ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses feminist research methodology and the ontological concerns of existential-phenomenology connections in building a feminist phenomenological approach to violence against women and girls. It explores situation, embodiment, habit, and freedom concepts, laying the theoretical foundations for understanding the phenomenological impact of mens intrusion. The book presents the most common practices reported by participants, categorised into: ordinary interruptions, verbal intrusions, and the gaze. It looks to those that were experienced less routinely and that through this were often more memorable: physical intrusions, flashing and public masturbation. The book addresses the possibilities for restoration from this alienated modality of embodiment, tracing the resistance in women's stories and finding their attempts to transform the habitual attitudes taken towards the body. It investigates in more detail how mens intrusive practices came to be experienced in the way they were in both childhood and adolescence.
