Women and Male Violence

UneavlIing Conlvadiclions An Essa Inspived I Wonen and MaIe VioIence
AulIov|s) MicIeIIe Fine

Souvce Feninisl Sludies, VoI. 11, No. 2 |Sunnev, 1985), pp. 391-407
FuIIisIed I Feninisl Sludies, Inc.
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COMMENTARY
UNEARTHING CONTRADICTIONS: AN ESSAY INSPIRED
BY WOMEN AND MALE VIOLENCE
MICHELLE FINE
Attorney
General William French Smith
today
announced the formation of a
task force on
family
violence to
study
such
problems
as
spouse
and child
abuse and mistreatment of the
elderly..
.the
new
group
should not be viewed
as
politically
motivated.
-New
York
Times,
Tuesday,
30
September
1983,
A27
Susan Schechter's
book,
Women and Male Violence: The Visions and
Struggles
of
the Battered Women's
Movement,'
which examines state
and feminist
negotiations
over the needs of abused
women,
pro-
vides an
opportunity
for us to
analyze
the contradictions inherent
in state involvement in feminist concerns. This
essay
uses the
struggles
of the battered women's movement with
government
agencies
and social
programs
to
explore
some of those contradic-
tions further.
A battered women's activist for the
past eight years,
Schechter
offers
feminists, activists,
and historians of social movements an
opportunity
to
study
the
chronology
of the battered women's
movement in the United States.
Experienced
as a
counselor,
organizer,
fundraiser,
grant
reviewer,
service
provider,
and con-
sultant to
shelters,
Schechter unravels the tensions inherent in
organizing
for women and
against
violence
against
women. She
chronicles transformations in
political
rhetoric and
ideology,
organizing strategies
and coalition
building,
and
splits
and
mergers
within the movement. Her
study brings
to
light
the
complexity
and
fragility
of the battered women's movement. In a
capitalist
and racist
patriarchy,
male violence
against
women sustains
gender-based power
hierarchies at
home,
at
work,
and on the
Feminist Studies
11,
no. 2
(Summer 1985). ? by
Feminist
Studies,
Inc.
392 Michelle Fine
streets. '"We have established that
battering
results from an
historically
created
gender hierarchy
in which men dominate
women. As
long
as this domination continues-in a
capitalist
or
socialist
society-men
will batter their female
partners" (p. 224).
Male violence is
"protected" by
the belief that what
happens
in the
home is
"private"
and not to be interfered
with,
and that what
hap-
pens
to women is
usually
their own fault.
Reluctance to
provide state-sponsored
services for abused
women reflects a
systematic unwillingness
to threaten the
economic and social structures that
guarantee
male access to
women's bodies, minds,
and identities.2
When
the
government
has
played
a
role,
it has often
disempowered
feminists involved in
assisting
women's
fight against
male violence. But
government
in-
volvement has also facilitated and
legitimated
the battered
women's
movement
by providing
services to millions of women.
The battered women's movement has therefore taken
shape
out of
a reluctant
government pressured strongly by
feminists to
support
the
independence
and
autonomy
of battered women. The
present
essay
reviews Schechter's
critique
of state involvement in the bat-
tered women's movement and examines those contradictions in-
herent in feminists'
design
of social
programs
for women victim-
ized
by
male violence. Let us
begin
with the initial tension -the
state as it "husbands"
programs
for battered women.
THE
GOVERNMENT PROTECTS?
Although
services in and of themselves announce a radical and life
saving
change
in the
power
relations between the
sexes,
many
activists
point
to the
potential danger
when services allow themselves to be
shaped by funding
agencies. (P. 243)
In the
1970s,
federal
government agencies
such as the Law En-
forcement Assistance Administration
(LEAA), Department
of
Labor,
ACTION and
VISTA,
along
with state
agencies
which
allocated federal entitlements
(such
as Title
20)
and state
monies,
funded over 300
hotlines, shelters,
and
advocacy groups
for bat-
tered women.
Many
of these
funding
sources have now been cut
back or allocated
away
from the needs of battered women. At that
moment in
history,
however,
battered women's services were seen
as
capable
of
"humaniz[ing]
an
agency's image.. .captur[ing]
the
Michelle Fine 393
imagination
of the
community,
based on
honest-to-God,
real need"
and,
it was
hoped,
as
"reduc[ing]
the number of cases in the
criminal
justice system."' Rarely developed
out of an
analysis
of
women's needs,
many
of the
early government-designed programs
nevertheless
responded
to a
gaping
social need. The concerns of
battered women entered
public
discourse.
A successful and
thorough grassroots
mobilization effected
changes
in state laws and national
procedures
for
handling
cases
of abuse:4
By
1981,
49 states and the District of Columbia. .
.passed
some form of reform
legislation
to combat domestic violence.
....
Most statutes create new civil and
criminal remedies for abusive
persons. They specify
in detail the duties of the
police
who answer domestic violence calls. Better record
keeping
and
reports
have been mandated and. .
.funds
have been
appropriated
for shelters and
other services
[including job training,
child
care,
and
legal
and
psychological
counseling]
for abused women.
Only through
the details
provided by
Schechter, however,
can
one
appreciate
how state involvement transformed the battered
women's
movement. The most
explicit examples
are derived from
LEAA domestic violence
programs.
The LEAA viewed battered
women as victims of "troubled families..
