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W “NAN BA'I'I'ERING: THE (INSTRUCTION
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REDEFINING WOMAN BATTERING:

THE CONSTRUCTION OF A SOCIAL PROBLEM

BY

Carol S. Wharton

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of Sociology

1982

ABSTRACT

REDEFINING WOMAN BATTERING:
THE CONSTRUCTION OF A SOCIAL PROBLEM

BY

Carol 8. Wharton

This study examined the relationship between the
battered women's movement and changing social
definitions of woman battering. The status of woman
battering has changed dramatically in less than ten
years, from a "private trouble" of individual women and
their assailants to a public issue, a social problem.
In addition, the ownership of the problem has shifted
from the state, which owned it from the 19th century but
chose to ignore it, to women as members of the social
movement that developed in reaction to the state's
absenteeism, mismanagement, and neglect. The battered
women's movement expropriated (or reappropriated) the
problem. At the same time, responsibility for the
problem shifted from the battered woman herself to the
social structure of patriarchal society. All of these
changes can be attributed to the struggles of the
battered women's movement, to its efforts on the local,
state, and national levels to bring woman battering to

the foreground of public consciousness.

Carol S. Wharton

The following specific social practices were
analyzed: the origins of the battered women's movement,
the rise of local and regional organizations within the
movement, the relationship of ideology to the movement's
development, and the sources of strain or conflict
within the movement. The research was based upon in-
depth interviews that were conducted between November,
1980, and May, 1981, among members of local grOUps
providing services to battered women in two states. The
relationship of individual groups to the battered
women's movement and the issue of woman battering in
general was evaluated.

Within the perspective that defines social problems
as activities, rather than as conditions, Wiener (1981)
identifies animation, legitimation, and demonstration as
three types of activities which are involved in the
process of "building an arena around a social problem."
These three processes were examined as they were
performed by groups within the battered women's
movement, but with particular attention to issues of
power and influence. Emphasis was placed on discovering
exactly who engaged in these claims-making activities,
and who was responsible for defining woman battering as
a social problem. Battered women, the people who are
directly affected by the issue, have not initiated or
assumed control of most groups. Instead, the movement

has for the most part been developed by and continues to

Carol S. Wharton

be composed of nonbattered women. The research
demonstrated that structural and ideological constraints
have prevented most battered women from engaging in
claims—making activities in their own behalf.

The basic goal of the movement is to increase
public awareness so that woman battering eventually will
not be tolerated. This goal is articulated in different
ways at the local and national levels of the battered
women's movement. These differences are so great that
it was sometimes difficult to find any common ties
between local groups and the movement's national
spokespeople. Local groups often become so involved in
the specific, concrete tasks of rescuing battered women
that they lose sight of the larger struggle to change
social attitudes. Or they perceive the task as public
education about their services in ways that will
reassure the community that the group is not a threat to
basic values. They modify their message in order to
reassure their audience that the presence of a shelter
and/or other services for battered women will not result
in major social change. These findings suggest that
client—focused movements, such as the battered women's
movement, moderate their rhetoric and adapt their goals
and structure to satisfy the expectations of their most
promising supporters.

In sharp contrast, national leaders seem to be more

concerned with challenging and changing ideology. They

 

Carol S. Wharton

also speak much more self-consciously of anti-battering
as a social movement than do the local leaders.

Tactical disagreements notwithstanding, it was concluded
that an interactive process has developed between the
local groups and the national movement. The movement is
developing on both levels simultaneously and is
responding to various transformation processes which
make it appear radical at times, conservative at others.
Both the "radical core" and "moderate penumbra" are

contributing to the movement's viability.

Copyright by

CAROL S. WHARTON

1982

Sometimes not often, we'll see a pile of dust
Sitting in the corner, trying to break away before
being swept away
Frightened
Sniveling in a corner set
Tears hide the dust and the dust won't blow away.
Woman, I know you in a black and white storybook
read by the river.
I know you like the wild stallion knows the
circus horse madness.
Bruised with years, let your tears roll past your
cage
let your arms grow past the danger that won't let
you slip away.

Lori Lichtman
May, 1980

ii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My deepest appreciation is extended to Barrie
Thorne, the chairperson of my guidance committee. Her
friendship, encouragement, and support were vital to me,
as were her innovative approaches to data analysis and
theoretical conceptualization. I am also grateful to
the other members of my committee, Marilyn Aronoff,
Kevin Kelly, and Kathryn See, whose suggestions were
extremely valuable in improving the content of the
study.

Polly Fassinger deserves special recognition for
introducing me to the technological realm of micro
computers and word processing, and congenially teaching
me the intricate skills neccesary to use the Cromemco
system. In Polly's absence, I consulted Craig Harris
and Dale Jaeger, who frequently rescued my files from
obliteration and me from total demoralization during
Cromemco's spells of psychic malaise.

Special thanks go to the women whom I interviewed.
Their willingness to share information with me about the
work they have done in providing services to battered

women is deeply appreciated. More importantly, I salute

iii

them for the work itself. Their's is an arduous,
painful, and often unrewarding task; but one that is
necessary for the survival of battered women today, and
the eventual elimination of the pr0blem.

Lori Lichtman, whose poem appears as the Dedication
of this work, is a friend and former student. I thank
her for this gift, and for its statement of
understanding of the Oppression and hope that women
share.

Finally, I want to thank Reber Dunkel for his
constant faith in me, and his unfailing patience when I

lost faith in myself and the enterprise.

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page
PART I
THE EMERGENCE OF VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
AS A FEMINIST ISSUE: A MOVEMENT PERSPECTIVE . . 1
CHAPTER ONE. SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AS DEFINERS

OF SOCIAL PROBLEMS O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 2
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Review of the Literature . . . . . 6

The Construction of Social Problems .
The Role of Social Movements . . . . .
The Development of Social Problem Movem

n 5
Definition of Social Movements .

Methods of Study . . . . . . .

Sample Characteristics . . . .
Obtaining the Data . . . . . .
summary 0 O O O O O O O O O O

o o o o 0 (Do a o o
o o o o o ('1'. o o o
o o o o o o o o o o
o o o o o o o o o o
o o o o o o o o o o
N
0"

CHAPTER TWO. HISTORICAL ORIGINS OF THE BATTERED
WOMEN ' S MOVEMENT O C O O O O O C O O C O O O O O O 53

The Development of the Women's Movement . . . . . 53
Specific Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Historical Evidence of Woman Battering . . . . . . 66
The Extent of Woman Battering . . . . . . . . . . 73
Causes of Woman Battering . . . . . . . . . . . 75
The Discovery of Woman Battering by the

Women's Movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

CHAPTER THREE. THE BEGINNINGS OF THE BATTERED
WOMEN ' S MOVEMENT C O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 91

Providing Direct Services . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
The Shelter Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
The Safe Homes Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
The Crisis Line Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
The Multi-Crisis Model . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
The Satellite Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Other Models . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

Comparison and Contrast of Five Service Models . . lOS

Movement Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

V

The Structure of Local Groups .
summary 0 O O O O O O O O O O 0

PART II

CLAIMS-MAKING ACTIVITIES IN THE HEARTLAND

CHAPTER FOUR. CARVING A NICHE FOR WOMAN

IN THE PUBLIC CONSCIOUSNESS . .

Group Origins . . . . . . . . .
Group Founders . . . .
Widening the Network of Support

Group Composition: Insiders, Outsider

Minorities, and Men . . . . .
Learning About the Problem
Causes and Solutions . . .
Group Philosophies . . . .
Summary . . . . . . . . .

CHAPTER FIVE. PUTTING WOMAN BATTERING

COMMUNITY'S AGENDA OF CONCERN .

The Politics of Naming . . . . .
Forms of Proselytization . . . .
The Content of Public Addresses

ON THE

BATTERING

S

Community Reactions to the Increasing Visibility
Of Woman Battering . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The Influence of Feminism on the Battered
Women's Movement . . . . .
Cooptation . . . . . . . . . . .
Camouflage . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

False Consciousness . .
Providing Direct Services. Choice or Necessity?
summary 0 O O I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 0

PART III
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS . . . . . .

CHAPTER SIX. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

Future Issues . . . . . . . . .

CHAPTER ONE . . . . . . . . .
CHAPTER TWO . . . . . . . . .
CHAPTER THREE . . . . . . . .
CHAPTER FOUR . . . . . . .

122
133

135

137

138
144
151

156
164
168
175
180

181

182
190
199

203

207
215
218
222
223
232

234
235

255

259

259
260
263
264

CHAPTER FIVE . . . . . . . . . .
CHAPTER SIX 0 O O C O O O O O O O

APPENDICES

APPENDIX A. INTERVIEW SCHEDULE .

APPENDIX B. LETTER SENT TO LOCAL GROUPS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

vii

264
265

267
270

272

LIST OF TABLES

Table Page
1 Rate of Response to Initial Contact Letter . . 40
2 Characteristics of Groups Responding to

Contact Letter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

viii

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure Page

1 Paths to Visibility of the Issue of
Woman Battering . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238

ix

Part One

THE EMERGENCE OF VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

AS A FEMINIST ISSUE: A MOVEMENT PERSPECTIVE

Chapter One

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AS DEFINERS OF SOCIAL PROBLEMS

Introduction

In every society certain objective conditions--
e.g., poverty, alcoholism, racial inequality-—might be
considered social problems, in that they adversely
affect large numbers of people. However, there is a
distinction between objective conditions and subjective
definitions of them; and socially problematic conditions
are not always perceived as social problems. It is only
when at least some members of a society come to define
an issue as a "problem" that a social problem--as a
recognized and protested phenomenon—~exists. As Lewis
Coser (1972: 217) writes with respect to the "sociology
of poverty:"

Historically, the poor emerge when society

elects to recognize poverty as a special

status and assigns specific persons to that

category. The fact that some people may

privately consider themselves poor is

sociologically irrelevant. What is

sociologically relevant is poverty as a

socially recognized condition, as a social

status. We are concerned with poverty as a
property of the social structure.

Issues do not emerge spontaneously as social
problems, but through the "claims-making activities"
(Spector and Kitsuse, 1977) of socially-conscious
individuals or groups. This research will examine
ways in which issues emerge into public consciousness
and concern, by focusing on the people and
organizations who brought one such issue--woman
battering--into focus as a social problem.

Recognition of a "new" social problem may
indicate, in conventional sociological terms, a
normative change in public perception. In Marxist
terms, such recognition probably involves an
ideological shift and therefore may be instructive
about the conditions under which a particular interest
group challenges or reinforces the cultural hegemony
of dominant groups. In this sense, the study of the
emergence of a social problem, and the reception by
the members of the society of a group's definition of
that problem become indices of the power of a
particular group.

In each major era the fundamental

circumstance that has made possible the

development of a revised sense of justice

has been the rise in power and general

standing of some major class (Turner,

1969: 397).

The interests of a group may be articulated by a

social movement, which seeks to challenge the

prevailing ideological hegemony by setting forth a new

definition of reality, including a reassessment of
which conditions are considered problematic.

Social definitions are proouced and transmitted
ideologically (Smith, 1975); the decision as to
whether or not a social condition is perceived as a
social problem is ideological. I am defining ideology
as a set of beliefs, connected to social action, that
legitimate or challenge an existing status quo or
social order. In a class society the dominant
ideology is produced and controlled by the ruling
class, and "ideas and images are thus imposed on
others whose perspectives, interests, and experiences
are not represented" (Smith, 1975: 353). I am using
"ruling class" in the Marxist sense, to refer to the
class which controls the means of production,
including mental production, of a society. "The ideas
of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling
ideas . . . The ruling ideas are nothing more than
the ideal expression of the dominant material
relationships" (Marx and Engels, 1970: 64).

Ideological hegemony includes expression of the
class interests of the dominant class and the
acceptance by most members of society of a particular
way of seeing the world and human relationships, a
general acceptance of one definition of what is
”normal" and what is "real" (Williams, 1976: 117—

118). A change in perception, in consciousness,

requires some kind of revolutionary change in social
relations; and, dialectically, such a change in social
relations requires a new view of reality--an
alternative hegemony (Gramsci, 1975).

In addition to, and interacting with, the class
basis of hegemony, there has also been an organizing
of sex and gender, with a dominance of men over women,
in Western society. To a large extent, it is men
rather than women who have controlled production of
the dominant ideology.

Women have been deprived of the means to

participate in creating forms of thought

relevant or adequate to express their own

experience or to define and raise social

consciousness about their situations and

concerns (Smith, 1975: 354).

One consequence of this male control of ideology is
that men have defined what is "appropriate" behavior
by men toward women and women toward men. Battering
and other forms of male violence against women are a
result of and a means of enforcing male dominance over
women. Because men have considered women their
subordinates and property, women could be treated as
property. Without the power to enforce a different
interpretation, women often accepted the same
perspective; it was "natural" for a man to beat his
wife. It was not a social problem, but a personal

1
problem of the individual woman. But if these ideas

are challenged, if men are no longer granted the right

to batter without comment, if significant portions of
a society come to view woman battering as a social
problem, what do these changes indicate about the
power of men over women? Marx and Engels contended
that changing ideas and new definitions are the result
of changing class relationships. Might they also be
the result of changing relationships between the
sexes?

Although the intersection between sex/gender
dominance and class dominance has not been clearly
articulated, there are parallels between the two types
of dominance which may be theoretically significant.
The ultimate goal of this study is to contribute to an
understanding of how ideology changes in a historical
context, by studying the social conditions in American
society in the decade of the 1970's which led to
formation of the battered women's movement and its
struggle to force the public to recognize and cope

with woman battering as a social problem.

Review of the Literature

The Construction of Social Problems

Within sociology there is "a clear need to study

the process by which a society comes to see, to

define, and to handle their [sic] social problems"

(Blumer, 1971:301). But, as Spector and Kitsuse
(1977: 1) point out, there is not even a clear and
concise definition of social problems that is
acceptable to all sociologists. Functionalists have
concentrated on identifying objective conditions which
are disruptive ("dysfunctional“) to a society, that
violate a society's values, and are therefore
inherently social problems (for examples of this
perspective see Merton and Nisbet, 1971). Value-
conflict theorists, on the other hand, contend that
the determination of what is functional or
dysfunctional for a society is a value judgement, and
that social problems are not objective, but are based
on the selective perception of some conditions as
problematic, and others as not (see Waller, 1936;
Fuller and Myers, 1941).

Spector and Kitsuse (1977) charge that, for the
most part, value-conflict theorists have been little
more successful than the functionalists in developing
a sociology of social problems based on definitional
processes. Both schools have tended to become mired
in trying to identify objective conditions which
constitute social problems. Spector and Kitsuse
contend that, on the contrary,

. .a sociology of social problems must
take the members' perspective as the
starting point, focusing in particular on

definitional claims-making activities as
the primary subject matter. Rather than

investigate how institutional

arrangements produce certain social

conditions, we examine how individuals

and groups become engaged in collective

activities that recognize putative

conditions as problems, and attempt to

establish institutional arrangements

(1977: 72).

These authors, then, define social problems as
activities, rather than as conditions; "the activities
of those who assert the existence of conditions and
define them as problems" (Spector and Kitsuse, 1977:
74). The question of whether the condition is
objective or subjective is less sociologically
relevant than whether or not the members of a society
or social group perceive a condition as a problem, and
their reactions to it.

Wiener (1981) distinguishes three types of
activities involved in the process of "building an
arena around a social problem" by increasing its
visibility. These types, all forms of claims-making
activity, are Animation, Legitimation, and
Demonstration. Animation refers to the process of
involving people and resources in the project of
defining a social problem, recruiting experts from
various fields and developing theories about the
causes of and solutions to the pr0blem. Legitimation
involves establishing an issue as a problem in its own

right--separate from already recognized social

problems (although the legitimacy of these may be

borrowed or extended)--and building respectability in
order to procure scientific and legislative
sponsorship of the problem. Demonstration includes
accumulating data about the extent of the proolem, and
the impact of programs which were designed to attack
the problem, and reconciling opposing viewpoints about
the nature, extent, and treatment of the pr0blem. All
of the above processes are types of claims-making
activities, which contribute to the emergence of
social problems.

Who engages in these claims-making activities?
Who is responsible for defining social problems?
Although providing a useful and innovative perspective
on the process of defining social problems, Spector
and Kitsuse and their proponents are not sufficiently
attentive to issues of power and influence. They do
not distinguish the definers of social problems as
having any special access to public Opinion. Thus,
they imply that any individual or group could locate
an issue and bring it to public attention as a social
problem. If this were the case, it is probable that
most social problems would be presented by the members
of society who are directly affected by a condition or
issue. The poor, for example, would convince the
wealthy that poverty is a social problem. "Insiders"
would be most likely to initiate claims-making

activities to highlight their plight.

10

However, as I shall discuss below, there are
structural and ideological constraints which prevent
most individuals and groups from engaging in effect1ve
claims-making activities. Piven and Cloward (1979: 3)
argue that "protest is not a matter of free choice; it
is not freely available to all groups at all times .

. . " By the same token, defining social problems is
not an activity that is freely available at all times
to all groups. It takes special resources and skills
to bring a new social problem to light. What are
these resources and who has access to them?

In contemporary society the mass media, the
"consciousness industry" (Enzensberger, 1974), play an
important role in defining social problems, by
identifying a social condition and designating it
problematic, analyzing it, relating it to other,
ongoing issues, and eventually stirring public
response. As Fishman (1978: 7) writes, in an
analysis of "crime waves," newsworkers identify
"themes" in their coverage of news, and then lump
together numerous events as part of a larger issue.
However, as Tuchman (1978: 133) demonstrates, it may
take some precipitating factor to cause newsworkers to
see those themes, since newswork is organized in such
a way that existing issues are not always recognized
as "public topics”.

Smith (1975: 356) contends that any knowledge is

11

ideological, resulting from "learned forms of thought
which serve to organize, order, and control the social
relations, the working practices, the ideals and
objectives of individual members of the society" so
that people share an understanding of events around
them. Thus, if a particular issue does not appear
newsworthy to those who run the media, it may be
because the issue is not relevant to their worldview.
On the other hand, social conditions may not seem
newsworthy because they are too familiar to the
reporter. Newsworkers rarely discover conditions that
have existed for long periods of time, since "some
items are not noticed because they are taken for
granted as aspects of the social world" (Tuchman,
1978: 8).

Hence, while eventual adoption of an issue by
newsworkers is perhaps essential to widespread
dissemination, the news media are probably not the
point of origin of most redefinitions of conditions as
social problems. It usually takes the prior effort of
some type of change agent--an organization, interest
group, social movement--to identify an issue and make
it newsworthy. "Every use of the media presupposes
manipulation . . . the question is therefore not
whether the media are manipulated, but who manipulates
them" (Enzensberger, 1970: 21). Anyone who demands

services, fills out forms, lodges complaints, files

12

lawsuits, publishes exposes, places ads in neWSpapers,
supports or Opposes governmental practices or
policies, or sets up picket lines or boycotts is
participating in the process of defining social
problems (Spector and Kitsuse, 1977: 79). This would
include many different kinds of individuals and
groups, although few of those actions actually result
in the emergence Of a new social problem. Again, the
result depends on who is involved, on the skills and
material resources they command.

Rose (1977: 75) uses the term "social problem
movement" to refer to one means by which social
problems are defined--through the development of
collective efforts by interest groups to raise
problems to public awareness:

. . . collective definitions based upon

subjective constructions of reality lead

to interest group formation and action.

In an attempt to influence public opinion

on issues, interest groups become

involved in social movements; social

movements then contribute to the

definition of social problems. Social

problems, in this perspective, may be

considered simply special kinds of social

movements . . .

The state, however, also plays a major role in
determining which issues will be designated as social
problems; and such a designation may actually serve to
defuse the political ramifications of an issue.

Morgan (1981: 18) Observes that many of the "more

problematic aspects of capitalist social relations:

13

mental health, deviance, violence, and crime" have
been labelled as social problems in order to obscure
the political and economic causes of these conditions.

The appearance of social problems in

capitalist systems Often masks political

ends by being publically presented as

problems against a society identified as

a mass Of individuals empty of class

context . . . Social problem management

through the capitalist state serves to

depoliticize political questions: to

incorporate demands through quasimedical

models, to individualize and personalize

structural problems, and to Obscure any

class interests inherent in them (Morgan,

1981: 21).
As a result, many issues which are recognized and
introduced as social problems by socially critical
movements or groups are eventually coopted by the
state and "managed" in such a way that they do not
threaten the existing social order. As Morgan
emphasizes, left organizers need to understand how and
why the state accomplishes this intervention, in order

to prevent such COOptation.

The Role of Social Movements

The notion that social movements create social
problems through a process of collective definition
has been used to explain the emergence Of various
phenomena as targets of public concern. For example,
the Civil Rights Movement rejected the myth of

"separate but equal," and defined racial segregation

14

as a social problem (Piven and Cloward, 1979). Rose
(1977) attributes the perception of rape as a social
problem to activities of the contemporary women's
movement. Similarly, the environmental movement
challenged "one of the core tenets Of the American
ethic--a belief in growth" (Albrecht, 1973: 245), by
arguing that nonstop industrial expansion will destroy
our planet's ecological system. This contention has
resulted in the widespread definition of pollution,
chemical dumping, nuclear energy, and destruction of
wildlife as social problems. As Turner (1969: 390)
Observes, "any major social movement depends on and
promotes some normative revision" which Often "takes
the form of a new sense Of what is just and unjust in
society," especially of the conventional, commonsense
notion of justice. Mauss (1975) and Blumer (1971)
also focus on social problems as products of social
movements.

Blumer (1971) identifies five stages in the
process Of collective identification of social
problems: (l)the emergence Of a social problem,
(2)the legitimation of a social problem, (3)the
mobilization of action with regard to the proolem,
(4)the formation of an Official plan Of action, and
(5)the transformation of the Official plan Of action.
Blumer implies that the same group will escort the

social problem through all five stages; a monolithic

15

social movement will form and coalesce around an
issue. However, this may not be the pattern followed
in many collective efforts to identify social
problems. Instead, the problem goes through a series
of identities, as it is sponsored and dropped by
different groups.

Spector and Kitsuse (1977), while adopting key
elements of Blumer's model, charge that it does not go
far enough in describing the history Of a social
problem. They have developed an alternative, four-
stage model which extends the analysis. In Stage One
efforts are focused on transforming "private troubles
into public issues" (p. 143). Complaints are raised
and strategies are devised to press claims, gain
publicity, and arouse controversy. This stage
corresponds to Wiener's (1981) activities of animation
(see page six of this chapter). Stage Two, which
includes the activities Wiener labels as legitimation,
consists Of the struggle for Official recognition and
support Of the claims-making activities of groups
which are involved in defining a new social problem.

Spector and Kitsuse contend that Blumer's five
stages go no further than this; they can all be
collapsed into these two steps. But after a social
policy has been implemented with regard to the new
social problem, renewed and counter claims and demands

are made, which constitute Stages Three and Four of

16

Spector and Kitsuse's model. These include activities
of demonstration, as well as further examples Of
animation and legitimation, since the three types of
claims-making activities are "overlapping, not
sequential, processes" (Wiener, 1981: 22). As the
issue gains recognition and a wider audience, groups
with competing claims vie for ownership and control of
the problem.

Stage Three Of Spector and Kitsuse's model
consists of reactions to the solutions and policies
which are initially devised around a social problem.
In this stage, "the claims are not concerned directly
with the imputed conditions asserted in Stage One.
Rather, the claims are made against the organizations
established to ameliorate, eliminate, and otherwise
change those conditions" (Spector and Kitsuse, 1977:
152). Thus, for example, the group which originally
identified a social problem may feel that the issue
has been coopted by government agencies or other
groups, and become dissatisfied with the way the
problem is being handled. Conversely, other groups
may have been attracted to the issue who are critical
of the original group's interpretation, and they may
propose a different program altogether.

Stage Four occurs when groups reject
institutional solutions and begin to develop

alternative institutions to deal with the prOblem: to

17

work "outside the system." This stage may never be
reached unless movement organizers are aware of, and
able to overcome, the processes by which state
intervention undermines the critical nature Of social
movements. The first of these processes is
bureaucratization, by which issues are fragmented to
fit into existing structures. The second process is
professionalization, by which collective forms of
organization become stratified hierarchically.
Individualization is the third process, and occurs
when problems and solutions are viewed as separate
from the social relations that produced them. Using
the battered women's movement as her example, Morgan
(1981) demonstrates how failing to understand these
processes can result in the state's alteration of a
movement, its goals and strategies. The claims-making
activities themselves are affected by whether the
actors are leftist (feminist) organizers or members of
the state apparatus.

Although Spector and Kitsuse emphasize that the
process of defining social problems is multi-
directional, they agree that interest groups and
popular movements Often initiate actions which lead to
reevaluations of conditions as social problems. If it
is true that "a social movement is always possessed by
a sense Of mission" (Sherif and Sherif, 1956: 722),

then one type of mission which motivates social

18

movements is surely that Of identifying and correcting
social problems. Movements have also been termed
"ignorance-reducing devices" (Schwartz, 1976: 153),
whose purpose is to educate the public about

previously unknown or unremarked conditions.

The Development of Social Problem Movements

The social movement literature may be employed to
explore the mechanisms by which the above stages are
accomplished and a social problem movement is formed.
For instance, prior to the stages of defining a social
problem, certain prerequisite conditions must exist in
order for a social problem movement to emerge.

Freeman (1975), in exploring the question Of why a
social movement emerges at any particular time, has
constructed one model of how structural conditions may
give rise to a movement. As she states, "social
strain does not create social movements; it only
creates the potential for movements“ (p. 44). Given
that potential, several conditions are necessary for a
movement to form. There must first be a pre-existing
communications network that is responsive to the
burgeoning movement and sympathetic to the movement's
perspective, which links the spontaneous uncoordinated
groups beginning to form around an issue. With these

prerequisites, the next essential element is the

19

development of a precipitating event: a crisis occurs
which energizes the network into taking some sort of
action, and/or individuals decide to organize
themselves into a group to disseminate their
viewpoint. This type of action does not necessarily
originate with the people who are immediately involved
in the crisis.

Gary Marx and Michael Useem (1971) maintain that,
in fact, reforms are not usually initiated by the
people most in need of social change. "Rarely have
oppressed minorities been entirely responsible for
their own liberation" (p. 97). This observation may
be extended to an analysis of many social conditions;
deprived groups are Often unable to articulate and
organize around their condition in ways that will
elicit public recognition. They lack power, because
they are geographically dispersed, or economically
dependent, or ideologically manipulated into
submission. And they lack access to the molders Of
public consciousness. Members of deprived groups may
also have a well-founded fear of repercussions from
the dominant group.

Piven and Cloward (1979: 3), in their analysis
of poor people's movements and why the poor do not
protest more often, explain that

The occasions when protest is possible

among the poor, the forms that it must
take, and the impact it can have are all

20

delimited by the social structure in ways

which usually diminish its extent and

diminish its force.

The same constraints Operate to limit the potential
for protest among other groups besides those who are
economically deprived.

Karl Marx (1975: 124) wrote, with respect to
unorganized masses, that as long as "the identity of
their interests begets no community, no national bond
and no political organization among them, they do not
form a class. They are consequently incapable of
enforcing their class interest in their own name".
They are, at this point, merely a mass Of people with
a shared discontent and, as Freeman (1975: 48)
states, "masses alone do not form movements, however
discontented they may be."

Rather than the affected ones, it is often
"outsiders" who initiate social movements on behalf or
others. Marx and Useem (1971: 82) define outsiders
as "individuals who do not share the stigma or
socially debilitating attribute and who do not stand
to gain in the same direct way from the de51red social
change." The outsiders, then, are not themselves
directly affected by the issue; but they identify with
the deprived, or feel that the specific condition is
part of a larger, general injustice in which they are
included as victims.

In later stages of a social movement, however,

21

outsiders are less likely to predominate, as the
oppressed group gains a sense of its rights and the
means to achieve them. The greater participation of
"insiders" is usually the result of changes on two
levels: transformations of consciousness and Of
behavior (Piven and Cloward, 1979). On the level Of
consciousness, the system of institutional
arrangements which has previously been accepted as
just (or inevitable) loses legitimacy. Also on the
level of consciousness, the oppressed grOUp becomes
less fatalistic. It ceases to believe in the
inevitability of current conditions, begins to demand
changes, and to believe that change is possible.

On the level of behavior, members of the
oppressed groups become defiant and act out their
defiance collectively.

. . . acts of defiance can be considered

movement events when those involved

perceive themselves to be acting as

members of a group, and when they share a

common set Of protest beliefs (Piven and

Cloward, 1979: 4).

Piven and Cloward, in the above passage, are
introducing defiance as the key feature of protest
movements. They concentrate on analyzing movements
which are initiated by the oppressed group. However,
I am contending that the same types of transformations

might occur among the members of an oppressed group as

a result of previous social movement activity on their

22

behalf by outsiders. The insiders might then take
over the movement, or at least play a greater rOle in
it.

Gerlach and Hine (1970: xvii) identify several
other factors which they believe are essential for any
group to become a true social movement. One of these
factors is described as follows:

An ideology which codifies values and

goals, provides a conceptual framework by

which all experiences or events relative

to these goals may be interpreted,

motivates and provides rationale for

envisioned changes, defines the

opposition, and forms the basis for

conceptual unification of a segmented

network of groups.

In the Introduction to this chapter, I defined
ideology as a set of beliefs, connected to social
action, that legitimate or challenge an existing
status quo or social order. It is the acceptance Of a
particular way Of seeing the world and human
relationships, a generally accepted definition or
reality. That is a macro definition, a view Of
ideology as it affects a total social system. But
ideologies also Operate on the micro level, as sets of
beliefs which reflect how the members of a group or a
segment of society behave and view their environment.
Later, I want to examine the ways in which the
battered women's movement has challenged the

ideological hegemony of capitalist patriarchy, and the

effects of the dominant ideology on the movement. I

23

am, however, also concerned with the belief system Of
the movement itself, and how that has affected the
decisions which various groups have made concerning
structure and content.

In her study of its development, Freeman (1975:
10) asserts that the contemporary women's movement

began without an ideology, and has as yet

only the rudiments of one. Thus feminist

ideology has played an insignificant rOle

in the development of its structures and

strategies, . . . it is structure that

has determined what kinds Of activities

are feasible and which more accurately

explains how various groups have directed

their energies.
Based on this premise, Nall (1976: 6) argues that one
major weakness of mainstream social movement theories
(e.g., Smelser, 1963; Oberschall, 1973) is the
"assumption that collective behavior is organized
around a belief system". She contends instead that
"at least some social movement organizations are
primarily organized around ta5ks, . . . ideology is
developed as a rationale for previous activity." Nall
(p. 124) goes on, however, to point out that Freeman
seems to have confused ideology with "philosophical
credos" (formalized belief systems). While Nall
agrees that the women's movement lacks a "full-blown
set of legitimations and a formal symbolic universe,"
it does possess a definition of reality which is

shared among its members.

I think that the same condition is true of the

24

battered women's movement. It is my contention that
such a shared definition is essential to the formation
of a social movement; although that definition is
created and shaped by the movement, and therefore
changes over time. The process is interactive. In
other words, while it may not be necessary for people
to develop a "full-blown ideology" before they begin
to form a social movement, it is essential that they
possess a common perception of their basic goals and
appropriate strategies for achieving them. Without
such a perspective, the tasks of various social
movement organizations would not even be defined in
the same way across the movement. Applying this
principle to the battered women's movement, the people
who established groups to aid battered women in
different communities must have shared the belief that
woman battering is not legitimate. They believed that
women have a right to seek alternatives to violence in
their homes, and that the community has an Obligation
to aid women in that quest for alternatives.

Beyond these beliefs, different groups may have
had little in common at their inception. But through
contacts within the movement, groups developed their
services in similar directions, while maintaining
differences in structure and explanations of the
problem. At the same time, the experiences of

actually building a social movement led to changes in

25

the perception of the problem and the ways to deal
with it--i.e., changes in ideology. I am contending
that those similarities were the result Of an ideology
that is developing along with the movement. And the
differences were the result of contradictions and the
underdeveloped nature of that ideology, as well as the
testing and adaption of the ideology in applying it to
concrete situations.

In contrast to Freeman, Banks and Banks (1964:
556) assert that an ideology is essential to the
development of a social movement. It gives the
members a "slogan to work with," a raison d'etre, a
basis for solidarity. Killian (1973: 20) puts this
in another way, by referring to the importance of a
common set Of values: "Every social movement has, as
the standard around which the adherents rally, some
value or set Of values-~a vision of a goal to be
obtained by the voluntary striving of the members."
SO Freeman may be correct in her assertion that social
movements do not always begin with an ideology if, as
Nall suspects, Freeman is defining ideology as a fully
developed, formal statement. They probably do,
however, at least begin with an idea, a vision, a
motivating set of insights that represent the
rudiments Of a developing ideology. Tierney's (1979:
40) definition of ideology as a ”general philosophical

orientation which provides an overarching rationale or

26

justification for the goals and activities of a SMO
[Social Movement Organization]" perhaps comes closest
to describing the stage of development Of the ideology
of the battered women's movement. For this movement,
the general orientation was the basis Of a shared

understanding Of woman battering.

Definition of Social Movements

Nall (1976: 6) observes that for sociologists,
social movements are Often defined as any behavior
which cannot easily be categorized as fitting into the
institutionalized belief systems of a society. But
this type of definition ignores the members'
perception: whether or not the participants define
their actions as being part of a social movement.3
This study contends that if participants refer to
their activities as being part Of a social movement,
they are indeed involved in one. Ash (1972: 1)
perhaps comes closest to articulating this type of
definition:

A social movement is a set of attitudes

and self-conscious actions on the part of

a group of people directed toward change

in the social structure and/or ideology

of a society and carried on outside of

ideologically legitimated channels or

which uses these channels in innovative

ways.

Thus, it is the attitudes and the self-conscious

27

actions Of participants which distinguish a social
movement from other phenomena. However, such a
subjective perspective on social movements renders
them inherently difficult to identify and delineate.
If a social movement is defined as an attitude and the
collective actions Of people who see themselves as
members of a movement, where do people fit in who do
not perceive themselves as part of a movement and yet
who belong to movement groups and/or participate in
advancing the goals and ideas Of the movement? This
problem will be amply demonstrated in my analysis Of
the battered women's movement, since members of local
groups who are working on the issue of woman battering
are not always in accord with what national
spokespeople represent as the movement's perspective.
Indeed, sometimes local group members appear unaware
of the existence of a movement dedicated to the same
issue as they.

There are different types of social movements.
Ash (1972) divides them into revolutionary and reform
movements. Revolutionary movements are those which
advocate changing the relations of production,
political system, central values and institutions of
society through ideologically illegitimate methods.
Reform movements merely aim to manipulate elites
within the existing social structure through

ideologically legitimate methods. Reform movements,

28

however, might evolve into revolutionary movements if
their goals are repeatedly frustrated by the structure
Of class relations; or if the movement is so
successful at achieving its original goals that its
members escalate their demands.

