Preface and Acknowledgement

Violence rooted in gender and its intersections with race, sexuality, class, nationality, ability, and age is a global problem. It manifests in everything from date rape and violence in the family to queer-bashing and rape as a tool of war. The majority of the world’s girls and women and LGBTQIA+ people experience some form of gender violence, whether verbal, physical, or sexual. The consequences of this pandemic of gender violence are profound for individuals, communities, and societies.

Feminists are committed to reducing and someday ending gender violence. Feminist activism against gender violence uses street art, protest, education, policy, and legislation to try to address the root causes as well as impacts of gender violence.

This textbook explores what gender violence is, why it happens, what results, and how we can combat it. Because gender violence is a global problem, this textbook takes a global approach. Its editors and authors come from all over the world and bring perspectives that challenge any single approach to understanding or addressing the problem.

Our goal for this textbook is to encourage you to deepen your understanding of gender violence and discover ways you can resist and be engaged in movements to end gender violence.

As feminists, we are committed to generating and sharing knowledge that empowers readers to make a difference in the world around them. That’s why we chose to create an open access resource for students. The book offers readable text with learning activities, sidebars, questions for reflection, and additional resources for you to explore on your own. We hope it helps you learn and grow and find your place in the struggle for global gender justice.

We want to thank the incredible authors who contributed their time and effort in writing interesting, informative, and challenging chapters—Patti Duncan, Rebecca Lambert, Janet Lockhart, Razan Ghazzawi, Maria Franco-Garcia, Laura Pallarés Ameneiro, Xosé M. Santos, Asha Shukla, Jaya Phookan, Pavitra, Virginija Juréniené, Mehra Shirazi, Kamalaveni Veni, Meena Gopal, Whitney Archer, Elizabeth Kennedy, Jayamala Mayilsamy, Shannon Garvin, and Giovanna Vingelli.

Thanks also to graduate students Dharmakrishna/Dharma Mirza, Anita K. Gándara, Sajjad Kalanaky, and Eric Warren, who contributed sidebars to some of the chapters.

We are especially grateful to Finn Johnson who beta-tested the book in his WGSS 280 Resisting Gender Violence class at Oregon State University and who wrote the thought-provoking learning activities.

We also thank the staff at OSU’s Open Educational Resources Unit, and we thank the OERU for the financial support to create this resource.

Finally, we thank our colleagues and students who have helped shape our thinking about gender violence and the ways we teach to help bring about a more inclusive, equitable, just, and nonviolent world.