.another
segment
of the
women
population
with
special problems."
The
problems
of
women beaten
by
men with whom
they
had intimate relations
were
portrayed
as
private
and
psychological.' Individually
oriented solutions
helped
a woman
adjust,
a man
rehabilitate,
or
preserved
the
family.
Reconciliation
therapy
was
expected
to
enhance communication and facilitate closer relations within the
troubled
couple (this strategy
has since been
recognized,
even with-
in
government-designed programs,
to be
ineffective). Designed
to
be short
term,
many
social interventions
required
that "clients" not
become
overdependent. Perhaps
the real fear was that sheltered
women would
grow independent
of their men or
children,
forcing
responsibility
for care and nurturance into the
public
sector.
Schechter
juxtaposes
feminists'
analyses
of male violence
against
the
analysis
of LEAA. Feminist activists
recognized
male violence
against
women as neither an aberration of heterosexual relations
nor
psychopathy.
Male violence
against
women reflects and rein-
forces the economic and social
arrangements by
which women re-
main
dependent
on men. In a
capitalist patriarchy,
the
typical
woman
depends economically
on
men; occupies privatized
roles
and
responsibilities
within the
family;
and
grows up
believ-
394 Michelle Fine
ing
that a man will
provide socially, economically,
and
sexually.
As
husbands, lovers, fathers, bosses,
representatives
of
"public
patriarchy,"
and
power
holders,
men
allegedly provide
for
women's
economic and social
well-being.6
These conditions col-
lude so that
any
woman intimate with a man remains vulnerable
to his violence.
Schechter
recognizes
that not all men are
violent,
and that in-
dividual men
vary
in their
propensity
towards violence with
women. She
acknowledges
that individual factors such as alcohol
abuse
may
exacerbate
any
one man's likelihood of
being
abusive,
yet
she
argues persuasively
that all women who are intimate with
men run the risk of male violence in their homes. "Rather than
label
battering
as
pathology
or a
family systems
failure,
it is more
conceptually
accurate to assume that violence
against
women,
like
that directed toward
children,
is behavior
approved
of and sanc-
tioned in
many parts
of the culture. ... The
family
is not
randomly
violent. Certain
members,
women and
children,
suffer much
more
brutality" (p. 215).
Although
women with
minimal
material
resources,
disabled
women,
and women of color
may
have more
difficulty fleeing
violent
circumstances,
no woman survives
wholly
immune.
Schechter's
analysis
demands that violence
against
women be
understood as inherent in
existing
economic and social
structures,
neither anomalous nor
particular
to
any group
of
"high-risk,"
unassertive, masochistic,
or unskilled women.
As Schechter's
analysis
of the
problem diverges
from that of the
LEAA,
so do her recommended interventions.
Nothing
short of
social transformation can reduce women's
vulnerability.
Women's
power
must be bolstered in the labor
market,
in areas of
reproduc-
tive freedom and sexual
relations,
and in decisions about child-
bearing
and
custody.
Education,
legal
reforms,
and social
pro-
grams
must
respond
to women's needs for individual
autonomy
and collective
power.
Publicly-funded programs
which secure
women's
rights
and
nourish women's
needs,
including
battered women's
shelters,
Aid
to Families with
Dependent
Children
(AFDC),
sexual harassment
institutes,
rape
crisis
centers,
contraception
and abortion counsel-
ing
clinics,
and childcare
centers,
therefore remain essential. In a
society organized
around individual achievements and
profits,
state-
funded
programs represented
and continue to be a
primary
vehicle
Michelle Fine
395
for
socializing responsibility
for human needs.' So
emerged
a
cautious commitment to state-funded
programs
for women.
What
promised
to be
generous
and
protective government pro-
grams
for women
rapidly
deteriorated into the
programs
we
feared. Government-funded
programs
often embodied
principles
that
sustained,
rather than
questioned,
social stratification based
on
class, race,
gender,
and sexual orientation. In a culture which
virtually requires
heterosexual,
monogamous marriages
for
women,
individual- or
couple-based analyses
of
why
women are
battered dominated
public
discourse,
and framed most
govern-
ment interventions.
Schechter
argues
for
programs
that
empower
individual
women,
not heterosexual
couples.
These women
require
services that
sup-
port
individual
autonomy
and women's
collectivity: psychological,
social,
and economic assistance such as
shelter,
support, job
train-
ing, political
education,
and aid in
finding housing.
Battered
women need material resources at the same time
that
they
need
emotional
support
from other women and a sense of
community
and
personal
control. When treated as
dependent
clients of the
state,
battered women are not
empowered.
Feminist services enable women to discover the structural
sources of male violence and deindividualize the
violence,
while
taking responsibility
for individual survival and that of their
children. Consciousness
raising along
with
participatory
decision
making helps
women assert control over their futures while refus-
ing
self-blame for their
pasts.
A constant theme in Schechter's vi-
sion,
tools of
political analysis
need to be combined with tools of
personal empowerment. '"You give
information,
role
play
dif-
ferent situations and
support
her
....
That
way
when she
gets
turned down for an
apartment you
can
say
It's not
your
fault. It's
the
landlord;
he turned
you
down because
you're
a
single
women
with
kids'" (Shelter
worker
quoted
in
Schechter,
p. 109).
Schechter
persuasively
maintains that a feminist
critique
of
government
involvement in women's lives must coexist with con-
tinued demands on the state for
funding.
