Feminist Responses to Injustices of the State and its Institutions: Politics, Intervention, Resistance

The academic and activist contributions to this collection explore contemporary research areas and pursue new discursive directions in order to present a feminist criminology, built on feminist praxis, for the twenty-first century. From the denial of abortion rights in Ireland to sexual violence against British South Asian women in England, the state and its institutions continue to fail women. This book offers a counter narrative to contemporary injustices and a persistent culture of victim-blaming. Providing a direct challenge to regressive and ineffective theory, policy and practice, this book resists the politics of gendered victimisation through extending feminist analyses of the state and documenting interventions into contemporary injustices.

Table of Contents:
Part I: Feminist Epistemology 1. Introduction: Denying Oppression a Future – Gender, the State and Feminist Praxis – Kym Atkinson, Úna Barr and Helen Monk 2. Denying Violence Against Women a Future: Feminist Epistemology and the Struggle for Social Justice – Anette Ballinger Part II: State Practice and Feminist Praxis 3. State (In)action and Feminist Resistance to the Denial of Abortion Rights in Northern Ireland – Maev McDaid and Brian Christopher Nelis 4. At the Limits of ‘Acceptable’ Speech: A Feminist Analysis of Official Discourse on Child Sexual Abuse – Katie Tucker 5. Universities, Sexual Violence and the Institutional Operation of Power – Kym Atkinson 6. Gender, Policing and Social Order: Restating the Case for a Feminist Analysis of Policing – Will Jackson and Helen Monk 7. Sanctuary as Social Justice: A Feminist Critique – Victoria Canning Part III: The Criminal Justice System and Feminist Praxis 8. Constructing a Feminist Desistance: Resisting Responsibilization – Úna Barr and Emily Luise Hart 9. Improving Police Responses to Sexual Abuse Offences Against British South Asian Women – Aisha K. Gill 10. Traumatizing the Traumatized: Self-Harm and Death in Women’s Prisons in England and Wales – Kym Atkinson, Helen Monk and Joe Sim 11. Sensing Injustice? Defences to Murder – Adrian Howe 12. An Anti-Carceral Feminist Response to Youth Justice Involved Girls – Jodie Hodgson Afterword – Pragna Patel

About the Author :
Kym Atkinson is Lecturer in Criminology and Human Rights at Sheffield Hallam University. na Barr is Lecturer in Criminology at Liverpool John Moores University. Helen Monk is Lecturer in Criminology at Liverpool John Moores University. Katie Tucker is Associate Lecturer at the Open University.

Review :
"This book makes a significant contribution to the scholarship about social and criminal justice issues relating to the lived experiences of women and girls. It should become a classic in feminist literature.” Rebecca Dobash and Russell Dobash, University of Manchester "This collection is a timely, necessary and powerful addition to feminist and critical criminological debate, exposing and documenting state power, harms and injustice and the strategies demanded for change." Kathryn Chadwick, Manchester Metropolitan University