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Gendered and Racialised Power and the Law

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Unintended Consequences of Domestic Violence Law

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Victims and Victimology ((PSVV))

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Abstract

This chapter addresses the complex set of interrelated factors that explain the research findings: laws designed to stop men’s violence against women result in criminalisation of women, and these negative consequences are more pronounced for Indigenous than non-Indigenous women. There are three key explanatory factors: the role of formal equality in the law embeds gender and racialised power relationships; formulaic implementation of the law reinforces those power relationships, and early feminist advocacy had not envisioned the more complex set of meanings and motivations for violence in couple relationships. The chapter addresses patriarchal power in the law but focuses more on racialised power and intersectionality, since that is the primary concern of the book and it has been less often explored in the Australian violence against women literature.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. ANROWS, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Heather Nancarrow

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  1. Heather Nancarrow
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Correspondence to Heather Nancarrow .

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Nancarrow, H. (2019). Gendered and Racialised Power and the Law. In: Unintended Consequences of Domestic Violence Law. Palgrave Studies in Victims and Victimology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27500-6_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27500-6_7

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-27499-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-27500-6

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