Feminists
concerned
with the
daily
lives and futures of women need to
agitate
for state-
funded
programs
at the same time as we demand that the women
who utilize and staff these
programs
control
them.
Monies from
the state do not
automatically
translate into an abdication of
feminist
politics.
The women who run, seek
refuge in,
and
396 Michelle Fine
volunteer in shelters must define the
problems, design
and
monitor the
programs,
and decide when
programs
need to be ter-
minated.
Government-funded
programs
for battered women in the United
States often
diverge
from the feminist visions of the
grassroots
bat-
tered
women's
movement.
Although
it is essential to
recognize
the
diversity
of
programs
that are
state-sponsored
- some
quite
autonomous and others
quite regulated-it
is
important
to
identify
the
general ways
in which state involvement has transformed these
programs.
THE ANALYSIS OF MALE VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
Dominant
conceptualizations
of male violence
against
women
view domestic violence as a
problem
of unassertive women and/or
"weak, insecure,
inadequate"
men. 9
Institutionalizing
this belief
system, federally
funded and
professionally
endorsed
programs
usually
favor individualistic interventions which
readjust
the
couple
or the individuals involved.
Critical of this
approach,
Schechter
recognizes
that "conflicts do
not cause
violence,
the belief in the
right
to batter women and the
use of force do"
(p. 212).
She
argues
that state funds often endorse
conservative
conceptions
of the
problem,
narrow interventions
which focus on
couple's
needs or
treating
the
man,
while ne-
glecting
the woman's needs. Government
agencies
and Ronald
Reagan's
Task Force on
Family
Violence
classify
battered women
programs
as
"Spouse
Abuse" or
"Family
Violence"
programs.
These
generic euphemisms camouflage
the fact that women remain the
target
of this
violence,
that men
primarily perpetrate
the
violence,
and that violence in the
family reproduces
structural
oppression
of
women. The shift in name and
analysis
came with restricted inter-
ventions. Title 20 monies
targeted
service
provision,
but not com-
munity
education or
political organizing. Organizational
ladders
grew
dotted with
professional specializations,
stratification of
pro-
fessionals and
staff,
all
answering
to a board of directors.
This move to
"legitimate"
services for battered women
paralleled
the
growth
of
professionalism
and
bureaucracy. Trusting
women
who lived in the shelter and
seeking
to
empower
them was
replaced
with
attempts
to control the women. In one New York
Michelle Fine 397
City
shelter,
Schechter
reports
that residents had to be verified as
battered
by
a welfare worker before
they
could
gain
admittance
into the shelter. Welfare checks were delivered
directly
to the
shelter. The shelter became a landlord! These
changes
converted
unconditional entitlement to services into conditional entitlement.
The "burden of
proof"
shifted from the man to the woman involved.
Whereas feminists assume all women to be vulnerable and
therefore entitled to
assistance,
government programs generally
dictate who is entitled to human services. The
Reagan
administra-
tion
compulsively attempts
to
distinguish
the
"truly deserving"
from the
"undeserving" poor."'
Married women receive
priority
shelter in some cities because
they
are more
likely
to be
eligible
for
reimbursement. In other
jurisdictions, only
women on welfare
can be sheltered.
Cohabiting
women
may
be seen as
"asking
for it"
more than married women.
Employed
women
may
be viewed as
better able to
escape
than women on welfare. White women and
women of more
privileged
social classes incur less
suspicion
than
poor
women or women of color.
But in a time of limited
resources,
feminists
too,
must consider
questions
of
eligibility
criteria. Discomfort with these
questions
arises,
I
think,
because feminists have dealt
inadequately
with the
question
of whether some women are more vulnerable than
others.
Eager
to
repudiate
class- and race-biased
analyses
of
abuse,
we have
promoted
universal risk
arguments, critiquing
methodol-
ogies
that define some women as more vulnerable than others. But
this refutation of classism and racism obscures our
ability
to wres-
tle with the
question
of
vulnerability
and therefore
eligibility
criteria.
Schechter
acknowledges
this
problem,
but does little to advance
the
analysis.
"There are few reliable studies.. .we know little about
class,
race or
any
other differences between women who are bat-
tered once and women who are beaten
repeatedly.
. . . Shelter
statistics almost
certainly underrepresent
middle class violence"
(p. 235).
More obvious than who is most vulnerable to male violence is
the fact that some women do have fewer resources for
fleeing
a
violent home. But
again,
even this issue is
complex.
As Schechter
notes,
a
woman's ability
to flee a violent home does not mechanis-
tically
correlate with her material
well-being.
"While
poor
and
working
class women have few resources to
escape
violent
men,
398 Michelle Fine
find new
housing
or leave their
communities,
out of their
struggle
to survive
many
have
developed
more resourcefulness and less
fear of
being
alone
than... .their
middle class
counterparts" (p. 236).
Social
class, race,
ethnicity,
and
community
resources intimate-
ly
affect women's
experiences
of male violence and their
oppor-
tunities for
flight.
That
any
women is vulnerable
speaks
to the fact
that all women need assistance in
dealing
with
potential
abuse.
Community pressures,
relational
ties,
and material
resources,
along
with emotional
dependencies,
combine to make
any
woman's exit
more or less difficult. But neither the
problem
of woman abuse
nor the solutions can be restricted to a narrow set of
"deserving'
women.