On the other hand, it is possible that movements
which begin with a radical perspective may modify
their demands if members decide that such an approach
is more effective. Or radical movements may
unwittingly become instruments of reform because their
members do not adequately understand the state's
potential for cooptation. To my knowledge, there has
been very little written about client-focused
movements, which elect to provide expensive services
to some target population, and must as a result rely
on funding sources such as government or private-
sector grants. I would conjecture, however, that this
type of movement might moderate its rhetoric and adapt
its goals and structure to satisfy the expectations of
its most promising supporters.

In general, reform movements are more likely than
revolutionary movements to succeed in achieving their
saoals, at least that has been the case historically in
tzhe U.S. There is less resistance from the ruling

(:lass to the narrow goals Of reform movements, since
tzhose goals may be accomplished without upsetting the

l>asic structure of society. Schwartz (1976) contends

29

that successful reform movements are those which
understand the social structure well enough to
anticipate and overcome its resistance, and in which
the movement's rank and file membership uses its
positions within the established social structure to
develop and exercise power counter-institutionally.
Most research on social movements has been
undertaken retrospectively, after the movement has
developed completely and faded away. Few studies have
examined social movements in their prime, while they
remain vigorous. Thus, the outcome Of the movement--
its sucess or failure in achieving its goals--is known
before the research is begun; and the focus is Often
directed toward why the movement failed or succeeded
(Freeman, 1975: 7). An exception to this trend are
recent studies Of the contemporary women's movement, a
viable, ongoing movement about which a great deal of
research has already been done (e.g., Cassell, 1977;
Deckard, 1979; Evans, 1979; Freeman, 1975; Mandle,
1979). Other exceptions are ethnographic studies, in
which the researcher becomes part of the movement in
order to understand the movement's internal processes
and the worldview of its members (see, for example,
Thorne, 1971). There is still a need for empirical
evidence of the formative processes involved in
creating social problem movements, Of how the

:movement's goals and definitions are shaped and

30

reshaped by the existing conditions and experiences

which members encounter.

Methods of Study

The purpose Of this research was to study the
battered women's movement and its impact on changing
social definitions Of woman battering, in an attempt
to contribute empirical data to the development of a
theory of the formation Of social problem movements.
Insights may be provided into how social movements
contribute to the definition of social problems, by
examining the origins of the battered women's
movement, the rise Of local and regional organizations
within the movement, the relationship of ideology to
the movement's development and continuity, and the
sources of strain or conflict within the movement. I
have traced the development of the movement by
analyzing how local groups got started, the dynamics
and conflicts involved in group formation, the types
of services which are Offered to battered women, how
the strategy of shelter building emerged, the
alternative models of service which have developed in
different communities, and the relationship Of these
services to the movement as a whole. It is hOped that

the battered women's movement, understood in its

31

development through time, will serve as a substantive
example of social problem movements, that the analysis
will have theoretical relevance.

The method of data collection was oriented toward
generating theory rather than testing previously
formulated hypotheses. The questions asked were Of an
exploratory nature, designed to allow the issues to
emerge from the perspective of the participants,
rather than being predetermined by the researcher. In
the tradition of grounded theory:

To be sure one goes out and studies an

area with a particular sociological

perspective and with a focus, a general

question, or a problem in mind. But he

[sic] can (and we believe should) also

study an area without any preconceived

theory that dictates, prior to the

research, "relevancies" in concepts and

hypotheses. Indeed it is presumptuous to

assume that one begins to know the

relevant categories and hypotheses until

the "first days in the field," at least,

are over (Glaser and Strauss, 1967: 33-

4).

My goal was to use empirical research to generate
better theoretical understanding. I decided that the
best way to accomplish this was through in-depth
interviews with the members of local groups--"shelter
builders“ and the like--the people who conceived of
services for battered women in their own communities.
I wanted to study several groups in order to determine

whether the formation process was the same or

different in various settings.

32

The interviews began with broad general questions
from which conceptual categories were derived, and
which led to a discussion of more specific issues.
This type of relatively unstructured, "conversational"
interview enabled me to follow up on pertinent topics
as they were introduced by the respondents, by asking
for further clarification, and spontaneously exploring
new hypotheses as they came to mind (Becker and Geer,
1970: 133). The interview schedule has been included
in Appendix A; questions were modified according to
the dictates of the field experience. The interviews
were taped, with permission of the respondents, who
signed Informed Consent forms and were assured that
their answers would remain confidential. I also took
notes during the interviews.

My preliminary "feel" for the types of questions
to be asked came from prior contact with members of
the battered women's movement, through attending the
first conference of the National Coalition Against
Domestic Violence (NCADV), in February, 1980. I had
Opportunity to Observe the delegates, establish
contacts, explain my research interests, conduct
individual interviews, and discover some background
information about similarities and differences among
groups within the movement.

After Observing participants and listening to the

discussions at the NCADV conference, it seemed to me

33

that although participants may share the basic
perspective of "opposing the use of violence as a
means of control and supporting equality in
relationships and self-empowerment of women" (NCADV
Handbook, 1980: 17), there was wide variation in
philosophies and in strategies for achieving these
goals. For example, there was great diversity in
racial, ethnic, religious, and economic backgrounds of
participants-~differences which were touted as a
positive factor and a great strength of the movement;
but which may cluster to distinguish some local groups
from each other. As one illustration, inner-city
groups seemed much more concerned with statements Of
equality and providing bilingual and welfare-funded
services than those in wealthy suburbs. Also, groups
in large urban areas seemed less hesitant to connect
the causes Of woman battering to a patriarchal,
capitalist system than did those from small towns or
rural areas. I designed some of my interview
questions with the intention of determining whether
these differences did indeed exist, and if they were
related to ideology and structure, as I suspected.

I also acquired background orientation to the
world of movement participants through an initial
field study, and as a participant Observer in one
group. In 1977 I had the Opportunity to Observe the

trial Of a battered woman accused Of murdering her

34

former husband, in which the experience of being
battered was presented as her motive. I observed the
meetings and activities of her defense committee
before, during, and for a few weeks after the trial.
The defense committee was a coalition of feminists
from various community organizations which formed to
publicize the case and relate it to the general issue
of woman battering. My observation of this case was
performed within the context of a field research
methods course, and included approximately 26 hours or
observation over a six-week period.

In addition to generating theoretical
understanding and empirical evidence, my role as a
participant observer in the defense committee awakened
a personal concern about battered women. Until that
time I was unaware Of the existence of woman
battering. Exposure to the issue through this trial
and the work of the defense committee made me a "part-
time' activist in the developing battered women's
movement. This exposure also enabled me to establish
contacts with other local members Of the movement.

Many members of the defense committee were later
involved in a group which was formed in 1978 to
provide services for battered women, and opened a
shelter in February, 1980. I joined this group during
its first membership drive and have attended its

meetings and received its mailings since then. In

35

January, 1980, I participated in a fifty-hour training
session which the group requires of its volunteers
before they can become "counselor advocates” (C/A's).
Working as a C/A is the only way that volunteers can
become involved in "direct services"--working with
battered women--at this shelter. As Blum (1970: 83)
Observes, one of the best ways to become acquainted
with workers is to share their work, and this process
Of becoming acquainted also includes becoming more
familiar with the type of work that is done. From
February to September, 1980 I worked at least four
hours a week as a C/A in the shelter, and had many
conversations with board members and full-time staff
about the group's development.

My data on this group constitutes a local case
study, based on interviews and Observations, as well
as documentary research into the group's archives--its
newsletters and other records of its founding. My
knowledge Of this group also served a valuable
orienting function, helping me anticipate and
understand the issues which are most compelling to
service providers and other members of the battered
women's movement. These experiences, as well as a
pretest interview of a woman from another city who had
worked in a shelter there for two years, provided an
opportunity to "learn the native language" of shelter

people (Becker and Geer, 1970). I discovered the

36

kinds of questions I wanted to ask and the way to ask
them.

Strictly speaking, because of my concern about
woman battering, and my involvement in the movement as
an activist, I was never "just an Observer" Of the
movement. I located myself as a partisan on the issue
before I even began to Observe the defense committee.
Later, when I was interviewing members Of each group
in my sample, I told them that I had worked with one
group as a volunteer. I felt that sharing this
information would help to establish my credentials as
someone with more than an academic interest in the
issue (I had heard sentiments expressed which were
hostile to academics who studied battered women and
remained aloof from involvement). But I was also
identifying myself as sympathetic to battered women
and to the people who are working in the movement.

However, I also felt a deep ambivalence about my
dual roles of movement participant and sociological
Observer. Although Open about my research interest
and intent, there were many times when I felt that I
was Observing things which should not be included in
my fieldnotes. I had acquired the insider's "guilty
knowledge," and was unsure of what to do with it. My
decision was to not include information acquired
through Observation while performing duties as a

volunteer. I am reasonably certain, though, that that

37

knowledge colored my perception of what I was told
during formal interviews (Thorne, 1980, discusses many
Of the dilemmas of informed consent in fieldwork, and
of the guilt which ethnographers often feel about
observing a group from inside.)

When I began studying other groups, the emphasis
of my interviews was on why, when, and how different
individuals became committed to the claims-making
activities involved in establishing woman battering as
a social problem, the history of specific local
movement groups, a comparison Of the sources and foci
of their concern, and the relationship of individual
groups to, and impact on, the battered women's
movement and the issue of woman battering in general.
Questions were asked in an effort to discover how
woman battering became visible in various communities
and how groups went about highlighting the issue as a
social problem. I was interested in analyzing
differences and similarities among groups in origins,
ideology, membership, services, goals and tactics, and
in determining what factors--such as location in a
rural or urban, conservative or progressive community,
or grassroots versus institutional social service
sponsorship--account for these differences. In other
words, how do community and cultural values affect the
movement's ideology and structure, at both the local

and the national levels? I was also concerned with

38

the relationship between battered and nonbattered
women (oppressed minority versus outsiders) in
movement groups, and what impact the relative presence
or absence of each type of participant had on the
development of the group and the movement.

I evaluated the effect Of these differences
through a comparison of carefully chosen cases. The
context of this research was limited to groups in one
geographic region, which I have called the Heartland:
a broad swath cutting from the upper Great Lakes to
the southern Appalachians. I initially contacted all
(as of October, 1980) of the groups who were providing
services, or working to provide such services, in two
states, which I have referred to as State One and
State Two. State One has a relatively well-developed
statewide network of shelters and several "mature"
groups--i.e., in existence for two or more years. In
State Two, most groups are "embryonic“--i.e., work is
only beginning in most areas on assessing needs and
planning services for battered women, there are few
shelters, and coalition and support networks have only
recently begun to develop between grOUps. There are
also considerable differences in size and population
between the two states, a fact which I thought might
be significant in determining the types of prOgrams
and intergroup connections which developed; State One

has five times more population and is two and one-half

39

times as large in area as State Two (WORLD ALMANAC,
1979). However, as will become apparent, none Of
these factors seem to be consistently connected to
differences in group structure or ideology.

My first contact with each group occurred through
a letter (see Appendix B) which was mailed to 47
groups who were providing services to battered women.
This included all 33 groups in State One and all 14
groups in State Two. The names and addresses of each
group were Obtained from their state coalition. I
received a response from 39 groups: 29 from State One
and 10 from State Two (see Table 1). This represents
an 83 percent total return: 88 percent from State
One, 71 percent from State Two. The letter was brief,
and served mainly to introduce my research interests
and determine the type of services which a group was
Offering, the size Of its staff and number of
volunteers, and the age of the group (see Table 2). I
also asked for a brief statement Of why the grOUp had
decided to Offer services for battered women.

Although none of these questions could be
answered fully in the letter, the responses served as
an initial screen which helped me select a theoretical
sample (Glaser and Strauss, 1967) of groups
representing a variety of characteristics, to be
described below. This selection resulted in a sample

of 25 groups. 18 groups were from State One, seven

40

groups were from State Two. These are their
approximate proportions of the total number of groups
in both states; i.e., 70 percent Of the total number
of 47 groups were in State One, 30 percent were in

State Two.

Table 1.

Rate of Response to Initial Contact Letter

State State Total
One Two
Total Number of
Letters Mailed 33 14 47
Number Of
Letters Returned 29 10 39

Percentage Return 88% 71% 83%

41

Table 2.

Characteristics of Groups Responding to Contact Letter

State State Total
One Two
Year the Group Was Formed
1975 2 l 3
1976 6 0 6
1977 8 2 10
1978 5 6 11
1979 6 l 7
1980 2 0 2
Type of Services Offered*
Shelter l8 6 24
Safe Homes 5 1 6
Other 6 3 9
Size of Paid Staff
None 0 2 2
One to Three People 10 4 14
Four to Six People 9 3 12
Seven to Ten People 9 l 10
11 or More People 1 0 1
Number Of Volunteers
One to Five People 4 0 4
Six to Ten People 8 1 9
11 to 15 People 3 2 5
16 or more People 14 7 21
Community Size
Rural (Towns Of less
than 20,000) 6 2 8
Small Towns (20,001
to 50,000) 11 3 14
Medium Cities (50,001
to 150,000) 7 5 12
Large Cities (150,001
and more) 5 0 5

*Types Of Services are described in Chapter Three.

42

Sample Characteristics

The groups which I selected were based on my
expectation that certain categories of analysis would
reveal significant differences in group origins, that
would explain how social problem movements develop
under varying conditions. For instance, I believed
that a comparison Of ideologies and Operating
procedures between groups in more "conservative" areas
(such as small towns in rural areas) and those in more
"liberal" areas (such as large cities and university
communities) would be theoretically important.
Although most groups may share a general definition or
the problem of woman battering, their specific tactics
and goals for dealing with the proolem may vary, or
may be a source Of conflict within some groups, and
result in the emergence of differing conceptions of
the problem of woman battering.

As another example, I gathered information
concerning the chronological order of group formation,
since I expected that those formed more recently might
have evolved as a result of people in their community
hearing about services already established in other
areas, whereas the earliest groups would have had
their genesis in a different source (although none of
the groups in my sample are among the earliest

nationally). One way to theoretically saturate a

43

category is by maximizing differences among groups
(Glaser and Strauss, 1967), so as much variation as
possible was sought in selecting groups. A
description Of the general characteristics of the
groups in my sample follows.

The groups providing services to battered women
which I studied were located in a variety of community
settings. Some were located in small towns of 20,000
to 30,000 people, others in medium-sized cities of
50,000 to 150,000 people, and a few in large cities
with populations of more than 150,000. I interviewed
groups in isolated rural communities, where
respondents said most residents were very
conservative; university towns, where residents were
perceived by group members to be progressive and
liberal-minded; and cities where the groups said they
were banned by residents from Opening a shelter in
some neighborhoods, but were able to locate other
neighborhoods where residents were supportive.

In spite of this attention to selecting groups
with different characteristics, however, I found no
consistent ideological or structural differences among
the groups studied which could be attributed to any of
the comparative categories which I analyzed. Rural
versus urban, relative age of the group, State One
versus State Two, and community setting could not be

isolated as the source of differences among groups. I

44

found that variations were greater among groups in
each category than between categories. I cannot
assume from my data that these categories are not
significant, but rather that my method did not reveal
any significant relationship between these categories

and group ideology or structure.
Obtaining the Data

After selecting the 25 groups which I thought
would represent as wide a variation of characteristics
as possible, I contacted each group and interviewed
key people, usually those who were involved in the
formative stages Of the group's development. These
"elite interviewees" were selected because, as Dexter
(1970: 7) states, it was assumed that "they are the
ones who both know and can articulate how things
[were] actually done." Each time I called a group to
request an interview, I explained that I was
particularly interested in the group's beginnings, and
would prefer to talk to someone who was involved in
forming the group, or who was well-acquainted with its
history. In most cases, I was immediately put in
contact with one of the founders (all of the groups
are fairly young, so it was relatively easy to trace
the history, and the original people were either still

active or usually living in the area.) In the few

45

cases in which a founder was unavailable, I was able
to talk to someone who was well acquainted with the
founders and the group's history. I asked indepth
questions concerning how, when, why, and by whom their
organization was started, methods of
publicity/community outreach, funding sources,
ideology, and sources Of conflict within the group and
its larger context, and compared my groups on each
dimension.

Thirteen of the interviews took place at the
group's Office or shelter: nine at the shelter, four
at the Office of groups who do not have a shelter.
Seven interviews took place at the interviewee's home;
and one at an interviewee's Office (she did not work
at the shelter). Two interviews were taped at a
”neutral” p1ace--a restaurant-—and two were
administered by telephone, because Of their great
distance from me. Thus, I was able to observe a
majority of the interviewees in their group's work
environment--shelter or office.

The research design was flexible enough to allow
for continuing modification of the categories of
analysis, in accordance with the constant comparative
method of qualitative analysis. This flexibility is
one Of the advantages of unstructured methods (Dean,
et a1., 1969). For example, I found that the

interviews "flowed" much more smoothly if I rearranged

46

the order of my questions; if I began by asking what
services the group provided and how those services had
evolved, the group structure became clear to me
earlier, and the group's origins and history began to
emerge more naturally as the conversation progressed.

Based on my interview sample, I have not
attempted to make conclusive generalizations about the
nature of the formation process for all groups which
are involved in helping battered women. Other
variables may have influenced people in different
parts of the country which were not present anywhere
in the two states which I studied. It is also
possible that my findings would have been different,
even for the same groups, if I had used another method
of study. For example, I might have found that
different members had varying perceptions of group
origins, philosophy, and definitions of woman
battering if I had selected three or four groups and
conducted extended case studies. This would have
involved several months Of observation and interviews
with many members of each group.

The above possibility did prove to be true of the
one group in which I conducted a case study. The
group's collective image, its Official ideology and
public "presentation of self" (Goffman, 1959), was
quite different from its internal operating procedures

and explanations of events. I am not implying that

47

there was deliberate collusion. For the most part,
group members were probably unaware of discrepancies
between what they said the group did or believed and
what actually happened. That is, they were unaware
that they were participating in "dramaturgical
cooperation" (Goffman, 1959: 211). But my contact
with most of the other groups was limited to one visit
and an interview with only one or two group members; I
never went "backstage." Hence, there was no way for
me to learn Of similar discrepancies in other groups.
I shall, however, give examples Of locations of
possible discrepancies throughout my analysis Of the
data.

As a further limitation, I did not control for
type Of person interviewed. I allowed the
participants to select themselves, based on their
determination Of who was most appropriate when I asked
to speak to "someone who was involved in the group
from the beginning” or "someone who is well-acquainted
with the group's origins." Usually this turned out to
be a group's Director or a member of its board of
directors. Occasionally it included a volunteer. But
rarely did it lead me to an interview with a "lesser"
staff member, and never to separate interviews with
different group members, who might have contradicted
each other. Thus, the disadvantage of "elite

interviews” is that they may bias the data in favor of

48

the elite's View Of a group.

In summary then, the mode of gathering data could
not yield conclusive results about similarities and
differences among groups or about sources of
intragroup struggle and contention. But the
experience of limited contact with 25 groups had the
advantage of exposing me to many more groups involved
in the battered women's movement than I could have
encountered with case studies. It also provided me
with a broader View Of the movement at the local level
than would have been possible had I studied a few
groups in depth. At the same time, one-shot person-
to-person interviews provided a more in-depth study
than a survey could have done, even had it employed an
Open-ended questionnaire. This is because my method
Of informal, taped interviews allowed the respondents
to talk at length about each question and clarify
meanings before they answered. It also allowed me to
follow up on pertinent material which the respondents
introduced, and change my questions as the situation
warranted.

To expand my focus, I also referred to documents
(brochures, leaflets, newsletters) published by groups
in various other states to gather information
pertinent to my interests. Pizzey's (1974) book is a
valuable source, since she includes an extensive

description of how Chiswick Women's Aid in England

49

became a battered women's shelter. Martin (19/6)
visited and interviewed workers at several of the
early shelters in the U.S. I collected printed
materials from many groups at the NCADV conference,
and at a regional conference--for Region V, which
includes a large portion Of the Heartland, including
State One of my sample--held in May, 1981 in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Many Of these printed materials
include descriptions of group beginnings. I have
gleaned as much information as possible which was
pertinent to my categories Of analysis from each of
these sources. Finally, a few other publications have
emerged very recently (Bako, 1980; Fleming, 1979;
Klein, 1979; Roberts, 1980; Tierney, 1979; and Yoder,

1980) which have been helpful in checking my findings.

Summary

This chapter has presented a review of the
literature on social problem movements, and a
description of the method by which I chose to study
the battered women's movement. The analysis of the
data is the subject of the remaining chapters; but a
brief description of each chapter is included here.

Chapter Two, Historical Origins of the Battered

Women's Movement, traces the factors which contributed

50

to the emergence Of woman battering as a social
problem by examining the evolution Of the contemporary
women's movement and how it gradually became concerned
with specific issues such as violence against women.
After woman battering was identified as one form of
such violence, feminists began to study the prOblem
and try to learn more about its causes and extent. A
brief overview of this research is presented, and an
analysis of how the issue continues to be related to
feminism.

Chapter Three, The Beginnings of the Battered
Women's Movement, examines how a separate social
movement developed to articulate and confront the
problem of woman battering. Some Of the founders of
the movement are described, as well as the evolution
of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence
(NCADV) and local groups. In addition, this chapter
discusses the decision of groups within the movement
to provide direct services; and five models of
services are described in detail. The structure of
local groups and the ties between groups, through
state, regional, and national coalitions, as well as
through informal channels of communication are also
presented.

Part Two, Claims-Making Activities in the
Heartland, describes the processes of animation,

legitimation, and demonstration, by which local groups

51

were organized and infused with life. Chapter Four,
Carving a Niche for Woman Battering in the Public
Consciousness, discusses the factors which brought
various groups into existence, the steps involved in
becoming viable, and the ways in which they learned
about woman battering. The chapter also presents an
analysis of how groups define the causes of woman
battering, and what they see as the solutions. The
philosophies of local groups, as manifestations Of
movement ideology, are examined.

Chapter Five, Putting Woman Battering on the
Community's Agenda of Concern, analyzes the
terminology each group preferred-—e.g., "battering“,
"domestic violence", "spouse abuse"--the "politics of
naming," and the kinds of compromises which groups
make for the sake of public image and legitimacy
within their communities. These compromises are
revealed in the strategies of public outreach which
groups devise, and in the content of their public
addresses. The strategies may be evaluated through
the reactions Of other community organizations to
local groups. This chapter also traces the influence
of the women's movement and the meaning of feminism in
various groups. Finally, the decision of most groups
to provide direct services to battered women is
critically examined, and potential alternatives are

considered.

52

In Part Three, Summary and Conclusions, Chapter
Six describes the impact of local groups on the
battered women's movement, and the impact of the
movement on public perceptions of woman battering. It
asks to what extent the movement has challenged
cultural hegemony and created a new definition of
reality. It also asks whether these changes are an
index of the power Of the contemporary women's
movement, what were the social conditions of the
1970's which led to a redefinition, and what are the

prospects for the 1980's.

Chapter Two
HISTORICAL ORIGINS OF THE BATTERED WOMEN'S MOVEMENT

If it had not been for years Of civil
rights and anti-war struggles and if it
had not been for years of struggle by
women to articulate the fact that women
are oppressed in this society, there
would still be no such thing as a
battered woman. Women would, of course,
continue to be battered and killed. But
it was the women's movement that set the
groundwork so that we could later
articulate that this behavior was not
individual or aberrent but rather social
and political (Schecter, 1981b: 42).

Woman battering came to public attention largely
due to the efforts of the women's movement in the late
1960's and early 1970's. The discovery of battering
was part of a process by which women gradually
uncovered the forms Of their own Oppression. In this
chapter I want to explore the evolution Of that

discovery.
The Development of the Women's Movement

Feminism emerged as one of the most influential
movements of the 1970's. Originating in the 1960's
from two major sources, the two strands increasingly

53

54

merged after 1970 (Freeman, 1975). But those
differing points of origin continued to influence the
kinds of issues that were identified as a focus for
social protest, and the strategies that evolved to
effect change. The two strands may be loosely
identified as Women's Rights and Women's Liberation
(Mandle, 1979). 1

Women's Rights included groups such as the
National Organization for Women (NOW), Women's Equity
Action League (WEAL), and Federally Employed Women
(FEW). These groups grew out of reform efforts in the
early 1960's, and concentrated on improving women's
access to Opportunities within the existing social
structure. For example, NOW was founded in 1966, and
its stated goal was "to bring women into full
participation in the mainstream of American society .
. . in truly equal partnership with men" (Freeman,
1975: 55). Most Of NOW's founders were protessional
women who had experienced discrimination in their
careers and, Often, had first attempted to resolve
their grievances through the state Commissions on the
Status of Women or the Equal Employment Opportunit1es
Commission (Deckard, 1979: 347). When it began to
become apparent that these formal commissions were not
sufficiently effective as advocates, a group of women
decided to form an organization that would work

actively for women's rights. NOW and most other

55

Women's Rights groups have been national organizations
with centralized Offices and members all over the
country. Women's Rights groups have focused primarily
on legal and economic issues (Freeman, 1975: 50).

Women's Liberation groups, on the other hand,
were usually small, localized groups, such as Radical
Women (later Redstockings), the Feminists (originally
a splinter group from NOW), and the Chicago Women's
Liberation Union. These groups formed simultaneously
in different cities, with little communication between
groups. They were Often started by women who had been
participants in the Civil Rights and New Left
movements Of the 1960's, and who had a critical
perspective on society rather than seeking success
within established business, legal, or academic
professions.

Instead of reforms in the existing social
structure, Women's Liberation groups demanded
fundamental social changes, and formed only after men
in the New Left had refused to acknowledge women's
oppression. For example, Radical Women was organized
in New York in 1967 after a women's resolution was
ignored at the National Conference for a New Politics
(Deckard, 1979: 351). The Women's Liberation branch
soon splintered into two subbranches. Radical
Feminists contend that the sex/gender system is the

basis Of women's oppression, and their primary

56

emphasis is on issues of sexuality. Socialist
Feminists, on the other hand, believe that the
economic system is the basis of women's as well as
class oppression, and their focus is on the labor
process. But both of these traditions can be
distinguished from the Women's Rights groups in their
demand for radical, structural changes, and there is
considerable overlap in organization, analysis, and
political activity between the two subbranches of
Women's Liberation.

There was, Of course, an earlier women's movement
in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which
culminated in the achievement of women's suffrage in
1920, and then virtually disappeared for forty years.
The Woman Suffrage Movement has Often been categorized
as a reform movement, and the Women's Rights groups of
the 1960's and '70's are perceived as its modern
descendants. But DuBOis (1978) contends that woman
suffrage was an antecedent to more radical changes in
women's position. It was the first feminist movement
in the United States, and represented the first
attempt by women to gain some influence outside of the
home and family. In itself it was actually quite
radical for its time. Suffragism led to increasing
strength, political awareness, and self esteem for
women. Gaining the right to vote was the tangible

goal which led women to challenge the formerly

57

accepted status quo and develop a social movement for
their own liberation, in which their demands were much
broader than the vote.

. . . it was women's involvement in the

movement, far more than the eventual

enfranchisement of women, that created

the basis for new social relations

between men and women. In other words,

activity in the woman suffrage movement

. . . demonstrated that self-government

and democratic participation in the life

of the society was the key to women's

emancipation. Therein lay its feminist

power and its historical significance

(DuBois, 1978: 201).

Unfortunately, the potential of suffragism was
eventually submerged in a total obsession with the
vote. During the earlier part of the long struggle,
two main types of suffragists emerged. One group saw
the vote as a symbol Of a general change in public
attitudes toward women, and championed many other
issues as well as suffrage (this is the faction DuBois
traced in her study of the movement up to 1869).

Other suffragists wanted the vote less for their own
liberation as women than for the chance to have a more
influential voice in legislating general social
reforms. And as Freeman (1975) points out, both
factions eventually became bogged down in a single-
minded campaign which gave the movement no purpose
after the one goal of suffrage was achieved.

However, it is possible that an attempt to change

society through democratic participation may lead to

58

more radical methods when disillusionment occurs.

This was demonstrated in the 1960's by the shift in
the Civil Rights Movement to the more militant tactics
of the Black Power Movement}3 It may be that a similar
process occurred in the women's movement: the
Suffrage Movement and the 1960's Women's Rights
Movement were both sources of the Women's Liberation
Movement; Civil Rights and Women's Rights grOUps
continued their reform activities during the time that
Black Power and Women's Liberation were advocating
different approaches. Not everyone became militant;
the radical response was only one reaction to
injustice.

Harding (1981) contends that both the moderate
and radical branches of the women's movement, in all
Of their manifestations, contribute essential
components to a family reform movement, aimed at
extending an ideology Of equality, individualism, and
reason to the structure of the family and woman's
place in it. Each branch developed as a different
response to the same phenomenon--the contradiction
between the rhetoric of egalitarianism which
predominated in the 1960's, and the reality of gender
hierarchy which continued to define most women's
lives. Arguing along similar lines, Easton (1979:
556) explains that in the contemporary period man's

.power over woman is weakest within the family; and "at

59

each stage the women's movement has wisely chosen to
attack the weakest, not the strongest, area of male
dominance."

In the nineteenth century, feminists were
sometimes critical of marriage and family relations
that oppressed women. They could not, however, make
family reform their central focus because the material
basis Of male power within the family was too strong.
The economy was structured to prevent women from being
independent from men; and sexuality, reproduction, and
the socialization of children were intertwined in a
"monolithic condensation Of functions" (Mitchell,
1966) that kept women trapped in domesticity.

Instead, the nineteenth-century feminists challenged
male dominance in the public arena, because that was a
contradiction of the prevalent value of "equal
Opportunity" in the marketplace. In the 1960's and
1970's, however, the potential for a separation of the
structures of sexuality, reprOduction, and the
socialization of children existed, and coupled with
women's increasing entry into the labor force, began
to undermine the legitimacy of male domination in the
family. Hence, the weakest area became the family,
and feminists developed a critical perspective on the
family.

The new feminists reversed the priorities

of their predecessors: while they
recognized the importance of continuing

60

to fight for equality in the public

arena, their central concern was the

question of women's subordination within

the family (Easton, 1979: 563).

When the women's movement began again in the
1960's, however, it lacked the type of concrete,
unifying goal which suffrage had provided to the
earlier movement. There was the demand for respect
and equal Opportunity, but those are abstract goals,
subject to varying interpretations and strategies for
achieving them. The Equal Rights Amendment, which had
been introduced in every session of Congress since
1923 but always rejected until 1972, became a cause
for many feminists. But not every woman was convinced
that she would benefit from the ERA, and no one wanted
to make the same mistake that the suffragists had
made, in becoming so focused on one issue that its
success or failure would spell the end of the
contemporary movement.

Ideological splits develOped between homemakers
and professional working women, between working-class
and middle-class women, and among other factions, all
of whom considered themselves feminists, but who had
differing perceptions of what "equality","respect",
and even "feminism" meant. As a result of these
differences and the lack Of a commonly agreed upon

goal, the women's movement began to split into groups

who were working on specific issues. Sometimes groups

61

with different political orientations came together to
solve concrete problems. The Old Women's
Rights/Women's Liberation dichotomy gradually gave way
to coalitions and factions which cannot be so easily
classified as reform or radical. Individuals often
identify themselves as Radical-Feminists or Socialist-
Feminists and label others as Bourgeois or Liberal
Feminists, for example, but they work together on
women's issues. A case in point is the struggle to
maintain reproductive freedom, which involves
feminists from radical, socialist, and liberal
perspectives.

In contrast to the Suffrage Movement, which
gradually narrowed its focus to only one issue, the
women's movement of the 1970's continued to diversify,
and to applaud its diversity. "The multitude of
different groups reached out to different kinds or
women, served different functions within the movement,
and presented a wide variety of feminist ideas"
(Freeman, 1975: 83). The heterogeneity of the
movement is thus seen as one of its strengths, and may
perhaps save it from the fate of anachronism which
befell the earlier movement in 1920 (although others,
particularly in the mass media, perceive the
heterogeneity in a negative way--as factionalism and a

sign of the movement's weakness).

62

Specific Issues

Some of the,issues which have been addressed by
the women's movement include sexual harassment and
other working conditions for women in the labor force,
equal pay and equal work, reprOductive rights,
childcare, displaced homemakers, and sexism in
textbooks and media images. Within the past few years
the general issue of violence against women, in such
forms as physical assault, rape (sexual assault),
incest, pornography, and sexual slavery, has begun to
elicit widespread public concern, a concern pushed
forward by the women's movement. Local and national
activist groups have organized to confront violence
aganst women, by increasing public awareness,
supporting victims, and implementing policies to
alleviate patterns of abuse. Each type of abuse has
received extensive coverage in the national news
media, and in many cases the government has funded
studies of their prevalence and causes, as well as
helping fund projects to solve the proolems.

Rape was probably the first form of violence
against women which became a focus of the women's

44A11 women are potential victims of rape

movement.
(Brownmiller, 1975), and as women began to meet in
consciousness-raising groups and other women's

movement activities, they learned that the fear of

63

rape haunts women of every social class, race, and
age. Thus, rape is inherently a broadly-based issue
(Rose, 1977), and one which women feel that they "own"
as a problem. Griffin (1977: 66) calls rape "the
quintessential act of our civilization," and many
feminists--especially radical feminists--came to see
it as a metaphor of traditional gender relations--man
as dominant, violent, active aggressor; woman as
submissive, weak, passive victim. The first rape
crisis telephone line Opened in 1972 (according to
Rose, who does not indicate where the first line was
located), and by 1977 most major cities and college
communities in the U.S. had some form of crisis line
and/or crisis center for rape victims (Rose, 1977).
The anti-rape movement, as a submovement of the
women's movement, continues to be very active in
educating the public about the prevalence of rape,
teaching women how to defend themselves, pushing for
legislative and judicial reforms in dealing with
offenders, and developing support systems--through the
police, hospitals, and counseling services--for the
victim.

In a sense, rape was already an issue before the
women's movement adopted it. The public was aware
that rape existed and there were laws against rape,
although most people were not cognizant Of how

widespread it is, and few people had made the

64

political connections which feminists made--linking
rape to male dominance. The police and FBI already
included rape statistics in their crime reports, but
few law enforcement Officials were sensitive to the
victim's needs (they Often did not even believe her),
and thus, most rapes went unreported. Rape was
considered a crime, but it took the women's movement's
insistence that it was a serious crime to create
concern and genuine efforts to alleviate the prOblem.
Nevertheless, rape was previously in the public
domain. A woman might never Speak Of her own rape
experience; men and women might refuse to acknowledge
that rape had ever touched their personal lives; but
rape as a general topic could be a subject of
conversation.

