ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on women's experiences of domestic violence. Domestic violence as defined and outlined above has been the most visible in feminist theory, which has argued that partner violence is primarily a problem of men using violence to maintain control over their women, a control to which they feel they are entitled and that is supported by a patriarchal culture. In the context of domestic violence, understanding the patterned regularities and common tendencies is vital because they form legal, policy and practice responses to keep women and children safe and to enable healing from violence by intimate partners. The objectives are: to examine different contexts of domestic violence; to interrogate the unique factors present in these different contexts that impact on women's experiences and understandings of abuse; and to demonstrate how gender is implicated in these unique factors that shape domestic violence.
