State Crime, Women and Gender

The United Nations has called violence against women the most pervasive, yet least recognized human rights abuse in the world and there is a long-established history of the systematic victimization of women by the state during times of peace and conflict. This book contributes to the established literature on women, gender and crime and the growing research on state crime, and extends the discussion of violence against women to include the role and extent of crime and violence perpetrated by the state.

State Crime, Women and Gender examines state-perpetrated violence against women in all its various forms. Drawing on case studies from around the world, patterns of state-perpetrated violence are examined as it relates to women’s victimization, their role as perpetrators, resistors of state violence, as well as their engagement as professionals in the international criminal justice system. From the direct involvement of Condoleezza Rice in the United States-led war on terror, to the women of Egypt’s Arab Spring Uprising, to Afghani poetry as a means to resist state-sanctioned patriarchal control, case examples are used to highlight the pervasive and enduring problem of state-perpetrated violence against women.

The exploration of topics that have not previously been addressed in the criminological literature, such as women as perpetrators of state violence and their role as willing consumers who reinforce and replicate the existing state-sanctioned patriarchal status quo, makes State Crime, Women and Gender a must-read for students and scholars engaged in the study of state crime, victimology and feminist criminology.