A TENSION IN HUMAN SERVICE DELIVERY:
"GOING PUBLIC"
5chechter
elaborates
many
of the contradictions embodied in
state-funded
programs
for battered women. Yet an essential ten-
sion remains unexamined: This
many
women are
victimized
by
male
violence,
in need of
assistance,
but too vulnerable to seek
help.
A
sexually
harassed woman whose husband
disapproves
of
her
working
is
unlikely
to
report
the harassment to even the most
confidential sexual harassment committee. An undocumented
worker whose lover assaults her would risk
deportation
if she
prosecuted.
The disabled adolescent who is molested
by
her
father,
her sole
caretaker,
will
probably
tell no one. Girls and
women
keep "private"
those
injustices
which,
if made
public,
would
significantly disrupt
their own and their kin's economic and
social
well-being."
This
problem
of
"going public"
with
injustice
limits the effec-
tiveness of even well-intentioned social
programs, threatening
their
scope
and
possible
effectiveness. The most atrocious ex-
amples
of what is at risk when a woman
fights injustice
come
from the
public
sector.
Many
states
require
that for a
rape
survivor
to receive
counseling
offered
through
the district
attorney's
office,
she must
prosecute.
Access to
counseling
in these states demands
collaborating
with state
prosecutors. Fighting injustice
in the
courts,
a woman in this situation
quickly
learns that she is em-
broiled in the state's
fight,
no
longer
her own.
Michelle Fine 399
The
complexities
of
"going public"
are
perhaps
best described
by
a
twenty-four-year-old
black mother of
three,
a
recipient
of
AFDC,
whom I met in the
emergency
room of a
hospital.
She had
just
been
gang raped.
I was the volunteer
rape
counselor on call. We
talked for hours. When asked if she would
prosecute,
she ex-
plained:
"I can't
prosecute.
While I'm
pickin'
some
guy
out of a
line,
who knows what
they
will be
doing
to
my
momma and child."
When I asked her about
people
she can talk with about the
rape,
she looked
surprised:
"I can't tell
my
brothers or
my
mother;
they'll
go
out and kill the
guys
and then
go
to
jail.
I
just
need to
get
home."
The
prospect
of
"going public"
seems to be easier for
white,
middle-class women.
Indeed,
48
percent
of white women who
have been
raped by strangers reported
this to the
police, compared
with
only
24
percent
of black
rape
survivors. Black and low-
income women cite a fear of
reprisal,
a sense that
"cops
don't
care,"
or that
"nothing
will
happen.""
Women with more substantial
material resources
may
be better able to take time off from work
(if they
are
employed)
to
pursue
their cases.
They may
assume the
police
and
prosecutors
will believe their
story. They may expect
support
from kin and
neighbors.
And
they
can
probably
hire a
good attorney.
The conditions which are
absolutely requisite
for a
"successful case" remain inaccessible to most women.
By
virtue of their lived
conditions,
many
women therefore con-
front insurmountable obstacles to
"going public."
Whereas a man
can
likely
count on a
"supportive
woman" to stand
by
him in a
discrimination
suit or an assault
prosecution,
a woman can
rarely
expect
the same. However
empowered
some women
may
feel
when
they pursue
a
public fight,
other women find that the stakes
are too
high. Responsible
for
children,
parents,
or others who are
sick or
disabled;
living
with a female
lover;
or
dependent
on a man
for economic
survival,
many
women won't make themselves or
others
publicly
vulnerable
by mounting
a
grievance.
It is not that
these women do not understand their
oppression
or that
they
do
not feel
unjustly
treated.
Simply, many
women exist in conditions
too
relationally
vulnerable to make trouble
publicly.
Women who
use
public
services tend to be
poor
and
working
class,
dispropor-
tionately
women of color. Most can not afford
trouble,
a
job
threat,
nor loss of social services.
Subsisting
within tenuous economic and
social
circumstances, they
sustain their networks.
Feminists
fought
hard for women's
right
to
"go public."
We need
400 Michelle Fine
to continue
fighting
for
institutional,
public responses
to what feel
like
private problems.
But women's material conditions and rela-
tional
responsibilities essentially
limit their
ability
to
wage
a
public
fight against injustice.
So
many
women don't use or don't continue
to use available services. Between 30 and 50
percent
of battered
women who use shelters return
home,
especially
those married
longest:
"at least
my
children were fed and clothed." The
rape
sur-
vivor
drops
her case because
"my
mother was
being
threatened on
the streets." The sexual harassment incident remains a secret be-
cause
'1
am here
illegally
from Haiti and can't afford for me and
my
kids to be
deported."" Going public may
be more accessible to
women and men who
design
these
programs
and
procedures
than
those who would use them.
Many
feminists have
struggled
for social
programs
that accom-
modate the
complex
realities faced
by
women
fighting injustice
in
an
unjust society.
But some
programs
set conditions for abused
women to receive
any help.
Some battered women
may
be
pre-
pared only
to maintain
ongoing
contact with a battered women's
hotline. Others
may
wish to
get
involved in a women's
group.
Still
others
may
attend a
mothering workshop.
Each
may
be too
vulnerable,
materially
and/or
emotionally,
to leave her home but
still
hungry
for
help.
Although perhaps
not ideal
strategies
for
undermining
violence
against
women,
these alternatives are what some women need to
get through
the
day.
