Violence at Home

Intimate Forms of Dominance

"Barbara Peveling finds a language for domestic violence that helped me understand what the violence means for those affected. She skilfully combines personal narrative with feminist theory. Read this book!" Bettina Wilpert

Every three days in Germany a woman is killed by her (ex-)partner – but that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Barbara Peveling also writes about all the forms of domestic violence that lie beneath it, which are closely linked to traditional gender roles, economic inequality and the home as an intimate arena of dominance.

She speaks as someone affected: she experienced violence between her parents as a child and in her relationships as an adult. She shows that the structures of dominance harm everyone, including men like her father, who as the perpetrator, ultimately directed the violence against himself.

A stirring essay about the cycles of violence, about silence and shame, resistance and hope.