Engendering Violence: Heterosexual Interpersonal Violence from Childhood to Adulthood
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/14668203200300024 |
| Date | 01 September 2003 |
| Pages | 41-42 |
| Published date | 01 September 2003 |
| Author | Elizabeth Price |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care,Sociology |
The Journal of Adult Protection Volume 5 Issue 3 • September 2003 © Pavilion Publishing (Brighton) Limited 41
A critique of, and challenge to, the commonly-held belief that
there exists an immutable link between gender and
interpersonal violence constitutes the core of Hird’s thesis. The
title gives some idea of the book’s ambitious aim, seeking to
explore the links between gender and interpersonal violence,
among same-age people, across the lifespan. A review of
contemporary literature from a number of perspectives forms
the backdrop to the author’s own research, which explores, in
particular, adolescent dating violence.
The book begins by outlining the nature and extent of
interpersonal violence, questioning, in the process, the way in
which it is variously constructed by the public, politicians
and, especially, the media. The contradictions between
personal safety messages and people’s actual experience of
interpersonal violence provide a springboard for the
introduction of the book’s major themes: gender, difference,
power, investment and the performance of, in particular,
masculine gender roles. The central theme is, however, the
concept of gender difference and the public and private
discourses that maintain it.
The author situates the book’s publication at the point of
an important theoretical shift in gender and interpersonal
violence theories. It is theories on subjectivity and gender
relations, particularly from a feminist perspective, that have,
she states, challenged traditional notions of interpersonal
violence that are constructed by biologically determined,
essentialist conceptualisations of gender. The emerging
literature, she argues, works ‘towards re-conceptualizing
violence as neither male or female’ (p106) and ‘gender as a
fluid, socially subjective concept that only exists in the context
of practice’ (p117). The public and private performance of
male gender roles, rather than the simple fact of being male are
then what establish and maintain the necessary location for
Engendering Violence:
Heterosexual
Interpersonal Violence
from Childhood to
Adulthood
Myra J Hird
Hampshire: Ashgate
Publishing Limited (2002)
150pp
£37.50
ISBN 0 7546 0916 2
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