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Black women in marginalized communities are uniquely at risk of battering, rape, sexual harassment, stalking and incest. Through the compelling stories of Black women who have been most affected by racism, persistent poverty, class inequality, limited access to support resources or institutions, Beth E. Richie shows that the threat of violence to Black women has never been more serious, demonstrating how conservative legal, social, political and economic policies have impacted activism in the U.S.-based movement to end violence against women. Richie argues that Black women face particular peril because of the ways that race and culture have not figured centrally enough in the analysis of the causes and consequences of gender violence. As a result, the extent of physical, sexual and other forms of violence in the lives of Black women, the various forms it takes, and the contexts within which it occurs are minimized-at best-and frequently ignored.Arrested Justicebrings issues of sexuality, class, age, and criminalization into focus right alongside of questions of public policy and gender violence, resulting in a compelling critique, a passionate re-framing of stories, and a call to action for change.

Contrary to the stereotype of the strong Black woman, African American women are more plagued by domestic violence than any other racial group in the United States. In fact, African American women experience intimate partner violence at a rate 35% higher than white women and about two and a half times more than women of other races and ethnicities. This common portrayal can hinder black women seeking help and support simply because those on the outside don't think help is needed. Yet, as Hillary Potter argues in Battle Cries: Black Women and Intimate Partner Abuse, this stereotype often helps these African American women to resist and to verbally and physically retaliate against their abusers. Thanks to this generalization, Potter observes, black women are less inclined to label themselves as \"victims\" and more inclined to fight back.Battle Cries is an eye-opening examination of African American women's experiences with intimate partner abuse, the methods used to contend with abusive mates, and the immediate and enduring consequences resulting from the maltreatment. Based on intensive interviews with 40 African American women abused by their male partners, Potter's analysis takes into account variations in their experiences based on socioeconomic class, education level, and age, and discusses the common abuses and perceptions they share. Combining her remarkable findings with black feminist thought and critical race theory, Potter offers a unique and significant window through which we can better understand this understudied though rampant social problem.

Break the silence surrounding Black women's experiences of violence! Written from a Black feminist perspective by therapists, researchers, activists, and survivors, Violence in the Lives of Black Women: Battered, Black, and Blue sheds new light on an understudied field. For too long, Black women have been suffering the effects of violence in painful silence. This book-winner of the Carolyn Payton Early Career Award for its contribution to the understanding of the role of gender in the lives of Black women-provides a forum where personal testimony and academic research meet to show you how living at the intersection of many kinds of oppression shapes the lives of Black women. With moving case studies, in-depth discussions of activism and resistance, and helpful suggestions for treatment and intervention, this book will help you understand the impact of violence on the lives of Black women. Topics you'll find in Violence in the Lives of Black Women include: using the arts to deal with sexual aggression in the Black community racial aspects of sexual harassment the consequences of head and brain injuries stemming from abuse domestic violence in African-American lesbian relationships strategies Black women use to escape violent living situations lifelong effects of childhood sexual abuse on Black women's mental health references and resources to help you learn more!

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.

Feminist Advocacy: Gendered Organizations in Community-based Responses to Domestic Violence examines victim advocacy through a gendered organizations perspective. This monograph draws from in-depth interviews with twenty-six domestic violence victim advocates to examine their experiences with gendered policies and practices in the justice system, child protective services, and shelters. Andrea J. Nichols explores justice system interventions related to pro-arrest, dual arrest, no-drop prosecution, protective orders, and the actions of police and judges. In addition, she examines policies and practices related to child protective services that negatively affect battered women, such as charges for failure to protect and lost custody. Nichols also explores the most contentiously debated shelter policies, including curfew, confidentiality, substance abuse, entrance requirements, admitting adolescent boys, and mandatory classes. Drawing from advocates’ narratives of their experiences, Feminist Advocacy bears significant implications for policy and practice in community-based responses to domestic violence. This book will prove especially valuable to anyone who studies or works in the fields of social work, human services, criminal justice, or criminology, including advocates, practitioners, students, academic researchers, and those interested in intimate partner violence.

Battering by men is the most significant cause of injury to women in our society. It is also a major cause of child abuse, murder, substance abuse and female suicide attempts. This volume, the result of 15 years of research conducted by the authors - a social worker and physician respectively - explores the theoretical perspectives of this dramatic expression of male domination, together with health consequences for women and clinical interventions. The authors found that the traditional resources women turn to for help reinforce male domination: the medical, psychiatric and behavioural problems presented by battered women arise because male strategies of coercion, isolation and control converge with discriminatory structures and institutional practices to make it extremely difficult, sometimes impossible, for women to escape from abusive relationships. Stark and Flitcraft argue for a political space to be opened up within families, communities and the economy - a space where male coercion is simply not tolerated.

Women battering is one of the most pervasive and dangerous problems in American society today. An estimated 8.7 million women fall victim to violence in their own homes each year. Helping Battered Women provides students with the most current, empirically-based and realistic overview of policies and intervention methods, combining a rich array of perspectives by internationally recognized professors and scholars in the fields of social work, criminology, and clinical psychology. The authors provide cogent and clear arguments for advocacy and social change in such places as battered women’s shelters, police precincts, state legislatures, family courts, and criminal courts. The book focuses on a full range of policies and programs which include case management service models, 24-hour hotlines and crisis intervention programs, social worker-police collaboration, mandated arrest of batterers, electronic technology, and group/play therapy for the children of battered women, methods which are all effective in breaking the inter-generational cycle of abuse.

Examines the consequences of welfare reform for Black women fleeing domestic violence. This timely and compelling ethnography examines the impact of welfare reform on women seeking to escape domestic violence. Dána-Ain Davis profiles twenty-two women, thirteen of whom are Black, living in a battered women's shelter in a small city in upstate New York. She explores the contradictions between welfare reform's supposed success in moving women off of public assistance and toward economic self-sufficiency and the consequences welfare reform policy has presented for Black women fleeing domestic violence. Focusing on the intersection of poverty, violence, and race, she demonstrates the differential treatment that Black and White women face in their entanglements with the welfare bureaucracy by linking those entanglements to the larger political economy of a small city, neoliberal social policies, and racialized ideas about Black women as workers and mothers.

In the past forty years, the idea of home, which is central to how the law conceives of crime, punishment, and privacy, has changed radically. Legal scholar Jeannie Suk shows how the legitimate goal of legal feminists to protect women from domestic abuse has led to a new and unexpected set of legal practices. Suk examines case studies of major legal developments in contemporary American law pertaining to domestic violence, self-defense, privacy, sexual autonomy, and property in order to illuminate the changing relation between home and the law. She argues that the growing legal vision that has led to the breakdown of traditional boundaries between public and private space is resulting in a substantial reduction of autonomy and privacy for both women and men.