A Feminist Theory of Violence

The State will not protect us from gender violence. Our feminism must be anti-racist and decolonial, and must fight for everyone's safety

The mainstream conversation surrounding gender equality is a repertoire of violence: harassment, rape, abuse, femicide. These words suggest a cruel reality. But they also hide another reality: that of gendered violence committed with the complicity of the State.In this book, Françoise Vergès denounces the carceral turn in the fight against sexism. By focusing on 'violent men', we fail to question the sources of their violence. There is no doubt as to the underlying causes: racial capitalism, ultra-conservative populism, the crushing of the Global South by wars and imperialist looting, the exile of millions and the proliferation of prisons these all put masculinity in the service of a policy of death.Against the spirit of the times, Françoise Vergès refuses the punitive obsession of the State in favour of restorative justice.

Autorentext

Françoise Vergès is a political scientist, activist, historian, film writer, and public educator. She is the author of A Decolonial Feminism, A Feminist History of Violence and A Programme of Absolute Disorder. She is also a senior research fellow at the Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Racism and Racialisation, University College London. She lives in Paris.

Melissa Thackway is an independent researcher and translator. She lectures in African Cinema at Sciences-Po and INALCO in Paris. Her recent translations include A Feminist Theory of Violence by Françoise Vergès, Contemporary African Cinema by Olivier Barlet, Tropical Dream Palaces: Cinema-Going in Colonial West Africa by Odile Goerg and African Diasporic Cinema: Aesthetics of Reconstruction by Daniela Ricci.

Inhalt

Introduction

1. Neoliberal Violence
2. Race, Patriarchy, and the Politics of Women's Protection
3. Punitive Feminism, an Impasse
   Conclusion - For a Decolonial Feminist Politics
   Notes