uncomfortable considerations of
violence against black Australian women by black Australian men. Simulta-
neously, she challenges the silencing by many white feminists of the voices of
oppressed aboriginal women and of the role of their own white privilege in
keeping things that way. These are important and difficult issues that Lucashen-
ko urges us to begin to address honestly and openly.
Other chapters deal equally honestly with uncomfortable and often overlooked
subjects including, for example sexual violence and disability (Lesley Cheno-
weth), hostility and violence against lesbians (Gail Mason), and the dislocation
of homelessness for young women (Suzanne Hatty). A particularly provocative
but quite short (and rather academically oriented) chapter looks at the usually
overlooked and rather taboo subject of mother / daughter sexual assault and rape.
This chapter urges feminists to expand their analysis of sexual violence to
include such issues, rather than pretending they don't exist. To be fair, however,
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