More
privileged
women
might
not choose
ongoing
contact with a hotline for five
years,
but some women
can't afford to think about
leaving.
Broad
alternatives,
as Schechter
argues
and activists in the battered women's movement have
learned,
must be tailored to the needs of the women affected most
intimately by
male violence.
Social
programs
must accommodate women on the basis of
woman-defined needs. To assure
this,
state
sponsorship
of
women's programs
must also
guarantee community
-women's
-
control.
Establishing
a
rape support program
or safe homes
project
for battered women within
neighborhoods, through community
organizations,
networks,
and
resources,
assures alternatives more
intimate,
more
relevant,
and more
homegrown
than
exclusively
offering
courtroom
accompaniment,
a
twenty-four-hour
hotline,
and/or remote short-term shelter.
Although many
of the contradictions between state intentions
Michelle Fine 401
and feminist visions
may
sound
irreconcilable,
we should not
forget
that women are not
only
entitled to state monies but that
much of this
money
is ours. In the
past,
and
probably
in the
future,
dependence
on the state has meant social control of
women
by
the
government. Many
leftist academics and New
Right policymakers
have
agreed
that
dependence
on the state
translates into an abdication of
control."
But
feminists,
including
many
socialist
feminists,
challenge
this
assumption.
Women can't
survive without such interventions." No other "endowed" vehicle
for social
responsibility presently
exists under advanced
capitalism.
If we do not
accept
state monies for women's
programs
we undervalue our contribution to the
economy.
We
deny
our
own entitlements.
Indirectly, through
what
may
seem like
resistance,
we abdicate to a
military
and
corporate budget.
Con-
troversies should continue over which monies feminists should
accept
and which we should
refuse,
but
rejection
of state monies
as
though
the state were a monolithic arm of male and
capitalist
dominance is a
radically wrong-headed strategy
for feminists.
State
dependence
and state control can no
longer
be assumed
synonymous.
Indeed,
women seem able to
gain
rather than ab-
dicate
personal
and collective control
through interdependence.
Although being dependent
on the state and
moving
from what
some consider a
private patriarchy
to a
public patriarchy
will un-
doubtedly
continue to
plague
us,
women do not
automatically
recoil from the
image
of
dependence.
To the extent that social
welfare
programs
can be controlled
by
and for
women,
socialist
feminists can neither abandon human services to the New
Right
nor can
they
sacrifice a vision of social
interdependence.
CONFRONTING DIFFERENCES AMONG WOMEN
Although
differences between and within shelters are
very
real,
they
are clearer
and
simpler
in
writing
than in
reality.
....
A
supportive
shelter
community
enriches residents' lives with new ideas and models
just
as it sometimes
shocks,
jolts,
or horrifies
them;
staff
living
in
protective
women's communities are freed
to
grow
as
they
learn about realities different from their own. No one
stays
the
same. And while
diversity
means that
political disagreements frequently
emerge, accomplishing
concrete tasks and
helping
women sometimes mutes
divisiveness and restores cohesion. How
long
the
unity
holds,
how
deeply
the
political
differences can extend and at whose
expense unity
is maintained re-
main to be
explored. (P. 112)
402 Michelle Fine
As a critical thinker and
activist,
Susan Schechter takes the
reader
beyond
a
critique
of the state to feminist
practice.
She asks
to what extent feminists also
deny
women who utilize social
pro-
grams
their own voices in
designing, evaluating,
and
changing
social
programs.
To what extent have feminists situated ourselves
at the fulcrum of
"the state"
and "women" as if we could
speak
to
the state for these
women;
as if social
class, race,
life
experiences,
interest in
feminism,
sexual
preference, disability,
and social
power
do not often
distinguish
feminists from the women who use
social
programs?'"
I would like to elaborate on Schechter's
analysis.
To
begin,
of
course, "feminists"
do not
represent
a monolithic
category
of
political ideology
or
practice. Many
feminists
daily engage
in
ideological
and
practice struggles.
But some of
us,
in our
capacities
as
political people,
teachers,
organizers,
counselors,
and service
providers,
have nevertheless assumed the role of the All-Powerful
Mothers that
Nancy
Chodorow and Susan
Contratto
describe.'7
Aspiring
to be the
nurturing political
mothers most of us never
had,
we
try
to
protect
women from
men,
capitalists, government
interventions,
environmental
pollution,
war,
and unwanted
children. This maternalism muffles the critical and creative voices
of the
presumably '"protected"
women.
My thoughts
are not directed
exclusively,
or even
particularly,
at activists in the battered women's movement. In fact these
women have
perhaps
wrestled with the
problems
of
"feminist
hegemony"
more than others because of the
politics
of shelter life.
But
reading
Schechter's book
prompted my thinking
about how
some feminist academics and activists have
appropriated
the
multiple
voices of women victimized
by
male violence.
In Women and Male
Violence,
Schechter
critically analyzes
such
dynamics.
"It is
easy
to
adopt
the dominant mental health models
and
attempt
to be the
perfect helper, giving
residents more and
more and
taking
control
away. 'Doing
Good' can be a
dangerous
motivation that robs battered women of their
right
to make
choices,
just
as it denies them
participation
in the movement"
(pp.
244-45).
