Equality with a vengeance : men's rights groups, battered women, and antifeminist backlash

This book investigates efforts by fathers’ rights groups to undermine battered women’s shelters and services, in the context of the backlash against feminism. Dragiewicz examines the lawsuit Booth v. Hvass, in which fathers’ rights groups attempted to use an Equal Protection claim to argue that funding emergency services that target battered women is discriminatory against men. As Dragiewicz shows, this case (which was eventually dismissed) is relevant to widespread efforts to promote a degendered understanding of violence against women in order to eradicate policies and programs that were designed to ameliorate harm to battered women.

Tactics of antifeminist backlash against the U. S. battered women's movement

Opposition to men’s violence against women who are their intimate partners has become politically popular in the United States. The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) has enjoyed broad-based support for over 15 years. VAWA has been refined and expanded with each reauthorization. Resistance to the battered women’s movement is often overlooked in this political context. However, woman abuse and state responses to it are mired in cultural tensions about crime, law, gender, economics, scholarship, and the family. Based on interviews with 35 advocates in the United States, this paper outlines key tactics of antifeminist backlash against the battered women’s movement.

Homicide, self-defence and the (inchoate) criminology of battered women

Law reform is increasingly underpinned by empirical research. This is clearly evident in contemporary reform of the laws of self-defence and homicide. These reforms have been motivated largely by concern for battered women who kill their abusive partners. An extensive body of empirical criminological research has been utilised to identify bias in the operation of the traditional law of homicide and self-defence and has been relied upon by many law reform bodies. This article identifies and evaluates the "implicit criminology" constituted by these empirical studies. Five matters that have formed the backdrop to contemporary reform are investigated: the origins of the law of murder; the operation of the law of self-defence; the historical utilisation of mental state defences by battered women; the circumstances in which battered women kill their abusers; and the trial as a key location for processing these offenders. It is argued that the implicit criminology that has driven reform of the law of homicide and self-defence is largely undeveloped or unsubstantiated. Despite the centrality of concern for battered defendants in much contemporary discussion in criminology and the criminal law, it appears that there is still substantial research to be done to clarify the circumstances in which victims of chronic violence kill their abusive partners, how these defendants experience the law and the availability of self-defence to them. What seems to have been established may be more complex, contingent and inchoate than previously acknowledged.

Under the rule of thumb : battered women and the administration of justice /

Item 288-A

CASA, new directions, a program model for battered women : citizens assisting and sheltering the abused (CASA) /

Mode of access: Internet.

Programs providing services to battered women /

Description based on: 3rd ed., 2nd revision (June 1980)

Margo St. James, President of the San Francisco Prostitute Union, at the Battered Women's conference

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Survival House for battered women

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Battered women t-shirt at International Women's Year march

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Battered women sign at International Women's day demonstration

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Battered Women conference

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Crimes Against Women conference with Pauline Haines, International Indian Treaty Council; Sandy Ramos, N.J. Battered Women's Safe House Founder; and Daphne Busby, Sisterhood of Black Single Mothers

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.