Searching for the Body: Making Connections between Health, Bodies and Men’s Violence1

This chapter focuses on health, bodies and men's violence, and the connections between them, which have often been left unstated. It looks at the relative lack of separation of the study of health, illness and the body, and the study of violence, especially men's violence. The chapter examines some of the ways in which men's violence bears on health, illness and bodies - of men, women, young people and children. The connections between men and violence have of course been a major theme in feminist work, both in general and specifically on violence. A man's use of violence is also partly a matter of his sense of self, of who he is, of what he can or is able to do, his identity. The chapter explores men's violences to known women, drawing on research on men's accounts of their own violence, and the responses of agencies, friends and family.