Schechter
powerfully critiques
what
might
be called feminist
hegemony
-the
imposition
of a feminist
way
and a feminist set of
values on women who live and work in these shelters.'" She
argues
for battered women's
programs organized
around
par-
Michelle Fine 403
ticipatory
decision
making
in which
divergent
values and
prac-
tices can be
explored, politics
voiced,
and women's
experiences
embraced. A commitment to such
process
forces the crucial
ques-
tion: "Does a local
shelter,
started
by
feminists,
belong
to battered
women
residents, staff, volunteers,
or the women's
community?
Many
shelters
attempt
to include all these
groups
as
'owners,'
yet
the
unsettling question
remains-whose
priorities
will
prevail
when cutbacks hit or if battered women define their
goals
dif-
ferently
from the staff or board?"
(p. 285).
If
explored collectively,
these differences can nurture a richer
politics
and
practice.
Schechter illustrates this
through
reflections
of shelter workers.
"I wrote the first non-violence
policy
for the shelter. .. The first confronta-
tion I had with a woman who hit her kid with a belt was horrible. All the
residents were
angry
at me. I realized I needed a
relationship
with the woman
to deal with these
heavy
issues. To do
good by
the kids I
really
needed to know
their mothers."
(P. 89)
"Another example
is of a battered woman
hugging
a
staffer,
then
pulling away
saying
with nervous
laughter, 'People
will think we're a
couple
of lesbians.'"
At the
beginning
of the
movement,
some shelter staff
quickly
realized that
they
had
responsibilities
to
explore
their own reactions to lesbianism and re-
spond appropriately
to others' so that the shelter environment could remain
supportive
for all women.
(P. 268)
"Our idea of
including
women of color was to send out notices. We never
came to the business table as
equals.
Women of color
join
us on our terms.
....
The same
anger
and frustrations that as women we have in
dealing
with men
whose sexism is
subtle,
not
blatant,
is the frustration and
anger
women of col-
or must feel toward us."
(P. 271)
"We have failed in not
giving
the battered woman and her children a safe
place.
Too often we have made her feel that we rescued her and that she is
forever indebted to us. On too
many
occasions we have imbued her with the
idea that she is not our
equal,
that she is less than us. Most
important,
we have
failed to honor her
social,
political
and cultural
ways
of
being
and, thus,
we
have reenacted the
oppression
of the
larger society." (Pp. 282-83)
If one learns
anything
from Susan
Schechter,
it is that confront-
ing
differences and
contradictions,
as
practiced
within
the bat-
tered women's
movement,
is essential to feminist
process,
not a
disruption
of that
process.
Differences and conflicts do exist
among
those of us involved in
struggles
for women's liberation and
against
male violence. And these conflicts fester if unattended.
Lesbians,
women with
disabilities,
women of
color,
poor
and
working-class women,
and
perhaps
even battered women who
404 Michelle Fine
want to return home have
historically
contained these conflicts in
silence. If
they
raised
questions, they
were accused of bad
politics,
"false
consciousness,"
personality
difficulties,
or
forcing
an internal
"split."
NEW DIRECTIONS
Reading
Schechter's
analysis
and
thinking
about feminist
politics
in the
1980s,
I am struck
by
a number of further contradictions in
practice
which need our collective
analysis.
First,
the social visions
espoused by
socialist feminists often
diverge
from those
goals
advocated for battered women. Shelters
encourage autonomy, independence,
and
self-sufficiency,
and our
politics
envision
collectivity, interdependence,
and shared
resources. The same tension resides in the
disability rights
move-
ment.
Independent living
constitutes the central
political goal.
Coerced to live
institutionally, disability rights
activists view the
option
of
independent living
as the most radical
goal
to be
demanded. Yet
independence
has sometimes meant isolation. Col-
lectivity
has sometimes meant lack of
privacy.
How can collectivi-
ty
and
autonomy
be
integrated dialectically
into our
vision,
our
politics,
and our
practice?
Second,
how can activists
empower
battered women to
recog-
nize the
victimizing
structural context out of which male violence
against
women
derives,
and still enable these women to ex-
perience
themselves as able to create
change, improve
their lives
and the lives of their children? If these women are to make the
analytic leap
to a feminist
analysis,
we are
asking
them to sacrifice
some of their "home"
supports."
Once women
begin
to cultivate a
feminist
consciousness,
old
support systems stop being
reliable.
Husbands, mothers, friends,
and/or children often resist radical
analyses, exacerbating
the initial loneliness
experienced by
women. The
paired processes
of
becoming
radicalized and
alienated
need to be
acknowledged
in
any political
education. Bat-
tered women
(like others) may
not be critical of
gender,
class,
and
race relations before
they
feel comfortable inside
community.
Political education
may
occur
only
once a sense of
community
has
been established.
Third, how much of our feminist
analysis
of male violence is
Michelle Fine
405
open
to
critique? Empowerment
involves control over self-
definitions and
struggles
for
fighting
back. If
successful,
exercises
in
empowerment
should
help
battered women
disrupt many
in-
equitable
relations.20
Empowering
battered women means facili-
tating
their
critique
of men who are abusive and of women who
are
ideologically oppressive.
At the knot of a difficult but
impor-
tant
contradiction,
feminists should be
encouraging
critical think-
ing
about our own
power
over the lives of these women.
Fourth,
it
may appear
ill-timed that this
essay emerges just
as
massive cutbacks threaten the
very
existence of a battered
women's
movement.
