How can we explain the intensity of precarity for poor and racialized women at a time when declarations for institutional measures to protect women from violence are multiplying? How can we talk about gender-based violence without discussing the systemic violence of the state, poverty, racism, and Islamophobia, as well as colonialism and colonial slavery? Why does the invocation of state protection become an argument for more repression and militarization of public space, which intensifies class and racial divisions?

In the book at hand, Françoise Vergès attempts to reach the roots of gender-based violence, decoding its intertwining with social inequality and various historical forms of social exclusion and marginalization. She envisions a feminist, anti-racist, and decolonial political stance that renders protection synonymous with solidarity, coexistence, and the defense of life.