Hate Crimes

New Social Movements and the Politics of Violence

Valerie Jenness

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781351516211
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

Violence directed at victimized groups because of their real or imagined characteristics is as old as humankind. Why, then, have "hate crimes" only recently become recog-nized as a serious social problem, especially in the United States? This book addresses a timely set of questions about the politics and dynamics of intergroup violence manifested

III
Violence Against Women

5
Contemporary Antiviolence Against Women Campaigns

THE FEMINIST MOVEMENT’S HISTORIC FOCUS ON VIOLENCE

Writing on nineteenth-century “Feminist Responses to ‘Crimes Against Women,’” Pieck recently observed that “American feminists have long responded to ‘crimes against women’ by providing local support services for victims, lobbying for legislative reform, and exposing the social origins of women’s oppression” (1996:109). Over the last thirty years of this century in particular, it is beyond dispute that feminist scholars, activists, service providers, and policymakers have brought newfound attention to the scope and consequences of violence against girls and women in this country and globally. In particular, the contemporary women’s movement has focused on wife assault and domestic violence (Breines and Gordon 1983; Bush 1985, 1992; Dobash and Dobash 1992; Ferraro 1989; Pagelow and Pagelow 1985; Schecter 1982; Tierney 1982), rape (Bart and O’Brien 1984, 1985; Brownmiller 1975; Davis 1983; Griffin 1971; Pride 1981; Rose 1977; Russell 1974, 1982, 1984, 1988; Warshaw 1988), prostitution (Barry 1979; Jenness 1990, 1993, 1996; Overall 1992), sexual harassment (Farley 1978; MacKinnon 1979; Russell 1984; Schneider and Gould 1987), and especially pornography (Caputi 1987; Dworkin 1981; Griffin 1981; Lederer 1980; MacKinnon 1982, 1983, 1987; Russell 1988, 1993) as manifestations of violence against girls and women.

Reflecting on the women’s movement’s antiviolence efforts in the second half of the twentieth century, Caputi recently observed that “one of the most significant achievements of the Women’s Liberation Movement has been the naming of sexual violence as a systematic form of patriarchal oppression” (1992:340). As Leslie R. Wolfe, president of the Center for Women Policy Studies, a Washington research group that studies women and violence, said:

The women’s movement in the last 25 years has given a name to crimes of violence against women that were not talked about, reported, or even thought about as crimes of violence—that is, men beating up their wives or their girlfriends, acquaintance rape and date rape. (Spokesman Review 1996)

The naming of sexual violence as a social problem has been accomplished via the development, expansion, and institutionalization of a battered women’s movement (Dobash and Dobash 1981, 1992; Matthews 1994; Schecter 1982) and numerous feminist-sponsored antiviolence campaigns (Barry 1979; Jenness 1990, 1993, 1996; Schecter 1982; Overall 1992); the proliferation of litigation and social services on behalf of survivors (Bock and James 1992; Caputi 1992; Matthews 1994; Schneider 1992); and legal reform at the local, state, and federal level (Caufield and Wonders 1993; Frug 1992; Jenness 1995a; Wolfe 1991). Combined, these historical developments are responsible for and reveal the success of contemporary feminism’s antiviolence against women campaigns of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s; they have promoted new ways of thinking and talking about violence against women over the last quarter of a century, with public opinion, policy, and law changing accordingly (Caputi 1992; Hanmer and Maynard 1987).

The women’s movement’s anti violence campaigns have withstood the test of time in terms of social movement survival and, in the process, “broken silence on the darkest aspects of patriarchy” (Sheffield 1987:185). Given this, in this chapter we take as our starting point the fact that feminist-inspired and -sponsored antiviolence projects across the United States constitute a highly institutionalized social movement sector (Buechler 1990; Bush 1992; Caputi 1992; Dobash and Dobash 1992; Ferree and Hess 1985; Fried 1994; Matthews 1994; Minkoff 1994, 1995; Pride 1981; Schecter 1982). Because feminist-inspired and -sponsored antiviolence projects in the United States have a considerably longer and more developed history than those of the gay and lesbian movement, we approach the former (see Appendix B) as cross-sectional data deriving from a social movement in a latter phase of the construction of a social problem and the process of institutionalization.