There were other issues, however, which were not
part of public consciousness until the women's
movement made them so. Many forms of violence against
women fell into this category of "nonexistent“ issues-
-there were victims but most people were unaware of
the crime, or did not consider it a crime or even a
collective problem. Sexual harassment is an example:
women lost their jobs, or kept them by giving in to
sexual demands by their employers; but few people
conceived that it was more than an individual, rare
occurrence until the late 1970's, when the prOblem was

named by women--a crucial step toward visibility

65

(MacKinnon, 1979).

Battering is another form of violence against
women which only emerged as a major social problem in
the 1970's, after feminists brought it to public
attention. Woman battering may be defined as repeated
physical and/or psychological abuse Of a woman by a
man in the context of a romantic/sexual relationship
(Nielsen, et a1., 1979). In other words, this is a
form of violence between sexual intimates--perpetrated
by men against their wives or female lovers
(cohabitees). Thus, this concept is differentiated
from rape or other forms of abuse of women, which
occur between strangers or casual acquaintances.
(However, rape may be part of the battering context,
when it occurs during an episode of ”deliberate,
severe, and repeated physical injury . . . with the
minimal injury being severe bruising-~Moore, 1979:
8.)55Woman battering has also been referred to as
"wife beating," but since that term implies a legal
marital relationship between the assailant and victim,
woman battering is a more comprehensive term; it

6
encompasses cohabitees as well as wives.

66

Historical Evidence of Woman Battering

"An unbeaten wife is like a dull scythe"
(Ukrainian proverb--Stephens, 1963: 269).

"A spaniel, a woman, and a walnut tree,
the more they're beaten the better they be"
Old English proverb-~Rowbotham, 1972: 18).

". . . Scold her sharply, bully and
terrify her . . . Readily beat her, not
in rage but out of charity and concern
for her soul, so that the beating will
redound tO your merit and her good."
(Rules Of Marriage, 1450, Friar Cherubino
of Siena--Davidson, 1980: 99)

An attitude Of casual acceptance of woman
battering has prevailed in European and American
societies in many periods of history. For example, a
York woman produced witnesses and appeared before an
ecclesiastical court in 1395 to testify that her
husband had attacked her on different occasions with a
knife and a dagger. She asked the court to grant her
a divorce, but her husband asserted that his actions
had merely been intended to "reduce her from her
errors". The court denied the divorce, declaring that
no cause had been presented (Freeman, 1979: 128).

It is impossible to say who first

declared that wives could and should be

beaten by their husbands or when this

practice began; it is equally difficult

to find any historical period in which

there were no formulas stating the form

such beatings should take and specifying
the conditions under which a wife was

67
deserving of a good clout (Dobash and

Dobash, 1979: 31).

Whether or not everyone approved, tacitly or
expressly, of men "disciplining" their wives through
physical force, it was usually considered a private,
domestic matter rather than a public concern, at least
so long as the punishment was not extreme.
Unfortunately, what was considered extreme was a
matter of subjective interpretation, and even after a
community had become alarmed by a man's behavior
toward his wife or cohabitee, they might decide not to
intervene in the "private sphere" of the family. Sir
William Blackstone, who wrote COMMENTARIES ON THE LAWS
OF ENGLAND (1765-1769), thought it reasonable and just
that a husband have the power to chastise his wife
(Freeman, 1979). Apparently, many people agreed with
him.

Often in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and
nineteenth centuries, European and American
communities dealt with "wife beaters" informally,
perhaps trying to shame them into changing their
behavior without any direct outside intervention. For
example, neighbors sometimes “serenaded” outside the
home of a man who was known to beat his wife—-
clattering pots and pans in a cacophany which they
called "rough music" (Davidson, 1980: 112). The most

recalcitrant husbands might eventually receive a

68

flogging (Pleck, 1979), but most Of the time the
community did nothing.

While wife beating has occurred in

epidemic proportions for centuries, it

has hardly caused a ripple in the law

enforcement apparatus, the judiciary, the

medical establishment, social agencies,

or the psychiatric community (Warrior,

1976: 5).

However, there have also been times when
individuals or groups have protested the right of men
to physically control their wives/cohabitees. In the
middle of the nineteenth century, a campaign began in
Great Britain to publicize the prevalence of woman
battering and devise some means Of protecting women.
John Stuart Mill wrote poignantly of the plight of
battered women in 1869. He found that although the
public was fascinated by the gruesome details Of
specific cases, they were inclined to ignore the
widespread nature of the prOblem (Davidson, 1980:
111). Frances Power Cobbe, a British feminist,
published a pamphlet in 1878 entitled WIFE TORTURE IN
ENGLAND, in which she proposed a bill to protect
battered women by allowing them a "judicial
separation" from their husbands. As a result, public
pressure was exerted and the Matrimonial Causes Act of
1878 was passed, giving magistrates' courts the power
to grant a legal separation and charge the husband a

weekly sum for his wife's maintenance, if the husband

had been convicted of aggravated assault on his wife.

69

However, securing a conviction against a husband for
aggravated assault was difficult and rare, and did not
serve as a solution to battering. Securing passage of
the bill apparently satisfied public concern at that
time, though, and ”little more is heard Of violence
against wives until the problem reemerged recently"
(Freeman, 1979: 129).

In the United States, many states passed laws
against woman battering in the nineteenth century.
Pleck (1979: 60) contends that "wife beating was
illegal in most states by 1870 and considered
illegitimate by many American men as well as women."
However, Pleck concedes that usually battered women
were Objects of neighborly or community concern only
if they fit a traditional image of weak femininity,
i.e., ”we'll protect you if you're a good girl.” In
the same way that the victms of sexual slavery
(selling women as prostitutes) became defined by their
"purity" in the late nineteenth century--"the less
sweet, innocent, and young she was, the less likely
she could be a victim" (Barry, 1979: 27), a battered
woman could only be considered abused if she were
frail and submissive. Women who seemed to deviate
from a meek wifely stereotype were Often thought to
deserve their husband's rage.

Pleck's data also indicate that in the nineteenth

century, as today among many people, woman battering

70

was assumed to exist only among poor immigrants and
Blacks, never among middle class or wealthy white
segments of the population. And that stereotype made
it easier to dismiss battered women from public
concern. In a racist society few people with the
power to affect change (i.e., white men) cared about
an issue whose subjects were poor. Barry (1979:27)
documents a similar pattern by which sexual slavery
came to be known as literally "white slavery":

While the term ["white slavery"] was

initially meant to distinguish the

practice from nineteenth-century black

slavery, it had immediate appeal to

racists who could and did conclude that

the efforts were against an international

traffic in white women. SO in addition

to being sweet, innocent, and young,

victims were also coming to be seen only

as white, despite the evidence that the

traffic included black, brown, and yellow

women.

The public roused itself to alarm only when the
victims of sexual slavery were identified as white
women. The same was generally true of the nineteenth-
century response to woman battering.

Interestingly, most of the nineteenth century and
earlier sanctions against woman battering were imposed
by men. The suffragists briefly made protection for
women against battering a part of their platform, and
then forgot about it as they narrowed their focus to

the vote (Dobash and Dobash, 1979: 5). Otherwise,

women rarely had the means to protect each other from

71

violent men. Instead, churchmen and vigilante groups,
e.g., the Ku Klux Klan and the Regulators, sometimes
launched campaigns against wife beating, on the
grounds that conjugal assailants threatened the
integrity of the family. These groups were less
concerned about women's safety and well-being than
they were about maintaining the legitimacy of the
patriarchal social system. Their ”standards of
justice were embedded in notions about prOper
definitions Of manhood and womanhood and concepts of
moral purity” (Pleck, 1979: 72). Most of the time,
so long as the batterer and his family did not disrupt
community life, battering remained a ”domestic" matter
and no one tried to stop him.

Woman battering was not considered a prOblem
unless it threatened to disrupt community life, either
literally by "disturbing the peace,” or figuratively
by contradicting the ideology of "just domination“
(Dobash and Dobash, 1981: 568) if a man appeared
unnecessarily cruel. When the batterer threatened to
cause such a disruption, it became a community
responsibility to deal with the offender. Thus,
ultimately, the community ”owned" the prOblem. Tomes
(1978: 336) found that "surveillance" was the most
common type Of neighborly response in working class
communities of the nineteenth century and earlier.

Neighbors would keep an eye on a particularly violent

72

husband, and try to distract him or hide the wife when
he became too abusive or disturbed the neighborhood.
Otherwise, they felt that he had a right to beat his
wife.

As state authority replaced community ritual,
legislation became a more important means of dealing
with those who threatened the social order. Thus,
laws were written to punish severe “wife beaters" as
ownership of the problem (Gusfield, 1975) passed to
the state. This was a gradual process, as feudalism
was replaced by capitalism and institutionalized
order. But the nineteenth century was the period of
greatest growth in state power (Dobash and Dobash,
1981), and this would account for the prOIiferation or
laws concerning woman battering which Pleck found.
However, as Dobash and Dobash (1981) illustrate, the
increase in laws did not actually result in greater
protection for battered women. In fact, due to the
abstraction of legislative justice and the
inconsistency of enforcement, many women were less
well protected than they had been under the old system
of community surveillance. Neighbors no longer saw it
as their duty or right to interfere in domestic
disturbances, and intervened less frequently than in
the past. The title Of a contemporary book on
battered women, SCREAM QUIETLY OR THE NEIGHBORS WILL

HEAR, poignantly conveys the attitude toward battering

73

which has prevailed since the nineteenth century.

Changes in perceptions about woman battering, and
in response to the issue, began to occur in the recent
past. In the early 1970's, among certain groups of
people in England, Canada, the United States, and some
other countries, the scope of woman battering began to
be recognized as a social problem. An unprecendented
number of newspaper and magazine articles, television
documentaries and dramas, books, and schOlarly
monographs have been produced, which express concern
about woman battering rather than covering up the
issue, treating it as a joke, or brushing it aside as
unimportant. As Straus, et a1. (1980) observe, there
has been a "radical shift in concern“ since 1972 when
there were no books on physical violence between
spouses, to 1980 when there are at least a dozen books
and many more articles entirely devoted to the

subject.

The Extent of Woman Battering

. . . it can be argued that a society
bothers to keep accurate statistics

mainly of those phenomena it deems worthy

of attention (Coser, 1972: 219).

Until the mid 1970's, no attempt was made to

measure the rates Of woman battering. Police records

of calls by battered women were lumped together with

74

all "domestic disturbances," including everything from
neighbors' arguments to dog fights. One of the first
tasks undertaken by researchers was to determine the
extent of the problem of woman battering. Although
the rates of battering are not the focus Of my
research, I shall summarize the data to indicate what
is known about the actual prevalence Of woman
battering.

Walker (1979) estimates that 50 percent of all
women in the United States will be victims of
battering at least once in their lives. Straus, et
a1. (1980), from a national sample of 2,143 families,
found that 28 percent of the families surveyed had
engaged in some form of violence between the spouses
at least once, and they think that this is probably an
underestimate--that many people did not admit to
experiencing a violent incident, or did not consider
their experiences violent. Thus, Straus and his
colleagues think that the true figure might be closer
to 50 or 60 percent of all couple in the U.S. ‘(Note:
this percentage includes all interspousal violence:
men battering women, women battering men. They have
not made percentage estimates of the male-to-female
violence, but they estimate in real figures that 1.8

million women are battered every year in the U.S.)

The FBI estimates that woman battering occurs three

times more frequently than sexual assault (rape), or

75

once every 18 seconds in the U.S. (Moore, 1979: 14).
As Loving (1980: 13) states, "The precise amount
and frequency of spouse abuse and wife beating in
America have not yet been determined." The task is
complicated by the inherent difficulty of formulating
the question. Gelles (1979) describes the dilemma of
trying to examine such a sensitive issue, of violating
the taken-for-granted privacy of the family.
Furthermore, there is a wide disparity in the public's
definition of battering, which determines how one
responds to whether violence has occurred, and that,
of course, affects the rates reported. Nevertheless,
there is general agreement among researchers and law
enforcement officials that woman battering affects a

significant proportion of the population.

Causes Of Woman Battering

A considerable amount of research in this period
has concentrated on trying to find the causes of woman
battering. One type of explanation, which Freeman
(1979) refers to as the pathological interpretation,
focuses on the individual personality traits or
assailants and/or victims. According to this
interpretation, battering occurs because the assailant
is sick, has an "inadequate personality," is an

alcoholic, drug addict, or psychopath. Serum (1978).

76

who counsels assailants in Midland, Michigan, contends
that "In actual fact, the assaults are a product Of
the assailant's personality structure, and have little
relationship to external events.” From this
perspective, the battered woman may also be seen as
pathological, in exhibiting a victim orientation: she
is passive, overly dependent, and somehow provokes
violent reactions from her mate (see Gayford, 1975,
for an example of this perspective).

McGrath (1979) is critical of this type Of
explanation, calling it the "ideology of victimology,"
which mystifies the real relationship between
assailant and victim by either blaming the latter or
some psychological factor which neither controls.
Walker (1979) partially bridges the gap between this
and a more sociological type of causal explanation, by
describing a syndrome of "learned helplessness" which
develops in women as a result of gender socialization
and which leads them to participate as victims in a
predictable cycle of violence.

Closely related to a pathological interpretation,
although totally rejecting any notion that women are
partially to blame for their rOle as victim, is the
thesis put forth by many radical feminist writers,
that battering occurs as a result of innate male
aggression and misogyny. Pagelow (1978) links

battering and other forms of male violence against

77

women to a "primordial anti-woman phObia," to
biological defects/advantages in woman's body which
cause man to demand power and domination over woman.
Pagelow speculates that there are underlying genetic
causes of male misogyny, and bases her thesis on the
assumption that woman battering occurs universally (an
as yet unproven hypothesis). Davidson (1980) would
agree, since she contends that men use violence to
bolster their fragile sense Of superiority, "to ease
the awful gnawing suspicion that they were in fact not
superior at all" (p. 104). Davidson presents no
empirical evidence, but she believes in the existence
of an original matriachy, which was overthrown when
men discovered their role in reprOduction. Like
Pagelow, Davidson views male dominance through
physical force as men's compensation for their
inability to bear children.

Dobash and Dobash (1979), Pizzey (1974), Martin
(1976), and McGrath (1979) also view male violence
against women as a way Of enforcing male dominance,
but they are inclined to view the social structuring
of gender relations--the sex/gender system 7--as the
cause, rather than searching for biological sources.
The sex/gender system determines how family
relationships are organized, and in western societies,
as Gelles (1979: 15, 18) states,

To put it simply, people hit family

78

members because they can . . . TO prevent

violence, we need to take steps to

eliminate the norms and values which

legitimize and glorify violence in the

society and the family.

Gelles writes in general terms of violence among
all family members. Others are more specific in
describing the norms which legitimate violence on the
part of the adult male member of the family--the
husband/father. Dobash and Dobash (1979) contend that
woman battering is the historically and socially
constructed means by which husbands dominate and
control their wives. Husbands (or cohabites) use
violence to maintain a patriarchal marital
relationship.8 Rather than an innate prOpensity, male
aggression is learned in our society, and Walker
(1979) contends that aggression cannot be eliminated
until total equality between women and men is
attained.

McGrath (1979) and Stark, et al.(1979) also
endorse the perspective that woman battering is
related to maintaining male dominance in the family,
to the material and historical conditions which have
shaped the family. At different times in history,
other conditions may have caused battering or
different forms of violence to prevail.

The economic, legal, sexual, ideological,

and physical mechanisms of men's control

over women Operate differently throughout

history, and while violence may arguably
be the bottom line Of male dominance, it

79

doesn't always reveal itself in the same

form (McGrath, 1979: 19).
It is pointless, according to this perspective, to
seek some ahistorical, universal cause of battering.
The cause depends on the economic and social factors
which shape a society's sex/gender system. For modern
western societies, McGrath believes that the
explanation lies in two structures of capitalist
patriarchy. First, the family structure of isolated
nuclear units with decreased social functions places
an overemphasis on the family as an "emotional haven"
which can satisfy all of its members' nurturing needs.
Second, the capitalist economic structure undermines
the authority of the individual male and dehumanizes
all workers in alienating labor. One of the last
remaining arenas of individual male power is the home,
and even there he feels threatened. He is no longer
the head Of a productive unit, or even necessarily the
main "breadwinner;" at least the possibility exists
that his wife could become economically independent.
As a result of erosions in patriarchal authority, men
may seek to reestablish dominance in whatever way they
can: "The effective network of male control has been
damaged, and the responses are likely to be violent”
(McGrath, 1979: 22).

Stark and his colleagues contend that

"patriarchy" has extended beyond its specific familial

80

form, to every aspect of life in our society, and that
all of the social services (education, religion,
recreation, medicine, law, police, and welfare)
Operate to defend male authority. Thus, they speak Of
the "social construction of battering," and say it is
bolstered and defended by social institutions.

Both McGrath and Stark, et al. maintain that men
do not resort to violence because of an innate
aggressiveness, but because in our culture they have
been taught to express themselves physically.
Masculinity is defined by the repression of emotional
needs. Woman battering of the conjugal partner has
become the mode Of violence which is most often
resorted to because the nuclear family is expected to
be the locus of all emotions; it is a ”psychological
hothouse" (McGrath), in which are acted out all
feelings.

Hence, in addition to explaining that erosions in
patriarchal authority are one cause of woman battering
at the present time, McGrath also points to another
possible cause--the increased isolation and privacy of
the nuclear family. This factor has been linked to
battering in other periods and places as well. Gelles
(1979) cites Whiting's observation (in a personal
communication with Gelles, 1975), deduced from her
research on African societies in transition, that as

people move from communal to private conjugal living

81

arrangements, infra-family violence increases: "When
the walls went up, people began to hit each other."

Draper (1975) records the same pattern in
comparing lKung and Herero settlements. lKung living
arrangements are more communal and open, and Draper
believes that this visiblity Offers protection to
women.

When husbands and wives argue, people are

at hand to intervene if either spouse

loses control. Wife-beating in these

settings is extremely difficult to effect

(p. 109).

The Herero are further separated into private houses
with doors and high fences around them (a style which
the lKung are beginning to emulate as they become more
sedentary). Draper fears that wife beating is easier
and perhaps more prevalent in this type of setting
since, as one woman told her, "If a man is angry with
his wife he can put her in the house, bolt the door
and beat her. No one can get in to separate them"
(Quoted in Draper, 1975: 109).

Laslett (1973) Offers further support for this
perspective, in her study Of the increasing privacy of
the American family in the twentieth century. She
finds that privacy is inversely related to social
control and accountability. Thus, there is greater
potential for individual interpretations of acceptable

behavior when family units are shielded from community

scrutiny. This helps to explain why battering

82

continued to be a pervasive form of behavior after it
was publicly denounced--after laws were passed against
it and public consensus denied its continued
existence. Woman battering may have gone
"underground" as family relations became more private,
but it did not diappear. It is quite possible,
although undocumented, that the rates of battering

increased as it disappeared from public display.

The Discovery of Woman Battering by the Women's
Movement

If the modern cause of woman battering lies at
least partially in the increased insularity of the
nuclear family, the rediscovery of its existence as a
widespread problem may be found in the contemporary
women's movement and its emphasis on reintroducing
”private" issues into the public domain. With the
slogan "the personal is political" as an organizing
principle, feminists have reversed the trend of
capitalist patriarchy, which is toward making private
troubles out of public issues (Mills, 1971; Dobash and
Dobash, 1979). Although much of the research on woman
battering which was done in recent years was
influenced by diverse perspectives, woman battering
has remained a feminist issue; and credit is usually

given to the women's movement for bringing battering

83

to public attention in the 1970's.

Violence against women is largely

explained in terms of the subordinate

position they occupy in society. For

this reason it is hardly surprising that

the problem of violence against women

tend [sic] to be perceived as a problem

in periods when there is an active

feminist movement (Freeman, 1979: 128).

Stark, et a1. (1979) provide one of the few
attempts to locate the material conditions which led
to increased concern for battered women. They state
that there have been three periods when battering has
been the focus of public and judicial concern--the mid
and late nineteenth century and the l970's--and all
three coincide with periods of business expansion,
when there was a great demand for female workers.
These were also periods of feminist activism (probably
also made possible by women's increased economic
independence), and the attempts to protect women from
physical abuse might represent a business concern with
protecting female labor power, as well as a greater
voice by women in drafting legislation and raising
concern about woman's position.

Straus, et a1. (1980) also attribute some of the
attention to woman battering to an earlier interest in
child abuse, an issue which began to receive attention
in the 1960's and was apparently not a product of the

women's movement. But they credit feminists with

drawing the analogy between woman and child abuse, and

84

with extending awareness of family violence to include
other victims besides children. Moore (1979: ll)
agrees that the connection to child abuse is
significant: "Once we enter the homes of abused
children we see and cannot dismiss the fact that the
women in many of those homes are also being
brutalized." She too states that it was the feminist
movement which was responsible for redefining what is
an acceptable use Of force against women. Others who
concur that the women's movement is largely
responsible for making battering an issue Of public
concern include, to cite a few, Deckard (1979), Dobasn
and Dobash (1979), Fleming (1979), and Walker (1979).
While McGrath (1979) agrees that the "discovery"
of woman battering is linked to the women's movement,
she perceives two opposing types of connection. The
new awareness and attention to the issue may either be
a result Of a feminist desire and ability to focus
public resources on the prOblem or, more ominously, it
could represent a "frightening male response" (p. 16)
to feminism. The underlying assumption of this latter
explanation is that increased attention indicates an
increase in the actual rates of battering (or it
assumes a conspiracy to ”remind" women of men's
ultimate ability to squelch "uppity” women with
physical force). However, as McGrath herself admits,

"The question of an absolute rise in battering is

85

difficult to answer" (p. 23). Since there are
minimal historical data about changing rates, even for
the last decade, there is no basis for comparison.

But there seems to be little evidence to support or
refute this perspective--that actual rates suddenly
increased immensely at this period.

In any case, the question would remain: Why has
public attention also increased? The two processes--
changing rates and changing perceptions--are somewhat
autonomous. Increased awareness of a prOblem does not
necessarily correspond to a change in the frequency of
occurrence (see for example Fishman, 1978, who shows
that "crime waves" are independent from Objective
changes in actual rates of crime). Some impetus is
needed to push an issue into public awareness, to make
it "newsworthy."

As late as the mid-1970's, at least in the United
States, the news media apparently did not regard woman
battering as a newsworthy topic. In the NEW YORK
TIMES INDEX, for example, there was no mention of
woman battering under any likely category (e.g.,
Families, Marriages, Divorce, Women, Wife, Assaults,
Domestic Relations, Spouses, Abuse, Battery) until
1974. In that year there was one article under

"Families and Family Life" concerning "assaults on

wives by husbands notes apparent reluctance of police

to take punitive action" (Index notation, O 21, 38:

86

1).

In 1975 there were three notations in the NEW
YORK TIMES INDEX: in the category ”Women--U.S."
there was one notation concerning a planned NOW march
to protest violence against women (Ag.25, 58: 7. At
that time violence against women may not have
specifically included battering.) Also in the same
category was a notation about a ”Series on 'Battered
Women,' Emily Jane Goodman comments on lack Of
adequate legal remedies for wife who is physically
abused . . . ” (O 7, 35: 3). In the category
"Marriages," there was a notation Of an article about'
a conference on the "abused wife" which was held in
New York (F l, 20: 6).

In 1976 there were six articles cited in the NEW
YORK TIMES INDEX which concerned battered women (in
the categories of "Families and Family Life",
"Marriages", and "Women"). The number increased to
forty-seven articles in 1977, under "Assaults",
”Families and Family Life", and ”Marriages" (the
greatest number of articles cited were in this last
category). The number Of articles continued to rise
in 1978 and 1979. This data indicate that woman
battering became a newsworthy issue rather suddenly,
at least in the NEW YORK TIMES.

Woman battering was also "discovered" by other

media at that time (the mid-1970's). In 1975 CBS-TV

87

broadcast a series of short reports on "wifebeating"
on their "Morning News" program. In 1976 NBC-TV
produced a story for their "Weekend" show on battered
women. In 1977 and 1978, three television dramas were
broadcast on the subject.9 "Wifebeating" was given its
own number in the Library of Congress, under Conjugal
Violence (Davidson, 1980).

Across the United States, numerous cases of women
killing the men--husbands, ex-husbands, or lovers--who
battered them were reported in the press over the last
five or six years. And in several Of those cases the
legal system, either a judge or a jury, found the
women not guilty of murder, by reason of temporary
insanity or self defense.10Newspapers, radios, and
television news reporters gave widespread coverage to
some of these cases, and generated a great deal of
public controversy with comments such as "Does this
indicate an Open season on men?” (TIME, 1977).
Actually, cases of women who have killed the men who
abused them can be found throughout history (see, for
example, Jones, 1980), as can the opposite situation
of men killing their wives or cohabitees as part of a
battering episode. In fact, husbands and wives seem
to kill each other with equal frequency; but wives are
seven times more likely than husbands to have murdered
in self defense (Pleck, et al., 1978: 6).

Thus, what was unique about the situation or the

88

late 1970's was not that women sometimes resorted to
lethal violence, but the response from the legal
system and the media. Usually in the past the woman
was found guilty Of murder and finished her life, or
part Of it, in prison. In the 1970's these women
began to describe their experiences of abuse and try
to explain their actions in the context Of those
experiences. One of the first cases in which the
history of her abuse as a battered woman was used in
her defense was that Of Sandra Lowe, who killed her
husband with a knife which she grabbed as he attacked
her. In December, 1976, she was given five years'
probation by the presiding judge in her New York
trial, after even the prosecuting attorney said she
had suffered enough as a battered woman (Davidson,
1980: 224).

The case Of Francine Hughes, in 1977, was widely
publicized and referred to by the press as a "cause
celebre' of feminists. Her attorney did not use the
plea of self-defense, but he presented abundant
evidence that she had been battered by her ex-husband
for thirteen years, and had finally been driven by
desperation to try and escape him by burning down the
house in which he slept. She was acquitted on the
grounds of temporary insanity. Many of the neWSpaper
and television reports on her trial included

statistics and commentaries on the nationwide scope of

89

woman battering (these included the LANSING STATE
JOURNAL, DETROIT FREE PRESS, CHICAGO TRIBUNE, and NBC-
TV, ABC—TV, and CBS-TV Evening News broadcasts).

Schneider and Jordan (1978) document at least two
dozen other cases of battered and sexually assaulted
women who have been tried for murder Of their
assailants. Approximately half of them were acquitted
on the grounds of self defense, or had their sentences
reduced due to the circumstances of having been
repeatedly battered. The rest were convicted of
murder, and many women are serving sentences for
convictions made before the feminist attempt to
redefine self defense (a 1977 study found that forty
percent of the women incarcerated in the Women's
Correctional Center in Chicago for murder or
manslaughter convictions had killed their
husbands/lovers as a result Of physical abuse--
Schneider and Jordan, 1978: 8). However, even the
few cases of acquittal represent a major new
precedent-setting response for the legal system.
Schneider and Jordon contend that the difference has
been in succeeding or failing to convey to the judge
and jury that

due to a variety of societally-based

factors, a woman may reasonably perceive

imminent and lethal danger in a situation

in which a man might not. This

perception will justify . . . recourse to
deadly force (1978: 5).

90

Whether or not lawyers succeed in all cases,
perhaps the greatest impact of these cases has been on
public awareness of woman battering; people who have
never heard of the issue become educated through the
publicity surrounding sensationalized cases. The
problem for feminists becomes one of keeping the
situation within the larger context of violence
against women, and convincing the public that there
need to be alternatives for battered women. In some
communities a murder trial has helped to build support
for shelters for battered women, a place to go instead
Of remaining in the violent situation and trying to
defend themselves.

. . . as such cases become more frequent

and receive public attention, it becomes

impossible to ignore issues of battering

and their effects on family and society

(Moore, 1979: 12).

This chapter has presented a summary of the
women's movement and how woman battering emerged as a‘
feminist issue. In the next chapter, I shall examine

how a specific movement--the battered women's

movement--developed in its own right.

Chapter Three

THE BEGINNINGS OF THE BATTERED WOMEN'S MOVEMENT

As discussed in the previous chapter, the issue of
woman battering became a focus of public concern in the
early 1970's, to an extent that is perhaps unprecedented
in history. A social movement developed which defined
the issue as a social problem and helped articulate this
definition in a public way. The battered women's
movement examined the causes Of woman battering, and
developed specific strategies for dealing with and
alleviating the suffering of battered women. The
movement's ultimate goal was to eliminate battering as
an acceptable treatment of women. It was my contention
in Chapter Two that the women's movement of the late
1960's and early 1970's played a central role in the
process of redefining and giving visibility to woman
battering as a social problem. I argued that the
battered women's movement developed as a spin-off of the
women's movement--a specific social movement growing out
of the more general movement (Killian, 1973: 19).

The emphasis within the women's movement on
recognizing that what are usually perceived as personal

91

92

troubles are in fact Often public issues, the tactics Of
consciousness-raising, and the developing ideology of
the contemporary feminist period helped reveal the
experience of battering. For example, feminists
explored the implications of the fact that such violence
is usually perpetrated by men against women--that women
wreak far less violence against men than vice versa,1and
they related this finding to woman's historically
oppressed condition. As Straus, et al. (1980) describe
it, battering initially emerged as an "accidental issue"
when women began to share their experiences of abuse,
and discovered a common problem.

One of the fundamental prinC1ples of many early
feminist groups was that by relating experiences in
consciousness—raising sessions, women would discover
common histories of Oppression. The expressed goal of
consciousness-raising is to understand that "the
personal is political" (Bonetti, 1974). In such a
group, a woman who had been (or was) a victim of
battering might have begun to perceive of her personal
situation as part Of a much more wideSpread system of
oppression. Furthermore, through the sharing of
experience which has been so central to feminism, women
who were not themselves battered began to become more
aware of ways that other women were being abused. The

battered women's movement deliberately used this tactic

to expand women's consciousness of the widespread nature

93

of battering--through the vehicle of testimonials or
public speakouts in which formerly battered women
described their experiences of being abused. Both
battered women and women who had never been battered
were shocked to discover how many women had experienced
this horror.

Non-battered women, particularly women who had
already gained experience and feminist consciousness in
the women's movement, were Often the first to identify
the issue as a problem. Thus, it was "out51ders" who
were largely responsible for the beginnings of the
battered women's movement. Gary Marx and Michael Useem
(1971: 98) cite several reasons why outsiders are Often
the originators of organized concern about a social
issue:

Outsiders generally have had greater

command over resources, have been freer

to act, were likely to be closer to

centers of power, and have Often had

essential "organizing" experience . . .

In addition, in the germinal phase many

members of the oppressed group may be

isolated from alternate definitions of

the situation, and, in the absence of a

strong protest tradition, may not

actively question the legitimacy of the

system.

It is ironic, of course, that the outsiders with
more awareness and resources in the battered women's
movement were themselves the Oppressed members of a

sexist society, although in relation to battered women

they had relatively greater autonomy. In any case, as

94

women they were not entirely outs1ders; all women are
potentially the victims of battering. Unity based on
a common threat lead to an emotional understanding
that, in a manner similar to the birth control
movement Of the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, "created a politics based on women's shared
experience which had the potential to unite masses of
women” (Gordon, 1977: 207). Feminists had already
begun to acquire a new perspective on "what is right
and what is wrong; what is possible and what is
impossible" (Piven and Cloward, 1970: l) which women
still locked in a battering situation might not have
gained. Battered women are a disconnected group,
usually isolated from each other, poor in resources,
and Often believing as individuals that they are alone
in the condition of being battered. They do not
inherently constitute a social movement.

According to Freeman's model (see Chapter One of
this dissertation), the women's movement Of the late
1960's and early 1970's represented the first
precondition for the development of the battered
women's movement. The more general women's movement,
as well as not-specifically-feminist women's
organizations--such as the YWCA and Junior League--
supplied the prerequisites of an existing and
supportive communications network and an

infrastructure through which women could share the

95

knowledge of battering as a widespread problem.

Evans (1979: 219) has elaborated several more
preconditions which are essential to the emergence of
an ”insurgent collective identity.” These include
(l)social spaces in which Oppressed people can develOp
a new sense of self worth; (2)role models who have
already broken out of patterns of passivity; (3)an
ideology that can "explain the sources of oppression,
justify revolt, and provide a vision of a
qualitatively different future;“ (4)a feeling that
confrontation with the old cultural definitions is
necessary to protect the newfound sense of self; and
(5)a network Of communication and friendship through
which the new definitions are disseminated. Evans
argues that participation in the southern Civil Rights
and northern New Left movements created the
preconditions for the Women's Liberation Movement. I
believe that the women's movement provided these same
preconditions for the battered women's movement.

The awareness Of the battering of women in family
and other private relationships with men often came to
the attention of women's groups in the form of
desperate calls from battered women to crisis centers
(originally established to aid victims of rape or drug

abuse) and women's centers. Nall (1977), in a case

study of an early women's center, found that the

organizers Of some of the earliest women's centers did

96

not originally expect to provide services to battered
women. The possibility Often did not even occur to
the founders; no one knew that such a need existed (or
at least no one acknowledged the need). But as soon
as these centers opened, or crisis lines began
accepting calls, they were Often beseiged with calls
from battered women requesting shelter, or, at the
very least, a referral to some other agency that could
help them (see Fleming, 1979: 353, for a description
of this process).

The women's centers and/or crisis centers
constituted a pre-existing support network through
which the battered women's movement was able to
develop. Perhaps even more significantly, the calls
from battered women requesting immediate help
represented another important element in Freeman's
model of prerequisites contributing to the development
of a social movement: "a series Of crises that
galvanized into action people involved in this
network" (Freeman, 1975: 62).

Pizzey (1974) documents perhaps the earliest case
Of such a phenomenon, which occurred in 1971 when she
Opened an "advice center" for married women in London.
Battered women immediately became the majority of the
center's clients. Pizzey and her supporters converted
Chiswick Women's Aid into a sanctuary for battered

women and began organizing a campaign for more

97

shelters in England. By 1974, there were more than
twenty-five groups scattered all over Great Britain
who were working to establish services for battered
women. In the spring of 1974, many Of those groups
came together to form the National Women's Aid
Federation (NWAF), which would serve as a network
through which information, assistance, and publicity
about the issue of woman battering could be
coordinated (Dobash and Dobash, 1979: 223).

