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Drawing on empirical research which incorporated biographical interviews with two older male perpetrators, this chapter develops theoretical conceptualisations of the histories, experiences and motives of these men. Four key areas are highlighted, which will be subject to closer scrutiny in relation to extant literature: (i) gender, particularly notions of masculinity, power and entitlement; (ii) attitudes relating to the use of violence both within intimate relationships and generally (iii) critical junctures in the life course which triggered attempts to desist; and (iv) an exploration of maturation and completion of treatment programmes in relation to their use of violence, future risks and efforts towards desistance.

In a village where the (audible) population is fairly evenly split between men and women, where most women of working age are employed or run their own business, where women are even (gasp!) in the cricket team, surely they have better things to talk about than the men in their lives? How often do the women of Ambridge talk about things that aren't the men of Ambridge? And when they do, how long does the conversation last? The Bechdel–Wallace Test was created by Alison Bechdel in her webcomic Dykes to Watch Out For (1985), in which a character says that she will only watch a film that has at least two women in it, who talk to each other, about something other than a man. It is sometimes used as a simplistic measure of the lack of representation (not only of women) in the media. This chapter reports on five months of eavesdropping in Ambridge, using the Bechdel–Wallace Test to investigate gender bias in the Borsetshire countryside. The data show that one-third of the episodes during this period passed the test, while another third did not contain any conversations between women at all. The results include how often individual women speak to other women, which pairs converse most frequently and the main topics of conversation during the analysis period.