When Is It OK to Beat Your Wife?

A version of this piece appeared on the blog for the Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

Ever wonder how people justified wife beating as an OK thing to do?

Compromising Positions: Reflections on the Violence Against Women Act

A version of this essay appeared in Sexuality and Society.

Since becoming law on Sept. 13, 1994, The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) has provided billions

The Real Choices Women Make

A version of this essay appeared on Alternet.

I leaned across the small cafe table and asked, inappropriately, “So, what brings you here?” I knew better, but the laughter, clinking of glasses, lit votives and mellow trip-hop made it feel like a real party.

Gender as a Social Institution

A version of this piece appears in the Encyclopedia of Gender and Society:

Gender As A Social Institution

Introduction

A number of theories attempt to explain how social inequality based on gender is produced, maintained and unsettled. This article takes up one such approach, looking at gender as a social institution. Framing gender as a social institution asserts

Playing Games With the Law: Legal Advocacy and Resistance

A version of this essay appeared in Victim No More: Women’s Resistance to Law, Culture and Power. 

When I began working as a legal advocate for Safe Haven[1], a domestic violence agency in Seattle, Washington in 1996, I frequently heard stories of the 1970s: the cramped two bedroom apartment that served as the shelter when Safe Haven first opened in 1976, the dedication of the feminist volunteers, the women who went out at night in bullet proof vests and plucked (hopefully willing) women from their abusive homes. The tireless women who planned rallies, ran consciousness raising groups, unclogged toilets,

The Seventeen Year Twitch

A version of this essay appears in Sex and Single Girls.  

Sandy asked the three of us to drip the grease from our pizza onto hers–she liked it extra-greasy. As I pointed my slice over hers (at just the right angle so as not to lose the cheese), Erica said, “it was incredible. Fantastic. Incredible. I don’t know what to say.” Erica rubbed her fingers under her eyes to smudge her teal eyeliner just so, then checked her work in a small mirror.