This article analyzes the modern international human security and human rights approach to women’s security through a feminist lens. The article first reflects on the feminist re-conceptualization of violence against women as a social phenomenon and gender-based security issue. The article then explores how modern international security and international human rights have concentrated on the criminalization of male violence against women in international criminal law. The article analyzes both the value and limitations of criminalization strategies in each framework. Particularly, the authors explain that criminalization strategies frame women as passive victims in human security discourse, and that criminalization tends to obscure the structural dimension of violence against women in international human rights law. The article concludes by asserting that criminalization, while necessary for combatting violence against women, should be supported by an inclusive political structure that has the capacity to support feminist interpretations of gender equality, agency and security.