Systematic
cuts to social
programs
erode
what has been called the social
wage.2'
Cutbacks in child and wife
abuse
programs,
the reintroduction of the
Family
Protection
Act,
and the
dismantling
of human services
programs allegedly
buffer
family "privacy."
But,
like
Schechter,
I would
argue
that
precisely
because we find ourselves in
desperate
times feminists must
ag-
gressively
advocate a
program
that
protects
the
rights
and
respects
the needs of all women. If socialist feminists aim for a
politics
that
incorporates
the
rights
and needs of all women and social transfor-
mation,
we need to confront the contradictions of
seeking justice
in an
unjust society.
We need to
begin
to be comfortable
being
un-
comfortable. We need to understand that we are neither
"copping
out"
by taking
state
money
nor
morally righteous
for
rejecting
it,
and that not
"going public" might
be what some women need.
If we
acknowledge
the
legitimacy
of contradictions we
willlearn
what all of us know in our hearts but have been afraid to
say
aloud. When
leftists,
particularly
feminists,
give
voice to our am-
bivalence, dissent,
or contradiction it is reversed and turned
against
us.
Admitting
that
having
an abortion can be a
psychologi-
cally
difficult
process gets appropriated
as evidence to
deny
women the
right
to
abortion;
acknowledging
that some battered
women do love their abusers and wish to return
gets exploited
as
evidence of women's
masochism;
and
asserting
that state funds
can undermine feminist services
gets incorporated
into a
rigid,
antistate line.
Perhaps
this is the risk we must face. In her
book,
Susan Schechter
gently
and
provocatively helps
readers
analyze
political
contradictions within
feminism,
not as aberrations in our
practice,
but as the
strategy
to further our vision.
406 Michelle Fine
NOTES
I would like to thank friends who took the
time,
patience,
and
energy
to review multi-
ple copies
of this
manuscript:
Don
Barr,
Carol
Joffe,
Demie
Kurz,
Rosalind
Petchesky,
Rayna Rapp,
David
Surrey,
and
Ginny
Vanderslice. I also
appreciate
those friends and
colleagues
who talked with me about still
incubating ideas-Jean Anyon, Julie
Blackman,
Nancy
Breen,
Lynn
Marks,
and Ann Withorn.
My respect
and warmth for
the thousands of women who are involved in the
struggles against
violence
against
women. To Susan Schechter and the women at
Philadelphia's
Women
Organized
against Rape, my respect, caring,
and endless admiration.
1. Susan
Schechter,
Women and Male Violence: The Visions and
Struggles
of
the Battered
Women's Movement
(Boston:
South End
Press, 1982); page
numbers
appear
in
paren-
theses in the text.
2. Catherine
MacKinnon,
Sexual Harassment
of
Working
Women
(New
Haven: Yale
University
Press,
1979);
Adrienne
Rich,
"Compulsory Heterosexuality
and Lesbian Ex-
istence," Signs
3
(1980):
631-60.
3.
Joyce
Gelb,
"The Politics of Wife
Abuse,"
in
Families, Politics,
and Public
Policy:
A
Feminist
Dialogue
on Women and the
State,
ed. Irene Diamond
(New
York:
Longman,
1984),
250-64;
Kathleen
Tierney,
"The Battered Women's Movement and the Creation
of the Wife
Beating
Problem,"
Social Problems 29
(February 1982):
207-20, 208;
and
United States Commission on Civil
Rights,
"Under the Rule of Thumb-Battered
Women and the Administration of
Justice" (January 1982).
4.
Joyce
Gelb and Marian
Palley,
Women and Public Policies
(Princeton:
Princeton
University
Press, 1982),
251.
5. Michele Barrett and
Mary
McIntosh,
The Anti-Social
Family (London:
Verso,
1982);
Michelle
Fine,
"Reflections on a Feminist
Psychology
of Women: Paradoxes and Pro-
spects," Psychology
of
Women
Quarterly, forthcoming;
Patricia
Morgan,
"From Battered
Wife to
Program
Client: The State's
Shaping
of Social
Problems,"
Kapitalistate
9
(1981):
17-40;
and
Rayna Rapp,
Ellen
Ross,
and Renate Bridenthal,
"Examining Family History,"
Feminist Studies 5
(Spring 1979):
174-200.
6. Carol
Brown, "Mothers, Fathers,
and Children: From Private to Public
Patriarchy,"
in Women and
Revolution,
ed.
Lydia Sargent (Boston:
South End
Press, 1981), 239-67;
Karin
Stallard,
Barbara
Ehrenreich,
and
Holly
Sklar,
Poverty
in the American Dream:
Women and Children First
(Boston:
South End
Press,
1983).
7.
Morgan;
Ann
Withorn,
Serving
the
People:
Social Services and Social
Change (New
York: Columbia
University
Press,
1984), provides
a rich
analysis
of the "social
wage"
in
contemporary
U.S.
society.
Also see Eli
Zaretsky,
"The Place of the
Family
in the
Origins
of the Welfare
State,"
in
Rethinking
the
Family,
ed. Barrie Thorne and
Marilyn
Yalom
(New
York:
Longman, 1982),
188-224.
