The legal response to woman battering in the United States

Since the early 1970s, feminists in the United States have worked to raise public consciousness about the nature of male violence against women. Through organizing, lobbying, building alternative organizations, and rallying in the streets, feminists have demanded that male violence against women be recognized as the devastating and pervasive reality of a patriarchal culture. Women working against rape, battering, incest and sexual abuse of children, and sexual harassment in the workplace have demonstrated the significance of male violence for controlling women and maintaining their subordinate status (Hanmer and Maynard 1987; Schechter 1982; Stanko 1985).