Andrea Parrot and Nina Cummings have a long history of publishing together. And while their subject matter -- brutality against women -- is grim, they consider writing and teaching a "common bond" between them.

In a "Chats in the Stacks" book talk honoring International Women's Day at Mann Library on March 8, Parrot, professor of policy analysis and management, and Cummings, health educator at Gannett Health Services, shared highlights from their new book, "Forsaken Females: The Global Brutalization of Women."

While researching women's health, a topic the two initially had in mind for a book, Parrot said she found evidence from all over the world about brutal practices against women. Realizing that "numbers in no way capture the essence and impact of this issue," she said she and Cummings changed their focus from women's health to global brutalization of women. "We need to focus on local issues, but this book [doesn't just look] at violence against women in the U.S.," Parrot said. "It allows other voices to come out."

Defining violence and brutality was a struggle, she told the audience -- especially while incorporating cultural relevance. "We finally decided to include only examples that everyone would agree on as violence, and present these practices based on the life stages [at which] they are performed."

Passing around a shoe for bound feet from China, the authors shared historic and current objects associated with brutality against women, collected from 80 countries on six continents. Like foot binding, many traditions that involve brutality are culturally or religiously motivated, Parrot noted.

Even the United States, Cummings charged, is a major contributor to practices such as trafficking and sex slavery, issues that involve both the "poor parts of the world and the more affluent part." Parrot also emphasized that men are not the only perpetrators of violence against women; many examples exist in which women commit violent acts against other women.

The authors found in their research that family, community and state are all potential contexts in which violence occurs. "One-third of women worldwide have been beaten, coerced into sex or abused in some way," Parrot said. But there is hope for change, she added. "One person can make a difference."

The Mann Library book talk series offers an opportunity for faculty and researchers from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the College of Human Ecology to share their research with the rest of the university as well as the larger Ithaca community.

Graduate student Zheng Yang is a writer intern for the Cornell Chronicle.