This cutting-edge volume advances theories, methodologies and policy analyses relating to various forms of violence against women. Topics covered include: the nature, importance and variety of cultural contexts in which violence occurs, is reproduced and may be challenged or changed; the nature and variety of sexualized violence; and a range of theoretical perspectives on perpetrators of violence. Taking an interdisciplinary focus on issues that affect community and state responses, the book includes individual accounts, and incorporates themes related to authority, sexual proprietariness, asymmetry of violence, socialization, patterns and deviations of victims and offenders, and social and cultural contexts.