ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book examines a range of feminist theories, and explores how the law has responded to violence against women. It illustrates that socio-legal landscape is undulating. The book presents obvious and obscured obstacles for women accessing legal remedies in general, and even more so for survivors of violence. It explains holistic constructions of violence against women and of the law. The book focuses on non-criminal legislation: protection order laws. It also focuses on the legal processes and the victim witnesses' experiences in the courtroom. The book provides examples of judicial heuristics that are formed and influenced in large part from the normative and invisible assumptions. It examines reform, common law and studies that have looked at how these laws are implemented by the gatekeepers.
