Molly Dragiewicz

This article draws on interviews with 20 Australian women subjected to technology-facilitated coercive control (TFCC), foregrounding their accounts of grief and institutional betrayal. Findings show that while the harms of TFCC were significant, survivors’ experiences were often minimized and dismissed by justice institutions. Women experienced grief due to abuse and separation from partners who had betrayed them. This loss was compounded when seeking help. We propose that disenfranchised grief is an underexplored response to domestic violence and institutional betrayal as well as a potential intervention site, particularly in relation to technology-facilitated abuse.

This article investigates survivors’ experiences participating in research interviews about technology-facilitated domestic violence. University research ethics committees often assume that participating in research on violence and abuse is distressing for survivors. Scholars have called for research testing this assumption. This article contributes to the evidence base on the benefits and risks of asking research participants about gender-based violence.

Methods
This article is based on semi-structured interviews with 20 Australian domestic violence survivors. Template analysis was used to code the interviews and develop key themes.

Results
The five themes derived from the interviews include reflection on recovery and personal growth; helping other women; rejecting victim-shaming; empowerment; and the importance of timing.

Conclusion
All participants reported positive experiences taking part in the study. However, the authors noticed substantial differences in participant narratives across service cohorts. The implications of recruiting through channels associated with different points in trauma trajectories warrant attention.

This is the first article to analyze children's involvement in technology-facilitated coercive control in Australia. The primary research question was ''How do mothers describe their children's involvement in technology-facilitated coercive control?". This article is based on incidental findings from a larger study on Australian women's experiences of technology-facilitated abuse in the context of domestic violence. Although children were not the focus of the study, semi-structured interviews with twelve mothers yielded discussion of children's involvement in the abuse. We used thematic analysis to identify key dynamics and contexts of this abuse. We found that mothers and their children are co-victims of coercive control. Mothers interviewed for the study reported that children were involved in technology-facilitated coercive control directly and indirectly. This study bridges the gap between the extant research on children and coercive control and technology-facilitated abuse by highlighting the ways children are involved in technology-facilitated coercive control. The social and legal contexts of co-parenting with abusive fathers exposed mothers and children to ongoing post-separation abuse, extending abusive fathers' absent presence in the lives of children

Domestic violence is a pervasive social problem in Australia. Digital media are increasingly integral to its dynamics. Technology-facilitated coercive control (TFCC) is a form of gender-based violence. This article examines domestic violence survivors' experiences with TFCC, drawing on interviews with 20 Australian women. Study results enhance understanding of how abusers use digital media. We highlight four key contexts for understanding the role of technology in domestic violence: the coercive and controlling relationship, separation abuse, co-parenting and survivors' safety work. These contexts provide insight into the dynamics of TFCC and illuminate key differences between this and other forms of online abuse.

Gender-based violence online is rampant, ranging from harassment of women who are public figures on social media to stalking intimate partners using purpose-built apps. This is not an issue that can be addressed by individual states alone, nor can it be addressed satisfactorily through legal means. The normalization of misogyny and abuse online both reflects and reinforces systemic inequalities. Addressing gender-based violence online will require the intervention of the technology companies that govern the commercial Internet to prevent and combat abuse across networks and services. We argue that international human rights instruments provide an opportunity to identify with more precision the responsibilities of telecommunications companies and digital media platforms to mitigate harm perpetrated through their networks, and ensure that the systems they create do not reproduce gendered inequality. Finally, we present initial recommendations for platforms to promote human rights and fulfill their responsibilities under the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

The use of technology, including smartphones, cameras, Internet-connected devices, computers and platforms such as Facebook, is now an essential part of everyday life. Such technology is used to maintain social networks and carry out daily tasks. However, this technology can also be employed to facilitate domestic and family violence. Drawing on interviews undertaken with 55 domestic and family violence survivors in Brisbane, Australia, this article outlines survivors' experiences of technology-facilitated domestic and family violence. The frequency and nature of abusive behaviours described by the women suggest this is a key form of abuse deserving more significant attention.

Romance fraud affects thousands of victims globally, yet few scholars have studied it. The dynamics of relationships between victims and offenders are not well understood, and the effects are rarely discussed. This article adapts the concept of psychological abuse from studies of domestic violence to better understand romance fraud. Using interviews with 21 Australian romance fraud victims, we show how offenders use non-violent tactics to ensure compliance with ongoing demands for money. This article identifies similarities and differences between domestic violence and romance fraud. We argue that thinking through domestic violence and romance fraud together offers potential benefits to both bodies of research.