8. See Anne Coote and Beatrix
Campbell,
Sweet Freedom: The
Struggle
for
Women's
Liberation
(London:
Picador, 1982),
for British
examples
of feminist
grassroots organiz-
ing;
Zoe
Fairbairns, Benefits (London: Virago, 1979),
for fiction on women's
community-
based feminist
collectives;
and
Virginia
Vanderslice,
with Florence
Cherry,
Moncrieff
Cochran,
and Christiann
Dean,
Communication
for
Empowerment:
A
Facilitator's
Manual
of
Empowering Teaching Techniques (Ithaca: Family
Matters
Project, 1984).
9. Paula
Caplan,
"The
Myth
of Women's Masochism,"
American
Psychologist
39
(February 1984):
130-39,
reviews and
critiques
the extensive
psychological
literature on
women's inherent
tendency
toward masochism;
R. Emerson Dobash and Russell
Dobash,
Violence
against
Wives: A Case
against Patriarchy (New
York: Free
Press,
1979),
provides
a
powerful
and
persuasive analysis
of the
ways
in which violence
against
Michelle Fine 407
women derives from as it reinforces the structures of
capitalism
and
patriarchy.
See
also
Jean
Grossholtz,
"Battered Women's Shelters and the Political
Economy
of Sexual
Violence,"
in
Diamond,
59-69.
10. Francis Fox Piven and Richard
Cloward,
The New Class War
(New
York:
Pantheon,
1982);
Louise Kidder and Michelle
Fine,
"Making
Sense of
Injustice:
Social
Explanations
and Social
Action,"
in
Redefining
Social Problems and
Re-examining
Social
Myths,
ed. Ed-
ward Seidman and
Julian Rappaport (New
York:
Praeger, forthcoming);
Rosalind
Pollack
Petchesky,
Abortion and Woman's Choice
(New
York:
Longman, 1984);
and
William
Ryan, Equality (New
York:
Pantheon,
1981).
11. Michelle
Fine,
"Coping
with
Rape:
Critical
Perspectives
on
Consciousness,"
Im-
agination, Cognition,
and
Personality:
The Scientific Study of
Consciousness 3
(1983-4):
249-67;
Bell
Hooks,
Ain't
I a Woman?
(Boston:
South End
Press, 1981).
12.
Fine,
"Coping
with
Rape";
See also U.S. Commission on Civil
Rights,
Civil
Rights
Quarterly Perspectives
14
(Spring 1982).
13. Marianna
Cayten, "Gaining
Power
through Separation:
Women
Resisting
Relation-
ships" (Paper presented
at
"Beyond
the Second Sex Conference: A Conference on
Feminist
Scholarship," Philadelphia, April 1984),
offers an
important critique
of the
literature that reifies women's relational orientation,
making
the
point
that it is often
this "relational
expertise"
that hinders women's access to their own
empowerment.
These
quotations
are derived from
personal
communications between the author and
women in a
rape
crisis
center,
battered women's shelter, and women in a textile trade
union in a
major
Northeast
city.
14.
Nancy
Hartsock, "Men, Women, War,
and Politics: Toward a Historical Materialist
Account"
(Paper presented
at the
Pennsylvania
Mid-Atlantic Women's Studies
Seminars,
Philadelphia, 1984).
Hartsock makes the
point
that masculinist
ideology per-
vades militarist
thinking
and
policy.
She
argues
that this same
ideology prizes
the values
of
independence, separateness,
and individualism. See also
Christopher
Lasch,
Haven in
a Heartless World
(New
York: Basic
Books, 1977);
and Barrett and McIntosh's
critique
of Lasch and other Marxist theorists of
family
relations who
posit
the
family
as the bas-
tion of
privacy
not to be invaded
by
the state.
15. Irene
Diamond;
Zillah
Eisenstein, ed.,
Capitalist Patriarchy
and the Case
for
Socialist
Feminism
(New
York:
Monthly
Review
Press,
1979); Jane
Flax,
"Contemporary
American Families: Decline or Transformation?" in
Diamond, 21-40;
and
Petchesky.
16. Alice
Echols,
"Cultural Feminism: Feminist
Capitalism
and the
Anti-Pornography
Movement,"
Social Text
(Spring
and Summer
1983):
34-53. Echols
provides
a
compelling
critique
of the
orthodoxy
and conservatism of the
anti-pornography
movement and
pleads
for a more
pluralistic
feminism
embracing diversity
rather than narrow defini-
tions of
political
correctness. See also Berenice
Fisher,
"Guilt and Shame in the
Women's Movement: The Radical Ideal of Action and Its
Meaning
for Feminist Intellec-
tuals,"
Feminist Studies 10
(Summer 1984):
185-212.
17.
Nancy
Chodorow and Susan
Contratto,
"The
Fantasy
of the Perfect
Mother,"
in
Thorne and
Yalom,
54-75.
19. Susan
Griffin, 'The
Way
of All
Ideology," Signs
7
(Spring 1982):
641-60. See also
Susan
Krieger,
"Lesbian
Identity
and
Community:
Recent Social Science
Literature,"
Signs
8
(Autumn 1982):
94-108.
Krieger
reviews the literature on lesbian communities
and
analyzes
the
emergence
of an intolerance for dissent within some women's com-
munities. She
argues
that communities
organized
in resistance to more
oppressive
social institutions
(such
as lesbian communities in
homophobic society) may
be
par-
ticularly
vulnerable to an
internally generated
intolerance for
diversity.
19.
Cayten;
Fine.
20. Vanderslice.
21. Withorn.

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