The Battered Woman And Shelters

Arguing that we commonly understand "wife abuse" and the "battered woman" in terms of standardized images of problems and people, the author explores how these images inform and shape social services for women who have been assaulted. Using ethnographic data of shelter work from the perspective of workers, she shows how these standardized images affect organizational structure and how front-line workers make sense of their interventions into clients' lives.

The first history of the battered women's shelter movement in Canada, No Place to Go traces the development of transition houses and services for abused women and the campaign that made wife battering a political issue. Nancy Janovicek focuses on women's groups in small cities and rural communities, examining anti-violence activism in Thunder Bay, Kenora, Nelson, and Moncton. She also pays close attention to Aboriginal women in northwestern Ontario, where the connections between family violence and the devaluation of indigenous culture in Canadian society complicated effots to end domestic violence. This book lays bare the aims and challenges of establishing women's shelters in non-urban areas. The local histories presented here show how transition houses became hubs in a larger movement to change attitudes about domestic violence and to lobby for legislation to protect women.

In the supposedly enlightened ’60s and ’70s, violence against women was widespread. It wasn’t talked about, and women had few, if any, options to escape their abusers. Yet in 1973 — with no statistics, no money and little public support — five disparate groups of Canadian women quietly opened Canada’s first battered women’s shelters. Today, there are well over 600. In Runaway Wives and Rogue Feminists, journalist Margo Goodhand tracks down the “rogue feminists” whose work forged an underground railway for women and children, weaving their stories into an unforgettable — and until now untold — history. As they lobbied for funding, scrounged for furniture and fended off outraged husbands, these women marked a defining moment in Canadian history, triggering monumental changes in government, schools, courts and law enforcement. But was it enough to stop the cycle of violence? Forty years later, these pioneers describe how and why Canada has lost its ground in the battle for women’s rights.

Explores how standardized images of problems and people inform and shape social services for women who have been assaulted.

The statistics are alarming. Some say that once every nine minutes a woman in the United States is beaten by her spouse or partner. Others claim that once every four minutes a woman in the world is beaten by her spouse or partner. More women go to emergency rooms in the United States for injuries sustained at the hands of their spouses and partners than for all other injuries combined. Shelters for battered women are filled beyond capacity every single day of the year. Despite the overwhelming evidence that violence in our homes is a daily reality, most of us are not willing to acknowledge this private violence or talk about it openly. Women Escaping Violence brings women's stories to the attention of the academy as well as the reading public. While we may be unwilling or unable to talk about the issue of battered women, many of us are ready to read what women have to say about their endangered lives. Considerable scholarship is emerging in the area of domestic violence, including many self-help books about how to identify and escape abuse. Women Escaping Violence offers the unique view of battered women's stories told in their own words, as well as a feminist analysis of how these women use the power of narrative to transform their sense of self and regain a place within the larger society. Lawless shares with the reader the heart-wrenching experiences of battered women who have escaped violence by fleeing to shelters with little more than a few items hastily shoved into a plastic bag, and often with small children in tow. The book includes women's stories as they are told and retold within the shelter, in the presence of other battered women and of caregivers. It analyzes the uses made of these narratives by those seeking to counsel battered women as well as by the women themselves.

Having made enormous strides since the first shelters for battered women opened in the 1970s, these institutions are still planned and operated according to local needs, regulations, and resources. There are, however, a number of universal standards, or guidelines for shelter planners, boards, staffs and volunteers. The author has interviewed a number of individuals whose work is dedicated to shelters for battered women and their children, and he supplements those interviews with additional research. This volume compiles his research through an exploration of current statistics on shelter operations, current assistance opportunities for shelters and the women who turn to them for help, and some current realities of shelter life. What works and what does not work under the widely varied conditions of actual shelters is explored in terms of setting up a new facility; potential internal and outreach services; staffing and volunteers required for 24-hour operations; budgeting issues and funding sources; admissions, processing, and counseling of residents; and overview of shelter life, including daily routines, health care and security issues; and the preparation of residents for new lives on their own.