The same general process of discovery occurred in
the United States in 1972, where Women's Advocates Of
St. Paul became perhaps the first group to organize
specifically to provide services for battered women.
As a collective which grew out of a consciousness-
raising group, Women's Advocates started a phone
service to provide local women with legal information.
They found that the majority of their calls came from
battered women; and shelter was as great a need as
legal advice. Members Of Women's Advocates began
keeping women in their own homes, and raising money
for a permanent shelter--Women's House--which Opened
in 1974. This was probably the first feminist-
oriented women's refuge in the U.S. (Martin, 1976:
197). 2

The groups which formed in different communities
to establish shelters and other services for battered

women constituted the third element in Freeman's model

98

of conditions which must be met in order for a social
movement to develop: uncoordinated, Often
spontaneous, groups begin to form around an issue. In
both England and the United States, as well as Canada,
Australia, and several western European countries, the
principle strategy Of the 1970's for aiding battered

women was to establish direct services.

Providing Direct Services

I identified five general models of the types of
services which are currently being Offered to battered
women. All Of the groups which I studied also have
made provisions for serving battered men, but few have
ever had occasion to do so. Services for battered men
will not be described in this report, although groups'
perspectives on making such provisions will be, in
Chapter Four. My classification was based on the
primary type Of service that each group provides.
Groups were differentiated on the basis of the degree
Of isolation which they provide the battered woman
from her normal environment, i.e., the amount of
safety from her assailant which each model can
reasonably assure her. Although all of the groups
have some sort Of provision for emergency shelter,
some consist of referrals to other groups and/or

communities.

99

I labeled the five types as follows: (l)the
Shelter model, (2)the Safe Homes model, (3)the Crisis
Line model, (4)the Multi-Crisis model, and (5)the
Satellite model. I shall now present a brief
description Of each model, and then proceed to an
analysis Of their differences in terms of safety and
risk, and the reasons why various groups chose to
offer a particular array of services.

The Shelter Model.

The most commonly adopted model nationally for
providing services to battered women has been the
Shelter model, and that is also true of the groups
which I studied--13 of the 25 groups had developed
this model. It includes some type of multi-family,
short-term housing, offices for paid staff and
volunteers who coordinate the residence and other
services, a crisis (telephone) "hot" line for
emergency calls, and provisions for counseling,
advocacy, and referrals for battered women. The most
typical shelter is a large, Old house which was
formerly a single-family dwelling, and has been either
rented or purchased by the battered women's group.

The house has been converted, through the installation
of fire doors, additional bathrooms, storage cabinets,

and dining facilities, into living space for several

adults and children. There are usually communal

rooms--living, dining, playrooms, and kitchen--on the

100

ground floor, and bedrooms on the second and third
floors. There are also roll-away beds somewhere on
the ground floor for overflow or handicapped
residents.

Typically, the shelter has the capacity for 20 to
30 women and children; the smallest shelter in my
sample had a capacity of ten. There is a limited
residency of about 30 days; the range in my sample was
from two weeks to six weeks. Household chores such as
cooking and cleaning are shared by residents, Often on
a rotating basis which is determined by the residents
and staff at "house meetings." Since many residents
cannot safely leave the shelter to go shopping, food
and supplies are usually brought in by staff or
volunteers (although one group felt that providing
food for herself and her children was important for a
woman's self esteem, and so did not have food
available to shelter residents.)

In the most common arrangement of this model,
paid staff or volunteers are always present, on a 24-
hour, rotating basis. There are some groups which
have hired a "resident manager" who lives at the
shelter and is the only staff person present at night.
I interviewed one group whose founder and current

director opened her own home to battered women. She

and her family continue to live there, and additional

staff are present only during the day.

101

Ordinarily in this model, there are provisions to
house additional women, in the event of an overflow,
in a local hotel which will be paid for by the Red
Cross or Department of Social Services or, in one
case, by the hotel management itself. Variations in
the shelter model include situations in which the
shelter is located in one building; the offices and
crisis phones are located elsewhere. There are also
some groups whose shelter and offices are housed
within another instituton: on the top floor Of a
YWCA, for example (this is not the same as a situation
in which the YWCA itself is sponsoring the battered
women's group--that would fall under the Satellite
model. Instead, the battered women's group makes
arrangements with the YWCA to house their shelter
facility there, but the group is separate). Other
examples would be shelters located on the grounds of a
state mental hospital (in a former director's home,
perhaps), or in a former convent, still attached to a
Catholic Church. But all of these variations share
the characteristics of being temporary refuges for
several women at a time, and providing supportive
services such as counseling and referral for battered
women within an environment of safety.

The Safe Homes Model

The second model of services for battered women

was represented by three of the 25 groups in my

102

sample. In this model, there is no central refuge.
Instead, individual families provide shelter for one
woman and her children at a time, usually for only a
few (one to five) days. These volunteers have
received some training in crisis counseling, and an
awareness of the battering situation which the woman
has left. But any more formal counseling, advocacy
and referrals to other agenc1es are handled by staff
and volunteers at a central Office. If the short-term
refuge is not sufficient and the woman is willing to
leave town, she may be referred to a shelter in
another community after her stay at the "safe home."

The Crisis Line Model

The third model of services, which describes four
Of the 25 groups, includes no local refuge at all.
The simplest variation of this model consists Of an
answering service which calls volunteers who return
the battered woman's call and Offer crisis, on-the-
line counseling and, perhaps, referral to a refuge in
another community (or, in a few cases, to a shelter in
the same community, operated by a different group). A
more complex variation consists of a group with a
small paid staff and an office into which the crisis
line rings during the day. Battered women may be able
to come into the Office for counseling and referrals
or, if the office location is secret, a

counselor/advocate will meet her at some other

103

location. Under this model, arrangements may be made
with a local motel to house a woman in extreme cr151s
for one or two nights, but that is the only kind of
refuge which the group itself can offer.

The Multi-Crisis Model

A fourth type, the Multi-Crisis model, resembles
the previous one, in that it includes no refuge and
staff work out Of an Office with a crisis line, but
combines other kinds Of crisis counseling with
battering-—most commonly, sexual assault. Three
groups in my sample Operated this type of model,
usually as a multi-purpose women's center offering
advice and referrals for battering, sexual assault,
and numerous other issues. Interestingly, several of
the groups which I interviewed, that now fit under one
of the first three models described, began as this
type of service and later narrowed their focus to
battered women only.

The Satellite Model

The fifth type of services, which I have labeled
the Satellite model, was represented by two groups in
my sample. In this situation, an established agency
with existing facilities incorporates services for
battered women into their program without changing the
basic structure Of the organization. For example, a
YWCA with residence facilities for single women might

decide to allow battered women and their children to

104

stay there also. Gradually the YWCA would develop a
more specific program to meet the needs of battered
women, such as D88 and legal referrals, and crisis
counseling. Or a Community Mental Health Center,
which already accepts "walk-in" clients for counseling
might begin reaching out to battered women and
offering specific counseling to them and/or their
assailants. Under this type of arrangement, services
for battered women become a "satellite" package,
connected to the agency's other programs and yet
somewhat separate.

Other Models

There is possibly a sixth type of services, which
might be called the Assailant Counseling model. I did
not locate a group which would represent this model in
my sample, although I have obtained documents on one
such group in another state. This would be an
indirect service to battered women, by Offering
counseling to their assailants which would, hopefully,
enable them to find alternatives to physical
aggression. Some groups in each of the above types
also provide assailant counseling; but this is a
separate model because it deals only with assailants.
Its members staff an Office, offer individual

counseling sessions, or only hold weekly group

counseling sessions to help assailants learn to

control their violent behavior. However, I have not

105

Obtained sufficient data on any groups Of this type to
include such a model in my analysis.

3
Comparison and Contrast of Five Service Models

The Shelter model comes closest to providing a
"total institution" (Goffman, 1961) Of safety for
battered women who are seeking an escape from domestic
violence. Goffman defines a total institution as

a place of residence and work where a

large number Of like-situated

individuals, cut Off from the wider

society for an appreciable period of

time, together lead an enclosed, formally

administered round of life (p. xiii).

Shelters for battered women are not total
institutions in the strictest sense of the concept,
because their residents do continue to interact with
the outside world during their period of occupancy in
the shelter. But those outside contacts--with
friends, family members, and other social service
agencies--are usually mediated through the policies
and personnel of the shelter. And there is a definite
feeling of separation between those who are part of
the shelter environment and those who are outside it.

Battered women are perceived by shelter groups as
needing a total institution in order to assure

themselves of complete isolation from their

assailants: to feel safe in order to have the "mental

106

space" necessary to begin rearranging their lives.
Furthermore, women who have fled battering situations
have often left everything behind--their homes,
clothing and other personal belongs, friends, the
facade Of "domestic harmony" behind which they have
lived. They need a total institution of physical and
psychological equipment within which to begin their
lives anew.

Battered women's shelters probably best fit into
Goffman's fifth type of total institution:
establishments which are "designed as retreats from
the world even while Often serving as training
stations” (Goffman, 1961: 5). In this case, however,
the retreat and training are not intended for
religious adherents but for converts to a new
ideology. Women in shelters learn that they can leave
a battering situation, and are taught the necessary
skills to live independently of their assailants.

It is true that in many shelters, the
staff/volunteers/other administrators are explicitly
committed to an egalitarian relationship with the
residents, and would find the analogy to such
institutions as prisons, mental hospitals, and
Goffman's other illustrations of total institutions
abhorrent. Nevertheless, there is an unavoidable
separation between the residents and the supervisory

staff, and residents are required to adhere to basic

107

rules of Operation which were designed and are
overseen by a group Of people who are not residents.
This "binary character" of the relationship between
residents and shelter workers, and the uneven
distribution of power between them, is also
characteristic of total institutions. The purpose of
these rules and regulations is what is unique about
shelters. The rules are designed not to coerce
shelter residents, or to facilitate surveillance but,
by the shelter group's definition/standards, to create
an Optimal environment for the women who voluntarily
enter a shelter as residents.

When a woman is accepted into a shelter, she is
encouraged to believe that she is entering into an
environment Of safety, where her assailant cannot
follow. The terms which are used--shelter, refuge,
haven-—connote this image of safety. (Although it is
ironic that those same terms were employed by the
nineteenth-century reformers of women's prisons. The
first all-women's reformatory was established in
Detroit in 1867 and known as the "House of Shelter."
The first cottage system adult female reformatory
opened in New York in 1887 and was called the "House
of Refuge”--Freedman, 1981: 50, 77.) Many of the
shelter workers to whom I spoke emphasized the
importance of providing a "warm, safe place" for

victims to go.

108

To achieve this sense Of safety, most shelters
have developed comprehensive security arrangements.
Some have alarm systems which connect them to the
police. Others merely keep their doors and windows
locked, and have established procedures for Opening
them which will, hopefully, minimize the risk of
intrusion by an assailant. That is, only staff may
Open the door, no one is admitted unless s/he has
called ahead and those inside are certain of her/his
identity; and/or there is an intercom system through
which people inside may converse with whoever is
out81de before admitting anyone.

As part Of their security system, some shelters
have attempted to keep their locations secret. Only
staff, volunteers, trusted supporters and, of course,
present and former residents are told where the
shelter is located. However, as experienced shelter
workers have learned, such knowledge is very difficult
to control. In some communities the local news media
have broadcast a shelter's address. In others, the
location has become widely known during zoning
hearings or other matters which must be brought before
the community's Officials before a shelter Opens or
during its operation.

Several Of the shelter workers whom I interviewed

expressed consternation at how easily word spread

within the community about where the shelter was

109

located. For example, one director learned that local
taxi-cab drivers were willing to "sell" the shelter's
address to whomever wanted it. Another said it became
a "game" among local men's organizations to discover
who knew the address Of the shelter. With such
experiences, many shelter groups have resigned
themselves to the infeasibility of maintaining
secrecy. As one staff person told me,

We've had over 800 women stay here since

the shelter Opened; some tell their

assailants when they leave (some are

forced to tell). It's impossible to keep

it a secret and it's unrealistic to

expect it to continue to be a secret.

Other groups have never attempted to protect
their location; and all groups have had to develop
security arrangements on the assumption that at least
some assailants would know where to find them. There
is also a contradiction inherent in trying to keep the
shelters' locations secret. Groups need to reach out
and be visible to the public, in order to acquire
resources, clients, and publicity for the prOblem of
woman battering. Yet they also need to maintain a low
profile to protect their current clients and to assure
prospective residents that the shelter is a safe place
to go. 3

Another type of secret helps to protect women

from their assailants, whether the shelter's location

is Openly revealed in the community or not. Most

110

shelters have a policy Of not answering inquiries
about whether or not a woman is residing there. The
following is a typical response:

We do not give out information on which

women we have heard from, but if you

would like to leave a message, we'll be

glad to give it to her if she ever

contacts us.

Thus, an assailant is not usually certain if his
wife/cohabitee is in the shelter, a further deterrent
to forcing his way into it.

Within the Shelter model, then, an atmosphere of
privacy and safety is maintained as much as possible,
so that a woman enters into the world Of a shelter
through clearly demarcated barriers and rituals. Once
inside, she is expected to respect these rules whether
she is concerned about her own safety or not. The
security of the other residents depends partially on
the discretion of their co-inhabitants.

None of the other models of service to battered
women Offer the same image of safe refuge within a
total environment of recuperation and redirection of a
woman's life which is possible within a shelter. The
Safe Homes model provides an escape, and may in some
cases actually be safer than a shelter, since safe
homes are usually dispersed throughout a community and
would thus be more difficult for an assailant to

locate. But the model is also different in that women

are not sheltered together; they are dispersed in a

111

floating, individualized network of refuge.

In most groups which are types Of the other
models, overnight protection is Offered in motels or
other agency facilities (although the YWCA which I
studied had set aside part Of its residence,with
additional security precautions, to be specifically
used by battered women and their children, so in that
respect it was identical to the Shelter model). In
these models, women also are referred and/or
transported to shelters in other communities. Again,
with these models the benefits of the total
institution are absent. The woman is temporarily
safe; but she is not Offered the supportive
environment of shelter with her peers--other women in
flight--with whom she can share the same feelings and
the same experiences of dealing with her situation and
making difficult decisions about her future.

The number of shelters increased dramatically
during the 1970's. By 1979 there were over 150
refuges in England and Wales (Dobash and Dobash, 1980:
224), and more than 500 shelters or "safe homes" for
battered women in the United States (NCADV Handbook,
1980). The number continues to grow.

One explanation of the initial emphasis on
providing shelters was given by the St. Paul,
Minnesota shelter group:

Refuges are the vitally necessary first

112

step in eliminating domestic viOlence and

Oppression, because they serve to make

the problem visible and to meet the

immediate need for protection (Fleming,

1979: 354).

Nevertheless, there appears to have been little if any
critical appraisal of the efficacy Of providing direct
services. Other strategies for aiding battered women
and for making woman battering visible do not seem to
have been considered, at least among the groups which
I encountered. As will be further documented in
Chapter Four, groups members recount a typical series
Of events by which they became committed to providing
direct services, which may be briefly summarized as
follows:

Local people who have a concern about battered
women begin meeting to discuss the issue. Their
concern gains local publicity, and word Of their
existence spreads around the community. At the same
time, the developing group is attempting to gather
information about the prevalence of woman battering in
their community, and recruit other local residents
into the group. But the publicity also attracts the
attention Of local battered women, who contact the
group for help. Members Of the group start looking
for existing services to which they can recommend the
battered women. Almost invariably, groups find that

there are no existing agencies providing adequate

services (i.e., comprehensive practical and emotional

113

support, which the battered women feel are responsive
to their needs). As a result, the new group begins
looking for ways to provide the needed services
themselves.

Rather than holding existing social agencies
accountable, demanding that they become more
responsive to the needs of battered women, the
battered women's group "starts from scratch" and
develops separate services. (The Satellite model does
work within existing agenc1es. But this model is much
less frequently adopted than the other, autonomous
models.) Some of the reasons for this pattern will be
considered in later chapters of this dissertation.

In most cases, gaining initial support and
funding for a battered women's shelter program was
difficult, and some groups struggled for thfee or four
years to do so. There is still great resistance in
many communities to forming shelters, or even to
acknowledging the existence Of battered women. But
other communities have developed coalitions with
neighboring shelter groups, as well as sophisticated
funding techniques. For example, in 1977 shelter
staff and other service providers from eighty-five
programs in California, Oregon, Washington, and Nevada
joined together to form the Western States Shelter
Network, a regional coalition which pools resources

and coordinates legislative and funding campaigns

114

(Western States Shelter Network brochure, 1980).

One of the first objectives of many people
starting services has been to build public awareness
of the prevalence of woman battering in their own
communities, and to spread concern about alleviating
the problem. Often they have tried to attract the
news media, to gain publicity for the issue. For
instance, a group of YWCA members in Cincinnati, Ohio
in 1976

thought woman battering was a problem in
our community (we got the idea t at it
was from national news networks) and we
wanted to make sure service was not
already being rendered by someone else.
We developed a questionnaire about
personal experiences of battering and
went to a reporter who was a friend and
asked her to print it in the local
newspaper. People mailed in their
responses and from thgm we organized a
four-hour testimonial which got us all
kinds of media attention and shoged the
community the need for services. As a
result we got funding for the Alice Paul
House (Charlene Ventura, Public Relations
and Funding Director, YWCA Alice Paul
House, Cincinnati, Ohio--speaking at
NCADV meeting, February 29, 1980,
Washington, D.C.).

These types of claims-making activities (Spector
and Kitsuse, 1977) were enacted by most groups in the
process of bringing the issue of woman battering home
to their own communities. PeOple who were initially
concerned with the issue at the local level (through a
process to be analyzed in Chapter Four) wanted to

convince community agencies, Officials, and the

115

general public that woman battering was a local as
well as a national problem. Circulating a
questionnaire about personal experiences, securing
newSpaper coverage, and organizing "testimonials" are
all part of what Wiener (1981) refers to as "animating
the problem. In spite Of the fact that many local
groups sprang up almost simultaneously in different
parts of the U.S. (and in many other countries as
well), there is a striking similarity in the types of
claims-making activities which the various groups
employed to animate the prOblem Of woman battering.
These similarities are a result of a network Of
communication within the battered women's movement,
the product of various types of linkages between local
groups which characterize the structure Of the

movement.

Movement Structure

The battered women's movement is, for the most
part, a loosely structured, grassroots organization:
a "reticulated movement."

We have chosen this term to describe an
organization in which the cells, or
nodes, are tied together, not through any
central point, but rather through
intersecting sets of personal
relationships and other intergroup
linkages . . . these nodes in the network
of the movement intersect and are linked
into a reticulate macrostructure. The

116

linkages between cells are both personal

and organizational; ties of various types

operate at different levels of

organization (Gerlach and Hine, 1970:

55-60).
Linkages within the battered women's movement include
personal ties among members, who often knew each other
through other organizations, such as NOW, the YWCA,
church groups, or feminist activities. Or members of
different groups developed friendships as a result Of
shelter activities, such as transferring "clients" or
exchanging information. Another type Of linkage
consists of personal ties among leaders, who may meet
at legislative hearings or funding meetings. Linkages
also include national or regional associations, and
ritual activities. For example, many local groups
have joined with other feminists in communities across
the United States for the past few years for "Take
Back the Night" marches to protest violence against
women on August 26, Women's Equality Day. Plans have
also been discussed to sponsor a National Action Day,
such as an annual "Mother's Day Collection for
Battered Women” in local churches across the country.
The Canton, Ohio shelter group devised this strategy
to raise money and generate publicity and support;
they proposed that other groups adopt the plan at the
NCADV national conference in 1980.

Finally, there are ideological and extra-movement

ties which are a source of new recruits, funding, and

117

information. For example, anti-rape and women's self-
defense groups, anti-pornography organizations such as
Women Against Violence Against Women--WAVAW--and other
groups who share a philosophical perspective that
Opposes male violence towards women have participated
in founding and supporting services for battered
women. Extra-movement linkages have included YWCA,
Junior League, and League Of Women Voters members who,
while not usually sharing a strongly feminist
perspective (the meaning of the concept of feminism is
discussed in Chapter Five), have shared a concern for
battered women, and have contributed to efforts to
organize support services. However, the types of
linkages which bring different people into the
movement may result in conflicts between individuals
or groups. For example, women who join from the
Junior League and those from a group such as WAVAW
probably have different understandings of the causes
of battering, solutions to the proolem, and the
appropriate organizing strategies for developing a
group.

Some portions Of the movement are working toward
more central organization. Many of the shelter groups
in the United States came together in 1978 to form the
National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV),

a network of grassroots shelter and

service programs . . . designed to help
organizers develop local resources . . .

118

and increase their effectiveness at the

state and national level (NCADV Handbook,

1980: 17).

At its first national conference, held in
February, 1980 in Washington, D.C., 560 peOple from
Puerto Rico and every state except Hawaii (who were
unable to attend because of the distance) who are
working to provide services for battered women, met to
plan future strategies, share information, and discuss
the advantages and projected structure of a national
coalition. As mentioned earlier, groups in Great
Britain formed a similar national coalition--the
National Women's Aid Federation (NWAF)—-much earlier,
in 1974. Formation of each of these national
coalitions may have represented a turning point for
the battered women's movement in their respective
countries, in that a national coalition constitutes at
least the potential for a more centralized
organizational structure.

It appears to have been members Of the organizing
committee of the NCADV who first referred to
themselves and their potentialconstituency as a
separate and autonomous social movement--the battered
women's movement.7 The NCADV was formed in 1978, when
people who were working in various parts of the U.S.

to provide services for battered women attended the

U.S. Civil Rights Commission hearings on domestic

violence. During the hearings many of the women began

119

sharing their organizing experiences, the prOblems
they were confronting in their communities in gaining
funding and recognition, and the types of solutions
they had developed. Those who were present felt that
this exchange Of information was valuable, and talked
about the need for a national organization to
facilitate communication. As the members Of the
interim steering committee recalled in their Welcome
Letter to the first national conference, founders also
felt the need to build "a major national movement" by
building coalitions on both a state and

national level; developing federal

legislation for the funding of battered

women's shelters; and organizing a

national conference by and for grassroots

people working in the movement (NCADV

Handbook, 1980: l).

NCADV has continued to characterize itself as
representing a new social movement for battered women,
or against woman battering. By emphasizing the
grassroots origins of many programs, and the diversity
of perspectives, approaches, and treatments of the
issue, the coalition has sought to include as broad a
range of potential members as possible.

But although the NCADV may have been the first
medium through which the battered women's movement was
recognized as an autonomous social phenomenon, the
NCADV did not create the movement. It already existed

in rudimentary form. The NCADV represents the fourth

precondition in Freeman's model of how a social

120

movement forms: individuals decide to organize
themselves into a group to disseminate a new idea.
The organizing was already occurring in local
communities all over the country. The NCADV brought
the organizing to a national level.

Only nine of the 25 groups in my sample belong to
the NCADV. Some have not joined because the dues are
too expensive (they range from $25 to $100, depending

on the group's Operating budget;8

others say they plan
to join and just have not done so yet. A few said
that they have reservations about the NCADV because
they believe it is anti-male--that it discourages men
from participating in groups as staff members or
volunteers. (I heard this same reason for not joining
explained to a NCADV steering committee member at the
Region V conference; and she did not deny the charge--
she simply nodded her head noncommitally and remained
silent.)

Both of the states which I studied have formed
state coalitions. All of the groups in my sample
belong to their state's coalition; although some are
more active than others. Some groups are also active
in a regional coalition of several states. Regardless
of official membership in coalitions, the groups
benefit from intramovement linkages in the exchange of
information and clients. Battered women who go to one

group may be transferred to a group in another

121

community if they feel endangered in the first
location, or the first group has no shelter or it is
full. One shelter worker described the advantage Of
cooperating with other groups in exchanges of clients
as a feeling Of greater strength and support:

It's fun. We tell assailants, "Your wife

has now entered the network and could be

anyplace out there in this vast network

of shelters.” It makes him think that

she's beyond his reach.

Beyond the function of exchange of clients and
information, people feel that the inter-group contacts
provide emotional support. Several Of the groups in
State One have formed a small coalition of groups
within one region of the state, and they have a
monthly meeting to talk about mutual problems and
discover solutions.

Intramovement linkages, then, appear to be
informal for the most part, rather than being based on
membership in coalitions. As one group's founder
said,

There's no real system of communication

yet. Somebody hears about a group when

they're on vacation or something, and

they get in touch and give information to

each other.

The coalitions and informal networks are
important in spreading the culture Of the battered
women's movement, as well as giving individual groups

more power in their long-range goals of affecting

legislative changes and greater public concern about

122

woman battering.

The Structure of Local Groups

Members of the NCADV describe the battered
women's movement as a grassroots movement and/or a
self-help movement. Withorn (1980: 26) defines self
help as

the effort of people to come together in

groups in order to resolve mutual

individual needs . . . the major reasons

for defining an activity as self help are

that it involves group activity and

meetings of people with the prOblem, not

out51de experts or professionals, and

that the main means by which difficulties

are addressed are mutual sharing,

support, advice-giving, and the pooling

of group resources and information.

As mentioned earlier in this chapter, many of the
founders of the battered women's movement were not
”the people with the problem” (they were instead
”outsiders"). Two of the basic tenets of self help,
collective action and shared empowerment, are guiding
principles of the battered women's movement, however;
and the four ”main means" mentioned by Withorn of
dealing with a problem are widely employed. Those who
provide shelter and other services for battered women
generally believe that the battered woman must make
decisions about her own life, within a safe,

supportive environment (Fleming, 1980).

The editors Of RADICAL AMERICA (May-June, 1980)

123

make the following observation about self-help
movements, which is germane to the present situation
in which many groups within the battered women's
movement find themselves.

A critical question for self—help, thus,
is its relation to revolutionary social
change. To assume a progressive
character, it has to be tied to a radical
political movement. This type of self-
help then grows out of a political
context, with the movement as the carrier
of the politics. The clearest recent
examples are the various self-help
activities (around rape, consciousness
raising, battered women and self-defense)
developing from the feminist movement.
Growing from the movement's understanding
of the pervasiveness of sexual Oppression
in capitalist patriarchy, these groups
represent both a challenge to the
existing system, whose problems they
confront, and a prefigurative vision of a
new (socialist) society (p. 4).

The editors go on to stress the importance of
conducting self-help activities within a movement
context. Otherwise, the organization is vulnerable to
cooptation by capitalist forms of organization. This
process appears to have occurred among some groups who
formed to provide services for battered women, and
were eventually incorporated into existing social
service agencies, in which principles of shared
empowerment and collective action are not practiced.
Other groups were part of an established agency from
the beginning, and never attempted to Operate on self-
help principles.

On the other hand, as Withorn (1980) points out

124

in her historical Overview Of the self-help concept,
groups which remain independent of established
agencies deprive themselves of some public funding
sources and, perhaps, of legitimation which is
essential to long-term survival. These issues will be
discussed further in Chapters Four and Five, in the
context Of specific group histories. But regardless
of the present reality for community groups, the
ideology of the battered women's movement has remained
one of a self-help orientation.

In apparent contradiction to their commitment to
the self-help concept, most of the groups in my sample
have a formal structure that is arranged
hierarchically. There is a board of directors at the
top, which sets policy and hires the senior staff
member--whose title is Director or Executive Director.
Below the board is the staff, with the Director as the
supervisor of other members. Occasionally there are
further breakdowns of different staff as supervisors
Of various components. In a somewhat ambiguous
relationship to the hierarchy are the volunteers.

Some staff or board members consider the volunteers to
be below the staff, but since they are not subject to
being hired or fired, they might be considered as
maintaining an independent relationship.

Some groups have a less hierarchical structure,

Often with an advisory board rather than a board of

125

directors. Very rarely, a staff is arranged as a
collective, with everyone sharing equal pay and
authority in decision making. The collective was an
ideal Of many groups in the beginning; they wanted to
arrange their staff in an egalitarian fashion. But
the collective is rare currently, at least among the
groups in my sample. There seem to be two main
reasons for a shift to hierarchy. The most commonly
cited reason is funding restrictions. In writing
grants, groups had to specify titles and
responsibilities for each position, and salaries were
funded according to traditional concepts Of status.
Martin (1976: 246) explains:

Foundations are used to hierarchical

structures and have a fetish for

professionalism. Their executives do not

easily take to the concept of self-help;

they are suspicious of the horizontal

organization of democratic collectivism

where everyone involved in the project

has a voice and a vote. What foundation

executive or board member ever heard of a

secretary with as much say as the "boss,"

not to mention an equal salary?
In order to acquire funding, groups designed
hierarchies, and then fell into viewing them as the
most appropriate structure under which to Operate.

The second reason for the replacement of
collectives with hierarchies was frustration with the
slow process of decision-making in collectives, where

everyone must be consulted. The following is a

typical comment:

126

We used to be really democratic in grOUp
process; but we found that to function
effectively, we needed to delegate

decision making.

In summary, staffing and decision-making within
groups seems to be mostly hierarchical. There is
little evidence remaining of the COllective spirit
which Ahrens (1980) and other national spokespeople
describe as being typical of grassroots, feminist
organizations within the battered women's movement,
even among those who describe themselves as grassroots
and/or feminist.

It is usually the Director who assumes the rOle
of decision-maker and final authority among staff;
although she defers to the board of directors. There
was no dissatisfaction voiced with this type of
arrangement during my interviews, but since I usually
talked to Directors or people not on staff, I had
little opportunity to discover the attitude Of
"subordinate" staff. I know of two groups in which
there were general shake-ups when staff felt that the
Director had become authoritarian (in both cases a new
Director was appointed by the board). But in neither
case was the Old arrangement of responsibility
replaced with a nonhierarchical one.

I also studied one group where the reverse

situation occurred: the Director had held the same

position previously in another state, in a group which

127

was organized collectively. One staff member
explained:

She wanted to do everything collectively

here too, but the board wanted a

hierarchy. There was a lot of conflict

the whole time she was here, and she

finally resigned. I think it was

basically a personality conflict.

The staff member who was speaking said that her group
is much happier now, with a hierarchical arrangement
in which the new Director is staff supervisor and
subordinate to the board.

Similarly, I always asked if there were an
informal structure which was different from the formal
structure. People either denied this or said that
there was actually less hierarchy than the structure
indicated; that staff at all levels had a great deal
of autonomy and only deferred to the director or the
board for ultimate decisions. Also, groups seem to
have boards consisting of a few people who are really
involved in group processes, and the remainder are
seen as puppets, or nominal members only. But other
than that, there did not seem to e a "hidden"
structure that ran counter to the formal one.

The boards Of directors range from voluntary
entities to those formally elected by a membership of
dues-paying supporters from the community. The latter

arrangement is fully operable in only two cases. In

these, anyone can become a member of the organization.

128

The strategy behind this arrangement is twofold: to
involve the community in the support of the group, and
to raise money. Several interviewees mentioned this
idea, and said that they would eventually like to
implement it in their own groups. Some of them had a
task force, which is a larger body than the board of
directors, of interested people from the community who
help the group with specific topics. But a task force
does not involve as many people as a general
membership would.

Among groups without a larger membership, the
board elects its own members, sometimes for
predetermined periods, other times whenever a vacancy
occurs. Or people are "asked to serve” by other board
members. Some groups, particularly those in the
Satellite model, but others as well who have been
sponsored by an established agency, do not have their
own board Of directors. Instead, they are governed by
the board of their host organization. The size of
boards ranges from five to 22 members, with the usual
size being ten or twelve.

In some communities, being a member of the board
of directors is a status position: influential people
join the board and serve mainly as figureheads. There
is often a love/hate relationship between this sort of
board and the staff. Staff members appreciate the

legitimacy which influential people lend to the group,

129

but resent their distance from the prOblems
encountered by staff, and the board's inability to
understand how stressful it can be to work constantly
with people in crisis. One Director described her
group's board in the following way:

Most of them are very upper-middle class,

and they are so wrapped up in being seen

and looking good and complaining that we

[the staff] never do anything right.

They don't have the faintest idea of

where we're coming from; they just give

us no support.

But in spite of her anger and frustration with the
board, she felt that in her community it was essential
to have this type of board. Without the board's
respectability, the group would be dismissed as
"radicals and feminists" and would be unable to obtain
funding or clients (battered women would be unwilling
to come to them).

In other places, groups have what they call a
"working board." People who are on the board
participate actively in fundraising, public education,
and other group efforts. The relationship between
board and staff members was more harmonious in this
type of situation. The type Of board--status
respectable or working--depended on the origins of the
group. Grassroots, feminist origins were likely to
indicate the presence of working boards.

Institutional origins usually resulted in status-

respectable boards. Board members are Often social

130

service profe581onals, or may be drawn from a wide
cross-section Of the community--1awyers, ministers,
social workers, police Officers, homemakers--in a
deliberate attempt to involve various constituencies
in the group.

If the person to whom I was speaking were a staff
member, I asked her what kind of relationship existed
in her group between staff and the board. The answers
varied from very positive to negative, on the basis of
whether the respondent felt that the board was
supportive or hostile to the staff. Those who felt
dissatisfied said it was because their board's goals
and values are different from the staff's. Usually
the board wants to encourage a ”professional,” social
work approach to woman battering, or does not
understand the pressures under which the staff works.
Those who were pleased with their board often cited
the fact that board members volunteered for shifts in
the shelter or on the crisis line, and were therefore
aware of the reality of staff experiences.

Staff size ranged from two to twelve peOple.

Most groups have no more than five paid staff; and
even those with more staff expect to lose positions
this year, as funding tightens. The positions of
Director and Counselor are found in almost every
group. Some groups also have a Child Care

Coordinator, a Housing Specialist, a Program Director,

131

a Resident Manager, and/or a secretary or office
manager. Often, the Director's main responsibility is
grant-writing and administration. The Directors may
or may not be involved in direct services to clients,
depending on how many other staff exist. Job
qualifications vary, but Directors usually have some
college training. Several Directors have Master's
degrees in Social Work; and experience in grant-
writing and/or administration is Often required.
Again, this is usually because of mandates from the
funding source. Other staff tend to be less educated;
many have been CETA-financed, and may not have
finished high school.

Almost all of the groups had some sort Of
training program for staff and volunteers. Only three
groups said that people pick up their training through
on-the-job experience. The training programs are very
similar across groups; they may vary in length from
five to 50 or more hours, but most include empathy
training, education about woman battering, and
information on legal Options and community services.
Several groups mentioned that they Obtained their
training manuals from other groups, attended other
trainings, or invited someone from another group to
come in and do their training.

The number of volunteers ranged from two to 90;

most groups had no more than ten active volunteers.

132

Answering the crisis line and crisis counseling, both
by telephone and face-to-face, are the most common and
desired jobs for volunteers. They also help with
child-care programs, public outreach, and household
maintenance-~painting, repairs, moving furniture--
around shelters.

Groups with large staff are less dependent on
volunteers than groups which have only two or three
staff people. Consequently, in those groups who need
them the most, volunteers tend to be given more
responsibility, and integrated into the Operation or
the group's services. But not even all Of the most
needy groups know how to utilize their volunteers
effectively. Many spokespeople said that their group
wants to learn how to do that and build up their
volunteer program in the future.

