Furies

Three women. Three blazing stories of violent resistance. Three complicated paths to justice.Brittany Smith, a young Alabama woman, killed a man she said raped her in her home, but was denied a self-defense claim.Angoori Dahariya led a gang in Uttar Pradesh, India, dedicated to avenging victims of domestic abuse.Cicek Mustafa Zibo fought in a thousands-strong all-female militia that battled ISIS in Syria.Each woman has been criticised for their actions by those who believe that violence is never the answer; yet each has transmuted a story of pain into a story of power.In this intimate, shocking and rigorous investigation, award-winning journalist Elizabeth Flock examines the lives of three women who chose to use lethal force to gain power, safety, and freedom when the institutions meant to protect them - government, police, courts - utterly failed to do so. In luminous prose, Flock asks searching questions about cultures in which violence seems like the only means of survival, where deeply ingrained ideas about masculinity have helped breed the unsafe conditions that women face.Can women's acts of vengeance help to create lasting change in misogynistic and paternalistic systems, or will they ultimately hurt their cause? The novelistic accounts of these three women offer profound insights into the quest for understanding what a society where women have real power might look like.---------------------------'These stories of women's vengeance are both harrowing and thrilling . . . This gripping, inflaming book, itself an act of fury, shows how revenge can transmute into politics or be crushed by it' Larissa MacFarquhar, author of Strangers Drowning'The Furies is a glorious excavation of women’s rage . . . These three women will fill you with hope, despair, and yes, fury' Rachel Louise Snyder, author of No Visible Bruises

These stories of women's vengeance are both harrowing and thrilling. Rosa Parks' defiance was a carefully planned political act; these begin as the opposite - sheer rage. This gripping, inflaming book, itself an act of fury, shows how revenge can transmute into politics or be crushed by it, The Furies is a remarkable and important exploration - reported with deep rigour and care - of what justice looks like for women who have been stripped of power and are trying to reclaim it, The Furies is a glorious excavation of women's rage. But it is also a cautionary tale of how the world treats women who dare to fight back, to assert their rights, to scream into the dark void of endless discrimination and inequality. These three women will fill you with hope, despair, and yes, fury, Women around the world are fighting back against their oppressors, and these powerful stories - conveyed with rigour and compassion - will leave readers fired up, furious and raring to join the cause, Drawing on in-depth interviews over many years, Emmy Award-winning journalist Elizabeth Flock creates vivid profiles of three women who responded to abuse with violence and vengeance.…. Stirring narratives of defiance

Elizabeth Flock is a journalist and the author of Love and Marriage in Mumbai. Her journalism has appeared in the New Yorker, The New York Times, The Guardian, The Atlantic, and on the PBS NewsHour, where her investigation into sexual harassment and retaliation in the U.S. Forest Service won an Emmy Award and was nominated for a Peabody Award. A PEN America fellow and IWMF and Pulitzer Center grantee, she lives in Chicago, Illinois.