In historical terms, the women’s movement is ahead of the gay and lesbian movement in the politics of hate. Since the late 1970s there has been an extraordinary expansion of antiviolence projects throughout the United States that have already accomplished what was described in Part II of this book [see, for example, Schecter’s (1982) book, Women and Male Violence: The Visions and Struggles of the Battered Women’s Movement, or Matthews’s (1994) book on the antirape movement]. That is, they have built coalitions around select forms of violence (in this case, gender-based violence), discovered and documented violence (in this case, that which reflects and contributes to gender inequality), publicized an epidemic of violence (in this case, that which is directed at girls and women), expanded the domain of a select type of violence (in this case, manifestations of violence directed at girls and women), and, most importantly, defined violence against girls and women as a social problem in need of remedy. In large part, “violence against women” has successfully competed for, secured, and maintained a position in the “social problems marketplace” (Best 1990; Hilgartner and Bosk 1988) through the very activities described and analyzed in the previous two chapters: crisis intervention and victim assistance programs, educational campaigns, and enhanced surveillance efforts. Stated differently, most of the services provided by gay- and lesbian-sponsored antiviolence projects have a well-established counterpart in feminist antiviolence projects (Caputi 1992; Dobash and Dobash 1992; Fried 1994; Loseke 1989; Schecter 1982).

Given this, our empirical focus in Part III is on how a social movement sector engages in the politics of violence once the relevant condition-category—in this case, violence against women—has already been identified, constructed (i.e., framed), and institutionalized as a social problem (Bush 1985, 1992; Caputi 1992; Caputi and Russell 1992; Dobash and Dobash 1981, 1992; Hanmer and Maynard 1987; Radford and Russell 1992; Rose 1977; Schecter 1982). Specifically, we ask a series of interrelated empirical questions: Who [i.e., what organization(s)] determine(s) the direction of social policy related to violence against women? To what degree do diverse antiviolence projects pursue the same policy goals and enact the same means to achieve those goals? Finally, what is the relationship between feminist-sponsored antiviolence projects and other societal institutions, especially the state (i.e., the federal government and its subsidiaries, law, etc.)? To borrow the wording of Wallimann and Dobkowski in their introduction to a recent issue of Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change, “[T]he question remains as to how social movements keep alive and ‘in business’ once they have had a successful start” (1994:xiv). To address this question requires that we first define and analyze the structure of the organizational field, which we do in this chapter. It also requires that we address how cultural forms do—and do not—change within the organizational field and its larger sociopolitical environment, which we do in the next chapter.

DEFINING THE ORGANIZATIONAL FIELD

Over the last few decades the women’s movement’s response to violence against women has become a complex system of organizations distributed nationwide that, when combined, constitute an organizational field. In the simplest portrait, the field can be divided into three distinct levels of organization and attendant activism. The first level is a grassroots, local level of organizing that is characterized by shelters, safe homes, and domestic violence hotlines (Caputi 1992; Dobash and Doash 1992; Fried 1994; Loseke 1989; Matthews 1994; Schecter 1982). Beyond these local organizations, the response to violence against women in the United States is constitutive of a network of coalitions operating at both the state and national level. Since local level activism in the women’s movement has been extensively documented and analyzed [see, for example, Caputi’s (1992) summary, Schecter’s (1982) treatise, and Fried’s (1994) recent empirical work], we begin our analysis at the state level, and then turn to the national level.

STATE COALITIONS

Origins and Rationale

By the late 1970s literally thousands of local organizations were established to provide victim services to women in particular cities, towns, or counties across the United States. With their growth in number and the expansion of services, local organizations consistently found themselves so immersed in the immediate task of delivering services to victims that they often were unable to challenge and ultimately change the systems and institutions that continue to produce the violence in need of remedy. The dominance of proactive Band-Aid solutions delivered at the local level left many activists and administrators at all levels frustrated with their inability to engage in preventative efforts via institutional change. As a result, by the late 1970s new needs emerged in light of a decade of activism and well-established service delivery at the local level.¹