This special issue presents a series of papers by scholars who participated in a workshop entitled ‘Men's Groups: Challenging Feminism’,1 which was held at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Canada, 26‐27 May 2014. The workshop was organised by Susan B Boyd, Professor of Law and Chair in Feminist Legal Studies at the UBC Faculty of Law, and was sponsored by the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies at UBC, the Peter A Allard School of Law, the Centre for Feminist Legal Studies at UBC, and the Canadian Journal of Women and the Law. The aim of the workshop was to bring together feminist scholars from multiple disciplines
and multiple national contexts to explore a source of resistance to feminism that has been largely overlooked in scholarly research: the growing number of nationally situated and globally linked organisations acting in the name of men's rights and interests which contend that men are discriminated against in law, education and government funding, and that feminism is to blame for this. This special edition presents eight papers inspired by the workshop, authored by scholars from Canada, New Zealand, Poland, Sweden and the United States. A second special issue comprised of eight other papers inspired by the workshop was published in the Canadian Journal of Women and the Law as volume 28(1) in 2016.

La violence conjugale connait actuellement une visibilité accrue en Australie. Les auteures du présent article utilisent les réseaux sociaux pour analyser les débats publics sur cette violence selon un cadre théorique précis, qu'Adrian Howe a appelé la question de « l'homme » : où et comment les hommes sont-ils visibles ou invisibles dans les récits de leur violence envers les femmes? L'article présente une e ´tude qualitative d'une conversation sur Twitter au sujet d'un e ´pisode axé sur la famille diffusé en février 2015 dans le cadre de l'e ´mission Q & A, a ` la télévision nationale d'Australie. Nous avons remarqué que dans cette conversation la place des hommes e ´tait remise en question. Certains tweets privilégiaient les voix et les craintes des hommes, comme l'ont fait les organisateurs et les producteurs de l'e ´mission. Cependant, il y avait une forte présence de voix féministes dans la présentation des faits, légitimant le point de vue des survivantes et relevant des e ´léments culturels antiféministes afin de défier les discours hégémoniques et patriarcaux sur la violence des hommes envers les femmes. Domestic violence is currently undergoing a period of heightened visibility in Australia. This article uses social media to analyze public discussions about this violence with respect to a specific theoretical frame, which Adrian Howe has called the ''Man'' question: where and how are men visible or invisible in narratives about their violence against women? The article presents a qualitative study of the Twitter conversation surrounding a special episode of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's television program Q&A, themed around family violence, which aired in February 2015. We found that the place of men in this conversation was contested. Some tweets privileged men's voices and concerns, as did the organization and production of the program. However, feminist voices were also highly visible via presenting facts, legitimating survivor voices, and recuperating anti-feminist memes to challenge hegemonic patriarchal discourses on men's violence against women.

Universities and colleges across the country offer courses on domestic violence. A few programs have developed such academic opportunities even further, offering specializations, graduate certificates, and degrees concentrated on domestic violence. This paper introduces two innovative academic programs: the undergraduate Domestic Violence Prevention and Services Concentration and Minor at the University of Delaware and the graduate Program on Domestic Violence at the University of Colorado Denver. The authors review the structure, content, benefits, and challenges of these programs with a view to informing and inspiring others who might be interested in establishing similar curricula at their own institutions.

A large literature shows that woman abuse varies across intimate relationship categories (e.g., marriage, divorce, separation). However it is unclear whether relationship status variations in violence against women differ across urban, suburban, and rural areas. The main objective of this paper to help fill this research gap using aggregate 1992 to 2005 National Crime Victimization Survey data.

Despite plentiful efforts to identify perpetrator, victim, and incident characteristics correlated with reporting violence against women to police, few studies have addressed the contexts that shape such reporting. Even fewer have examined variations in these contexts across geographic areas. Drawing upon National Crime Victimization Survey data from 1992 through 2009, this paper uses conjunctive analysis of case configurations to identify and investigate the dominant situational contexts of reporting of violence against women to police across rural, suburban, and urban areas. Our findings show that context matters and the importance of incident, perpetrator, and victim characteristics vary across geographic areas.

Claims that violence is gender-neutral are increasingly becoming “common sense” in Canada. Anti-feminist groups assert that the high rates of woman abuse uncovered by major Canadian national surveys conducted in the early 1990s are greatly exaggerated and that women are as violent as men. The production of degendered rhetoric about “intimate partner violence” (IPV) contributes to claims that women’s and men’s violence is symmetrical and mutual. The objective of this article is to review some common claims about Canadian women’s use of non-lethal force in heterosexual intimate relationships in the context of the political struggle over the hegemonic frame for violence and abuse.

