Sex, Violence and Crime: Foucault and the 'Man' Question

ISBN-13: 9781904385929 / Angielski / Twarda / 2008 / 246 str.

Adrian Howe

Opis

What happens when you sex violent crimes? More specifically, what happens when you make men's violence against women the subject of a conversation or the focus of scholarly attention? The short answer is: all hell breaks loose. Adrian Howe explores some of the ways in which this persistent and pervasive form of violence has been named and unnamed as a significant social problem in western countries over the past four decades. Addressing what she calls the 'Man' question-so named because it pays attention to the discursive place occupied, or more usually vacated, by men in accounts of their violence against women-she explores what happens when that violence is placed on the criminological and political agenda. Written in a theoretically-informed yet accessible style, Sex, Violence and Crime-Foucault and the 'Man' Question provides a novel and highly original approach to questions of sex and violence in contemporary western society. Directed at criminologists, students and, more widely, at anyone interested in these issues, it challenges readers to come to grips with postmodern feminist reconceptualisations of the fraught relationship between sex, violence and crime in order to better combat men's violence against women and children.

Men’s violence against women has been in and out of the spotlight for years and governments of western countries have struggled to put a label on such behaviour. Is it a significant social problem or not? In recent years we have heard more about so-called ‘domestic violence’ and the policies put in place to combat it. However it seems that in western civilisation we are still unclear as to how this type of violence should be framed, and therefore combated. Are the men who commit violence against women held to account, or are they allowed to hide behind explanations, excuses and the women in their lives? Adrian Howe examines the ‘man’ question in a foucauldian framework, exploring what happens when sex, violence and crime, and more particularly, men’s violence against women, are placed on the criminological and political agenda.

 

Written in a theoretically informed and yet accessible style, Sex, Violence and Crime—Foucault and the ‘Man’ Question provides a novel critical approach to questions of sex and violence in contemporary Western society. It challenges criminologists and students to come to grips with post-modern feminist reconceptualisations of the relationship between sex, violence and crime in order to better understand and combat men's violence against women and children.

Spis treści

On the Popularity of Sex and the Topicality of Violence.  Sex, Violence and Method.  Sex, Violence and Criminology.  Pierre Rivire: A Postmodern Case Study (or For and Against Foucault).  'Strange' Men: From Sex to Sex Killers in the 'Age of Sex Crime'.  Putting Men on the Agenda: Racializing Sexual Violence.  Naming and Un-Naming Men's Violence: 'Domestic Violence' and other Discursive Strategies.  The 'Discovery' and 'Rediscovery' of Child (Sexual) Assault.  The 'Woman Question' in Sexed Crime: Woman as Victim/Killer/Agent

O autorze

Adrian Howe is Professor of Criminology at the University of Central Lancashire and is the author of Punish and Critique: Towards a Feminist Theory of Penality.