ABSTRACT
Feminist explanations of domestic violence emerged and grew from trying to understand why men beat their wives, and so focused initial attention on heterosexual relationships within the institution of marriage or partnership. It provides a outline of the above concepts as they are an important foundation in understanding the emergence of post-structuralist ideas in feminism broadly and in domestic violence theory. Feminists argue that many of the problems women face, including domestic violence, are caused by such social, cultural and political forces, hence the feminist mantra 'the personal is political'. Gender is one of the most fundamental concepts of feminist theorising; hence feminists argue that domestic violence needs to be understood in terms of gendered power relations. The intention of this book is to re-examine the role of gender in domestic violence by exposing the complexities and nuances of gender positioning, and how gender interacts with multiple social conditions, processes and discourses in the lives of diverse communities of women.
