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27 Yale J.L. & Feminism 287 (2015-2016)
The Feminist Case for Acknowledging Women's Acts of Violence

handle is hein.journals/yjfem27 and id is 293 raw text is: The Feminist Case for Acknowledging Women's Acts of Violence Jamie R. Abramst ABSTRACT: This Article makes a feminist case for acknowledging women's acts of violence as consistent with-not threatening to-the goals of the domestic violence movement and the feminist movement. It concludes that broadly understanding women's use of strength, power, coercion, control, and violence, even illegitimate uses, can be framed consistent with feminist goals. Beginning this conversation is a necessary-if uncomfortable-step to give movement to the movement to end gendered violence. The domestic violence movement historically framed its work on a gender binary of men as potential perpetrators and women as potential victims. This binary was an essential starting point to defining and responding to domestic violence. The movement has since struggled to address women as perpetrators. It has historically deployed a strategy of containment to respond to women as perpetrators. This strategy includes bringing male victims of domestic violence within existing services, monitoring exaggerations and misstatements about the extent of women's violence, and noting the troublesome line between perpetrator/victim for women. This strategy achieved specific and important goals to domestic violence law reforms. These goals included retaining domestic violence's central and iconic framing as a women's issue, preserving critical funding sources and infrastructure to serve victims, and thwarting obstructionist political challenges largely waged by men's rights groups. While acknowledging that these goals were sound and central to the historic underpinnings of domestic violence law reforms, this Article considers whether the strategy of containment is too myopic and reactive to endure. It t Jamie R. Abrams (LL.M., Columbia University School of Law, 2011; J.D., American University Washington College of Law, 2002; B.A., Indiana University-Bloomington) is an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Louisville Louis D. Brandeis School of Law. The author thanks participants in the University of Lancaster conference From Scolds to Trolls: The Silencing of Visible and Audible Women (England, 2015); the Tel Aviv University Legal Theory Workshop (Tel Aviv, 2015); Family Law Scholars and Teachers Conference (Florida A&M University School of Law, 2015); University of Kentucky Developing Ideas Workshop (2015); and Leora Bilsky, Cynthia Godsoe, Leigh Goodmark, Elizabeth Keyes, Luke Milligan, Jason Pletcher, Dara Purvis, Carolyn Ramsey, Rachel Rebouch6, and Jane Stoever for thoughtful feedback on earlier drafts. The author extends a special thanks to Courtney Groszhans, Annie Malka, and the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law for grant support and research and editing assistance. Copyright © 2016 by the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism