The Anti-Rape and Battered Women’s Movements of the 1970s and 1980s

The anti-rape and battered women’s movements of the 1970s and 1980s grew out of the women’s liberation movement. Early grassroots organizing around responding to rape and domestic violence relied heavily on community-based strategies including the creation of shelters and safe houses and feminist self-defense classes. Using the new vocabulary of the women’s liberation movement, feminist advocates soon began to critique existing rape and domestic violence law. Some advocates moved away from the grassroots community-based strategies to push for greater state intervention in rape and domestic violence via the criminal legal system. But the movement was not united in embracing such strategies. Feminist organizing reflected the tensions between competing visions of the role of the state in addressing gender-based violence., With the passage of the Violence Against Women Act in 1994, feminists favoring state intervention had successfully implemented their carceral agenda—a policy choice that is being reexamined today.