Globalisation and violence against women – inequalities in risks, responsibilities and blame in the UK and Japan

Abstract

Recognizing domestic violence as a “real crime” has become an increasingly important part of government policy on crime control in both Japan and the UK. In this paper we review trends in violence against women in the UK and in Japan and relate these to broader changes associated with globalization. We consider how the growing visibility of violence against women has effected risk taking and risk management. We argue globalization has created different and more opportunities for violence from men to women. Men in rich areas of the world have responded to the growing riskiness of violence against women at home by “exporting” some of the costs of these crimes on to those who are especially vulnerable to entrapment, abuse and enslavement—poor, “third world” and migrant women and children. We look briefly at recent feminist responses to violence against women and argue that risk management poses dilemmas for globalized feminist activism within the current contexts of family policy and crime control.