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Abstract
Our popular understanding of domestic violence has shifted significantly over the past forty years, and with it, our legal response. We have moved from an interpretation of domestic violence as a private relationship problem managed through counseling techniques to an approach that configures domestic violence first and foremost as a public crime. Mandatory criminal intervention policies reflect and reinforce this interpretation. How we arrived at this point, and which understanding of domestic violence facilitated this shift, is the focus of this Article. I argue that the move to intense criminalization has been driven by a distinctly feminist interpretation of domestic violence, what I call the feminist understanding of domestic violence as patriarchal force. I demonstrate how this understanding grew out of a feminist rejection of alternative theories of domestic violence, specifically psychological and "family violence" theories, and was informed by earlier radical feminist theorizing on rape. I offer this account as a contribution to the ongoing feminist debate over mandatory policies, suggesting that for feminists looking to reform the current system, a different interpretation of domestic violence may be a necessary starting point.
Theoretical explanations for battering are not mere exercises; by pinpointing the conditions that create violence against women, they suggest the direction in which a movement should proceed to stop it.
Susan Schechter* 1
INTRODUCTION
The latter part of the twentieth century witnessed a remarkable shift in the way domestic violence was understood and accordingly managed. Forty years ago, domestic violence was a private relationship problem, a product of conflicting abnormal personalities, to be managed through counseling techniques that encouraged relationship preservation. While a crime, domestic violence was rarely met with a criminal response. Today, domestic violence has become, first and foremost, criminal.2 Mandatory criminal interventions that force arrest and prosecution of violent partners reflect and reinforce this understanding. The state, through the criminal justice system, has become the primary enforcer against domestic violence, and in doing so relies on tools of arrest and prosecution that encourage family breakdown.3
This shift in domestic violence response from private to public is a feminist accomplishment.4 Forty years ago, the battered women's movement mobilized to increase public awareness of domestic violence and redefine the terms of its management.5 Part of the effort included...