To date, no large study has looked at whether separation/divorce sexual assault varies across urban, suburban, and rural areas. We use 1992-2009 NCVS data to estimate the percentage of separation/divorce sexual assault against females in urban, suburban, and rural communities. In addition, we identify and compare the relative risk of sexual assault victimization for females across areas. Findings indicate that a higher percentage of rural divorced/separated females were victims of rape/sexual assault than were urban divorced/separated females. In addition, rural separated females are victims of intimate rape/sexual assault at significantly higher rates than their suburban and urban counterparts.

Despite earlier critiques of left realists’ failure to adequately address feminist concerns, recent left realist theorizing and empirical research have made valuable contributions to the understanding of woman abuse and other forms of gendered violence. Left realism has further potential to contribute to the criminological understanding of woman abuse and its contributing socioeconomic and cultural contexts. This article describes left realists’ early efforts to include gender in analyses of crime. It then summarizes feminist critiques of left realism and reviews the work that has responded to them. Drawing upon two prominent strands of feminist left realist theorizing about violence and gender, the paper proposes a preliminary left realist theory of antifeminist fathers’ rights group activism. It then outlines a provisional research agenda on antifeminist fathers’ rights groups, and proposes short and long term policies and practices to enhance the safety of abused mothers and their children following divorce or separation.

This article combines information from fathers’ rights Web sites with demographic, historical, and other information to provide an empirically based analysis of fathers’ rights advocacy in the United States. Content analysis discerns three factors that are central to the groups’ rhetoric: representing domestic violence allegations as false, promoting presumptive joint custody and decreasing child support, and portraying women as perpetrators of domestic abuse. Fathers’ rights organizations and themes are examined in relation to state-level demographics and custody policy. The implications of fathers’ rights activism for battered women and their children are explored.

... Using the strict scrutiny standard of review, the court held that under the state's Equal Protection Clause, women and men are "similarly situated" with regard to domestic violence and, therefore, the language in the code should be revised to make state funding for domestic violence shelter services under that code gender-neutral. ... By failing to acknowledge the important role that gender plays in domestic violence, the Woods decision set a precedent that threatens to erode the already inadequate laws and services specifically created in response to the quantitatively and qualitatively different types of violence faced by women, men, and children. ... Finally, Parts V, VI, and VII will discuss why, even assuming men and women are similarly situated, the California statutes meet the strict scrutiny standard because the state's program of women's shelters is narrowly tailored to meet the compelling state interest in protecting women from the immediate danger of injury and homicide and the long term social and economic effects of intimate partner violence. ... Women and men are dissimilarly situated with regard to domestic violence for three primary reasons: the historical acceptance of men's violence against women; women's lesser access to material resources relative to men; and women's grossly disproportionate risk of violence from male partners. ... Unlike female victims for whom domestic homicide was most common, the 1.6% of homicides of men that were domestic violence related comprised the smallest category of homicides of men. ... The increasing recognition by the courts and state legislatures across the country that domestic violence is gender discrimination that mainly occurs against women strengthens the argument that the gender-based classification in Woods is permissible to remedy past discrimination as
set forth in cases like Califano and Miller.

The backlash against gender-sensitive responses to women’s victimization, offending, and imprisonment is inseparable from contemporary reaction against feminism and other progressive movements. The backlash against the American Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) provides a prime example of this resistance. Despite widespread support for VAWA and other policies designed to address violence against women, some constituencies object to their existence. The author investigates fathers’ rights rhetoric on VAWA as an example of antifeminist backlash.

In this article, I share some of my texts and tactics with others who might find themselves in a position to teach about human trafficking. I include my case for why feminist teachers should teach trafficking, an overview of the debate that divides the field, my rationale for organizing the course the way that I did, issues to consider when designing a course on trafficking, and some suggested readings, films, and web resources.

Despite its title, Dutton’s new book does not focus on rethinking domestic violence. Instead, it is another example of the conservative backlash against feminism in general and feminist research on woman abuse in particular, a response that “helps to
veil the extent and brutality of this problem and to block efforts to deal with it” (Hammer, 2002, p. 5). Dutton’s preoccupation with feminism is reflected in entire chapters dedicated to criticizing feminist theory and research and the book’s “bottom
line” summary, where half of the main points concern Dutton’s interpretation of feminism rather than new insights about domestic violence research. Accordingly, the main objective of this commentary is to respond to some of Dutton’s criticisms of
feminist inquiry and practice.