Domestic violence represents a crucial underpinning of women's continued subordination, which is why much scholarly and activist energy has been expended in designing, implementing, and evaluating programs to reduce it. On the basis of three years of fieldwork, the authors analyze the interactional processes through which masculinity was constructed in one such program. They find that facilitators had success in getting the men to agree to take responsibility, use egalitarian language, control anger, and choose nonviolence, but the men were successful (...) in resisting taking victims' perspectives, deflecting facilitators' overtures to be emotionally vulnerable, and defining themselves as hardworking men entitled to a patriarchal dividend. The authors' analysis contributes to understandings of how hegemonic masculinity is interactionally constituted, and it adds evidence to the debate about such programs' effectiveness by raising the issue of how well the program met its goal of transforming masculinity. (shrink)

The concept of non-discrimination has been central in the feminist challenge to gendered violence within international human rights law. This article critically explores non-discrimination and the challenge it seeks to pose to gendered violence through the work of Judith Butler. Drawing upon Butler’s critique of heteronormative sex/gender, the article utilises an understanding of gendered violence as effected by the restrictive scripts of sex/gender within heteronormativity to illustrate how the development of non-discrimination within international human rights law renders it ineffective to (...) challenge gendered violence due to its own commitments to binarised and asymmetrical sex/gender. However, the article also seeks to encourage a reworking of non-discrimination beyond the heteronormative sex binary through employing Butler’s concept of cultural translation. Analysis via the lens of cultural translation reveals the fluidity of non-discrimination as a universal concept and offers new possibilities for feminist engagement with universal human rights. (shrink)

This case study article draws upon experiences of a doctoral student and supervisor to reflect on the way in which we construct ethical narratives around our research. We seek to draw attention to the manner in which strict adherence to ERB guidelines can be problematic and risks causing more harm than it seeks to mitigate. We aim to show that we as researchers should focus on the potential harm caused to particularly vulnerable participants and draw attention to the need to (...) refocus conceptions of ethics away from a narrow, bureaucratic framework and towards moral concerns so as to avoid causing undue harm. (shrink)

This article applies a structuralist perspective on gender to investigate predictors of marital dissolution among men and women who are victimized by partner violence. Using panel data from the first and second waves of the National Survey of Families and Households, the study investigates the question of whether the differential positioning of heterosexual women and men in the structure of gender inequality affects their likelihood of getting out of two types of violent relationships—those characterized by minor/symmetrical violence and those characterized (...) by severe/asymmetrical violence. Results indicate that the odds of leaving a violent relationship are affected by some indicators of structural gender inequality, particularly economic dependency, and that there are differences in the factors that predict dissolution between the two types of violence. (shrink)

As sexualities educators, we rarely examine the broader social context our sexualities are shaped within, nor do we often give meaningful instruction to students on how to come to terms with emotions and desire or choosing and being good partners. Some of the ways we 'do' masculinity, femininity and gender in this culture can compromise our ability to fully engage in loving relationships with our selves and others. Teaching sexualities as transformational learning, critical theory challenges us to do better, both (...) as individuals and as a society aware of and resisting oppression. Instead of teaching as though the body and spirit can thrive independently of one another, an authentic sexualities education would address the many dimensions of human experience, including morality, physicality and emotionality. (shrink)