Vol. 11 No. 2 (February 2001) pp. 80-82.

BATTERED WOMEN AND FEMINIST LAWMAKING by Elizabeth M. Schneider. New Haven:Yale University Press, 2000. 317 pp. Cloth $29.95.

Reviewed by Cynthia G. Hawkins-Leon, New England School of Law.

This book is a culmination of Professor Elizabeth Schneider's nearly thirty years of professional legal and scholarly work. Most of the chapters (or portions thereof) are revised articles previously published by the author. However, on the whole, this is not a "recycled" collection. In fact, the publisher touts this offering as "the only book about the feminist legal effort to change both law and society in the area of domestic violence."

As explained by the author, the basis for the book is a theoretical framework that the author has named the "dialectical interrelationship between rights and politics." Thereby, the researcher or advocate must pay attention to the interrelationship between theory and practice when attempting to intertwine a woman's life and personal experiences into her legal claims. The relationship between law and social movements is the core of this theory. As succinctly stated by the author, the book reflects this dialectical relationship.

The book is divided into four parts, with a total of thirteen chapters. Part I, titled "Domestic Violence as a Social and Legal Problem," consists of three chapters and provides background information about domestic violence and sets the tone of the collection. Part II, titled "Theoretical Dimensions of Feminist Lawmaking on Battering," discusses core theoretical dilemmas within her analytical framework. Part III, titled "Implementing Feminist Lawmaking," details how feminist arguments can be asserted into legal claims -- specifically claims by battered women. Part IV, titled "Aspirations, Limits, and Possibilities," looks towards the future of this feminist jurisprudential reformative genre.

In Chapter 1, Schneider begins by documenting the hard-hitting facts and truths about domestic violence. For example, from 1/5 to 1/3 of all women will be physically assaulted by a partner or ex-partner during their lifetime; while 8.8 percent of all homicide victims in the U. S. are killed by their spouses, 30 percent of female homicide victims are killed by their male partners. During any twelve-month period, approximately two million women are severely assaulted by their male partners.

Interwoven with her feminist jurisprudential discussions of the law, Schneider provides the reader with some of her personal experiences from decades of legal work in the battered women's movement, both in the U. S. and abroad. Thus, the book crisscrosses the boundary between activism and jurisprudence, and between theory and practice.

For the reader who is unfamiliar with the phenomenon of domestic violence and battered women, Chapter 2 provides an informative background. Alternatively, for

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the well-versed reader, Chapter 2 provides additional documentation of the historical evolution of the phenomenon and the severity of the concomitant present-day issues and problems. In short, to use an old adage, "there is something here for everyone."

Chapter 3, by referencing and explaining the landmark feminist jurisprudential self-defense case of STATE v. WANROW (1977), Schneider provides a vivid example of the use of so-called "feminist lawmaking." Within this genre, three categories of description are of tantamount significance: (1) "broad" descriptions of battering that encompass the entire phenomenon and no limited to physical violence; (2) "political" descriptions of battering that use "conventional statist imagery"; and (3) descriptions explicitly linking violence, gender, and women's equality.

Although clearly an advocate, Schneider is even-handed. She admits the following flaws are engendered within feminist lawmaking: (1) the idea of equal rights has not captured the scope of the feminist program; (2) the articulation of a right can put the focus of immediate political struggle on winning the right in court; and (3) because women's rights formulations oblige the state to act, serious questions about the appropriate role of the state vis-.-vis women's rights have emerged. Again, Schneider goes beyond mere theory and grounds us with reality and practice.

Throughout Part II, Schneider attempts to construct a satisfactory definition of the term "battered woman." She strikes upon the following previously coined definition: "a woman who has (or had) a relationship with a battering man." Although this definition focuses on a woman's survival skills rather than defining a woman based upon a man's illicit behavior, it fails to fully portray the violence that is steeped within the battering relationship. Realizing this lacking, Schneider thoroughly dissects the alternatives. It is interesting to note the genesis of the battered women's movement was that of "an outsider movement, a grassroots movement that developed from the civil rights and feminist movements of the 1960s."

Personally, I found Part III to be the most gratifying section of the book. In Part III, Schneider condenses the definitions, background, and discussions of feminist theory from the earlier sections and put feminist lawmaking into practice. The use of narrative is becoming more widely accepted in legal scholarship, it makes sense that narrative would eventually arise in the courtroom. Despite the relevance of narrative -- particularly to cases involving domestic violence -- "[i]t is ... widely recognized that 'women's evidence is often still suspect in the law.'" In addition, Schneider provides an in-depth discussion of the issues and concerns (both practical and theoretical) surrounding legal cases where: (1) the defendants are women who kill their abusers; or (2) the recipient of abuse is a battered woman andalso a mother -- a troubling conundrum.

The final section of the book is generally forward-looking in its scope. The author admits the need for increased state involvement and reform, while being sensitive to feminist activists' skepticism of a patriarchal system. Using the "textbook" domestic violence case of O. J. and Nicole Simpson as an illustration, Schneider examines the educational role of lawmaking. She discusses how the various dramatis personae in the criminal case - from judge to defense and prosecution attorneys to the jury - by their lack of expertise (or

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alternatively, a sense of denial) in the subject of domestic violence failed to portray this case as one of "femicide" (defined as "woman killing in the context of a battering relationship"). As is strongly suggested, education about domestic violence and batteredwomen has to start in the law school classroom. As a fellow law professor, I particularly appreciated the chapter-long discussion of Schneider's "Battered Women and the Law" course. There, she provides the building blocks for a successful law school (or college) course on domestic violence. She opines that, "[f]or my students, the course demonstrated the power of combining scholarship and activism and the possibility of transforming legal education from a frequently passive and intimidating experience into an active, motivating experience." It is a lofty, but necessary, goal.

In conclusion, BATTERED WOMEN AND FEMINIST LAWMAKING, by Elizabeth M. Schneider is indeed a groundbreaking work that adds much to the dialogue about the scourge of domestic violence and the matter of battered women. I agree with the exhortation made early-on in the book that, "[t]he development of a battered women's movement has been one of the most important contributions of the women's rights struggle." Unfortunately, no federal legislation was passed to address the general problem of violence against women, or to addresses the subcategories of domestic violence and battered women, until 1994 when the Violence Against Women Act was passed. Much more needs to be done and this book helps to point the way.

REFERENCE:

STATE V. WANROW, 559 P.2d 548 (Wash. 1977).