Review by Choice Review
Three editors (Concordia Univ., Mount St. Mary's College in Los Angeles, and Univ. of Toronto) have assembled essays from 14 contributors worldwide dealing with violence against women and girls. They focus on 1) interpersonal violence, such as rape and battering, and 2) systemic violence, such as sexual harassment, pornography, prostitution, and violence in a medical context. This theoretical look attempts to show how philosophy can help in examining a difficult and deep-rooted social problem. That approach, however, results in a lack of practical information or moral argumentation concerning policy issues in, for example, domestic violence. Though some 1993 statistics are cited to the effect that police seldom arrest the purported perpetrator of domestic violence, there is no mention of mandatory arrest or "probable cause" statutes at the US Federal, state, and local levels. That omission is quite serious. No warnings are given to women about the uses of violence in self-defense in a context of mandatory arrest laws or about serious backlashes against feminist women using it. A few self-indulgent articles present autobiographical accounts of violence but neglect the policy issues covering the vast majority of women. Although the book exemplifies academic ignorance of actual domestic violence work, upper-division undergraduates and graduate students in feminist studies and social work may find it interesting. S. S. Merrill; Elmhurst College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
