I finished reading this book months ago and can genuinely say that it’s haunted me. Incredibly thorough & eye-opening, even if you feel educated on the topic. I highly, highly recommend & truly believe this should be required reading. Factual, powerful & compelling.

This is such an important book. It clearly sets out what the problems are, with crucial statistics to back them up. It sets out the law and goes into powerful detail about how the justice system is not working for women. Then it talks about solutions and how to make things better. Honestly, at the end of this book I felt so riled up, so motivated, so empowered to fight for change. Can’t recommend it highly enough.

In her work as a barrister, Harriet Johnson has seen how the criminal justice system can work and also how it can fail women. In this book, Harriet outlines many of the ways violence is perpetrated against women, how the justice system responds to it and how it can be more adequately addressed as well as prevented. An overview of the law, statistics and case studies are presented about various ways that women experience violence: homicide, sexual violence, domestic abuse, female genital mutilation, stalking, street harassment and online harassment. The author clearly points out that even though a dark picture can already be painted using the statistics that are available, there are entire groups of women whose experience is not even captured in them. If you’re not from the UK, you’ll find that the definitions of offences, the laws that relate to them and the maximum sentence applicable if someone is convicted won’t line up with the laws of your country. The statistics are also UK specific, although most didn’t seem dissimilar to what I know of stats from other countries. None of the suggested strategies for ending violence against women surprised me. They focus on prevention, as well as making improvements to the systems that are currently in place. It’s about having enough resources and training. It’s taking a long, hard look at the way police and the courts respond to violence. It’s including marginalised women in the statistics because if we don’t have a clear picture of what’s happening, then how can we ever expect things to change. Favourite quote: “the culture you get is the behaviour you tolerate.” Content warnings are included on my blog. Thank you so much to NetGalley and William Collins, an imprint of HarperCollins, for the opportunity to read this book. I’m rounding up from 3.5 stars.