New Technologies and Separation/Divorce Violence against Women

This chapter examines how new electronic technologies are used by men to exert control and power over women during and after separation and divorce. Included in this chapter are sections on cyberstalking, social network site intrusion, and image-based sexual abuse.

The Extent and Distribution of Separation/Divorce Assault

How many women are victimized by lethal and nonlethal physical and sexual separation or divorce assault? What are the key risk factors associated with these harms? This chapter seeks to answer these questions, drawing from feminist and other sociological perspectives on violence against women.

Explaining Separation/Divorce Violence against Women

This chapter reviews widely read and cited social scientific theories of separation and divorce violence against women. Explanations covered include the male proprietariness thesis, the challenge thesis, a feminist/male peer support model of separation and divorce sexual assault, a rural masculinity crisis/male peer support model of separation/divorce sexual assault, and the social and economic exclusion model of separation/divorce woman abuse in public housing.

Children as Collateral Victims of Separation/Divorce Woman Abuse

This chapter draws together diverse sources in order to show how children are victimized by abuse at separation and divorce. It also reviews some of the cultural and structural reasons why woman abuse and child abuse are not handled appropriately in the family law context.

Conceptualizing Separation/Divorce Violence against Women

This chapter challenges the “common sense” notion that it is essential for a couple to be living apart to be considered separated or divorced. In making this challenge, the authors make the case for a broad, gender-specific definition of separation/divorce violence, one that includes acts of physical violence and psychological means of victimization.

What Is to Be Done about Separation/Divorce Violence against Women?

This chapter argues that a single strategy will not end the atrocities committed both by men continuing their abuse after separation and by those who were not abusive during a relationship but became so after their partners left them. The solutions proposed are legal and criminal justice reforms; social services; economic policies; feminist men's efforts; and new electronic technologies.