Search results

Killing Eve (BBC 2018–2022) has been hailed as a feminist television show. Its cinematic production values call upon a history of espionage on screen, encompassing international intrigue and glamorised hyperviolent action sequences. Is this violent aesthetic a cathartic reference to newly visible feminist discourse or are we just being sold a new version of old fantasies?

In this chapter Killing Eve is examined in relation to a history of violent women spies on screen, from Emma Peel (The Avengers 1961–1969) to Sydney Bristow (Alias 2001–2006). While Villanelle (Jody Comer) appears to present an amoral account of postfeminist ‘empowerment’, Eve (Sandra Oh) carries echoes of second-wave feminist concerns with community, morality and ethics. With each season the differences between Villanelle and Eve unravel, raising questions about what constitutes ‘quality’ television and how that might intersect with old-fashioned ideas about women's liberation. While the show depicts each character as ‘liberated’ in some respects, they are both entangled in corporate nets which repeatedly put them in danger and pull them back into violence as a form of labour.

Current responses to women's violence are rooted in stereotypical views that delink women's violence from the context of gendered inequality and social marginalisation that mediates it. In this chapter, we draw from feminist scholarship on women's violence, including violence by female sex workers (FSWs), and qualitative data to examine different forms of FSWs' violence against their male clients and the contexts that shape their use of violence. Twenty-seven in-depth interviews were conducted with FSWs recruited through snowball sampling in Uyo, Nigeria. Thematic analysis revealed three forms of violence: ‘situational violence’ – an individual-centred, self-defensive and spontaneous response to conflict situations; ‘collective violence’ – pre-meditated violence used by a group of FSWs to revenge the victimisation of its member, and ‘symbolic violence’ – the un-planned outcome of FSWs' violence that has the effect of deterring client violence and inducing cooperative behaviour. FSWs use violence to deter or counter threatened or enacted client violence and to exact revenge for past victimisation. They also use violence to enforce rules, extract payments and establish solidarity. FSWs' violence is contextualised within the everyday experience of client violence. This violence is not only reactionary; it is a pragmatic attempt to negotiate structural and gender dynamics that shape risks in sex work.

Now and again the discourse of women's violence being ignored and minimised emerges, but what is already known about this subject? Within the domestic abuse literature, there appears to be a weighty discord between Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) and family conflict researchers. Both groups present very distinct findings regarding the motives and prevalence of women's use of violence. This theoretical chapter aims to provide an historical and contemporary grounded overview of how women's use of violence in domestic abuse incidents has been depicted in the literature within these two groups of researchers (VAWG and family conflict). This analysis will be especially focussed on the underlying rationale behind women's violence and its prevalence and impact.

Obstetric violence is the mistreatment of women in the setting of obstetric care, which includes preconception, medically assisted reproduction, pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum. Obstetric violence follows and perpetuates the devaluation and subjugation of women in patriarchal societies, where socio-cultural conceptions contribute to a view of the female body as faulty and deviating from the male prototype. These shape the perception that female reproductive processes require technological corrections. The medicalisation of reproductive processes and the mechanisation of a normal life event, with the threat of death and other life-changing consequences, disempower women and objectify the body and its functions.

The entrance of women into the workforce and the specialised fields, feminising care professions, failed to shift this paradigm. Female health workers are trained in the procedures instituted by dominant patriarchal structures, expressing values encoded in the professional culture and the institutions where they work. As women conform to the models they are exposed to during their training, perpetuating corporate hierarchies and practices, they act as agents and perpetrators of obstetric violence. Thus, obstetric violence also constitutes a specific type of violence against women at the hands of other women.

The criminal justice system uses oversimplified stock narratives that place women who kill into limiting categories of ‘bad’, ‘mad’ and/or ‘victim’. These narratives deny women's agency by portraying their actions as lacking humanity, rationality and/or intentionality. Many feminist scholars argue that new narratives are needed to recognise women who kill as fully human, volitional subjects. This chapter uses the case of Maria Barberi to examine why and how defences founded on a victim-based agency fail. In 1895, Barberi killed Domenico Cataldo in a Manhattan barroom after enduring months of psychological, physical and sexual abuse. Her defence was grounded in the unwritten law – a widely held belief that people had the right to avenge their honour (when impugned by infidelity, seduction or sexual assault) with lethal violence. The case went through four stages: the initial trial, resulting in a murder conviction and death sentence; a nation-wide clemency campaign; an appeal; and a retrial, resulting in an acquittal. Throughout this process, Barberi's agency was undermined by negative stereotypes of gender and ethnicity, the political goals of women's rights activists, and Barberi's own self-interests. Ultimately, this case demonstrates that agency-based narratives are both difficult to deploy and desperately needed.