All of the groups in my sample were incorporated
as nonprofit organizations. Incorporating is
necessary in order to solicit contributions and
funding from nonprofit foundations, as well as state
and federal grants. Incorporation generally occurred
during the early formation and education process of
the groups. If a group had not incorporated by the
time it began applying for state and federal grants,
it was forced to do so then.

The fact that becoming incorporated was such a

routine move for most grOUps indicates the degree of

133

organizational sophistication of the battered women's
movement. It may also indicate more readiness to
depend on the state and/or private foundations than in
other movements such as, for example, the women's
health movement or the draft resistance movement--who
rejected such forms of aid as cooptation. The goal of
most groups within the battered women's movement is to
provide expensive services to a large population or
"clients," whose needs (unlike those of, for instance,
draft resisters) are compatible with philanthropic and
social welfare concerns. Consequently, groups in the
battered women's movement needed to quickly conform to
the regulations of their potential funding sources.
Incorporating was one of the ground rules for tapping

most of these sources.

Summary

This chapter has discussed the development Of the
battered women's movement as a specific social
movement, growing out Of the women's movement of the
late 1960's and early 1970's. The role of femin1sts
as outsiders to the issue of woman battering, who
related it to the general oppression of women, and
discovered the need for shelters and other services
through calls from battered women to already

established crisis lines and women's centers was

134

described. As groups began to form on the local level
to provide specific services to battered women,
strategies were developed to gain public support and
recognition. These claims-making activities were
disseminated to other groups in communities across the
United States through the burgeoning network of
communication which eventually resulted in the
formation of the National Coalition Against Domestic
Violence, the first indication that a centrally
organized movement was evolving. As groups and the
movement itself have gained legitimation, they have
had to struggle to remain a grassroots, self—help
movement, without alienating potential sources of
funding and support. In the next chapter, I shall
describe in greater detail the way the battered
women's movement developed in one part of the United

States.

Part Two

CLAIMS-MAKING ACTIVITIES

IN THE HEARTLAND

In studying the battered women's movement, I
gathered data on groups providing services for battered
women in two states of the central United States--an
area I have referred to as the Heartland. Based on an
initial survey of all existing (as Of October, 1980)
services, I selected 25 groups in which to conduct in-
depth interviews, and studied documents from groups in
other geographic areas. As a result, I have developed
an understanding of how local groups originate, how they
learn of the issue of woman battering, how they
interpret it--i.e., what the problem means to groups and
individuals in various communities; and how they proceed
to develop a strategy for making the issue visible as a
social problem in their communities. I have also
examined the influence of the national movement on
various groups: the sources of conflict and
contradiction which lead to differences between groups,
the ways in which shared interpretations generate

135

136

similarities in experiences.

Weiner (1981) divides the claims-making activities
by which groups introduce a new social problem into
three processes: animation, legitimation, and
demonstration. In the next two chapters, I shall
describe how local groups and the national movement went
about these processes in "building an arena" around the

problem of woman battering.

Chapter Four

CARVING A NICHE FOR WOMAN BATTERING
IN THE PUBLIC CONSCIOUSNESS

Animating the problem occurs at both the local and
national level, and includes infusing the prOblem with
life, carving out its dimensions, increasing the number
Of people who are drawn into concern about these
dimensions, developing a common pool of knowledge for
all participants, and increasing the visibility Of the
problem through all these subprocesses (Weiner, 1981:
25). In other words, animation refers to the activities
Of involving people and resources in the project of
defining a social problem, recruiting experts from
various fields, and developing theories about the causes
of and solutions to the problem. In this chapter, I
shall discuss how the battered women's movement
performed each of these activities at the local level,
among groups in the Heartland.

The battered women's movement is a grassroots
movement (although, as will be discussed, each group may

have had grassroots or "institutional" origins),

springing up in numerous places somewhat independently

137

138

and simultaneously, and developing regional and national
ties afterwards. Since my interest is in how social
movements act to transform issues into social problems
and to gain public support for "solving” these prOblems,
I concentrated in my interviews on exploring how people
at the local level discover and mobilize to confront the

problem of woman battering.

Group Origins

In examining how groups got started and why their
founders realized that there was need for such services,
I discovered that groups' origins were idiosyncratic,
although they also tended to be somewhat similar across
all sites. Groups' origins may be divided into two
general categories: grassroots or institutional. Those
with grassroots beginnings were founded by a small
number of local people, usually women and perhaps a few
men who defined themselves as feminists. These people
were sometimes members of a NOW chapter or a women's
consciousness-raising group. They heard about battering
through feminist channels such as NOW; or some said they
saw a television show or read a newspaper article on the
subject.

NOW established a National Task Force on Battered
Women in October, 1975, with a mandate to "raise

consciousness, do research, and exert pressure for the

139

establishment of refuge homes for women and their
children“ (Davidson, 1980: 17). After that, local NOW
chapters received information from national
headquarters, and recommendations to investigate the
problem of battering locally. Hence, some groups were
initiated as a result of outside influences, or top-down
recommendations.

In other locales, individuals were in contact with
women in different communities who had started to Offer
services, and decided to investigate the need for
services in their own community. In these cases,
initiation came from the local level. For example, one
group was formed by a woman who had recently completed a
graduate degree at a university which was 150 miles from
her home town. She invited members of a shelter group
in the university community to come and speak to her NOW
chapter:

They came down and talked to us about

battering, what was going on, and so the

NOW chapter voted to research the issue

here, and we put together a feasibility

study in 1977. When we put it together

we asked the hospitals, the magistrate

courts, the police, the Department of

Welfare, and other social service

agencies, and what we found was that over

200 women each month in January and

February were looking for relief from a

battering situation. We took our

findings to the city council and they

said "Alright, this is definitely a

problem and we want it addressed." 80

council formed a taSK force, which
included NOW.

Interestingly, as the above quote indicates, many

140

Of these groups were started by people who were
completely unaware Of woman battering until some
outside source of information brought the prOblem to
them. Then they began to look for evidence that the
problem existed in their community. The claims-making
activities thus occurred in reverse order from the way
Weiner presents them (she emphasizes, however, that
they are overlapping and not sequential--Weiner, 1981:
22). In these groups, demonstration was the first
step, as people gathered data on the local extent of
woman battering and the (in)adequacy of available
resources. Then legitimation took place, as people
sought to convince local audiences Of the need for
special services for battered women in that community.
Finally, animation began, as founders recruited more
people to help them and started to develop a program.

Other groups did not originate with NOW. They
were begun by a consciousness-raising group, a
feminist minister, or a rape crisis center. But they
followed the same general pattern of beginning by
calling a meeting of potentially supportive people;
although who they saw as potentially supportive
depended on their personal perspectives and group
affiliations. Ministers called other ministers and
members of the area's religious community. The peOple
who heard about battering at a rape crisis center

contacted women in similar kinds of groups--women's

141

self defense clubs, university women's center
affiliates, local feminist activists. As a result,
their initial definition of the problem varied
according to their frame of reference (more will be
said about this below). The initiators next conducted
a survey of local agencies to arrive at a rough
estimate Of need, and then formed a task force to
study the problem and propose a solution. These were
grassroots organizations, because they remained
outside the traditional social service hierarchy.
They sought to involve a wide cross-section Of
community residents in the task force.

The remaining groups had more institutional
origins. Sometimes a local social service agency,
such as Community Mental Health or the Department Of
Social Services, recognized that they were receiving a
lot of requests for help from battered women, and had
no organized structure for dealing with them. Then a
meeting was called with other agencies to determine
whether or not any of them had services for battered
women. When they found that none did, a taSK force
was formed to design such a service. As one woman,
who was employed by her county's Department of
Welfare, described the process,

The group that started it [the Task Force

on Battered Women] was composed of those

counselors or social workers or primary

workers who had dealt with a number of
women in battering situations. It was

142

the counselor from the police department,
and the social work counselor from the
Community Mental Health Center-~whenever
his agency got those calls he was
assigned those cases, and the social
worker from the hospital who had seen a
lot of battered women come in there--
entry level agency people. We had had a
lot of battered women come in here, but
we didn't have any one social worker
seeing them, so we didn't have anybody
emerge here like they did at other
agencies. But we all knew each other
socially, it was a social kind of thing,
and we talked about how this was a real
need and finally decided we wanted to try
to get as many people as possible from
the area who dealt with victims of
domestic violence, and see if we could
get a group together that would work on
getting a shelter started——about five or
six of us were the core.

It was people in local social agencies,
responding to battered women, who recognized the need
for further attention to the issue. In these cases,
the processes Of animation, legitimation, and
demonstration began by occurring in the direction
described by Weiner, although they continued to occur
in simultaneous and interchangeable fashion. In rare
cases, a local agency such as Community Mental Health,
applied for a federal grant to develop services for
battered women, "not so much because spouse abuse was
a real interest to them, but it was a source Of
money." They then started educating themselves about
battering, and involving other community agencies in
the process.

I could identify no consistent pattern that

143

indicated a relationship between the size of the
community and the type of group origins. Obviously,
there had to be a local NOW chapter in order for that
to be the source of a group. But NOW chapters are
found in rural, small town, and urban areas. Other
kinds Of networking between community residents,
whether it was a feminist contacting other social
activists, a minister contacting local citizens, or a
social worker notifying people in other agencies,
occurred in all sizes of communities. I was
particularly surprised by the role of feminist groups
in small towns and conservative areas. I had
anticipated that there would not be feminist activists
in those settings. But these were Often the places
where a core of feminists had exerted the most
influence on starting a battered women's group. As
will be discussed in Chapter Five, however, the
perception of feminism varied widely and tended to be
more reformist in smaller towns.

It did seem to be true that groups which formed
in smaller communities drew in people from a wider
range of backgrounds than did urban groups. That was
probably a form of integration, a sort of "organic
solidarity” (Durkheim, 1893), born of necessity. With
a smaller population, there were not enough Of one
"type” of people-~feminists, ministers, lawyers,

social workers--to form an effective group. Thus,

144

members had to be recruited from other subgroups.1
Nevertheless, community size or political climate did
not determine whether a group's origins were

grassroots or institutional, or who the founders were.

Group Founders

When I interviewed the members of a group which
was providing services to battered women, I asked them
who were the first people in their group, and how did
they find each other. I was interested in knowing
what kinds of people were the founders of the battered
women's movement at the local level. Were they
battered (or formerly battered) women? If not, to
what extent were they "outsiders" to the issue? Did
they have other kinds of experiences which helped them
to identify with the issue Of woman battering? Were
they feminists? Did they mobilize other formerly
battered women, or feminists, or influential community
members? Or were they social workers or other
professionals?

My questions focused on exploring how individuals
become engaged in a social movement. Is it because
they are located in strategic positions in affiliated
organizations, or do they become active through

personal interest in the issue? I was not attempting

145

a psychological analysis of motivations, but rather a
structural analysis of the social factors that lead
various types of people into an involvement in social
movements, as another indicator of how social problems
gain visibility.

In a few instances, a group was started by a
formerly battered woman, but in all such cases, she
was a person who had moved into a position whicn put
her into contact with currently battered women who
were asking for help, and in which she had the means
(power) to implement some sort of response. In other
words, none of the groups in my sample were started by
a woman currently in a battering situation, although
some founders were more receptive to the issue because
they were formerly battered women.

As an example of the above, a women's center,
established to support returning women students at a
small college, began receiving many phone calls from
battered women and from the police and other agencies
who did not know what to do when battered women called
them. The staff at the women's center "sort of dealt
with things as they came up"--someone would take the
woman to a staff member's home or to the hospital
emergency room. One Of the center counselors was a
formerly battered woman, for whom these requests for
help became "a primary concern and she didn't want to

drop it." She persuaded other people who were

146

affiliated with the women's center, including the
Director (who was also a prominent city official) and
a woman who was an attorney, to help her start a
support group and weekly group counseling sessions for
battered women.

In another case, a formerly battered woman, who
had become active in Alcoholics Anonymous, mentioned
her battering experience in empathy for another woman
during the second woman's testimony at an AA meeting.
A few days later a third woman, who had also been at
the AA meeting, came to the first woman's home for
help after being severely beaten by her husband.

Other battered women heard of this woman's willingness
to help and shelter them, primarily because of her
committment to AA's principles of sharing
with/supporting others, until the demand became so
great that she had to ask for community support.

In none of these situations, however, was the
founder of a group a member of the target population--
battered women--at the time that she became active in
the battered women's movement. Even when the founder
was a formerly battered woman, she was an "outsider"
in that she had already left the battering situation
prior to her participation in the movement. (Although
her experience with the stigma and pain of being
physically abused by her husband/lover gave her

insights into other women's needs, and "credentials"

147

as an expert within the movement.)

In the majority of cases, moreover, it was not
even formerly battered women who were group founders.
Rather, it tended to be people (usually women) in
social welfare agencies or women's centers who dealt
with large numbers of battered women, and saw the need
for specific services for them. Some were attorneys,
often with Legal Aid, who were surprised by the large
number of cases Of domestic violence among their
clients, and by the discovery that there were no
services available locally to which they could refer
these clients. Others, as discussed previously under
"Group Origins,” were social workers, employees Of
various social agencies, or even a woman minister.

In each of these cases, the group's beginning can
be traced to one or two people who were located in
strategic positions, both to hear the need for
services, and to contact significant others who could
lend support and legitimacy to a project. Usually,
those people had not been in that significant position
until shortly before they became aware of and active
in starting services.

In response to my question Of why each group got
started at the particular time that it did,
interviewees explained that a unique constellation or
events tended to have come together in their

communities which had not been present before, and

148

which made it fea51ble for a group to emerge. As one
important factor, the founder was Often a person wno
was new in town or new in her/his position, and Open
to seeing new issues. Thus, the Legal Aid attorneys
tended to be young lawyers who had recently finished
law school and were the first feminists (a fact that
was probably as crucial as their newness) to be hired
in their agencies. Hence, although Legal Aid had
existed previously, no other employees had been so
receptive to the issue of woman battering. Or a woman
minister had been hired, and battered women were more
willing to discuss their home life with her.

The minister had always been involved in

social issues, and she'd read about

domestic violence; but she had not been

working as a counselor long, so when

battered women started coming to her, she

recognized it.

As has already been described in the section
entitled "Group Origins,“ the individual founders
mobilized significant others. The people mobilized
were those who appeared significant to the founders.
Thus, they might be prominent community residents
(ministers, city officials) and/or other members of
the founder's profe531on (lawyers, social workers), or
members Of the local feminist and/or activist
community. What is important about the individual

founders is that they were capable of recognizing the

need for such a core group.

149

In other communities, it was not the individuals
but the social agency which was new. Perhaps the
women's center had recently Opened; or another agency
had changed its program in some way which made it more
accessible to battered women. In some communities,
the Department of Social Services (DSS), CETA, or
COOperative Extension had begun a home visitation
program, and found many battered women; the worker may
even have witnessed a battering incident during a home
visit.

The factor of newness, whether of individuals to
a community or a job, or Of agencies and programs, was
significant to the emergence of battered women's
groups in many places. This demonstrates the
importance Of taking a fresh look at old situations.
As Simmel (1950) perceived, the significance of the
stranger or of strangeness lies in the capacity to
confront the familiar, to be detached and curious
about the group's most cherished traditions:

[The stranger] is freer, practically and

theoretically; he [sic] surveys

conditions with less prejudice; his

criteria for them are more general and

more Objective ideals; he is not tied

down to them by habit, piety, and

precedent (p. 405).

Thus, the new lawyer, the new minister, or the worker
in a new social program were as yet unencumbered by

the blinders which so Often develop after a routine is

established.

150

Most interviewees also acknowledged the
importance of hearing that other groups were forming
in different communities, although they may have had
no direct contact with any of those groups. One
founder, who was a social worker in a private agency,
put it succinctly:

When you're trying to provide a service

that has never been provided before, you

have to be spurred on from either what's

going on in the times, or what you hear

someone else is doing in another

community. For me, it was a combination

of both factors, plus the fact that I

started getting a lot of calls from

battered women here.

The preceeding section has been an analysis of
how people in different communities who recognized a
need for services for battered women identified a core
group of people who would work on the prOject of
establishing such services. In every case, the person
who is seen by her/his colleagues as the group's
founder was in a position in which s/he came into
contact with large numbers of battered women, and in
which s/he had access to other people in the community
who were capable of and willing to accomplish the goal
of animating--recruiting others and developing a
program to deal with the problem of woman battering.
At this point, developing groups found that they
needed to widen their network of members and

supporters, if woman battering was to become widely

recognized as a problem in their community, and if

151

solutions were to be found.

Widening the Network Of Support

The core group in each communiy found that,
although it had evolved into a handful of hard-working
members, it needed commitment from more people to
accomplish the tasks it defined as important. With an
issue such as woman battering, there was a great need
for immediate, accessible solutions--for victim relief
as well as for wider awareness of the prOblem. Thus,
local groups tended to emerge with a practical focus
on providing services for battered women, although
many saw their purpose as two-fold: to provide
immediate and long-term relief for women who are in a
battering situation, and to increase public awareness
of the issue. Groups were sometimes frustrated by the
need for both kinds of activity to occur
simultaneously, since both require expenditures of
valuable time and energy (the public outreach,
legitimation process is discussed in Chapter Five.)

Having a needy clientele and concrete services to
provide neceSSitates acquiring material resources,
skills, and personnel (and leads to ideological
contradictions and compromises--to be discussed).

This results in pressures which are not present in all

types of social movements. For example, a religious

152

movement would primarily need to provide a convincing
ideology, a spiritual transformation, and could thus
concentrate all of its organizing energy on an
idealistic level. (Although groups within a religious
movement Often decide to build churches, this usually
is not perceived as a necessity until the group
becomes somewhat stable. Also, in the case of
churches, money comes from the group's members
themselves; they do not usually apply for grants or
provide continuing services to a needy clientele.)

For the battered women's movement, however, there
were both materialist and idealist needs to be met.

If the task were staffing a twenty-four-hour criSis
line, the group needed volunteers to do that. If the
task were establishing emergency housing the group
needed to have community residents Offer their homes,
or participate in fund-raising and other steps
necessary to procuring a shelter. Whatever the
group's goals, they could rarely be accomplished
without additional input from the community.

Some groups asked for the support or sponsorship
of a specific agency/organization. In one locale the
group, which had been started by a woman minister, had
formed a task force made up of people from various
local social agencies to study the extent of woman
battering and design a program. When it found itself

overwhelmed with the magnitude of the proolem, the

153

task force asked an interagency council for help. The
YWCA, a member of that council, Offered to become the
sponsoring agency, and later invited the Junior League
to form a coalition with them--the YWCA-—to raise
money, recruit volunteers, and direct the domestic
violence program. One Of the group's founders was a
member Of both the YWCA and the Junior League; and she
suggested tapping the Junior League. No one in her
group objected to involving the Junior League: "We
were desperate for any help we could get." Several
groups mentioned these kinds of inter-agency linkages
as important in soliciting a large support base. An
advantage of this type of recruitment process was that
it immediately secured the commitment of a group or
influential citizens, and gave the project legitimacy
in the eyes of the community.

However, groups with grassroots, feminist origins
tended to be ideologically opposed, at least
initially, to depending on "influential citizens" or
any nonfeminist support. This fact often made it more
difficult for them to survive; and they were sometimes
forced by economic necessity to make concessions
later. Some of the-groups who were committed to
building a grassroots support base approached the task
of enlisting a wider network of helpers in an entirely
different way. After organizing themselves and

determining their focus, they conducted a "membership

154

drive," in which anyone in the community (or
elsewhere, for that matter) could join the group,
volunteer for specific types of jobs, and often pay
dues and vote for members of a board of directors or
advisory board. A benefit of this method of
enlistment was that it Opened the project to the wnole
community and facilitated the develOpment Of a mass
base of support, in contrast to the agency-sponsorship
method, which tended to make participation somewhat
exclusive or even elitist (in the case of the Junior
League, for example).

Feminist-oriented groups who adopted the mass-
based-support approach were more attuned to the
importance Of involving the general public in dealing
with woman battering, in order to make the issue more
visible. They often cited "public education" as their
primary task, or at least put it on a par with
providing direct services. In contrast, the groups
who sought agency or private group sponsorship were
usually more concerned with providing direct services,
and only saw public outreach as a means of gaining
more support for their services to battered women.

A few groups did not really succeed in enlisting
a larger body of helpers, and managed to carry on the
job of developing services with only a core group or
very hard-working individuals. In some cases, this

type of group succeeded by quickly acquiring

155

sophisticated funding, SUCh as a Law Enforcement
Assistance Administration (LEAA) grant, which enabled
them to hire a paid staff (Often made up of their own
members) and start a program without appealing to the
community for money. But this type of situation was
rare among the groups I studied, partially because
LEAA and other sources of large, federal grants have
been eliminated or severely curtailed in 1981, or are
more difficult to Obtain as more groups compete for
limited amounts of money.

It may be that other groups which attempted to
remain independent of broadly-based community support
have failed and disappeared; I did not attempt to
study defunct groups. Tierney (1979) did, however,
and her conclusions appear to validate my suspicions.
She found that groups which fail to Obtain community
support are likely to dissolve. Nall (1976) found the
same pattern in a comparison of two women's centers.
One, which failed, had never established networks of
material and/or political support from the community.
The other, which remained viable, had Obtained early
and continued support from influential community
members.

The ways in which groups went about widening
their networks of support were related to whether they
had grassroots or institutional origins. However, the

group's location in a rural or urban, conservative or

156

progressive community did not seem to be related to
the methods of involving more people in the project of
making woman battering more visible in their
community. I expected, however, that the group's
location would affect the composition of the group,
and particularly the way members perceived Of the
importance of involving minorities and formerly

battered women.

Group Composition: Insiders, Outsiders, Minorities,
and Men

At the NCADV conference, and among the two groups
which I studied first, there was a great deal of
concern about issues of race, ethnicity, class, age,
and religion. Groups wanted to be as diverse and
tolerant of differences as possible, in group
composition and appeal to client populations. There
was also a commitment to involving formerly battered
women, as staff, volunteers, and board members.

Hence, I assumed that these would be important issues
to most groups in the battered women's movement.

Nationally, the movement portrays itself as
committed to full participation Of women of every race
and ethnic group, every class, age, and religion, in
both providing and receiving a group's services.

Concerning recipients of services, Fleming (1979:

157

364) writes:

It is important to Obtain as diverse a
clientele as possible. Programs designed
to provide services to women need to make
sure that they meet the needs of all
women, not simply those in the immediate
neighborhood or those who already know
how to utilize resources. Effective
community work will help to insure
diversity: a multi-cultural resident
population. Black women, Spanish-
speaking women, Native American women,
Asian women, military wives (both Asian
and white), undocumented alien women, and
rural women . . . .

Many groups across the country have decided that
one way to reach such a "diverse clientele" is to have
a "multi-cultural" membership—-on the staff, board Of
directors, and among volunteers. With this in mind,
they have written their by-laws to deliberately
construct such diversity, stating that the membership
shall proportionately reflect the community's cultural
make-up.

In addition to representation of different
cultures and perspectives in the membership, these
differences in background surface in concrete ways
within the living experience of shelters. Scott
(1980: 48-50) mentions some of these manifestations
of difference:

In our shelter, our biggest discussions

have been around how different cultures

view discipline . . . the next biggest

issue has been around food . . . DO the

surroundings-—pictures, books, magazines,

etc. reflect other women's experiences?

Do books reflect multi-racial children--
just as you would have them to be

158

nonsexist?

Since my research did not include a comparative
ethnography Of life within shelters, I cannot discuss
whether or not the groups in my sample encountered
these issues, or how groups dealt with them. However,
I did ask each group about the composition Of its
board, staff, and volunteers, in terms of
representation by race, ethnic group, class, age,
religion, and formerly battered women.

None of the groups studied had specific articles
in its by-laws which stated that its membership should
include proportions based on race, ethnicity, class,
age, or religion. A few said that there was an
informal understanding that minorities would be
recruited for openings on the board or staff, and
encouraged to volunteer. Others explained the
homogeneity of their membership as reflecting the
composition Of their communities:

There are no racial minorities in town,

except a few Native Americans, and we

have one volunteer who is a Native

American.

In some of the small, rural communities, it probably
was true that there was no sizable minority
population; but even in urban areas, many of the
groups did not have Black or Hispanic members.

Most groups, however, seemed surprised by the

question, and indicated that their groups had never

159

conSidered representation. On reflection, they
realized that their groups were predominately white,
middle-class, and under forty years Old. Religious
variation was common; but people were not members
because they represented a religious affiliation.
Several times, people told me that they had never
thought about this idea of representation before, but
it might be worth considering within their group in
the future.

Representation by formerly battered women was
slightly more common; although, as with founding
cores, "outsiders" still predominate. 12 of the 25
groups had made the involvement of formerly battered
women a priority. Among eight of the twelve, their
by-laws specified that one or two (the maximum was
one-third of one group) Of the board members should be
former clients--"consumers” was the jargon.
Representation by consumers was mandated by one
state's legislative funding agency, but not all or the
groups in that state had yet complied. Other groups'
spokespeople said there might be some formerly
battered women among their members, but that was not a
salient characteristic: 'it's not an issue for us."
In all cases, formerly battered women were a minority
of the groups. "Outsiders" to the prOblem of woman
battering were everywhere primarily responsible for

the organization and delivery of services.

160

Among many local groups within the battered
women's movement, then, it appears that diverSity
and/or representation are not considered important.
Some groups have perhaps ignored these issues, simply
because they were preoccupied with day-to-day
considerations of obtaining funding and surviving as
organizations. Others may have avoided this topic
because they were hoping to minimize disagreements
within the group. Or they may have been oblivious to
the issue. If they have always been utilized to their
maximum capacity, they may not have been concerned
with trying to reach even more women. Whatever the
reason, this ideological dimension of woman battering
has not affected all groups equally. The intergroup
linkages which have resulted in shared perspectives or
common dilemmas on some grounds have not brought
representation to a similar status.

The decision as to whether or not men would be
welcome, or even permitted, to participate in a group,
and the parameters of that participation, reflect the
group's ideological stance, as well as that of the
movement as a whole. Some groups are totally Opposed
to including men in their staff, volunteers, or board
of directors. Others believe it is apprOpriate for
men to be in some of those positions--perhaps on the
board of directors--but not in others, direct

services, for example. Other groups feel that it is

161

essential to have men participate fully in planning
and delivering whatever services are Offered. A
fourth attitude might be described as one of grudging
acceptance: women in the group are not enthusiastic
about including men, but they accept the inevitability
of the men's presence.

These positions seem to broadly "correlate" with
the rest of the group's ideology: with how explicitly
feminist the group is, for example. The most Openly
feminist groups are the least likely to accept men's
full participation. There is also a relationship
between these positions and the group's community
setting. Those in smaller towns and rural areas, who
have a smaller population from which to recruit
members, are likely to be more tolerant of men's
participation. Those in urban areas can be, and
usually are, more exclusive.

Most of the earliest groups did not originally
allow men to participate. They felt that battering
was a women's issue, and that if a woman were leaving
an oppressive relationship with a man, she would not
want to have to accept help from other men; or that
she needed to learn to not need help from men. "She's
coming from a dependent relationship, and it would be
too easy to just transfer that dependency onto another
man, if any were here." Some Of those groups have

more recently admitted men, usually to their boards of

162

directors or to volunteer with childcare and other
jobs that do not involve direct services to battered
women (e.g., counseling and advocacy). Pragmatically,
it is Often beneficial to have men on the board who
have some influential position in the community--a
prosecuting attorney, a wealthy businessman, a
minister (the composition of the board of directors
and the rationale for it were discussed in Chapter
Three).

The majority of the groups which I studied have
male volunteers and/or male staff members, although
never in large numbers. Some seem to have accepted
men's participation reluctantly, because they could
not avoid it due to affirmative action guidelines
attached to state and federal funding. Others feel
that it is an asset to have men involved, because they
think battered women and their children need to see
men in nonviolent roles: "It's important to provide
positive male models to the women and children, so
they don't think all men are like the one they just
left.”

However, in most groups the men cannot staff the
shelter without any women staff/volunteers present
"because of legal ramifications--he might get accused
Of rape or something--and the women might be
uncomfortable." One group had a man as the only

resident staffer. He lived in the shelter and served

163

as the night counselor. The group had serious doubts
about hiring a man in that position, but "we had to
have someone stay there and he was the only person who
applied, so everyone agreed.” In this case,
"everyone" included other staff, volunteers, and the
women who were residents at the shelter. The staff
was concerned about whether future residents would
also feel comfortable about the situation.

One group had a former batterer on their board,
and the board members to whom I spoke felt ambivalent
about his presence. They said he was ”in the process
Of reforming" and thought he was particularly
sensitive to the need for services for battered women
and their assailants; but they worried about his
sincerity. Although most groups have had support from
a few men, for the most part woman battering is
perceived as a women's issue, by both women and men,
and men have not become involved in large numbers.

There is another way in which the battered
women's movement has had to consider its acceptance of
men, and that is as clients. Because of funding
stipulations and affirmative action policies, all
groups will provide services to battered men on
request. For a few groups this would include keeping
them in the shelter if they needed a place to stay.
But for most it would mean finding them a bed at some

other location--in a motel, a volunteer home, or in

164

another type Of already existing refuge for homeless
men (YMCA, Union Mission, or whatever exists in that
community). None of the groups have actually ever had
a man call them who needed shelter. Most have had a
few men (usually no more than two or three--less than
one percent Of their clientele) call who wanted
counseling or information, and that has been provided.
The legitimacy Of the issue Of battered men is not
included in this research. My only point is that all
of the groups in my sample have develOped some type of
contingency plan to deal with any battered man who may
appear, and as a response to audiences who may expect
such accomodations (a part of the groups' "public

ideologies").

Learning About the Problem

The groups that I studied had, almost without
exception, been formed by people who said they knew
nothing about woman battering or how to deal with it
before they started working on the problem. How,
then, did they gain the requisite knowledge for
dealing with battered women and for educating the
public about the issue?

There is a great deal of similarity in the ways
that various groups educated themselves about woman

battering. Most said that they knew nothing, or very

165

little, about the issue until they became involved in
their local groups, and that a lot of knowledge was
gained through practical experience. As one group's
founder recalled, she put a notice of an
organizational meeting in the newspaper and, instead
of hearing from people interested in helping her form
a group, she began to receive calls from battered
women, who saw the ad and wanted her to help them.
Her first reaction was "NO, I'm not ready to actually
help yet, I don't know enough;" but

then I realized I couldn't say that to

these women, and I started listening to

them and looking for information to give

them on other places they could call. I

also started asking friends of mine if

they could take a woman in, so that's how

our volunteer homes got started, and how

the hosts learned about battering.

The groups which started the earliest, in 1976
and 1977, had the most difficulty finding information
with which to educate themselves. There simply was
very little information available. Del Martin's bOOK,
BATTERED WIVES, was published in 1976, and many
interviewees cited that as their first source of
written information. Others mentioned a Ms. Magazine
artice, "One of These Days--POW--Right in the Kisser,"
(Gingold, 1976). One woman had attended a NOW
workshop on woman battering in Philadelphia in the

fall of 1975, and others had read NOW literature whicn

was distributed as a result of that workshop.

166

Surprisingly, most interviewees did not cite
Pizzey's book, SCREAM QUIETLY OR THE NEIGHBORS WILL
HEAR (1974), although it is perhaps the earliest
publication of the 1970's on the subject of woman
battering. Many of the later groups said that they
had read Pizzey, so perhaps it was not widely
distributed in the U.S. in its first years Of
publication--either because it was an English
publication or because its subject was not of general
interest.

Groups which formed later (1978 and afterward)
had a wider selection of publications, as well as the
experiences of their predecessors, from which to
learn. Books commonly mentioned among these younger
groups included Walker's THE BATTERED WOMAN (1979),
Davidson's CONJUGAL CRIME (1978 and 1980), and Straus,
et al.'s BEHIND CLOSED DOORS (1980). However, Martin
(1976) continued to be the most frequently cited in
response to my questions of "What was the first book
which members of your group read to learn about
battering?" and “If someone were just starting to
learn about battering, what book or books would you
recommend?"

Martin's book is widely accessible in paperback,
and it is written in a clear, commonsense,
"layperson's' language, which may be the reason for

its popularity. But I think the predominance of this

167

one publication may also indicate communication among
groups. Reading Martin and, to a lesser extent,
Walker and a few others, is part Of the culture of the
battered women's movement. It seems too much of a
coincidence that groups in different places
serendipitously read the same book. Rather, it is
probably because the grOUps influenced each other,
both directly and indirectly as a result of intra-
movement connections.

Another benefit Of the movement's development was
the dissemination of information through conferences
and traveling speakers. One woman described driving
50 miles with several other members of her group to
see and hear Erin Pizzey speak in 1976 or 1977 while
on a U.S. tour. She could not remember the exact
date, but her group was started in May, 1976, and she
believes they heard Pizzey fairly soon after they got
organized. Another woman said her group's founders
"went to conferences wherever they heard about one,
and just soaked up as much information as they could"
during their first year of existence.

There have been several conferences in the United
States—-in New York City, Minneapolis, and Denver
prior to the NCADV conference in Washington, D.C. in
1980, and more regional conferences since then. There
have not been so many, however, that the various local

groups had a wide selection from which to choose. It

168

is likely that representatives of many of the groups
which I studied were present at the same conferences,
another source of intergroup continuity. Indeed, this
was true of the two conferences which I attended. I
asked each group if any of its members had attended
the NCADV meetings in Washington (held before I began
interviewing), and six groups said yes. At the
regional conference in Milwaukee which I attended
(held after my interviews were completed), I saw
members of five groups that I had interviewed.

Groups also invited people from battered women's
organizations in other communities to speak to them or
send them information about getting started, as
mentioned in the earlier description of group origins.
Different groups appear to have educated their members
in similar ways, through reading the same literature,
attending conferences, and sharing knowledge among
organizations. As a result, all of the groups which I
studied tended to share perspectives on the causes of
and solutions to battering, as well as organizational
structure, and problems such as "burn out” and funding

cutbacks.

Causes and Solutions

Different groups tend to adapt their public

presentations concerning causes of and solutions to

169

battering to the type of community and the specific
organizations to which they speak (to be discussed
later). But when speaking to me, all of the groups
indicated a shared understanding of causes and
solutions, based on similar experiences with battered
women and a knowledge of the same literature and
research into these issues.

When I asked "What does your group think causes
battering?", I usually got an answer which cited four
main components. However, some groups stress one
cause more than another, depending on whether their
perspective is individualized (psychological) or
structural. The four components are society's
attitudes toward violence and toward women,
socialization into gender and into violent ways Of
expressing anger and frustration, a family history Of
abuse (adults who were abused as children or who saw
their fathers battering their mothers), and economic
frustration. As one woman stated,

Society: the way that little girls and

little boys are brought up, the history

of abuse in the family. We don't see

alcoholism or drug abuse as being a

cause, that's just an excuse. We think

that the economic situation right now is

gonna cause a lot of problems, more than

we've been seeing, because we feel the

economy is going to get worse. He's real

frustrated now, he doesn't know how he's

going to make the next set of bills.

