Abstract
This is a compelling and courageous book which I believe every Christian should read. It makes for challenging and painful reading, as chapter after chapter piles up incontrovertible evidence of the scale and depth of violence against women, combining extensive research with first person testimony and narrative. Yet its ultimate effect (at least on this reader) is not to overwhelm so much as to inform and inspire to action.
After an introduction and first chapter demonstrate the range and intensity of violence against women, eight chapters follow which examine, in turn, the selective abortion and infanticide of girls, female genital mutilation, early and enforced child marriage, so called ‘honour’ killings and femicide, domestic violence, trafficking and prostitution, rape and violence against women through war. I found it hard to read more than a couple of these chapters at a time, so intensely painful is the confrontation with the evidence. Having established her claim that violence against women is a ‘global pandemic’, Storkey moves to the potential causes of (and therefore solutions to) gender-based violence. Chapter 10 discusses theories from sociobiology and evolutionary psychology that seek to explain violence against women in terms of genetic inheritance; Storkey dismisses such theories for their lack of evidence, gross gender stereotyping, circular reasoning and, above all, for their amorality, which evacuates human being from either responsibility or incentive to stop the cycle of violence. Chapter 11 turns to social science theories, endorsing in particular feminist theories which argue for the gendering of social reality through the family, economics, politics, social structures, religion and so on, and for the reality of patriarchy – ‘an overriding but complex term for the processes by which male power is grasped and imposed, and the ideologies and practices which reinforce women’s vulnerability’ (p. 185). Only by taking seriously feminist analysis is it possible to account for the persistent and pervasive abuse of male power over women through violence (without denying that men also suffer under patriarchy and may be the victims of violence).
Storkey’s final two chapters examine religion, offering discussions of Islam and Christianity respectively. In each, she seeks to face honestly the flawed and deeply problematic nature of religious texts and traditions which have underpinned violence against women, while showing how feminists have found new and liberating ways to read their traditions. Her account of Christianity focuses predominantly on the authority of the Bible, reflecting her evangelical tradition, and she perhaps passes too lightly over the difficulty of the cross and atonement theologies which have reinforced violent theologies. She ends with an account of human personhood and sin as systematic refusal of right relation which, she believes, both helps to ‘explain the ubiquity of violence against women’ (p. 219) and underlines human responsibility. She asserts the possibility of forgiveness and hope for the future (more is needed to acknowledge the problematics of forgiveness), showing how women down the ages have drawn inspiration from the Gospels to fight injustice and to bring transformation to individual and societies. Storkey stands in a long line of such saints and her own commitment to expose and end violence against women is inspirational.