This chapter offers feminist perspectives on the violence exercised by female avengers in popular audiovisual products about narcotrafficking from Mexico and Colombia. Through the case studies of the narcotelenovela Rosario Tijeras (RCN Televisión, 2010) and the B movie Sanguinarios del M1 (Alonso Ortiz Lara, 2011), we explore how recent Latin American narco-narratives rearticulate the ‘rape-revenge’ film. Following Valencia's conceptualisation of necroempowerment (2012), we argue that female characters respond to rape with ruthless methods in an effort to regain agency. We combine existing literature in feminist film studies with postcolonial readings of the specificities of rape-revenge in the narco-universe where the violence these heroines use as retaliation is already the norm for their male counterparts. A close reading of revenge sequences underscores how vengeance can constitute a cathartic outlet for enraged female characters, challenging stereotypes of feminine passiveness and subverting gender hierarchies. However, it also perpetuates a patriarchal order based on toxic ideals of individual power achieved through bloody methods. We examine how empowerment can entrap female protagonists and serve to differentiate the types of violence that each gender has access to, and we discuss the problematic representation of rape as a transformative moment necessary for women to later become powerful.

Historically, counter-terrorism's attitude towards women has been complicated, partly because both counter-terrorism and terrorism were for many years considered almost exclusively a male business. This approach has also been reflected in the media's sensationalised representation of women involved in political violence. This chapter explores how women's participation in non-state political violence is still largely explained through traditional conservative notions of sexual difference that characterise women as irrational and highly influenceable, eliminating the possibility of any informed discussion. Focusing on the British case, the chapter shows how the actions of female militants are still bound to gendered narratives and limited to specific frames that generally portray violent women as highly sexualised and pathologised. Depictions of female terrorists and ‘radicalised’ women are based on stereotypes that reinforce the image of women as weak, easily influenced, naïve, driven by romantic emotions, deceitful and in constant need of protection and supervision. From an intersectional perspective, the chapter also explores the orientalist imaginaries of Muslim women who are seen as victims and as individuals lacking empowerment and agency. The discussion highlights ultimately that explanations of women's violence must go beyond myths that explain women's involvement in political violence via a wide range of personal and emotional factors, to examine political motivations and consideration of the complexity of their decisions, and the wider context.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetrated by women is an infrequently discussed topic. The lack of knowledge about female perpetrators of IPV results institutionally in insufficient prevention training and discursively in inadequate appreciation of the women's realm. Thus, this chapter will examine the debates on female IPV in the area of tension between violence prevalence research and the gender-based approach in social sciences and shows that female IPV as a women's reality of life is not limited to resistance violence and is far more complex. By collecting data from 58 female IPV cases, the author develops a typology of female offenders of IPV. Case files documented by the counsellors at violenTia, a German counselling specialist working with women perpetrating violence in their partnership, were examined. The counsellors' notes in the case files were analysed by methods of the empirically grounded type construction, that is the notes were thematically coded and dimensionalised and the case files were grouped according to empirical regularities, followed by an analysis of the contexts of meaning, the type construction and the characterisation of the types constructed. As per the findings, four types (1–4) and one subtype (3′) of female IPV were developed. The main dimensions of the typology are the structure of violence (asymmetrical/symmetrical), the pattern of violence (systematic/situational), the agency of violence (who has the ability and capacity to use violence) and attribution of meaning to violence (for example, explanations and legitimisation). The author concludes that types of female offenders show strong external heterogeneity. A finding which is important for appropriate treatment settings. Female perpetrators often lack the words to describe violent behaviour and repeatedly have unprocessed trauma. Accordingly, to understand and prevent IPV, it is necessary to widen perspectives on female offenders without reducing them to traditional gender stereotypes.

Woman's use of violence has been mainly conceptualised through woman's experiences of victimization. However, more recent perspectives emphasise the female agency, responsibility and meaning of woman's violence. Listening to the voices of victims of women's abuse is a powerful way of learning about woman's use of violence and its impact on the victims. We conducted focus groups with 41 men from four countries who experienced female-perpetrated abuse. Four major types of abuse were identified: psychological abuse and coercive control followed by physical violence and sexual violence. Psychological abuse ranged from verbal assaults and gaslighting to provoking physical altercations and reporting false accusations. Patterns of control included deliberate isolation, threatening false accusations and financial domination. Men reported that women initiated physical violence for various reasons, including jealousy and rage. Some women used different objects that could seriously hurt, including knife, while others slapped, bit, punched or kicked. Several men reported female-perpetrated sexual abuse. Woman's use of violence in the intimate relationship should be treated seriously. A more gender-inclusive approach to partner abuse is required that can focus on a better prevention of abuse for all victims.