In another group, the explanation was
expanded:

170

What I think causes battering is

conditioning, lack of self-esteem; that

women believe that's how it's supposed to

be. In an area like this, which is

pretty traditional and conservative,

there's a real strong sense of that, it's

a patriarchal thing, that women are

supposed to take it.

And another group's spokesperson:

The way we raise our children--the kinds

of attitudes we give kids. We raise half

of our population to believe that they

are in charge of the other half, and then

it's everywhere reinforced-—in the media,

in the churches, in work settings--it's

reinforced everywhere. Half of the

population is in a one-down position all

the time.

NCADV leaders and the national representatives or
the movement generally cite the same types of causes,
although they tend to put their explanations into
stronger feminist terms and to see causes as more
structural, or social. Susan Schecter is one of the
movement's more articulate spokespeople. She has
worked in battered women's groups in Chicago and New
York, and presented her views to several conferences,
including the 1980 NCADV and the 1981 Region V
conference, where they were received enthusiastically.
Schecter has written a book, WOMEN AND MALE VIOLENCE:
THE STRUGGLES OF THE BATTERED WOMEN'S MOVEMENT (to be
published by South End press in 1982).

Schecter (1981a: 9, 11) states that woman
battering is caused by a "complex series or

institutional and social arrangements" that maintain

171

male domination over women: and in which "sex and
class domination operate together, at times to
reinforce each other and at times to conflict with
each other.” She defines domination as

. . . an organization of society in which
certain groups of people are able to
limit and determine the spheres of
activity of other people while at the
same time they profit materially or
through privileges from that limiting.
The control that these groups exercise
always ultimately carries with it the
threat or the use of force to coerce
compliance. This use of force is often
defined as legitimate by those who have
power (p. 10).

Schecter empha51zes that male domination alone does
not account for woman battering. It is the
intersection of that domination with the interests or
the state which legitimates it.

My argument is that two of the

predominant conditions of women's lives--

women as wageless or as low-paid wage

earners (class domination) and women as

isolated, private appendages of

individual males (sex domination)--are

constantly interacting to reproduce abuse

and reinforce the oppression of women (p.

12).

Schecter elaborates her explanation of the ways
in which class and sex domination intersect, the
material and ideological pressures that keep women in
battering relationships with men. She also emphaSizes
that in some ways sex and class domination contradict

each other, such as in the exploitation of working-

class men in the labor market. She contends that the

172

contradictions also contribute to woman battering,
although not in such a direct way as is implied by
local spokespeople who said ”economic frustration"
leads men to batter women as their scapegoats.
According to Schecter,

The relationship is not that direct or

that simple. Rather, I think that some

combination of this exploitation, plus

the privatization of the family and male

right to beat lead to extraordinarily

dangerous conditions for women. I would

urge that we look at these processes as

interrelated parts of a totality, rather

than consider them in isolation of each

other (p. 16).

Similarly, the solutions to woman battering whicn
were suggested by my interviewees are consistent
across groups and coincide with the short-range and
long-range goals of changing ideology which are
outlined by Schecter and other national spokespeople.
Solutions, like causes, contained four basic
components. Battering can only be eliminated through
increasing public awareness and changing public
attitudes to greater disapproval of batterers and
stronger sanctions against violence; teaching children
and adults new ways to express anger; ending violence
in the media and in sports: and changing gender
relations toward greater equality.

A good place to start is spanking:

spanking is such an accepted form or

dealing with children and controlling

children. We have to change the way we
treat children.

173

Little girls need to be taught that they

are worth something, that they're

important and they can do other things

besides have babies and bruises.

We must deal with the assailants. In

order to stop the battering, society must

take a look at the assailants and say,

"No longer are we going to tolerate

this."

The above solutions were cited by all of the
groups in similar ways, indicating that they had read
the same literature or communicated with other groups.
Schecter (1981a: 16) states that ”we need a total
social program for our movement." She includes
eliminating the sexual division of 1abor--both in the
family and in the workplace, challenging the
privatization and isolation of the nuclear family,
socializing household labor and childcare, defining
battering as ”unacceptable under any circumstances“
(p. 17), and challenging other ''forms of
degradation." The other forms cited are Pornography,
advertisements, and exploitative working conditions.
Schecter believes that each of these may contribute to
woman battering.

Most spokespeople stop short of explicitly
advocating the elimination of capitalism, although
Schecter (1981a: 17) states obliquely:

And finally, I suggest that community

life that is built to ensure a decent
social existence and the well being of

all cannot have as its dominant mode of
organization private property.

174

She suggests no alternative.

None of those interviewed have a full-scale
assailant counseling program, although a few have
support groups for former assailants. They all agree,
however, that such counseling is part or the solution
to battering, and needs to be worked into their
models.

The long-range solution has to be to make

men stop hitting women. I don't think

the long-range solution is to harbor the

women, the victims. I think that is the

short-term solution, and that's what has

to be done when the women are in danger

and in pain; but someone has to work on

making the men stop.

Thus, the future trend of all groups may be toward
establishing a model which includes both temporary
refuge for battered women and long-term counseling for
their assailants, as well as public campaigns to make
battering a less acceptable pattern of behavior. But
they all believe that the availability of a safe place
for battered women to go to is important as an
immediate, short-term solution to battering, whether
they have developed that model in their own community
or not. In their statements of long-term solutions,
local spokespeople tend to state goals which are
compatible with Schecter's insistence on the need to
eliminate the structural sources of violence against

women. But none of them went so far as to advocate a

complete change in society's "mode of organization."

175

Group Philosophies

The choices which a group makes about the way it
animates a prOblem are partially determined by, and in
turn have an influence on, the group's and the
movement's ideology. The movement's perception or
what are the causes of and solutions to the prOblem
are indicators of ideology, as are the ways to which
the problem is referred and the strategies devised for
telling other people about the issue. Ideology may
also be revealed by asking members of a movement group
what their philosophy is, and what they perceive as
the group/movement's purpose.

Fleming (1979: 357-394) includes many variables
as part of a group's philosophy: decision-making (who
makes what decisions), counseling models, whom the
program serves, policies concerning the nature and
extent of services, drugs and alcohol in the shelter,
the way children are dealt with, and operation or the
shelter. However, I deliberately asked the open-ended
question, "What is your group's philosophy?" with no
further indications of what I meant by philosophy, in
order to allow interviewees to interpret the meaning
of the concept themselves. None of them included any

of the issues which Fleming raises, until I went on to

176

ask specific question about them later. Clearly,
"philosophy“ meant something different to my
interviewees, perhaps something more abstract,
certainly more general than Fleming's
conceptualization. Some of the issues which Fleming
raises have already been discussed, others will be
included in Chapter Five.

Many of my interviewees answered immediately and
without hesitation concerning their group's
philosophy, making statements such as those which
follow:

Nobody deserves to be beaten.

Client self-determination.

To help women to help themselves.

To provide women with enough self-esteem

to realize their own powers as women.

There should never be a battered woman.

No one deserves to be beaten, no matter

what they've done, for whatever reason.

We want to help the individual who is

willing to help herself. Everybody is

equal and entitled to live her life to

the fullest, the way she wants to, and

we're going to do everything to insure

that the individual gets to do that.

Others found a copy of their by-laws, on which
the statement of the group's purpose or philosophy was
printed, and read that to me (they made the decision
that "purpose" equalled "philosophy"). These

responses were therefore somewhat more polished, but

seemed to convey the same general attitudes. For

177

example,

By mobilizing community resources and

subsequently providing a nonthreatening

atmosphere conducive to supporting and

promoting self-growth, we can enhance the

potential of individuals to achieve

family stability and provide a quality of

life closer to what is considered ideal.

To provide victims of domestic violence

with desirable alternatives to their

present lifestyle, for themselves and

their children and also to prevent the

further development of violent behavior

in the children's lives.

It is interesting to note that the written
statements of philosophy refer to "individuals",
"victims", and other non-gender-specific recipients of
services: whereas the spontaneous responses tend to
specify that women are the target population. This is
probably due to the fact that written philosophies are
intended for public dissemination, and cannot imply
any bias toward one part of the population (the
written statements are a part of the group's "public
ideology"). The unrehearsed answers were perhaps more
a reflection of the speaker's own perceptions or whom
the group serves.

I also asked people what they considered their
group's most important function or purpose to be, and
what the group's future goals are, as a way of
measuring the movement's perception of its role and

interest in affecting the issue of woman battering.

Providing a safe place for battered women and their

178

children was most frequently seen as the group's
primary function, among those groups who have a
shelter or a safe homes network. However, some
spokespersons for shelter groups said that they
thought giving emotional support to women was even
more important than the shelter: and many thought that
the two functions were mutually important. A typical
response was "providing shelter and support for
battered women--no one else does that." The
spokesperson for one shelter group perceived of a
slightly different combination of functions as being
most important: ”public awareness and the effect we
seem to be having on the women-—they seem to blossom
while they're here." Groups without a shelter or set
of safe homes see their most important function as
"being there” for women to call, and “keeping domestic
violence before the public eye, keeping it a viable
issue.”

Most of the groups who do not yet have a shelter
cited getting a shelter as their major goal for the
future. Those with a shelter mentioned goals such as
becoming more economically stable, expanding their
staff and/or programming (to include assailant
counseling, or a children's counseling program,
perhaps), and extending their community education
program. One group wants to establish a "second-stage

housing" project. This would be an apartment building

179

for women who have left the shelter and want to start
living independently, but still need emotional and
financial support. A few shelter groups already have
another building in mind, which they feel would be
more appropriate for a shelter than their present
location: it's bigger, or has a more convenient
arrangement of rooms, or is in better condition.

In summary, most interviewees articulated very
concrete goals for their groups, which were generally
just expansions of their present services: "To be
very effective at what we're already doing," as one
woman said. One group leader described a somewhat
different type of goal:

To raise consciousness and build

community support: eventually to have the

community support the shelter entirely--

like the churches are supported by their

congregations--have money drives to pay

the rent, buy food, etc.: become really

integrated into the community so that the

county as a whole is providing food,

salaries, clothing, and so on.

The goals articulated do not indicate any new
directions for the battered women's movement, or any
dissatisfaction with the present general direction.
Instead, they imply that local spokespeople do not
even see themselves as part of an ideological
transformation. They are focused on providing

solutions for individual women, and on gaining

stability for their direct service programs.

 

180

Summary

This chapter has presented an analysis of how
local groups within the battered women's movement have
gone about the process of animating the prOblem of
woman battering, and some of the ideological issues
which confronted various groups during that process.
Through animation, groups developed in local
communities to confront the issue of woman battering.
But those groups quickly discovered that they needed
wider community involvement if they were to meet their
goals of arousing concern about the prOblem and
eliminating it. They needed to have other people in
the community share the responsibility. If the local
battered women's group succeeded in carving a niche
for itself, it faced obscurity as other members of the
community appeared willing to relegate the issue of
woman battering to that group and forget it.

Accomplishing the goal of making woman battering
visible as a social problem, therefore, required more
than establishing a group and carving a niche for the
group. It required putting the issue on the agenda
for the whole community. The next chapter will deal
with ways that the battered women's movement performed
the claims-making activities of legitimation and
demonstration, in their struggle to put woman

battering on the agenda.

Chapter Five

PUTTING WOMAN BATTERING ON THE
COMMUNITY'S AGENDA OF CONCERN

Legitimation of a new social problem involves
establishing the issue as a problem in its own right, as
separate from other social problems although perhaps
connected to and/or affecting them, and building
respectability in order to procure scientific and
legislative sponsorship. In legitimating the proolem of
woman battering, movement groups had to confront the
issue of how woman battering differed from other forms
of violence against women. Groups also had to decide
what terms to use to refer to woman battering, and
define what they meant by those terms. Different groups
chose different terms to refer to the phenomenon, and
that choice had political implications which affected
the way the issue came to be viewed in a community.
Public outreach was one of the primary ways in whicn
groups went about establishing the issue and building
respectability for it at the local level.

Demonstration of a social problem includes the

activities of accumulating data about the extent of the

181

182

problem and the impact of programs that were deSigned to
attack it, and reconciling opposing viewpoints about the
nature, extent, and treatment of the proolem. For this
study, I did not collect much information concerning how
groups accumulated data about the extent of the problem
of woman battering or the impact of their programs. The
initial accumulation of data to justify the
establishment of groups was described in the previous
chapter, in discussing "Group Origins" and how task
forces were formed to determine the need for services.

I also have data on how groups attempt to reconcile
Opposing viewpoints, through the kinds of controversies
which groups confront and the compromises they make with

their members and their communities.

The Politics of Naming

The terms in which we name or speak of
anything do more than designate it: they
place it in a class of objects, thereby
suggest with what it is to be judged and
compared, and define the perspective from
which it will be viewed and evaluated. .
. Language is not just one more kind of
activity: it is the key to the universe
of speaker and audience (Edelman, l9b7:
131).

Many terms have evolved to refer to woman
battering, all of which have somewnat different
connotations for their users and the audiences who

hear them. "Domestic Violence", "Spouse Abuse",

183

"Family Violence", "Conjugal Crime", "Woman Abuse,"
all are used, often interchangeably, within the
movement. Preference within groups for specific terms
depends on internal perspectives as well as an
awareness of the impact of certain words on the
community.

At the first National Coalition Against Domestic
Violence (NCADV) conference, in February, 1980, there
was extensive debate about the coalition's name. Many
of the delegates were dissatisfied because "battered
women" were not included in the name. Another
contingent felt that "domestic viOlence" was a more
appropriate term, because it implied a concern for men
and children as well as women. Those who favored
"domestic violence" emphasized diversity. They wanted
to "encompass as broad a scope of people as possible
and be legitimate in the eyes of the system." No
consensus was reached: it was an old debate even then.
The choice had been the outcome of a close vote at the
time the coalition was founded (according to steering
committee members whom I interviewed): and opinion is
still divided within the movement. Those who support
the use of the term "domestic viOlence" feel that it
is part of a necessary compromise of explicit feminist
rhetoric and actions, in order to accomplish the goal
of providing services to battered women. Those who

insist that the focus should remain on battered women

184

feel that it is unethical to compromise too much.

The voices of the "purists" who spurn compromise
are usually heard at conferences, speaking
theoretically, rather than from the standpoint of
practical experience in dealing with local audiences
and/or funding services. People who are actually
involved in providing services and securing funding,
at both the local and the national level, speak more
often of the necessity of compromising in their
language in order to achieve the movement's
objectives. They also speak of the anguish they feel
about that necessity.

One workshop at the Region V conference in
Milwaukee (April, 1981) was on the subject of "Names
and What They Mean . . . Family Violence , Domestic
Violence, Woman Abuse.“ Participants discussed
several issues of naming, including the kinds or names
groups had given themselves and the facilities they
provide: whether they should be called ”refuges",
"shelters", "centers“, or just "places". Some felt
that ”center" was the most encompassing term,
indicating that other services are offered in addition
to temporary refuge. Others felt that “center” was
meaningless (too vague), or made them sound "too much
like a mental health facility." Some participants
felt that regardless of other services, the term

"refuge" and "shelter" were important because they

185

convey the notion of safety, a battered woman's most
pressing need.

Because of my promise to maintain groups'
confidentiality, I cannot analyze the specific names
of the individual groups in my sample. But both of
these perspectives were evident among the various
groups. Many have a name which emphasizes the safety
which they offer, e.g., words such as home, shelter,
refuge, haven. Members of these groups said that they
had sought a name to symbolize protection and/or hOpe.
Others were more concerned with devising an acronym
which would easily become familiar. For a few, the
acronym itself is a word connoting safety (e.g., "We
liked the term ----- , and we had to make it stand for
something, so we thought the words up afterwardl”)

But for most, the acronym itself is meaningless; and
the words it stands for summarize the group's services
or location (a fictitious example is DATA-—Domestic
Assault Treatment Agency). Still other groups have no
acronym and no symbolic reference. Their name is
simply utilitarian, summarizing who they are and what
they do (e.g., "We're in this county and we work on
domestic violence," so their name is The Blank County
Domestic Violence Program).

A group's name usually includes one of the
concepts that refers to the target population--woman

battering, domestic violence, spouse abuse--and may

186

indicate how that group views the issue. On the other
hand, the concept chosen may not reflect the group's
perception so much as its awareness of the political
climate in which their name (and their services) will
be reviewed.

At the conference in Milwaukee, one speaker
charged that groups who use gender-neutral terms are
allowing the public to ignore the fact that women are
usually the victims of domestic viOlence.

By calling the problem spouse abuse or

domestic violence, battered women are

disappearing. We have spent the last six

years putting battered women and their

children on the agenda; now they're being

taken off (Susan Schecter, keynote

address, Region V conference, April 30,

1981).

Another speaker described how, in her state, new
laws were written specifically incorporating the term
"spouse abuse," because one legislator insisted on
that term in order to not legitimize ”living in sin"
(his term). He wanted to be certain that protection
was not extended to cohabiting couples.

The term "battered women" is also subject to
criticism by some groups who want to maintain woman's
visibility. As one workshop participant explained,

Women don't define themselves as

battered, but abused. They won't call us

if we say we're here to help battered

women, because they say "he just slapped

me," or "he broke my jaw but I'm not a

battered woman.“ We used "battered" in

the beginning for its shock value; now we
need to find a word that women are more

187

likely to identify with. People don't

want to think of themselves as battered

because that makes them more clearly

sound like a victim (Tape of workshop on

“Names and What They Mean . . . Family

Violence, Domestic Violence, Woman

Abuse).

Another participant agreed with the above perspective,
and added that using I'battering" may obscure
psychological forms of abuse.

Another issue of naming revolves around the words
used to describe the battered women who apply for
services--client, consumer, re81dent, target
population, victim. Most participants in the worksnop
felt that "client" is too utilitarian--"It implies
that you know the answers and I, as client, need the
answer." It places the battered woman in a dependent
relationship with the people who work with her.
"Consumer” had a similar connotation, as well as
stressing a market relationship. "Resident," on the
other hand, was seen as "neutral." No one favored
I"victim," feeling that it sounds even more degrading
than "client," and depicts the subject as passive.1

Unfortunately, this topic was not included in my
interview questions. I did notice, however, that some
of my interviewees talked about "residents," some
about "clients." Several used the term "consumer,"
but apologetically, explaining that it is a technical

term used by their funding agency. This is another

example of the effect of state intervention on the

188

movement.

Finally, the politics of naming includes the
issue of how individuals and groups within the
movement refer to their topic when speaking publicly
about their work. Locally, group members either tend
to be unaware of nuances in terms, and say that they
have I'no preference, I use whatever comes to mind;" or
they say that they gauge their terminology to the
audience they are addressing, although they might
personally prefer another term. The concept of what
terms are appropriate to different audiences varies
from group to group. The following are some excerpts
from my taped interviews:

I use all the terms-—domestic assault,
domestic violence, family violence,
battered women--it depends on the
audience. I think "battered women" is a
stronger term--it implies that she is a
victim.

I start with "domestic violence" and say
"'domestic violence' is a nicer way of
saying 'battered women',” and then I
emphasize that our focus is on women.

We use "domestic violence", ”spouse
abuse", "battered women", although
they're bad interchangeably--they don't
all mean the same thing. I try to stick
to "domestic violence"--that indicates
that it's total family involvement and/or
there are repercussions to everybody in
the family and the community, whereas
"spouse abuse" indicates that just two
people are involved, and "battering"
doesn't get at the psychological kinds of
damage.

I prefer "battering relationship” because
I think it's a two-way street. I think

189

that the woman is battering herself when

she is the victim, and certainly the

assailant is battering her. I think

"domestic violence" would turn people

off, but I use it in some groups.

Local spokespeople never explained what kinds of
audiences preferred, or objected to, what terms. They
always spoke in a vague way of how "it depends on the
audience." National spokespeople charge that
conservative audiences prefer "domestic viOlence" and
"spouse abuse." For the most part, however, movement
speakers are willing to use the "safer" terms to reach
as wide an audience as possible.

Words like "feminist" or "battering" can

become walls, barriers to people. It's

more important to communicate what we're

doing sometimes than it is to use

particular words that can red flag, or

get us way off track (Sharon Vaughn,

workshop leader on ”Names and What They

Mean . . . Family Violence, Domestic

Violence, Woman Abuse," Region V

conference, April 29, 1981).

Vaughn also spoke of the "analogy of the dress
behind the door": how she is willing in some
situations to alter her appearance and/or her language
in order to fit in (for example, taking the dress off
the hook behind the door in her office and putting it
on in place of the overalls or jeans in which she
usually works, for a legislative hearing). Her
primary goal is to communicate as effectively as

possible with the legislature and the public. This

attitude seems compatible with most of the groups I

190

encountered, and is probably necessary for many social
movements who want to appeal to a large audience.
Lofland (1966) uses the concept of "embodied
access" to refer to situations in which movement
proponents come into face-to-face contact with
audiences to whom they wish to appeal. In such cases,
the ”proselytizer" must adapt her/his demeanor and
mode of presentation to the procedural rules of the
group s/he is entering, in order to avoid antagonizing
or alienating group members. Thus, the "dress behind
the door“ is a fitting metaphor for the kind of
concessions necessary to succeed in presenting the

movement's perspective through embodied communication.

Forms of Proselytization

Like all collective outbursts, a norm-

oriented movement requires a certain

ability to communicate if beliefs are to

be disseminated and action is to be

mobilized. In this respect political

control of the media of communication is

important (Smelser, 1962: 286).

The groups in my sample either announced the
group's formation in order to recruit members--as part
of their process of animation; or news got out by
word-of-mouth, inadvertently. As a result, these
groups encountered the prOblem of being obliged to

scramble to provide services before they were prepared

191

to do so. However, groups also constructed a
conscious publicity and education policy, which
generally was implemented in conjunction with the
debut of their direct services. The goals of such a
program were to gain volunteers and donations, make
the public aware of the proolem, reach battered women
who needed their services, and gain legitimacy with
their potential funding sources. The various groups
employed a range of "forms of proselytization"
(Lofland, 1966) to accomplish these goals.

In addition to embodied (face-to-face)
communication, other forms of proselytization involve
what Lofland refers to as "disembodied access." This
type of communication occurs through indirect contact
between movement members and their audience, by means
of newspaper, television, and other media reports.

The concept of access refers to

circumstances where two or more people,

not formerly in a situation of

information flow, come into such a state.

It connotes the gap between a prior

state, in which a set of persons are not

receiving some kind of written or spoken

communication, and a subsequent state in

which they are (Lofland, 1966: 65).

It is the responsibility of movement members, at both
the local and national levels, to determine wnich form
of access to seek.

Some groups employed a media event as the means

of introducing the group and its services to the

public. Yoder (1980) suggests a public forum

192

featuring an "outside expert"——a speaker from another
community--as the specific event. The group can
announce its program and its intentions at this
meeting, and inform the community of ways it can help
the group meet its needs. Some of the groups in my
sample followed this type of pattern in their initial
bid for publicity. They invited someone from another
group or, in one case, an author of a book on woman
battering to speak at a public meeting. They then
discussed their group's formation and plans with the
community members who attended.

To the general public, however, there are as yet
no well-known personalities who are experts on this
issue: i.e., there is no "Gloria Steinem" or "Betty
Friedan" of the battered women's movement. Hence, it
is difficult to create interest among the general
public to whom the issue of woman battering is
"unknown." By contrast, other movements are sometimes
able to muster large audiences and proselytize as a
result of curiosity about a well-known speaker. For
example, people came to hear Jane Fonda and Tom Haydn
speak on their cross-country tour who had no interest
in "economic democracy" but wanted to see the
celebrities, and may have been convinced by their
message.

Another group organized a panel discussion at

their YWCA, with several members of the group making

193

short presentations about various aspects of woman
battering--its prevalence, causes, widespread myths
and opposing facts--and the group's proposals to deal
with the issue. They invited the public to attend the
discussion, but also encouraged the press to be there
and ask questions. Thus, the presentation served as a
press conference, receiving good coverage on the T.V.
and radio stations and in the newspapers. In this
way, they reached a much wider audience than they
would have through only a public meeting. Part of
this group's strategy was to hold their meeting/press
conference at a time when there was not much else
happening that was "newsworthy." It was mid-January
and the press was “hungry" for interesting events.
Had they held their meeting in December or during some
season of national political excitement, they might
have been ignored, or given less prominent coverage.
Most other groups do not appear to have thought
through their publicity strategy so carefully.
However, I encountered one group whose leader
demonstrated a great deal of knowledge of how
publicity is generated, and used it to her group's
advantage. The city council in this particular
community was responsible for awarding Community
Development Block Grants from the U.S. Department of
Housing and Urban Development. The group which wanted

to open a shelter for battered women applied for such

194

a grant. According to the person I interviewed, the
group's founder was fairly certain that city council
would deny their group a grant: the council was
notoriously conservative and predominately male and
sexist. But the founder realized that applying for
the grant would be a means of gaining public
recognition and, hopefully, community support. As my
interviewee said:

She knew that the press always covers

city council meetings, and every time our

group attended those meetings, and spoke

up, we'd get the group's name in the

paper and on T.V. So even if we didn't

get the grant, at least people would hear

about us and start recognizing our name.

Her prediction proved accurate. The grant was
denied them (although they got it the next year); but
they generated "a huge amount of public sympathy," and
became well known. They succeeded in acquiring
funding through a local foundation, partially as a
result of their enhanced public image. And their main
goal in seeking publicity, that of informing the
community of their presence, was accomplished.

The above group made a deliberate decision to use
their city council's opposition to generate publicity
and community support. But they did not succeed at
that time in gaining the funds they had requested.
However, another group used the same kind of publicity

both to create public awareness of its existence, and

to persuade its county commission to give the group

195

money. The group members and 75 supporters attended
the commission meeting, wearing buttons that read
"Shelter Yes," and had several people speak abOUt the
need for a shelter. The commission awarded them
$20,000: and a local resident who heard about them as
a result of this campaign offered to make house
payments for a shelter for a year.

In most groups, though, there was no specific
media event, either because they were unaware of the
importance of such an event, or because they were
unable to muster the necessary circumstances. Groups
did, however, develop community education projects of
some sort. Often this consisted of simply calling the
media occasionally with announcements of group
programs, such as a fundraising event, or to interest
them in doing another story on woman battering and the
services available locally.

Many groups spoke of getting off to a bad start
with the press and needing to spend time and effort
building a positive relationship. As one interviewee
stated, "We're finally learning how, after all this
time, to handle the newspaper constructively." In the
beginning, the newspaper had written derisively of her
group's efforts. The paper had written several
sensationalized accounts of battering, and of the
dangers of having a shelter (”attracting' angry

assailants) in a neighborhood, and had published the

196

address of each building which was under consideration
as a shelter. The publicity resulted in storms of
protest from neighbors and in the abandonment of each
building from consideration, since this group was
committed to maintaining a shelter in a secret
location.

This type of press insensitivity was typical for
many groups in their early days. Group members,
either of groups who experienced such negative
reactions or of those who began with a supportive
media, seem to have no explanation, except that those
who develop good press relations usually attribute
them to the presence of friends or, rarely, group
members, on the newspaper, T.V., or radio staff. As
an extreme example, one group had three reporters on
its telephone crisis line and one on its Board of
Directors; and this group had had excellent news
coverage! Others have had to cultivate such contacts,
and have done so conscientiously. Group members
located reporters who had written sympathetic articles
about them or a related issue, and made an effort to
"feed" stories to those people specifically.

Other kinds of proselytization have consisted ot
organizing speakers' bureaus and distributing
pamphlets, cards, and/or posters around town. The
speakers' bureaus contact local organizations and

offer to address their meetings. The pamphlets,

197

cards, and posters briefly describe battering and tell
the reader where to call for information, assistance
or to volunteer. Common locations for these materials
are doctors' offices, grocery stores, laundramats,
hospital emergency rooms: places where battered women
are likely to see them. Many groups have proouced
Public Service Announcements (PSA's), to be broadcast
on their local radio and/or T.V. stations. These are
short (30-or 60-second) bulletins describing the
group's services and giving a telephone number for
crisis calls and information, and an address to which
questions or contributions may be mailed.

In the early days of their existence, most groups
had to “apply" to speak to community organizations.
Members called acquaintances or known leaders and
offered to address their meetings, or letters were
mailed to all organizations of which members were
aware. PSA's included information on how to obtain a
speaker on the topic of woman battering. But after a
few appearances, and several months of existence,
groups started becoming well-known. Then most found
that there was little need to continue advertising
their willingness to speak. After people heard them
at one meeting, word spread of their availability, and
of the interesting content of their presentations.
Many of the battered women's groups found that

we have so many requests that we barely

198

can manage to fill them--organizations

have to plan programs for their meetings,

and are glad when they find someone who

is offering to give a presentation.

The content of these public addresses will be
examined below, since they are a reflection or the
movement's strategy of demonstration.

Some groups have a separate personnel, staff
and/or (more typically) volunteers, who are
responsible for public outreach and education. This
may be known as a Speakers' Bureau or a Task Force.
One group had split after its initial organiZing into
two branches: the direct services (shelter,
counseling, and crisis line) component and an
independent affiliate which exists for the purposes ot
public education, legislative lobbying, and
fundraising. The reasons for this type of division
are that it keeps members from becoming too
overextended in trying to do everything, and it allows
separate activities--fundraising and lobbying--which
cannot be done by the direct services component
because it is a United Way affiliate. In another
group it is the duty of members of the Board of
Directors to do speaking engagements. The group views
this type of participation as a good way for the board
members to learn about woman battering, and about the

community's reactions to the group.

Public education and outreach have been shown to

199

be an integral part of every program which provides
local services as part of the battered women's
movement. As has been discussed, most groups consider
greater public awareness to be one of the primary
solutions to the problem of woman battering. Hence,

each group must find a way to facilitate that process.

The Content of Public Addresses

In addition to concern about what words are used
to refer to the subject of woman battering, and how
groups went about gaining access to the public, I was
interested in knowing what people say when they speak
to community groups. Nall (1976: 132) describes the
phenomenon of "public ideology." Groups construct an
ideology for public presentation which may be
"consciously developed as an attempt to fool the
public" into believing that the group is not a threat
to community values. While this public ideology may
not be counter to the group's true beliefs, it places
emphasis on those aspects of the group's perspective
which will make outsiders most comfortable--the least
"radical" beliefs. In Nall's example, "We tried to
present the community with the image of a voluntary
association doing good" (p. 133). She says that her

group "invented a new ideology for each new audience

200

we became aware of" (p. 133).

I was curious about whether the groups I studied
had invented a "public ideology" about themselves. I
think that the answer is partially indicated by the
fact that people admitted to adapting their language
to suit the audiences they were addressing. But I
wanted to know also if they were able to talk about
the general issue of woman battering without appearing
too threatening to their audience. If they do talk in
detail about the problem, how do they explain its
causes, effects, and so on? Or do they concentrate
entirely on describing their group's services, because
that allows them to avoid ideological questions?

- The answers to these questions fell into two
categories: groups who included an educational unit
on the subject of woman battering, and those who
concentrated solely on their groups' activities.
Groups who prefer the latter type of presentation
often explain that they originally included a more
general discussion of battering, but later eliminated
that part.

I quit explaining why domestic viOlence
occurs. Now I just talk about what we're
doing and don't bother with philosophical
questions--that's all people want to hear
about anyway.
Others vary their content depending on how much time

they have to speak and how much interest their

audience shows.

201

I'll speak to groups on whatever subject

they want. If they're not ready to hear

about domestic viOlence, I'll talk about

sexual assault: if they're not ready for

that, I'll talk about self defense. I

always talk about our services, and I'll

go further if they want me to.

This last comment was from a group which fits into the
Multi-Crisis model; so their "repertoire" of subjects
is greater than most groups. The speaker said that in
her experience, domestic violence is the most
threatening topic. Self-defense is the "safest"
topic, because many audiences simply do not want to
know more about domestic violence. She felt that this
resistance is due to a reluctance on the part of many
individuals to acknowledge that they might personally
be affected by domestic viOlence.

Other groups feel that it is imperative to speak
about battering, to force their audiences to face the
reality of the problem.

Our focus is on changing attitudes and on

reaching people in the audience who are

battered.

Those who agree with this necessity tend to follow a
similar format in different groups. They present a
brief history of woman battering, a summary of
available statistics on the frequency of battering, an
explanation of the causes of battering, perhaps a
”profile" of the batterer and the battered woman, and

then a history of the group and its purpose. Most

people said that they use the same general explanation

202

of the causes and solutions as they had given me; but
they usually "tone it down" some in terms of the
language they use. They often said that they try to
put their explanations into personal terms, to try to
help their audiences identify with the battered woman.
They ask people to think of times when they have been
”victimized“ (robbed, lied to, assaulted), and
remember how they felt about the experience.

Many groups include an audio-visual component,
either a film or a slide/tape show, in their
presentations. Here is another manifestation of
intramovement linkages, because the same titles were
mentioned repeatedly. The most frequently cited film
was "Violence Behind Closed Doors." The best-known
slide/tape show was a four—part set on "Family
Violence," with one part on battered women wnich they
often showed without the other three parts.
(Interestingly, the people who cited this series could
not remember what the other three parts were, except
for one part on child abuse.) Although a few groups
mentioned other alternatives, there were none besides
the above two that were used by more than one group.
Several people named another film, "We Will Not Be
Beaten," as their personal favorite, but said that
they rarely showed it because it was "too radical" for
most of their audiences. (It is a film which explains

the causes of woman battering in terms of male

203

dominance much more explicitly than "Violence Behind

Closed Doors.")

Community Reactions to the Increasing Visiblity of
Woman Battering

Subsequent to gaining access to the public,
social movements seek to win "some sort of consent
within that access" (Lofland, 1966: 65). Community
support and/or opposition to the goals and strategies
of the battered women's movement, as presented by
local groups, could possibly be manifested in
different ways: in how the community responds to a
shelter opening, the kinds of media coverage a group
receives, the response to funding requests, or by the
presence or absence of large numbers of volunteers in
the group. But another useful way of gauging
community attitudes is through the types or reactions
which are elicited by group presentations.
Nationally, the right wing has voiced a great deal of
opposition to the battered women's movement, calling
it anti-family and anti-church. Phyllis Schlafly has
said that battered women's shelters are nothing more
than luxury hotels for women to check into when they
are bored with home life (according to Susan Schecter,
keynote address at Region V conference, April 30,

1981). The so-called "Family Protection Act"

204

specifically mandates against government funding of
services for battered women and children, on the
grounds that such services interfere with the privacy
of the family (Petcheskey, 1981).