In the middle of the 1970s it became increasingly obvious that a new type of organization was needed to further the goals of the antiviolence against women movement: the coalition. As the Georgia Advocates for Battered Women and Children newsletter, H.O.P.E., explained in an article entitled “Coalitions: Teaming Up to Stay Alive”:

My favorite description of coalition comes from Bernice Johnston Reagon, who said, “I believe we have something to do with what makes it into the next century. And the principles of coalition are directly related to that. You don’t go into coalition just because you like it. The only reason you would consider teaming up with somebody who could possibly kill you is because that’s the only way you can figure you can stay alive” (Coalition Politics: Turning the Century). This description truly encapsulates the very nature of coalition work; it is a life or death situation. Without a strong coalition representing the battered women’s programs in the state of Georgia, it is the very women and children we work so desperately to protect and to empower who will be most affected. Without a strong coordinated effort to change a system that allows battering to occur (maybe not condoning it, but definitely not taking an active stance against it), our efforts are in vain. We simply patch up the lives of one family while another falls victim to domestic violence. (Pope 1993:1)

From the point of view of those working in the antiviolence movement, at this point in the history of the antiviolence against women efforts across the United States, statewide coalitions were needed for multiple reasons, including to (1) provide a common support system for those in the trenches of the war against violence against women; (2) coordinate heretofore disparate local activities, resources, and labor; and (3) elevate the fight against violence to women and girls from one of local victim services provision to more large-scale sustained political activism. Realizing these needs, state coalitions began to emerge and proliferate in the late 1970s and early 1980s. By the middle of the 1990s, state coalitions had become an integral component of the feminist response to violence. Staggenborg’s (1986, 1991) research on the work of coalitions in the prochoice movement suggests that coalitions are likely to form under conditions of exceptional opportunity or threat. In the case of the antiviolence projects described in this chapter, it is clear that coalitions emerged in light of opportunity (see, for example, Schecter 1982; Matthews 1994).

Membership

Most state coalitions developed out of a meeting of representatives from various local organizations. The Arkansas state coalition, for example, “started in 1980 after an organizational meeting at Russellville’s Holiday Inn brought together approximately seventy women who worked in various shelter/project capacities throughout the state.” This meeting ultimately resulted in the formation of the Arkansas Coalition Against Violence to Women and Children. According to one of their flyers:

ACAVWC’s name was chosen to be inclusive of Rape Crisis programs should they like to join or programs serving both battered women and survivors of sexual assault. The Arkansas Coalition Against Violence to Women and Children is comprised of non-profit, community based, grassroots organizations which include shelters, safe houses, crisis/hotlines, task forces and battered or formerly battered women working with the concern of battered women, children, and survivors of sexual assault and their families. We represent both rural and urban areas of Arkansas.

Like many other state level coalitions, this one began in an effort to bring workers from isolated local projects together to act as mutually supportive allies. As another example, the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence “formed to provide an opportunity for shelter workers to come together and share their experiences in an arena of mutuality and support.” Similarly, a flyer for the California Alliance Against Domestic Violence explains that

FEELING EMBATTLED, isolated and like revolutionaries, shelters and organizing groups came together to strategize, give each other support and share our knowledge and resources. THREE COALITIONS were born—THE CALIFORNIA COALITION AGAINST DOMESTIC VIOLENCE; SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA COALITION ON BATTERED WOMEN and the WESTERN STATES SHELTER NETWORK. And Finally [in 1980], following a great deal of discussion and planning during the year, the CALIFORNIA ALLIANCE AGAINST DOMESTIC VIOLENCE was born as the coalition of the five major coalitions in the state: NORTHERN CALIFORNIA SHELTER SERVICES, CENTRAL CALIFORNIA COALITION ON DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA COALITION ON BATTERED WOMEN, CALIFORNIA WOMEN OF COLOR UNITED AGAINST DOMESTIC VIOLENCE and the WESTER...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• I. A New View of Hate-Motivated Violence
• II. Violence Against Gays and Lesbians
• III. Violence Against Women
• IV. Conclusion
• Appendix A Gay- and Lesbian-Sponsored Antiviolence Projects in the United States
• Appendix B An Overview of the Organizational Field
• References
• Statutes Cited
• Index