The COVID-19 pandemic served to pinpoint the existing problems within our society that had received only scant attention in previous years. Those who already found themselves in difficult circumstances prior to the outbreak of the virus often suffered even more from the consequences of this crisis than those who were in a financially and socially privileged situation. A serious problem that occurred during the numerous lockdowns all over the world was the increase of domestic abuse. This is one reason why Jonathan Herring's book Domestic Abuse and Human Rights is now perhaps even more topical than ever before.

Jonathan Herring systematically forges a link between domestic abuse and human rights, arguing that the state has an obligation to intervene and protect victims from abusive situations in their homes, as domestic abuse can no longer be seen as an exclusively private matter. According to the author, domestic abuse is characterised by three distinguishing features: coercive control; an intimate relationship between the perpetrator and the victim; and the dominating patriarchal structures in society. The last of these characterisations proclaims that Herring is in favour of a gendered approach to domestic abuse rather than a gender-neutral definition. This does not mean that the author turns a blind eye to abuse acted out by women or even children, as he dedicates one chapter to the abuse of parents by children. The reasons that Herring decides to follow a gendered approach are laid out in the second chapter, one of them being the differences between violence committed by men against women and violence committed by women against men. Not only do injuries caused by women tend to be less serious in the majority of cases, but also the origin of female violence is often found in self-defence. Apart from these rather detailed differences, it is genuinely eye-opening when Herring discusses the tremendous influence that patriarchal structures have on our private relationships and how in fact domestic abuse sustains the patriarchy, and vice versa. Domestic abuse and the patriarchy form an inseparable pair, reinforcing one another. As Herring states, for a man, becoming the victim of abuse is inconsistent with the image of masculinity anticipated by society.