Based on this knowledge of some of the national
forms of Opposition, I expected that local groups
would meet with similar kinds of reactions, especially
if they were speaking to conservative and/or religious
organizations. Of course, it is likely that the most
right-wing local organizations would not invite/permit
a representative of a battered women's group to speak
to them. But extremely conservative individuals would
probably be present at times when group members spoke
to other organizations.

For the most part, however, people said that they
had not encountered opposition that was based on
ideological differences. Instead, opposition usually
revolved around material concerns, such as whether the
presence of a shelter would decrease property values,
cause noise and traffic congestion (parking prOblems),
or mean that the neighbors would be endangered by
angry assailants. (These alleged concerns might be
smokescreens for more ideological objections; but that
is difficult to confirm.) Several interviewees cited
other areas of their state, or other states, where
they thought religious and/or right-wing political

Opposition would likely be found. These were places

205

which they perceived as being pockets of conservatism.
But when I had a chance to interview members of groups
in those regions, they did not describe any more
resistance than did groups in other areas.

One group spokesperson said that a member of the
local chapter of a national right-wing women's
organization had called her once to say that the
shelter was not needed. No public objections were
voiced, however, "probably because they're too busy
fighting against abortion rights to take us on now."
This might be a factor in the absence of organized
Opposition in other places. Anti-abortion has been a
major focus of local right-wing campaigns, perhaps to
the temporary exclusion of other issues. But it is
also more difficult for the right wing to articulate
an explicit oppositional ideology to the battered
women's movement than to abortion. That is, it is
easier to gain support for being ”pro-life" than for
being in favor of men battering their wives.
Petchesky (1981: 226) points out the contradiction
between the New Right's rhetoric of "protection" of
women and children through dependence on
husbands/fathers and the dangers inherent within the
family.

"Profamily" spokesmen have admittedly

found this a tricky issue, since they

don't wish to appear "indifferent to the

plight of battered women and children.“
While accepting that domestic viOlence

206

exists, they dispute feminist theories

about its causes. [They insist that it

is] the product of individual deviance--

in other words, pathology, brought on by

alcohol and drug abuse.

Furthermore, Petchesky argues, the New Right is
opposed to the establishment of centers or shelters
for battered women, which are perceived as encouraging
battered women to leave home.

The "profamily" alternative is to return

women to the authority of their spouses,

offer them counseling, and remove

domestic violence services entirely from

the public back to the private

(preferably church-sponsored) domain

(Petchesky, 1981: 226).

Some groups have had extensive support from local
churches--usually moderate or progressive (i.e.,
Methodist, Presbyterian, Unitarian) Protestant
denominations--some even to the extent of having a
church provide them with a shelter building. None
have an explanation of why their churches have or have
not been supportive. But it seems to have depended on
whether influential church members--ministers, their
spouses, or other church leaders--were involved in the
group early in its development. That, however, seems
to have been a matter of chance: few group founders
consciously developed a strategy of enlisting church
people in order to gain church support.

Groups are more conscious of potential opposition

arising over religion than over other differences, and

tend to prevent it by a cautious approach to religious

207

issues. As one woman explained,

When I'm speaking to groups, sometimes a

little old lady will hold up her hand and

ask ”My dear, do you preach the word of

God when you discuss their alternatives

with these women?" I know where she's

coming from, know they'd probably as soon

tar and feather me, so I say, very

politely, "No, ma'am, we do not do that

as a rule, but if a woman wants to

discuss religion our counselor is willing

to talk with her about it.” I just make

sure not to say anything to offend them!

This kind of accomodation is part of what group
members mean when they say their presentations "depend
on the audience." They adapt their wording and
explanation to the kind of audience they are
addressing, and feel that as a result, they have
defused opposition before it develops. One
interviewee summarized community reactions in this
way, "We haven't had any organized opposition, but we
haven't had any real support either.“ Surmounting
and/or avoiding public opposition is one of the

motivations behind creating a "public ideology."

The Influence of Feminism on the Battered Women's
Movement

Feminist principles of autonomy and self-
empowerment of women are compatible with the goal of
ending woman battering. Nationally, the battered
women's movement, as represented by the NCADV,

expresses a feminist perspective. One of the NCADV's

208

future goals, set forth in its first statement or
objectives, is to "clarify and educate about the
relationship between racism, sexism, and violence
against women" (NCADV Handbook, 1980). Martin (19/6:
216) emphasizes the importance of refuges being
operated by feminists, because she contends that
"Feminist-run shelters are more effective in helping a
woman rebuild her self-esteem and become independent."
Fleming (1980: 353) states that the "vast majority"
of existing services for battered women were organized
by feminists.

Like the grassroots-originated groups, many of
the institutionally-begun groups trace their origins
to the women's movement, which was responsible for
bringing increasing numbers of battered women to a
recognition that they could ask for help. However,
the influence of feminism was very different from its
influence on grassroots-initiated groups. In the
grassroots groups it was often feminists, who had
themselves never been battered, who first saw the need
to make woman battering more visible. In the
institutionally-begun groups, it was the effect of the
women's movement on individual battered women, as
clients,who then made new demands on the established
social agencies for new services. As one social
worker stated,

I think that more victims are reaching

209

out to find solutions, they're not hiding

at home. I think a lot of women are more

aware that they have rights; their

husband doesn't have the right to beat up

on them as property.

Some groups, both grassroots-and institutionally-
initiated, do not immediately acknowledge the
influence Of the women's movement. One woman, from a
NOW-originated group, when asked why she thought so
many groups are forming now if, as she believes,
battering has existed for centuries, responded "I
think it's just like salad bars, it's real popular."
She then went on to say,

Women's issues are popular right now, and

battering as an issue is the result of

nearly a century Of struggle for women's

rights--from suffrage to birth control to

violence against women.

This woman was one of the rare spokespeople I
interviewed who was not one of her group's founders.
She had joined the group after “OW's influence had
waned. Thus, she may not have been as cognizant of
the importance of the women's movement: although she
was well acquainted with the early role of the local
NOW chapter. Her response may be indicative of a
general tendency to gloss over the battered women's
movement's connections to feminism by people who come
into it after the early stages of formation. In my
experience, interviewees who had been part of the

founding core of groups were more likely to make

connections to the women's movement.

210

Another woman, who had almost single-handedly
started the shelter in her rural community after
several battered women came to her home for help, said
she became involved because of her own growth in self—
esteem and desire to help other women. A formerly
battered woman herself, she went back to COllege in
the late 1970's, and began to identify with feminism
after leaving her battering situation. So although
she tends to individualize her experience as a result
of independent recognition that battered women needed
her help, she acknowledges that she would never have
come to that realization until she felt herself to be,
in her own phrase, "liberated.”

I interviewed only one woman who did not, either
directly or indirectly, attribute the development of
services for battered women to some achievement or the
women's movement (although individuals and different
groups probably perceived of the women's movement in
varying ways). This woman believed the need for
services had increased in recent years because of
increasing violence in our society; she talked at
length about violence in the media. This woman
thought the need for services was recognized only when
home visitation programs began. She offered as an
example a CETA program in which workers go into low-
income homes and teach homemaking skills, and then

become aware of domestic violence.

211

For the most part, however, both grassroots and
institutionally originated groups appear to believe
that the women's movement was responsible for the
emergence of the issue of woman battering; although
the form of that influence was seen differently in
each group. Some saw the women's movement as the
source of greater legitimacy for women's prOblems-—
making media coverage, legislation, and funding
available as supports for tackling a new problem.
Others saw women as more assertive about their own
needs because of the women's movement. Still others
perceived that they themselves had changed, become
more aware of women's problems, as a result of the
women's movement.

In spite of this connection to the women's
movement, however, all groups are not consistently
feminist, and some even reject a feminist identity
and/or feminist principles of organization. Some
groups define their membership, or parts of it--e.g.,
staff, but not board members, or staff and board but
not volunteers--as feminist. But they have not
structured their services in feminist ways (see
Chapter Three), or they do not want to be perceived as
feminists by the community. For others the reverse is
true: they are assumed by the community to be
feminists or they have followed feminist principles in

organizing themselves, but they deny that their

 

212

members are feminist. The following are some typical
responses to my questions "is the membership of your
group feminist?" or "is this a feminist group?”

A lot of the staff and volunteers have

feminist ideals, but they keep a low

profile.

I am a feminist but I don't use that

word. Staff wouldn't label themselves as

feminists.

I think I'm a feminist, but I don't think

the membership is. Most people around

here see feminist as a dirty word.

Feminist? Not for the most part now, but
all those who started the shelter were.

Not primarily. Staff, yes, not

volunteers, or at least they wouldn't

identify themselves that way.

This kind of response--that people are feminists
but they would not use that term to describe
themselves--was repeated in many interviews, and
indicated that the term feminist is perceived as
pejorative by many members of the battered women's
movement, or at least, that there is confusion about

2 I therefore decided to follow my

its definition.
question of whether the group was feminist with the
question, ”What is a feminist--what does that word
mean?” To the people who said they would not use the
word, a feminist is "political", "not feminine",
”someone who stomps around, she walks around with a

little sign, she stomps on men“. Most people who gave

me these types of definitions hastened to add that

213

they did not personally hold this view of feminism,
but that is what the word means in their community,
and they would therefore be careful not to be
identified as a feminist. "I can get the same pOint
across using other words." Then they would go on to
tell me what a feminist really is, to them.

A feminist is someone who can manage her
own life and set her own goals, and is
politically oriented--she looks at issues
around her and sees forms of oppression.

Feminists look at the equality of women;
and women have a lot to contribute, and
they recognize that in each other.

Being a feminist is being political about
women, seeing solutions to women's
problems as being political, being
historically and culturally created.

People who think women deserve equal pay,
equal treatment, equal opportunity with
men.

Others preferred not to use the term feminist
even privately to describe themselves or their groups.
They believe that the word has acquired a too
restrictive meaning and does not accurately reflect
their perspective.

We prefer to be humanists—-believing in

the rights of all people. Feminist is

too restrictive--sounds like "not equal,"

just concentrates on women's rights.

Another group's spokesperson agreed:

Feminism is synonymous with humanism--

what's fair to everyone, benefits men

too. It recognizes that right now the

primary contradiction is between men and

women; at this point in history the
contradiction is most evident there.

214

Feminism, then, is not the universally accepted
ideology of the battered women's movement. Indeed, it
is not even universally understood in the same way by
movement participants. There were, however, a few
groups who saw themselves as unabashedly feminist, at
least according to the spokespeople whom I
interviewed.

Yes, we are feminists--that means pro

women having control over their lives,

having power to get their needs met by

agencies and systems. It comes down to

women's power.

If people aren't feminist when they start

working here, they soon become it.

Working with battered women is probably

the most radicalizing experience there is

for a woman . . . A feminist is a woman

who is mainly interested in dealing with

women's issues and prOblems, and simply

being in touch with women. It's a

political stance. Feminism is a way of

gaining the kind of power women need.

We're fledgling feminists--we are

starting to see that women's problems are

political, need to be solved politically.

I was somewhat puzzled by this apparent
ambivalence about feminism among people who are deeply
involved in an issue which was first identified by
feminists and which is so representative of feminist
goals for women. However, it now appears that there
are three possible reasons for a separation between
feminism and groups within the battered women's
movement. Those reasons might be loosely categorized

as cooptation, camouflage, and false consciousness.

215

Cooptation

Cooptation occurs where groups were either
started by or later taken over by people who have no
interest in feminist prinCiples. Ahrens (1980: 41)
warns that

Refuges for battered women, like rape

crisis centers, seem to be undergoing a

transformation throughout the United

States from feminist, nonhierarchical,

community-based organizations to

institutionalized social services

agenc1es.

She documents the case of one such
transformation, in a shelter group which she helped
establish but later repudiated because she felt that
the group was no longer feminist in “content" or
"approach” (p. 47).

Some of the reasons Ahrens gives for cooptation
by established social agencies are as follows.
(l)Divisions arise when a group acquires funding and
some people become "paid staff" while others are
pushed aside or grow resentful at not being paid.
(2)When a group incorporates, and organizes an
election for board members, community residents wno
were not involved in the original formation processes,
and may not be committed to the same perspective as
the founders, may become involved in the group. (3)In
an effort to secure funding and/or community

legitimation, or because of their personal

convictions, some groups become interested in

216

presenting themselves as "professionally" rather than
politically motivated. (4)As groups succeed in
acquiring funding, membership, staff, and facilities,
their size often necessitates more specialization in
tasks, which leads to hierachies of authority and
expertise.

The results which Ahrens describes are not
inevitable and are not necessarily the result of a
shift away from feminist ideals (and it may not have
been perceived in that way even by most of the other
members of her group). However, among the grOUp
members whom I interviewed and in the conferences I
attended, there was concern about whether "we are
being coopted by our own success"--whether the
movement was losing its feminist and/or grassroots
orientation and becoming professionalized “like any
other social service agency."

Some groups were "coopted" from the beginning.
As mentioned in Chapter Four, one group was started by
a counselor at a Community Mental Health Center, at
the direction of his employers,

Not so much because domestic violence was

a real interest to them, but it was a

source of money--the Feds had put a lot

of money into it right then, so they

thought, "Okay, we'll go after the money

and then we'll do a lot of training in

domestic violence."

I did not encounter any other groups who admitted

to being founded on this type of mercenary pragmatism.

217

But it is at least one of the myths, if not reality,
of the movement that more and more groups of this type
are emerging, after the feminists have done the
groundwork. A lot of anger is voiced at meetings
about how much money is being awarded to opportunists;
and the accusation is true to some extent. Groups
with grant-writing expertise are more likely to
attract funding; and that kind of expertise is often
developed in professional social service fields. Then
the temptation for grassroots groups is to hire a
grant writer--indeed, many job descriptions for group
directors specify grant writing experience as a major
qualification--and the trend toward greater
professionalization intensifies.

The tone of the Milwaukee conference (April,
1981), and of recent intramovement literature seems to
be one of resignation to the necessity of some
professionalization, but with the determination to
maintain as much political integrity as possible. As
one workshop leader expressed the prevailing theme,

The emergence of traditional,

conservative programs takes priority away

from the grassroots, hardworking,

founding programs. We can't exclude

those traditional organizations—-we must

connect, relate, cooperate--but don't

yield or allow those programs to replace

the more feminist programs. We need

constant reaffirmation of ourselves as a

feminist movement, or the cooptation

creeps in . . . (Barbara Shaw, Region V

conference, "Family Violence: The Next
Steps," April 30, 1981).

218

Camouflage

Other groups, who do not consider themselves
coopted, are sometimes willing to camouflage their
feminism. This approach is parallel to what Lofland
(1966) describes as covert presentations, which were
chosen by members of the "Divine Precepts” cult in
situations where they felt that their message would be
instantly rejected if their audience were aware Of
their doctrines. Instead, movement spokespeople
sought to establish affective bonds and stimulate
interest in their group before revealing their
message.

In the battered women's movement, this approach
was best expressed by the woman who told me that, "I
am a feminist but I don't use that word. I can get
the same point across using other words." She then
went on to explain that when she started organizing a
group to provide services for battered women, she had
talked in feminist terms--about male oppression of
women, the need for equality, raising children in
nonsexist ways--and she had received some support from
the local NOW chapter. But she was a newcomer in the
community, and soon learned that

NOW had a reputation at that time as

feminist and people told me "If you want

to make a positive impact it would be

better if you don't have NOW
affiliation."

219

She appealed instead for Title XX money through
the Department Of Social Services, and to community
service groups--churches, Kiwanis Clubs, YWCA--for
funding. She ”toned down" her presentations and
disguised her feminist perspective. In her Opinion,
these tactics resulted in the "success"--i.e., funding
and support from community government and the public--
of the program, which would have failed had it been
perceived as a feminist project. However, she
believes that the same goals are being accomplished
and that feminist ideals have been maintained in spite
of the need to camouflage them in more traditional
guise.

In a study which seems to validate this kind of
perspective, Bers and Mezey (1981) administered
surveys designed to measure support for feminist goals
to women holding board positions in suburban civic and
women's organizations such as the League of Women
Voters, parent-teacher organizations, garden clubs,
and church-affiliated women's clubs. The majority of
their respondents did not identify themselves as
feminists: and only half were sympathetic to the
women's movement. Nevertheless, when questioned about
current efforts by the women's movement to improve
women's status in society, and about specific issues
such as programs for rape victims, battered women, and

displaced homemakers, three-fourths of the respondents

220

said they supported such feminist goals.

These data suggest that as questions

become less ideological and move away

from using emotionally charged labels,

such as "feminist" or "women's liberation

movement," toward eliciting attitudes

about rights and opportunities for women,

the content of responses becomes more

supportive of feminist positions (Bers

and Mezey, 1981: 740).

These authors conclude that feminists will need
to consider modifying their rhetoric and joining or
forming alliances with women's groups who are not
overtly feminist, in order to gain the support Of
these groups. And such alliances are important
because local women's groups are already established
and respected in their communities, and are able to
gain acceptance for women's issues more readily than
are newly-formed groups.

In our view, obtaining support for issues

and programs is more important than

ensuring that "pure" motives and

appropriate feminist analyses of society

are imposed on women's organizations

(Bers and Mezey, 1981: 748).

Other interviewees in my sample talked about
their groups keeping a "low prorile," although their
members were predominantly feminist. As with the
group discussed above, for some this low prOfile has
necessitated a disassociation from their earlier
sponsorship or support by NOW. Another group's

director explains,

NOW has backed off. We felt that the
group needed to be seen as somewhere in

221

the middle rather than to the extreme of
one end or the other, if the prOgram is
gonna glide in this community. NOW is
still supportive of us; they've just
backed Off.

She acknowledges however, that

If it hadn't been for NOW, the program
never would've gotten here. They
recognized it as an issue, as a real
problem, and that was something no one
else in this valley had ever done.

This kind of statement marks the crucial
(difference between camouflaged feminist groups and
«coopted ones. The camouflaged groups acknowledge
their debt to early feminist efforts, and privately
define themselves as feminists, while publicly
jportraying themselves as ”middle of the road.” In the
(words of one leader, whose group was feeling pressure
'to moderate their image in the face of diminishing

funds,

Financially we're gonna have to depend
more and more on the community, so I'm
thinking this agency is gonna have to
lose its radical look and just become
part of the social service community . .
. I think to a degree it needs to lose
its feminist look . . . for the majority
of people at large, who we're going to be
looking at to give us money, that's gonna
have to be modified a little. I'm not
saying give it [the feminist image] up,
just sugar-coat it maybe a little.

In contrast, the coopted groups refuse to acknowledge
21 feminist influence (if ever there was one in their
ggroup), and the third type are unaware that there was

gany such motivation. These are the groups whose lack

222

of feminist identity I attribute to false
consciousness.

False Consciousness

A small number of groups have simply forgotten,
or never knew, that feminism was related to the
development of the battered women's movement. I have
previously stated that almost every group traced its
origin to the women's movement, in one way or another.
But not all groups considered their origins feminist.
Some informants were surprised when I asked about
feminism, indicating that they do not see a necessary
connection between the women's movement and the
ideology of feminism. As one woman replied,

We probably are feminist, but it's not an

issue: our behavior seems feminist, I

definitely consider myself a feminist.

Groups who are unaware of feminist influences
tend to be either the younger groups--who were more
likely to have started as a result of hearing about
services in other communities--or to have been the
groups who have had a complete turnover in membership
after they were started. In that case, their roots
have been obscured.

Some members of the battered women's movement
contend that the movement's relationship to feminism
is being obscured by changes in terminology, which was
discussed earlier in this chapter. But whatever the

reason, it is apparent that the relationship is

223

complex; and that the movement's debt to feminism is
not perceived in the same way by all of its members,
either individually or as groups. Indeed, some groups
are undoubtedly more indebted than others to feminism.
In spite of this ambiguity, however, there was general
consistency in the answers I received to the questions
of what causes woman battering and what are the
solutions; and these answers reflect a feminist
orientation, whether the group acknowledges that

orientation or not.

Providing Direct Services: Choice or Necessity?

I wondered why various groups had chosen to
develop different models of services, and discovered
that the answer usually lay in the amount of funding
available. The source of funding was less important
than the amount of funding in determining which model
of services a group provides. Most groups applied for
federal grants as quickly as possible, from LEAA or
Title XX (the Social Security amendment that provides
for all social services--Domestic Violence became a
”target service" to be provided in the late 1970's).
Many groups received CETA money to hire employees, and
a few have been partially funded by their community
United Way. In one of the two states studied, all of

the groups receive part of their funding (no more than

 

224

half) from the state legislature, administered by a
legislatively appointed board. Several groups
sponsored fund-raising projects in the beginning--bake
sales, raffles, spaghetti dinners--but none of these
tactics ever garnered enough for operating expenses,
and the groups were forced to apply for grants or for
help from other existing community groups.

Groups with large grants are more likely to have
shelters, whether those grants have come from federal,
state, and local government, or from private
foundations or individuals. Smaller grants, from the
same sources, may be sufficient only to fund an
answering service, an office with a small staff, or to
coordinate a network of safe homes. With more money,
most groups in the other four models say they would
develop a shelter. For example, one group which
currently has only a crisis line operating through an
answering service recently received a Community
Development Block Grant through the U.S. Department
of Housing and Urban Development, and is in the
process of obtaining suitable housing for a shelter.

I encountered only one group without a shelter whose
spokesperson said her group was not interested in
developing a shelter if more money became available.
This group had a network of Safe Homes, and the reason
given for choosing the Safe Homes rather than the

Shelter model was that the group was located in "a

225

small community, and confidentiality would be too
great a problem." (None of the other groups which I
studied in comparable communities felt this way.)

More basic than why groups develop specific
models of service, however, is the question of why
groups choose to develop direct services at all. This
is a question which did not occur to me to ask. I
asked why each group had chosen to offer the services
it did. The usual response was either that they were
providing as much as they could afford, or that they
did not know of anything else they could do. But I
was uncritical, in fact unaware myself, of my
interviewees' apparent assumption that direct services
was an inevitable path upon which groups must embark
if they are seeking to make woman battering visible as
a social problem. Only after I had completed my
interviews and most of my analysis, did it occur to me
that there might be other paths to visiblity, and that
direct services might not always be the appropriate
strategy.

Apparently, the same questions or reservations
are beginning to occur to at least some members of the
movement. Schecter recently raised this issue in
AEGIS, a magazine which to some extent serves as an
intramovement forum of ideas.

We often have discussed the two necessary

strands in our movement--a strand
suggesting that we provide social

226

services and a strand suggesting that we

are a political movement to end violence

against women. I have basically assumed

that for most of us these two strands

intertwine, even if there is internal

disagreement about how they intertwine

and how we should proceed. But this

assumption is no longer safe to make.

Some of us believe that providing

services meets neither the needs of

battered women nor your needs for

survival as a program (Schecter, 1981b:

42).

Schecter explains that providing safety is only
the first step in a long-range plan to end woman
battering. But for many groups, shelter has become
their only or ultimate goal. Such a perspective,
Schecter contends, probably indicates that groups have
shifted their analysis of woman battering and of their
group's purpose away from a feminist and toward a
social service analysis. She calls for a more complex
series Of activities aimed at changing the social
conditions that allow violence against women to
continue.

The following are some other paths which the
movement could have taken in its quest to identify and
alleviate the problem of woman battering. Local
groups could have concentrated on accountability of
social agencies, making existing services such as the
Department of Social Services, police, hospitals,
mental health clinics, and the judicial system more

responsive to battered women. While most groups have

included such accountability as one of their goals,

227

they have not perceived this demand as an alternative
to providing direct services themselves. Thus, many
groups cite "advocacy" as one of their services, and
define that as accompanying the battered woman to
these agencies and/or maintaining vigilance to make
sure that the battered woman receives satisfactory
responses from these groups. However, groups have not
said that they exist solely to make existing agencies
respond to the needs of battered women, including the
need for emergency shelter, counseling, and
redirection of their lives, and I am suggesting that
such a purpose might be appropriate.

As another path, the movement could possibly have
chosen to focus entirely on legislaive and judicial
reforms, and/or on increasing the sense of public
awareness and outrage about the lack of services for
battered women. At the state and national level, the
movement has succeeded in influencing legislation to
provide better protection for battered women. But the
legislation has also included substantial state and
federal appropriations for direct services, a factor
that makes the bills harder to pass as budget cuts
affect funding for social programs.

Finally, the battered women's movement could have
taken more radical directions, seeking visibility and
solutions outside of socially accepted channels. For

example, local groups might have formed vigilante

228

committees of angry women who retaliate against
individual assailants--a feminist version of the
"rough music" and public shamings practiced in other
periods of history.

My point is not that providing direct services is
the wrong path; but that it is not the only and
inevitable choice. It is probably the most expensive,
energy-consuming alternative and may eventually be
perceived as a "blind alley" that will not lead to
changes in the definition or visibility of woman
battering. It is possible that providing direct
services in the form of shelters, safe homes, and
other emergency housing, counseling, and advocacy is
actually in contradiction with the ideology of self
help. Groups who provide these services see them as a
way of helping battered women get out of their violent
situations and acquire the necessary resources to
become independent. But it is possible that such
services foster dependence on yet another outside
agency, especially since most groups maintain a policy
of allowing women to return to the group if they elect
to go back to the battering situation and need to
leave it again and again.

In a sense, sheltering and related direct
services are another form of what Barry (19/9: 38-9)
labels as the "cult of the victim," which dominated

left-liberal responses to racism and urban violence in

 

229

the late 1960's.

In an attempt to respond sympathetically

to the plight Of oppressed racial

minorities, academic and political

liberals delineated and stressed black

victimization at the hands of a white

racist society.

As a result, liberals initiated reform programs aimed
at removing poor blacks from the conditions of
poverty, injustice, and slum life which they believed
had caused the problems. However, while this approach
attributes the causes of victimization to
environmental forces, it still focuses

the causes on the victim. Consequently,

remedial programs and reform projects

don't treat the Objective social

conditions which produce a racist society

and trigger racial violence but try

instead to improve the environment of the

victim (Barry, 1979: 39).

The battered women's movement must ask itself whether
the same process is occurring in their efforts to
eliminate woman battering. Do shelters and other
emergency services serve merely to "improve the
environment of the victim," or do they address the
objective conditions that proouce such violence in the
first place?

Many local and national spokespeople are
beginning to talk of moving "beyond sheltering." To
most, that apparently means taking actions in addition
to providing emergency housing. Perhaps to some, it

means "instead of" sheltering. Funding is becoming an

increasing problem, both because of the current

230

political climate of general hostility to governmental
spending for social programs, and because the specific
issue of woman battering is less I'popular" in the
early 1980's than it was in the late 1970's. The
reasons for the original choice of direct services may
become less viable in the future. First, when
battered women began calling newly formed groups,
asking for help, the groups found no services that
were already available and got channeled into
providing those services themselves. But as a result
of advocacy and public pressure, other agencies are
starting to offer some services. For example, in some
of the counties of State One of my sample, the
Department of Social Services (DSS) has recently
redefined eligibility for welfare payments so that a
battered women who leaves her assailant can
immediately qualify for housing and living expenses.
This helps the local shelters because they can receive
per diem payments from DSS for women who are
residents. But it also makes it easier for a woman to
leave the battering situation and establish a home for
herself and her children. Thus, direct services might
eventually be less necessary, as other agencies become
more responsive.

A second reason that groups opted to provide
their own shelters and other direct services is that

the public "approved" of the strategy and supported

231

it. The strategy is not too radical (although the New
Right thinks it is). It fits the traditional
expectation of women's service societies. But with
the rise in power of the New Right, which sees
shelters as subversive to the privacy of the family,
and the cutbacks in funding, there is less sanctioning
of direct services. Some groups are already beginning
to look for ways that they can consolidate with other
agencies, and eliminate the need for their separate
services. This may be a trend in the 1980's.

At the present time, however, direct services
remain the dominant response of groups within the
battered women's movement, and strategies revolve
around how to secure alternative support for them,
rather than seeking alternative paths for the
movement. This fact may mark one of the major
differences between the battered women's movement and
many other social movements, which keep as their major
goal the ideological transformations of society that
would herald structural changes (e.g., the women's
movement seeks to challenge the structural and
ideological foundations of sexism). These movements
maintain a critical stance toward mainstream society.
The battered women's movement, on the other hand, in
choosing to strive for expensive programs, must in
some way mitigate its challenges in order to acquire

support for its services. In order to gain funding

232

from government and private industry, movement groups
must satisfy their sponsors' perceptions of
appropriate organizational structure, focus, and
analysis. Local groups become legitimate and
entrenched in the community by camouflaging their ties
to feminism and denying a radical understanding of the

causes of and solutions to woman battering.

Summary

This chapter has focused on the ways in whicn the
battered women's movement went about legitimating and
demonstrating its subject. Local groups sought to
gain legitimacy in their communities by developing
"public ideologies” which reassured local residents
that the group was not too radical or too feminist.
Groups chose terminology and explanations of woman
battering that were compatible with community values
and perspectives. The movement has so far tended to
direct its energies toward providing direct services,
in the form of emergency housing, counseling, and
advocacy, to battered women. This is an expensive,
energy-consuming direction, and one of which the
movement may need to become more critical in the
future.

In Chapter Six, a more detailed analysis will be

made of the ”shared View of reality" which forms the

 

233

basis of the movement's developing ideology: and the
ways in which the battered women's movement has
influenced the ideological hegemony of the dominant

culture.

Part Three

Summary and Conclusions

234

Chapter Six
Summary and Conclusions

. . . the Women's Aid movementlstands as
a landmark in the history of responses to
the problems of individual battered women
and the struggles against the prOblem
itself. . . Both material and symbolic
benefits have been gained from setting up
refuges, educating the public, pressing
for legislation, and attempting to get
legal, medical, and social agencies to
take up their full responsibilities for
dealing with this violence . . . The
overall significance of the [movement's]
response to wife beating is in its
combination of the strengths of female
culture (supporting women and rejecting
male abuses) with feminist principles
that locate these abuses in the
subordinate status of women. There is an
unequivocal rejection of a man's right to
use violence against his wife, and a
challenge to the patriarchal assumptions
and relationships that have so long
supported that right (Dobash and Dobash,
1981: 575-6).

The status of woman battering has changed
dramatically in less than ten years, from a "private
trouble" of individual women and their assailants to a
"public issue," a social problem. In addition, the
"ownership of the problem" (Gusfield, 1975) has
shifted from the state, which owned it from the

nineteenth century but chose to ignore it (Dobash and

235

236

Dobash, 1981), to women as members of the social
movement which developed in reaction to the state's
absenteeism, mismanagement, and neglect. The battered
women's movement expropriated (or reappropriated) the
problem. At the same time, responsibility for the
problemZShifted from the battered woman herself to the
social structure of patriarchal society. All of these
changes can be attributed to the struggles of the
battered women's movement, to its efforts on the
local, state, and national levels to bring woman
battering to the foreground of public consciousness.
Woman battering has taken many paths to
visibility. Feminists have spotted it in their search
for women's issues. Battered women have forced their
situation into public consciousness by appealing to
police, religious, and social welfare agencies for
help. The path to visibility began with the civil
rights and new left movements of the 1960's, which led
to the women's movement as women began to become aware
of the contradictions between the ideology of equality
espoused by both of these earlier movements and the
reality of sex/gender oppression which persisted--the
contradictions of capitalist patriarchy. Through the
consciousness raising of the women's movement, women
became aware of woman battering. Also, battered women
learned that they had a right to ask for help and to

demand that battering be stopped.

237

Women's centers and rape crisis centers were
created as a development of the women's movement.
Battered women began to call these places for help, as
well as make new demands on already-established social
service agencies. The develOpment of a specific
social movement to confront the issue of woman
battering ideologically and structurally was the
eventual result of these demands. The movement
evolved on two levels, locally and nationally.
Locally, groups formed to provide direct services to
battered women, and to increase public awareness of
the problem. Nationally, a coalition emerged which
sought to create ideological transformations that
would eliminate the social arrangements that make
woman battering possible. The destination of all
these paths is increased visibility of woman battering
on various fronts: public awareness, media attention,
legislative and judicial reforms, and police response.
I have developed a model to illustrate the various
paths to visibility, which is presented on the

following page.

238

 

 

General Social Movements Existing Social
Agencies
Civil Rights New Left A~

mediated by ideological changes
(contradictions of patriarchy
and capitalism)

women's movement

 
   

consciousness
(awareness of the right
to ask for help)

 

oppressed minorities

\\\\\\$$ (battered women)
women's centers, k”/,///// l
rape crisis centers, S eci ic MO men
hot lines l
\ battered women's

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

movement
local level national level
direct services
(specific reforms)
l . wv
5 models public outreach
I \ to create
shelters safe ideological
homes transformation
crisis multi- satel-
line crisis lite

public media legis- police
aware- atten- lative sensi-

ness tion and tivit
judicial
m.
Figure l.

Paths to Visibility

of the Issue of Woman Battering

239

The basic goal of increasing public awareness so
that woman battering eventually will not be tolerated
is articulated in different ways at the local and
national levels. These differences are so great that
it is sometimes difficult to find any common ties
between local groups and the movement's national
spokespeople. Local groups often become so involved
in the specific, concrete tasks of rescuing battered
women-—providing refuge, crisis counseling, helping
them find employment and permanent housing-~and of
financial survival of their group's services, that
they lose sight of the larger struggle to change
social attitudes. Or they perceive the task as public
education about their services in ways that will
reassure the community that the group is not a threat
to basic values. They modify their message in order
to reassure their audience that the presence of a
shelter and/or other services for battered women will
not result in major social change. Local
spokespeople, in fact, often appear totally oblivious
of their own participation in a social movement. Or
they simply do not consider their group's actions to
be part of a social movement.

For their part, national spokeSpeople, such as
members of the NCADV steering committee, write and
speak idealistically of not compromising their

language, goals, and philosophy, forgetting the

240

necessity of compromising to maintain public harmony
at the community level. They maintain that changing
public attitudes and eliminating woman battering can
be accomplished only by exposing the patriarchal
structure of marriage and family patterns. Thus,
national leaders seem to be more concerned with
challenging and changing ideology. They also speak
much more self-consciously of anti—battering as a
social movement than do the local leaders.

As a result of these differences, it is difficult
to discover the boundaries of the movement. Does the
battered women's movement encompass all the local
groups and individuals, as well as national coalition
members, who are committed to helping battered women
and ameliorating the phenomenon of woman battering?

Or does it consist only of the national coalition and
those local groups who belong to the coalition and/or
refer to themselves as being part of a movement? In
Chapter One, I defined a social movement as resting on
its members' perception of themselves as part of a
movement. Hence, those local groups and individuals
who are oblivous to the existence of the battered
women's movement, or who explicitly deny that they are
a part of it cannot be categorically included in the
movement. However, it is probably true that even the
most isolated groups have been affected by the

existence of the larger movement. Sometimes, it was

241

news of the national movement and participant groups
that made local people aware of and responsive to the
needs of battered women. At other times, it was the
efforts of the national movement in making federal and
state funding and legislation available which made it
possible for local groups to exist and/or expand.

