ABSTRACT

In this chapter, the author aims to combine feminist security studies with feminist research on violence in order to deepen understandings of how gender and agency can be understood in the context of violence. She focuses on how violence is gendered, how gender norms and normative notions of gender inform manifestations and practices of violence in public and private spheres, as well as to look for possibilities of agency in the midst of violence. The author describes emphasis to the complexity of violence as an integral element to society and culture and discusses their understanding of what gendered agency is in the context of violence. She also discusses the challenges in defining violence in feminist terms. The author also focuses on what violence is seen to say about gender and agency. She seeks to challenge feminist scholarship which equates violence enacted by women as transformative of the normative violence of hierarchic gender order.