Forsaken Females: The Global Brutalization of Women

by Andrea Parrot, Nina Cummings

Women around the world routinely suffer from beatings, rape, torture and murder. These are not the practices of a few demented individuals, but are often institutionalized, culturally-sanctioned behaviors. Millions of women live in a constant state of isolation, terror and fear; for most, escape is nearly impossible due to economic, social, or cultural restrictions. Forsaken Females describes the many types of global brutalization that occur against women: including feticide, infanticide, female genital mutilation, sexual slavery, honor killing, acid attacks, trafficking, dowry death, rape, and intimate partner violence. The violence is varied in both method and practice and is often supported by patriarchal ideologies or policies that maintain the social conditions and cultural framework that accept womenOs brutalization. Forsaken Females also addresses the physical, emotional and economic impact of the violence. The discussion is structured around the experiences of women who describe their personal victimization. Each chapter concludes with examples of promising policies and practices developed to address and reduce violence perpetrated against women.

Genres: Feminism, Womens, Nonfiction

270 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Tamora Pierce]

This is an overview-type book of crimes against women around the world, with statistics drawn from a number of sources, some personal stories, and some details about laws which have been set up to protect women and children in different areas, when such laws were put in place, how well they've done, and any new programs and incentives which show success against a worldwide problem. The topics cover women-on-women violence as well as men-on-women violence, and go into the kind of stressors which raise the level of violence. From my own earlier reading, I knew much of this material, but the chapter on female genital mutilation was very hard to bear, as was the material on honor killings and bride burning. There are drawings of the four types of female genital mutilation, just so you know. The writers cover the background of these changes, how they are done, and the reasoning behind them, and they do not flinch away from the fact that it is a thing done to girls by older women, many of the girls' family. They also discuss the laws nations enact to prohibit the procedure as it is brought to them by immigrants.

The single most effective device for change that I drew from the end-of-chapter material is local education, not from shrill outsiders, but from local people who respect the language and belong to the culture. And the point is made over and over again that this is a long, hard job, but it's the way that works, against a problem that has existed for millenia.

[Moth]

One thing you should be aware of before picking this book up is that it was meant as a course companion. The writing style is very typical of a university book - dry and focused on information. That being said, I did not find the style to be an obstacle to finishing the book rather quickly.

The book starts off (ch. 1 and 2) with laying out some general theoretical and methodological approaches, then goes into a series of chapters which discuss specific types of violence against women (ie. sex trafficking, female genital cutting, honor killing). Each chapter ends with a section about successful approaches taken in response to the discussed issue. The final two chapters go over general impacts of violence against women, lay out implications of it, and suggest different types of action (based on previous experience).

While I personally think the book could have been more elaborate, I also think the authors did a good job in effectively covering all aspects of the issue. It's a quick read, despite the heavy subject matter, and I would absolutely recommend it to everyone - regardless of other involvement in feminist activism or human rights.

[Tinea]

Important subjects but this book's treatment of them is poor, choppy, and lacks any systemic analysis. Very hard to read, both because of the brutality of the subject matter but also because there was no overarching theoretical message to tie any of it together. The examples used were very randomly drawn from all over the world without explanation; this book was just all over the place, hard to follow, and oof! horrific.