Intimate violence against women in rural communities

Intimate violence against women takes many shapes and forms and is endemic to most, if not all, societies. However, some groups of women are much more likely than others to be subjected to lethal and non-lethal acts of violence committed by their current or former male partners. Rural women constitute one high-risk faction, but have historically been given short shrift by the social scientific community. This is not surprising because, as made explicit throughout the Handbook, criminology is generally urban-biased. Still, the empirical and theoretical literature on intimate femicide, sexual assault, physical violence, and other brutal male behaviors experienced by rural women has rapidly grown since the latter part of the last decade, with most of it generated in the United States. The main objective of this chapter is to review this body of knowledge and to suggest new directions in research and theory..