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Contextualizing women's violence and aggression: Beyond denial and demonization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 1999

Meda Chesney-Lind
Affiliation:
Women's Studies Program, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI 96822 meda@hawaii.edu

Abstract

This commentary focuses on the role played by constructions of women's violence in the maintenance of male control over women. While actual women's violence tends to be denied, pathologized or minimized, cultural constructions (particularly in the media) of women's violence tend to demonize it. Both of these androcentric cultural processes fail to illuminate the actual sources of the gender gap in violent behavior and instead tend to normalize male aggression and to cultivate female passivity.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
© 1999 Cambridge University Press

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