ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the unique factors that shape rural women's experiences of domestic violence, and how gendered discourses feature in contexts of rurality. It shows that rurality is considered unstable and diverse, and that there are many cultures of particular rural communities, rather than unitary notions of a rural culture. The chapter draws on Wendt's work but also brings new understandings of gender by examining the interview transcripts to theorise gendered discourses and particular subject positions offered to rural women and how these impact on their experience of domestic violence. Research has shown that there are unique factors rural women experience and endure when living with and seeking help for domestic violence compared to urban women. The importance of the domestic sphere in sustaining farming life and their children's futures reinforced feminine discourses of loyalty to family and children because it legitimised women's roles and feelings of self-worth in rural contexts.