In addition, this tension between the local
groups and the national leadership (as represented by
NCADV spokespeople) is common to reform movements.
According to Ash (1972: 136), such movements often
have a "radical core and a large generally very
moderate penumbra," both ideologically and
structurally. The penumbra is unwilling or unable to
totally accept the strategies and ideas of the core,
and persists in modifying them to suit a conventional
framework of reforms. But the local groups do,
nevertheless, contribute to the goals of the national
movement and are thus related to the social movement
in some way.

At first glance it might appear that the local
groups, in being more conservative than the national
leadership, conform to the classic Weber-Michels model
(see Zald and Ash, 1965-66) of social movement
organizations as always evolving in the direction Of
greater conservatism and societal accomOdation.
Iiowever, a more careful inSpection reveals an

Jinteractive process between the local groups and the

242

national movement. The movement is developing on both
levels simultaneously and is responding to various
transformation processes which make it appear radical
at times, conservative at others. Both the "radical
core” and the "moderate penumbra" are contributing to
the movement's viability.

Organizations exist in a changing

environment to which they must adapt.

Adaptation to the environment may itself

require changes in goals and in the

internal arrangement of the organization.

This View of organizations treats goals

as problematic, and as changing in

response to both internal and external

pressures. It is especially useful for

the study of MO's [movement

organizations] precisely because it

focuses on conflict, environmental

forces, and the ebb and flow of

organizational viability (Zald and Ash,

1965-66: 328).

The environment of movement organizations
consists of the broader social movement--supporters
and other groups--and the society. With a movement
such as that for battered women, its members must be
particularly sensitive to the social climate Of that
environment; because its goals include not only the
long-range transformation of ideology but the
immediate provision of services to a needy target
population. Those services are expensive, and depend
on financial support from established funding agencies
of the larger society. Thus, there is a constant need

‘to mediate conflict with and dissolve opposition from

rnainstream society, while at the same time challenging

243

its prevailing ideologies. The same restraints acted
on the birth control movement (Gordon, 1977: 249)
when, after World War II, it chose to concentrate its
efforts on the strategies of Opening clinics and
lobbying for legislative reforms. Both strategies
were expensive, although support came from wealthy
individuals, who consequently gained power and
influence in the movement, more than from government
sources. r

The ideology and structure of groups within the
battered women's movement are constantly modified by
the mandates of its funding sources, either state or
private foundations. I have presented examples or how
the sponsors restrict the movement throughout this
study. One example was the demand for hierarchical
structure, versus the ideal of collectivity and
egalitarian relationships. A second example was the
state's interpretation of affirmative action as
requiring the inclusion of men on staff and as part of
the target population of clients. (This latter is a
contradiction; affirmative action is consistent with
the feminist prinCiples of the national movement, but
movement leaders tend to be more anxious to include
women of all races, ethnic groups, sexual preference,
and classes, than to include men.) As a third
eexample, the state and the general public have imposed

che concepts of domestic violence, spouse abuse and

 

0t

pf

of

SC

pr

244

other gender-neutral terms on the movement, in
preference to using the term "battered women." This
is a change which not only masks the target population
of women semantically, but politically obscures the
social conditions which result in women being the
primary victims of such violence.

In a recent article, Morgan (1981) outlines many
of the ways in which state intervention has resulted
in modifications within the battered women's movement.
She calls for more awareness of the process by which
radical movements are altered.

First, we must develop a more critical

understanding of grassroots movements for

progressive social change, which means we

must analyze the contradictions existing

within these movements themselves. In

the process of organizing there is

consistent failure to become conscious of

the organizational contradictions which

provide the greatest openings for

cooptation, or the means to overcome or

circumvent them. Our understanding of

this process has tended to be built on

hindsight: more casual than systematic.

Left organizers generally fail to

recognize exactly how and why the state

is able to defuse political issues and

deflect the progressive goals of

grassroots movements (Morgan, 1981: 18).

Morgan explains that because the demand for
services for battered women and interest in the
problem grew so quickly, the prOblem became visible
far beyond the feminist community in which the
movement began. At the same time, the need developed

for state resources to address the issue. The state

 

245

was very responsive, and quickly provided large blocks
of money for shelters and other services. But those
funds were gained at the expense of the collective,
feminist-oriented organizing which had originally
focused on political transformations of battered
women. Instead, to qualify for state funding, groups
formed Boards of Directors, incorporated as non-prOfit
organizations, developed specialized "professional"
staff positions, and placed more emphasis on
counseling and other specific, tangible services
within the shelter.

The personal-as-political structure

inherent in the feminist refuges became

submerged under the immediate needs of

expanding services, obtaining government

funds, and legitimating themselves as a

shelter organization to the funding

agencies (Morgan, 1981: 24).

In addition, many new shelters sprang up as a result
of the availability of funding. They were organized
from the beginning on the model advocated by the state
regulations.

Thus, the movement constantly faces the dilemma
of choosing between acquiescing to the preferences of
its funding sources, which reflect the conservative
political climate of the country at this time, or
remaining consistently radical in outlook and demands
and sacrificing valuable resources. The dilemma is

one Of weighing the relative importance of ways and

means; i.e., of deciding whether what they are dOing

246

is more important than how they do it. Not all
members or local groups are even cognizant of this
choice, but they are all affected by it. Others are
aware that they are making compromises, but contend
that it is necessary to survive in any way possible.
As a speaker at the Region V conference said,

There is no politically correct position

in dealing with the issues of our

movement; the strategy must be

situational. Being political means

acting out our vision in a way that works

(Barbara Shaw, leader of "Political

Action" workshop, Milwaukee, April 30,

1981).

She emphasized the necessity of retaining public
funding: "Total self-sufficiency is unrealistic; we
deserve public funds," but explained that the movement
needs to understand the concessions it makes to
acquire funding.

This is a problem which would not be encountered
by all social movements. The civil rights movement,
for example, was struggling for ideological
transformations which would eventually result in
greater political power for its members and access to
the resources of the larger society. But it was not
asking that society to sponsor its efforts with large-
scale investments. In a sense, the prOblem for the
battered women's movement is a result of greater

privilege. Local groups have more to lose in

antagonizing the power structure than does a movement

247

like civil rights (the civil rights movement had
nothing to lose and everything to gain for its
members, in the beginning. Later, as some gains were
made which benefitted individual leaders, the civil
rights movement was accused of having been coopted
into toning down its demands to appease the mainstream
social structure.) But the battered women's movement,
because of its need for government and private
financial support, was partially coopted from the
beginning.

There is another reason for the battered women's
movement to moderate its ”presentation of self:" to
appeal to its target population of battered women. If
the movement sounds too "radical" many battered women
will not avail themselves of its services. Leaving
the battering situation represents a major repudiation
of a woman's socialization, if she has been taught to
be passive, dependent, and fatalistic. (Martin, 19/6;
Walker, 1979: and others describe the socialization
patterns by which women are convinced that they
"should” remain in a marital relationship regardless
of how violent it becomes.) Coming to a shelter is
itself a revolutionary decision. If the battered
woman believes that she also has to accept a whOle new
ideology--i.e., feminism--she may decide that the move
is too extreme for her. McGrath (1979: 26, 28)

expresses this dilemma well:

248

For a woman who is confused and
frightened, the feeling that the . . .
movement's "hidden agenda" is the
destruction of the nuclear family in
favor of a separatist "women's autonomy"
only worsens a bad situation . . . the
immediate question is: how can we
establish shelters that save lives,
provide support and help generate a sense
Of community and autonomy, and fight
against the causes of domestic violence
without mystifying the social nature Of
that violence, or alienating and
frightening the very women we want to
join with through excesses and errors in
our own practice?

Thorne (1971: 300) describes a similar prOblem
in the draft resistance movement. Draft counselors
had to bridge gaps of culture, language, values, and
education in appealing to working-class clients.

They [middle-class draft counselors] only

vaguely understood the assumptions which

shaped the way a working-class registrant

approached his draft situation (for

example, a strong respect for the

military, and a reluctance to push for

physical deferment).

While members of the battered women's movement seem to
be more aware of class differences, they have perhaps
also been more willing to make compromises on an
ideological basis than were members of the draft
resistance movement. Thus, they may be more
successful in ”recruiting" clients who do not share
their ideology. The battered women's movement is a
client-focused movement and, for the most part, one

that is still controlled by "outsiders"--women wno

have never been battered themselves. Thus, members

249

must continue to push for acceptance among their
target population, and attempt to eradicate the
differences of class and experience that might
separate them from their clients.

As Morgan (1981) points out, battered women have
often preferred more bureaucratically organized
shelters, operated by professional, social-worker
types of people, to the feminist-oriented,
collectively organized shelters. This is because the
former shelters are less demanding, since they
concentrate on providing efficient services; whereas
the latter tend to focus on trying to provide
"political understanding" as well as services. The
latter type try to involve the battered women in the
decision-making processes of the group, at a time when
they are confused and preoccupied with the upheavals
in their lives caused by leaving the battering
situation. Even the feminist-oriented shelters have
tended to ignore the perspective of their clients, and
what are Often class-based differences between their
clients--who are usually working-class and third world
women--and themselves, generally white and middle
class.

Feminist organizational and political

strategies tended to be developed

separately from the battered women

themselves. It was primarily a movement

for rather than of battered women
(Morgan, 1981: 25).

250

The nature of the movement's structure also
produces, and makes allowances for, ideological
differences among members. Gerlach and Hine (19/0:
42) observe that in reticulated movements, where local
groups--or “cells"--develop independently of any
central decision-making structure, "each unit has
different ideas about how to achieve the more general
objectives of the movement, and each interprets the
movement ideology in its own way." They relate this
characteristic to the "split-level nature" of movement
ideologies. Any movement possesses a few basic
concepts which are embraced by all of its
participants, and tie the cells together loosely.
Simultaneously, "infinite variations on the
ideological themes" (Gerlach and Hine, 1970: 165)
create diversity among groups and individuals, and
make the movement attractive to a broader range of
people.

In Chapter One, I conjectured that, as a result
of contacts within the movement, groups would share a
definition of reality which included a common
perception of goals and appropriate strategies for
achieving them, if not a fully developed "symbolic
universe" (Nall, 1976). The findings, however, are
somewhat ambiguous. Groups tend to share some ideas,
such as those concerning the causes of and solutions

to battering, and the importance of developing a

251

public image (what Nall refers to as a "public
ideology") that is not threatening to prevailing
community values. However, groups do not agree on
terminology, the involvement of men, the importance of
racial, ethnic, class, age, or religious balances, or
the influence of feminism on their development. These
variations are probably a result of the rudimentary
stage of the movement's ideology, rather than
indicating a total absence of an ideology. In spite
of compromises and differences among groups and
individuals, the battered women's movement does appear
to have a “general philosophical orientation"
(Tierney, 1979): a retinue of basic concepts whicn is
developing into an ideology that challenges the
hegemony of capitalist patriarchy.

The emerging ideology is most coherent, and most
consistent across groups, in its explanation of the
causes of woman battering, and in its long-range
goals. It is least coherent and consistent in an
analysis of the role of the state in relation to the
movement, and in the designation of an appropriate
group structure.

The explanations of causes that are put forth by
local groups were presented in Chapter Four. These
include four main components: society's attitudes
toward violence and toward women, socialization into

gender (definitions of "apprOpriate" male and female

252

behavior) and (for men) into violent ways of
expressing anger and frustration, a family history of
abuse (adults who were abused or witnessed abuse as
children), and economic frustration. National
spokespeople cite the same causes, although expressing
themselves somewhat differently. They tend to put
more emphasis on structural arrangements of class and
gender which perpetuate violence and domination. I
gave an example in Chapter Four of one widely
disseminated explanation of the causes of battering--
that of Susan Schecter.

My intent was not to analyze or critique
Schecter's explanation but to show that, although much
more complex than most of the causes cited by my
interviewees, her perspective does not contradict
them. Many members of local groups would prooably
reject her terminology and her critique of capitalist
social relations. But their understanding of what
causes woman battering is compatible with such an
analysis. I focused on Schecter's presentation of the
movement's ideology because she is a highly visible
and vocal representative: although there has never
been a formal acceptance Of her analysis as the
movement's official "line," and there are undoubtedly
many individuals and local groups who would disagree
with her. Schecter is an activist in the movement;

but in elaborating a statement of ideology, she also

253

becomes a movement intellectual and, as Killian (1913:
33-4) explains:

It is the task of the intellectual to

elaborate the myth or ideology of the

movement, providing answers as to why the

movement is right and what heights it may

achieve . . . Although many members of

the movement may not understand the

writings of the intellectual, . . . the

ideology is a fruitful source of slogans,

epithets, and stereotyped arguments which

become part of the culture of the

movement.

Thus, to some extent the discrepancies between
the answers given by local respondents and the
analysis given by Schecter and other spokespeople at
national and regional forums represents a ”sifting
down" process, from the ideal to the real—~putting
abstract concepts into practical language that will be
understood and (hopefully) accepted by local
audiences.

The movement is less cohesive in its
understanding of structure and the role of state
agencies in dealing with the needs of battered women.
This is demonstrated in the contradiction between an
ideology of grassroots organizing and collective
structure, and the actual structure of most groups,
which is hierarchical and dependent on government
funding. The explanation for this discrepancy
probably lies in the dependency of local groups on

state resources, which makes them vulnerable to state

mandates. As McGrath (1979: 27) explains:

254

Women fighting against domestic violence

should appropriate whatever resources

they can manage, but Often government

funding sources have reactionary

implications . . . The priorities of the

state work to channel attention toward

less "political" solutions to domestic

violence, like arrest and divorce, rather

than either toward the creation of real

economic alternatives for women, or

toward providing an emotional and

material context in which a restructuring

of family relations could take place.

In spite of inconsistencies and contradictions in
its own ideology--probably inevitable results of its
reticulate nature and its rudimentary stage--the
battered women's movement does seem to have had some
success in challenging Old perceptions of woman
battering, in bringing the issue of woman battering to
public awareness as a social problem. The movement
has succeeded in politicizing woman battering, so that
it is no longer seen by the whOle society as a private
trouble. Some portion of society now sees it as the
result of social arrangements and the responsibility
of public policies. This represents a new definition
of reality, and is indicative of the increasing power
of women to challenge the cultural hegemony that has
subordinated them for so long. To a large extent, the
battered women's movement was made possible by the
achievements of the more general women's movement, and
the structural conditions that have resulted in a

weakening of male power within the family. As Easton

(1979: 556) observes:

255

It is always the first task of a movement

to attack oppressive institutions that

are in decline. To the extent that they

are anachronistic they can be shown to be

illegitimate: it is possible to turn

public sentiment against them with

relative ease.
The battered women's movement developed for the
specific purpose of attacking the institution of
patriarchy, physical forms of male control within the
family that had reinforced that institution, and the
"justifying myths" (Freeman, 1975) that had led women
to accept such control as legitimate.

If aspirations for change are to be

legitimate ones, the justification Of the

status quo must be destroyed. This is

often the role of a new ideology . . .

(Freeman, 1975: 16).
The swiftness of the movement's growth, and the
resulting changes in public sentiment--from apathy to
concern--may be indicative of patriarchy's anachronism
and fundamental illegitimacy, as well as the

rationality and acceptability of the new ideology.

Future Issues

In this study, I have examined the intentions of
the battered women's movement. There is now a need to
look at its accomplishments, in terms of ideological
and structural transformations of the issue of woman
battering. Specifically, how has the movement been

shaped by experience; i.e., how have the views and

256

needs which battered women bring to the shelters
affected the women who work there? Have these
experiences of service providers had any impact on the
movement? If, as I have contended in this study, the
battered women's movement is composed mainly of
outsiders to the issue, how has their contact with
insiders--the battered women who are the movement's
clients and target population--changed their
perspective on the problem?

For example, was reality disillusioning? I think
that many of the women who are members of local groups
joined with an idealistic and altruistic intention to
help, to "work with these women" who are battered and
oppressed. But the battered women who come to
shelters or call crisis lines are not always grateful
for the help received. Often they challenge the group
members, ask for their credentials of experience;
e.g., ”Have you ever been a battered woman? If not,
you can't possibly know what I'm feeling." These
kinds of comments were what I heard mentioned by
movement participants, who were often surprised by
their clients' hostility. But they usually recognized
the validity of the skepticism and strove to make
themselves accountable, "relevant" to the real needs
of battered women. However, since at the time this
issue seemed peripheral to my main focus, I did not

pursue it in my research. Now I would like to delve

257

more deeply into how a movement instigated and
supported by outsiders is altered by the needs and
desires of insiders.

As a further area of study, I am curious about
the ongoing relationship between insiders and
outsiders. Why have battered women not taken over
this movement on their behalf? What about the
situation of being a battered woman makes it less
likely that the victims will organize themselves? Or
is it incorrect to assume that they will not? Have
battered women or formerly battered women in fact
become the majority of members in some groups? If so,
how has their involvement affected the group, and how
will it eventually affect the movement? Marx and
Useem contend that insiders are more likely to achieve
dominance in the later stages of a social movement, as
they gain a sense of their rights and the means to
achieve them. If this proves true of the battered
women's movement, what are the implications? For
instance, would insiders be less inclined to follow
the social services model of providing shelter and
other concrete services?

As I stated in Chapter One, this has been a study
of a movement that is still in the process of
developing, rather than a restrospective analySis of a
movement that has already peaked and declined. Hence,

the movement's final act is yet to be played; and its

 

258

ultimate success or failure cannot be judged. The
battered women's movement has not reached stage four
of Spector and Kitsuse's (1977) model (described in
Chapter One of this dissertation) of the history of
social problems. At stage four, groups reject
institutional solutions and begin to develop
alternative solutions to the prOblem they have
organized to make visible and solve. At this point,
members of the battered women's movement are still
working within "the system," attempting to alter the
definition of woman battering and gain support for
mainstream solutions--providing social services for
the victim. In the future, however, the movement may

alter its strategy, or even its goals.

NOTES

Chapter One.

1. This discussion implies an ahistorical
perspective. Although male dominance may have existed
in most periods of human history, the forms of dominance
have varied enormously.

The acceptance of wife-beating in
biblical and medieval times and in 19th
century Europe highlights the continuity
of female Oppression . . . but this truth
must be specified historically in ways
that permit us to chart its changing
meaning under different conditions and
the appropriateness of different
strategies of resistance . . . Complex
social factors may determine whether and
in what combination physical,
ideological, political, or economic force
will be used to control women and to what
particular end (Stark, et a1. ,1979:48l).

This study will focus on some of the factors whicn led
to a change in acceptance of physical force in the
1970's.

2. Marx was specifically describing the small-
holding peasants of nineteenth-century France who were
prevented from organizing themselves into a class by
several material conditions:

a. Their mode of production

isolated each family on its own land, and

inhibited the development of a division

of labor in cultivation or

diversification of social relations;

b. The underdeveloped system of
communication in France at that time kept

the rural population further isolated;

and

c. Poverty and the necessity of a
day-to-day struggle for survival on self-
sufficient land holdings obviated social
intercourse.

259

260

Interestingly, almost the same conditions may be found
among battered women in modern society, who are often
isolated in their own homes much as the peasant family
was isolated on its farm.

3. Spector and Kitsuse (1977: 79) point out the
same flaw in conventional sociological definitions of
social problems, which ignore "how the participants in
an activity define that activity.”

Chapter Two.

1. Freeman (1975) objects to these terms,
insisting that the two branches cannot be consistently
differentiated along "ideological" lines. She prefers
to refer to the "older" and "younger" branches of the
movement, and to divide them on the basis of differing
organizational structures and styles (p. 50). But
since this paper deals with the subject of the two
branches or strands so briefly, I see no reason to
reject the easily distinguishable and recognizable
terms of Women's Rights and Women's Liberation.

2. Obviously, this history of the two branches
is very sketchy. But it does not seem necessary to go
into further detail for the purposes of this study.

3. Like the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's,
the Anti-Slavery Movement of the nineteenth century
set a precedent for feminism. Abolitionism provided
women with a political education: it supplied a
theory of social change which they could apply to
their own situation, an egalitarian ideology which
made woman's subordination to man 158 acceptable, and
a way to escape the clerical authority which had
formerly made objection to inequality impossible for
most women (DuBois, 1978: 32).

4. Geiss (1977: 4-5) states that prostitution
was the first focus of women's groups concerned with
crime issues, but not everyone agreed that prostitutes
were victims, and prostitutes themselves usually did
not want feminists to intrude or curtail their
business. Thus, the women's movement continued to
search for an appropriate "cause" until they targeted
rape, in 1971.

5. Other definitions of woman battering may be
either more general or more restrictive. Davidson
(1980) includes any situation in which the "wife"
fears the "husband's" superior strength and cannot

261

effectively defend herself or prevent him from acting
as he wishes. Straus, et al. (1980), in an effort to
arrive at a systematic definition, constructed a scale
Of eight "violent acts," ranked in order of intensity,
ranging from "throwing something at spouse" to "using
a knife or gun on spouse". But as the authors
concede, battering is a subjective term: for some
people it refers only to situations in which severe
damage is inflicted. For others it refers to any act
of aggression by a man against his wife or cohabitee.
Still others would include psychological coercion as a
form of woman battering. As in the case of child
abuse (Gelles, 1979), the definition of woman
battering is socially constructed. But for me, the
crucial factor in defining battering is that it occurs
between intimates, and this seems consistent with most
definitions.

6. The politics of naming is discussed in
Chapter Five. Terms such as domestic viOlence, spouse
abuse, and conjugal crime are all used to refer to the
same phenomenon, but these terms obscure the victim; I
am specifically concerned with the battered woman.
Those who agree in retaining the emphasis on women,
but prefer the term "battered wives" usually explain
that they are using the term wives to emphasize the
intimate relationship, not to exclude cohabiting,
unmarried couples. They Often add, correctly, that
the possession of a marriage license tends to increase
the chances of battering (see, for example, Dobash and
Dobash, 1979; Straus, et al., 1980: Walker, 1979).

7. Rubin (1975) defines a sex/gender system as
"the set of arrangements by which a society transforms
biological sexuality into procucts of human activity,
and in which these transformed sexual needs are
satisfied” (p. 159). It is a "neutral term which
refers to the domain of gender relations and indicates
that Oppression is not inevitable in that domain, but
is the product of the specific social relations which
organize it" (p. 168).

8. The concept of patriarchy is somewhat
problematic, since it is not used in the same sense by
every writer. Bridges and Hartmann (1977: 5) define
it as "a descriptive term used to refer to any male-
dominated society . . . or to a social system which
continually reproduces male dominance." But Gayle
Rubin prefers to reserve the term patriarchy to refer
to "a specific form of male dominance . . . of the Old
Testament-type pastoral nomads . . . or groups like
them" (1975: 168). And Barbara Ehrenreich agrees
that "a huge discontinuity lies between us and true

262

patriarchy . . . a system in which production is
centered in the household and is presided over by the
Oldest male" (1976: 6).

In a later article, Hartmann challenges Rubin's
narrow use of the term as too restrictive and, at the
same time, gives a more precise explanation of her own
conception.

I define patriarchy as a set of social
relations which has a material base and
in which there are hierarchical relations
between men, and solidarity among them,
which enables them to control women.
Patriarchy is thus the system of male
oppression of women . . . and is a good
label for most male-dominated societies
(1979: 232).

Hartmann's argument is a strong one for adopting
the term patriarchy to refer to varying situations of
male dominance, and in the second article, with Amy
Bridges, she demonstrates the material baSlS for
patriarchy which helped to shape capitalism and whicn
interacts with capitalism in a partnership of mutual
beneficence (Bridges and Hartmann, 1977: 15-22). It
may, in fact, be the best signifier for the concept,
since it captures some of the Freudian notion of the
unconscious roots of social relationships. Perhaps
the term will eventually be uniformly defined in the
broader sense, as a system of male dominance. Until
that understanding is reached, however, I think that
if the word patriarchy is employed, it should be
accompanied by a statement of how the author is
conceptualizing it. In this paper I am using
patriarchy as Hartmann does, and I think that she and
other writers who employ the word this way are at
least on the right track in seeking some symbol for
society-wide male dominance.

9. The television shows were "Do You Still Beat
Your Wife?", an episode of the weekly ”Police Woman"
series (ABC TV, October 24, 1977); "Intimate
Strangers," a made-for-TV movie (ABC TV, November 4,
1977); and "Battered," a made-for-TV movie (NBC TV,
September 26, 1978).

10. Examples of each type of verdict include
Francine Hughes, found not guilty by reason of
temporary insanity in 1977 (Michigan); Sharon
McNearney, acquitted on grounds of self defense in
1977 (Michigan); Evelyn Ware, acquitted on grounds or
self defense in 1977 (California): and Janice
Hornbuckle, acquitted of first-degree murder on the

263

grounds of self defense in 1977 (Washington). (All
cited in Schneider and Jordan, 1978).

Chapter Three.

1. Steinmetz (1976) and other researchers have
attempted to establish the prevalence of "husband
battering" as equal or nearly equal to woman
battering; but Pleck, et a1. (1978), McGrath (l9/9),
and others have refuted both the validity of
Steinmetz's data and the rationale of her perspective.
Steinmetz herself seems to have later modified this
position, and she and her colleagues (Straus, et al.,
1980) point out that the social position of women in
our society makes them much more vulnerable than men
to severe and continued abuse.

2. Klein (1979: 26) contends that Women's House
was the first feminist-oriented shelter for battered
women in the U.S. Martin (1976) describes three
shelters which were in operation previously: Haven
House in Pasadena, California, Ingraham Volunteers in
Maine, and Rainbow Retreat in Phoenix, Arizona. But
each of these shelters were originally begun as homes
for the families of alcoholics and, Martin implies,
were neither feminist-oriented nor, by extension,
products of the battered women's movement.

3. Note that since the focus of my research was
not on the residents or on any aspect of the internal,
day-to-day functioning of groups' services, I cannot
offer a detailed analysis of life within this type of
environment.

4. It is not clear whether she is referring to
national, feminist news networks, or perhaps YWCA
publications, or the establishment press. In any
case, it is interesting to note that this is a way in
which the media participated in spreading the
movement.

5. On August 26, 1976.

6. This form of public "speaking out" may have
been an important source of recognition and support in
many communities. In Michigan in 1976, the state
Women's Commission sponsored a series of public
hearings around the state in which battered women
testified to experiences of abuse, and social service
agencies discussed the lack of services for battered
women. This was before most communities in the state
had established shelter groups, and received

264

widespread publicity in state new5papers (Michigan
Women's Commission Report, 1977).

7. Some writers and activists refer to the
"shelter movement" (e.g., McGrath, 1979; Klein, 1979),
or use the terms ”battered women's movement" and
"shelter movement" interchangeably. I have adhered to
the term "battered women's movement" because I think
it has broader implications: it encompasses groups
who do not provide shelter, and may not intend to do
so in the future. Many activists now see a need to go
"beyond shelters" in dealing with the issue of woman
battering:

Activists have come to see sheltering as
one aspect of a broader anti-battering
campaign. Attacking the legal situation
and criminal justice response has been a
strong focus (Klein, 1979: 27).

8. Specifically, dues are determined as follows:

For programs with a budget of $250,001
and over, annual dues are $100.00.

For prOgrams with a budget of $150,001 to
$250,000, annual dues are $75.00.

For programs with a budget of $50,001 to
$150,000, annual dues are $50.00.

For programs with a budget of $50,000 and
less, annual dues are $25.00.

Chapter Four

1. An interesting question, which I did not
explore, would concern whether such organic solidarity
actually resulted in stronger cohesion within the
group, as Durkheim suggested is the result of
differentiation and specialization.

Chapter Five.
1. Barry (1979: 38) presents a strong argument
for careful use of the concept of victim, although she

is not referring specifically to battered women.

Creating the role and status of the
victim is the practice I call victimism.

265

. . The status Of "victim" creates a mind
set eliciting pity and sorrow. Victimism
denies the woman the integrity of her
humanity through the whole experience,
and it creates a framework for others to
know her not as a person but as a victim,
someone to whom violence was done.

2. Harding (1981: 73) makes this same
observation, and then broadens the definition of
feminism to include anyone who supports "feminist"
causes:

In this essay, "feminists" refers to
women who actively support major feminist
reforms and ideas, such as the right to
legal abortion, equal access to education
and employment, and equal rights and
obligations in marriage, even though not
all women who support such reforms would
call themselves "feminists."

For my population, however, it does not seem
appropriate to impose the label of feminist on people
who explicitly reject it. Thus, I have allowed them
to define themselves as either feminist or not.

Chapter Six.

1. "Women's Aid" is the name used in Great
Britain to refer to the movement to end woman
battering. It seems to be the counterpart of the
battered women's movement in the U.S., snce its goals
and orientation, as described by Dobash and Dobash
(1981: 563) are to try

. . . in an egalitarian way to return the
problem [of "wife beating"] to women and
the community and also to get social
agencies to respond positively. It
rejects male violence unequivocally and
challenges the patriarchal domination
underlying the acceptance and
continuation of wife beating.

2. Gusfield (1975) explains that although
ownership of and responsibility for a problem are
sometimes retained by the same party, they are Often
separate. The owners of the prOblem may perceive
their mission as being that of obliging others to take

266

responsibility for the problem. An example would be
the Temperance movement, which claimed to own the
problem of alchohol abuse, but placed responsibility
for it on saloon keepers and/or weak-willed
"drunkards."

APPENDICES

APPENDIX A

INTERVIEW SCHEDULE

1. What is the name of your organization? Does
the name have a special meaning/significance? Was there
any debate among your members about choosing this name?
Were other names proposed? Did some members favor a
different name?

2. What is your role in the organization? Has
your role changed over the course of time you have been
involved? In what ways? When did you become personally
involved in the organization? Why? How did you learn
about battering? When?

3. How did your organization get started? Who
were the first people to see a need for the
organization? How did they learn about battering? What
books, if any, did they read? Why do you think these
people started realizing there was such a need at that
particular time?

How did those first people find each other and find
others to help them? Did they know each other through
other organizations or experiences?

What is the approximate population Of the community
you serve? Do you have any idea how many battered women
are in that population?

4. What services does your organization provide?
Why did you decide to provide these services and not
others?

(If there is a shelter) How long has the shelter
been open, and what services did you provide before?
How long after starting to organize did the shelter
open? (If quite a while) Why did it take that long?

(If there is no shelter) Do you plan to open a
shelter? Why? When?

Who is eligible for your services (women, men,
women with children, battered women only or rape
victims, drug or alcohol abusers . . . ?) Is there any
controversy within your group about this issue of who is
the target group? Are most women who request your
services married? Does it matter?

How many women have used your services since the
beginning? This year?

267

 

268

5. Describe your shelter. What kind of housing
does it provide (either that exists or is planned)? Do
you rent or own it? How many people can stay at one
time? For how long? Do you have a back-up system for
more people?

6. Do you provide counseling? By your own
staff/volunteers or by referral? Do counselors go
through any training?

7. Is your (office/shelter) location secret? Why
or why not? What security precautions do you provide?

8. What do you think is your group's philosophy?
What do members of your group think causes battering?
Do you believe a woman should permanently leave a
battering situation? What is the solution to battering?
What do you think will happen to your group in the
future? Will the issue of battering become obsolete?
Will your services only be needed for a short time?

9. How is your group organized? Describe the
formal structure. Is there a different, informal
structure that is closer to reality? Do you have a
board of directors? Paid staff? Volunteers? What are
the criteria for becoming any of these? How are they
(board, staff) chosen? Is any formal training required?
Are there any splits or factions among these groups?

10. Are any men involved? Any restrictions on men
participating?

Is any attempt made to balance personnel racially,
ethnically, by class, age, or religion? Are there any
conflicts between factions?

Are there any formerly battered women involved in
your group? Were there in the beginning? What is the
relationship between battered and nonbattered women?

Is membership predominantly composed of people who
regard themselves as "professionals" or experts in the
field of battering?

Is the membership feminist? How do you define
feminist?

11. Are there any other types of services for
battered women (men) in your community? Do the
different groups work together? Do they share
philosophies/ideologies?

269

Are you affiliated with groups providing services
to battered women in other communities? With state or
regional coalitions? With the National Coalition
Against Domestic Violence?

12. How do you tell peOple about your services?
About battering in general? How are you going about
gaining public support and recognition? What sorts of
opposition have you encountered? How do you handle it?
What about the issue of religion?

Do members of your group do much public speaking
about battering? How do you explain battering--why men
batter women? Do you use any films? Which ones? Do
you recommend any books or articles? Which ones?

Do you use the term "patriarchy"? Do you talk more
about "domestic violence", "spouse abuse", "battered
women", or some other term? Why do you prefer the term
you use?

Have the news media been supportive of your
efforts? How have you contacted them?

13. What are your sources of funding? What is
your relationship to your funding sources? DO they
impose any regulations on your Operations? What were
some of the fundraising tactics you have used?

14. What other kinds of regulations do you operate
under (zoning, city council, state laws . . . )? What
is your relationship to the police?

15. What are the future goals of your group? What
do you think is the most important function your group
serves?

16. Is there anything else you want to talk about
or you think I should have asked you?

APPENDIX B

LETTER SENT TO LOCAL GROUPS

PLEASE RETURN TODAY IF POSSIBLE

October 15, 1980

Department of Sociology
Michigan State University
East Lansing, Michigan 48824

Dear (name of group):

I am a graduate student in the Department of Sociology
at Michigan State University. I have also participated
since January, 1980, as a volunteer counselor/advocate
at a battered women's shelter. For my doctoral disser-
tation, I am doing a study of groups who are providing
services for battered women. I am especially interested
in the way such groups got started. I would appreciate
your answering the following questions and returning
this form to me. I am enclosing a stamped, self-
addressed envelope for your convenience.

1. What year did your group form?

2. Could you very briefly indicate why people in
your community decided to organize services
for battered women?

3. Do you have a shelter?
a. If so, briefly describe the type of
housing if offers:

b. If not, do you plan to have a shelter
eventually? When?

4. Do you have a paid staff?
If so, how many?

5. Do you have volunteers?
If so, how many?

If you have any brochures or other printed material

about your organization, I would appreciate receiv-
ing a copy.

270

 

271

After getting basic information, I shall make fur-
ther contact with specific groups. My study will be
primarily focused on interviews with women who have
been active in organizing groups.

Thank you for your cooperation. When completed, I
think this research will be helpful to you and other
groups in learning more about each other and the

ways each has found to help women in battering situa—
tions. All information will be confidential, and the
name or location of organizations will not be used. I
shall share my findings by making results available
in printed form to participants.

Sincerely,

Carol S. Wharton

I can be contacted through the
Sociology Department, Michigan
State University. 517/355—6640
or at home 517/349-4716.

 

 

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