This groundbreaking study explores how judges interact with and make decisions regarding cases involving abused women. It delves into the judicial responses, examining factors that influence their rulings and the implications for victims seeking justice. By highlighting the complexities of the legal system and its treatment of abuse cases, the work aims to shed light on the challenges faced by women in these situations and the need for reform in judicial practices.
The relationship between class and intimate violence against women is much misunderstood. While many studies of intimate violence focus on poor and working-class women, few examine the issue comparatively in terms of class privilege and class disadvantage. James Ptacek draws on in-depth interviews with sixty women from wealthy, professional, working-class, and poor communities to investigate how social class shapes both women's experiences of violence and the responses of their communities to this violence. Ptacek's framing of women's victimization as "social entrapment" links private violence to public responses and connects social inequalities to the dilemmas that women face.