Citation

Goodmark LS. Fla. State Univ. Law Rev. 2009; 37(1): 1-48.

Affiliation

Center on Applied Feminism, University of Baltimore School of Law

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, Florida State University, College of Law)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In the 1970s and 80s, feminists led the way in crafting and advocating for laws and policies to address domestic violence in the United States—and those feminists got it wrong. Desperate to find some way to force police to treat assaults against spouses as they would strangers, the battered women’s movement seized on the idea of mandatory arrest—relieving police of discretion and requiring them to make arrests whenever probable cause existed. But mandatory arrest also removed discretion from the women that the policy purported to serve--a trend that has come to characterize domestic violence law and policy. Later policy choices, like no-drop prosecution and bans on mediating in domestic violence cases, are similarly marked by their denial of decision-making to women who have been battered. Domestic violence law and policy prioritizes the goals of policymakers and battered women’s advocates— safety and batterer accountability—over the goals of individual women look- ing for a way to address the violence in their relationships. The shift of decision-making authority has profoundly negative implications for the autonomy of women who have been battered and reflects the influence of dominance feminism on the battered women’s movement. This Article argues that the time has come to shift the lens through which we view domestic violence law and policy from dominance feminism to anti-essentialist feminism, allowing us to see how problematic mandatory policies are and helping us to craft domestic violence law and policy that honors the goals and priorities of women who have been battered.