Reframing Violence Against Women as a Human Rights Violation: Evan Stark’s Coercive Control

Abstract

Evan Stark claims that partner-perpetrated physical abuse and other forms of violence against women ought to be understood as a human rights violation. The authors engage Stark’s rhetorically powerful political and analytical innovation by outlining one theoretical and one practical challenge to shifting the paradigm that researchers, advocates, and policy makers use to describe, explain, and remedy the harms of coercive control from misdemeanor assault to human rights violation. The theoretical challenge involves overcoming the public/ private dichotomy that underpins liberal conceptions of human rights.The practical challenge involves using the human rights framework in the United States, given public indifference to human rights rhetoric or law, reluctance of U.S. policy makers to submit to scrutiny or justice-oriented processes under international law on issues of human rights and especially war crimes, and the consequent U.S. legacy of refusal to participate meaningfully in the international human rights process. The authors conclude that employing a human rights framework holds potential in the United States, but the paradigm shift Stark advocates will not materialize without widespread mobilization of interest in and understanding of human rights among domestic violence advocates and the society in general.