Bringing Feminist Sociological Analyses of Patriarchy Back to the Forefront of the Study of Woman Abuse

Introduction

Prior to the late 1970s, many social scientific theories of violence against women centered mainly on “wife beating,” were grounded in psychology, and focused on the characteristics and behaviors of female survivors instead of male offenders (DeKeseredy & Schwartz, 1996; Gover et al., 2018). For example, psychiatrist J. J. Gayford (1975) claimed that abused women themselves can be seen as deviant or mentally ill, thus bringing the violence upon themselves. As well, there were (and there still are) ¹ psychologists who asserted that many men beat, kill, and sexually assault women because they are mentally ill, suffer from personality disorders, or consume large quantities of alcohol (Faulk, 1977; Lion, 1977; Shainess, 1977). Due in large part to the pioneering empirical and theoretical efforts of radical feminist sociologists such as Dobash and Dobash (1979), however, there was a major shift in the late 1970s from trying to explain, “What is wrong with women who are abused?” and, “What’s wrong with men who abuse them?” to, “How do our society’s gender norms contribute to high rates of violence against women?” and, “Does the differential power that males and females have in our society contribute to the problem of women abuse?” (Renzetti & Kennedy Bergen, 2005, p. 2).

Feminist scholarship, activism, and practice expanded considerably since the publication of Dobash and Dobash’s (1979) inspirational Violence Against Wives and Brownmiller’s (1975) ground-breaking Against Our Will, but it is beyond the scope of this article to recount all of my feminist colleagues’ significant achievements. Still, it must be emphasized here that examinations of major bibliometric databases in the behavioral science, biomedical, and legal disciplines and other types of data show that feminist sociological analyses of woman abuse that prioritize the concept of patriarchy, especially in North America, have leveled off or declined in the last 12 years. Most violence against women authors are now based in psychology, psychiatry, nursing, and medicine (DeKeseredy & Rennison, 2019; Jordan, 2009). This is not to say that these disciplines did not also advance the field. They have, but they now dominate it in North America and other parts of the world. What makes this highly problematic is that these ways of knowing focus more on individuals and lose sight of how broader social, cultural, political, and economic forces shape violence against women and societal reactions to its many shapes and forms. There are other criticisms of individualistic perspectives, but the chief purpose of this article is not to repeat them, nor is it to reiterate Hunnicutt’s (2009) account of the importance of carefully using the concept of patriarchy to theorize male-to-female violence. Instead, the main objective is twofold: (a) to chronicle how feminist sociological work that examines the close connection between patriarchy and violence against women got sidelined, and (b) to suggest a few strategies for challenging the hegemony of mainstream perspectives on sexual assault, beatings, technology-facilitated abuse, and other forms of woman abuse.

What Happened?

The current era is best described by Pease (2019):

In the context of a backlash against feminism, liberal feminist ideas have gained dominance. Social movement politics against men’s violence informed by radical, socialist and multicultural feminism have been supplanted by liberal feminist, public health and professionalized approaches to violence prevention. Consequently, we have witnessed a deradicalization of feminism and gender analyses, strategies for engaging men that overemphasize reconstructing masculinity rather than challenging patriarchy, “a not all men” refrain from so-called “good men,” and a greater acceptance of anti-feminist politics within the mainstream. (p. 5)

The dominance of liberal feminism identified by Pease and others (e.g., Kiraly & Tyler, 2015) constitutes a major transition because of all the feminist theories, radical feminism played the most important role in contributing to the vast amount of violence against women research going on today (Renzetti, 2018). Radical feminists argue that the most important set of social relations is found in patriarchy. All other social relations, such as class, are secondary and originate from male–female relations (Beirne & Messserschmidt, 2014). Liberal feminists, on the contrary, assert that women are discriminated against based on their sex, as they are denied access to the same political, financial, career, and personal opportunities as men (Brubaker, 2019). For them, the problem of gender inequality can be solved by clearing the way for “women’s rapid integration into what has been the world of men” (Ehrenreich & English, 1978, p. 19).

The definition of patriarchy is much debated within sociology and feminism. As well, contemporary feminist scholars identify varieties of patriarchy (Ozaki & Otis, 2016). For the purpose of this article, drawing from Dobash and Dobash (1979), patriarchy is conceptualized as being made up of two elements. Structurally, the patriarchy is a hierarchical organization of social institutions and social relationships that allows men to maintain positions of power, privilege, and leadership in society. As an ideology, the patriarchy rationalizes itself. This means that it provides ways of creating acceptance of subordination not only by those who benefit from such actions but also by those who are placed in such subordinate positions by society.

It should be noted in passing that there is one subfield of violence against women research in which radical feminism still dominates, and it is the study of adult pornography and its harmful effects (DeKeseredy & Hall-Sanchez, 2018). Radical feminists are not against the depiction of sex, but rather how sex is featured in gonzo porn. Gonzo, as Dines (2010) puts it, “depicts hard core, punishing sex in which women are demeaned and debased” (p. xi). Dines and Jensen (2007) are contemporary radical feminists who continue to follow in the pioneering footsteps of Catharine MacKinnon (1983, 1989), Susan Brownmiller (1975), Andrea Dworkin (1981), and Diana Russell (1990). ²

One of the first signs of the beginning of the above scenario described by Pease is the return of using gender-neutral definitions to name women’s experiences of violence. Since the end of the last decade, we have seen major growth, particularly in the United States, in the number of feminist scholars and other types of academics who use the term intimate partner violence (IPV) (Burrell, 2018; DeKeseredy, 2020). ³ Noted decades ago by feminist critics (e.g., Breines & Gordon, 1983), terms like IPV, “domestic violence,” and “spousal violence” provide an inaccurate “mutual combat” image of violence in heterosexual relationships (Berk et al., 1983). In other words, they assume that men and women are equally violent. What critics also pointed out is that gender-neutral definitions do not address who initiates the violence, variance in physical strength and fighting competence between men and women, the extent of willingness to use this violence, and whether violence is in self-defense (DeKeseredy & Hinch, 1991).

Are contemporary feminists who use the term IPV and other gender-neutral terms unaware of these criticisms? This is highly unlikely because they and others not discussed here appear in many recent publications (e.g., DeKeseredy et al., 2017; DeKeseredy & Schwartz, 2013). Why then, in the words of Sheehy (2018), have they “abandoned the language of male violence against women in favor of ‘gender-based violence’—a term so vague and depoliticized that it can signal many forms of violence, including violence against men” (p. 251). This point is hardly trivial because the most aggressive advocates of gender-neutral language are anti-feminist academics and activists (e.g., Dutton, 2006, 2010; Straus, 2014) who assert that women are as violent as men and who are intent on eliminating major legislative efforts to curb woman abuse (DeKeseredy, 2020; Dragiewicz & DeKeseredy, 2012).

Pease (2019) contends that the language shift stems from feminist scholars and activists being pressured to “locate themselves in the dominant discourse to enable them to gain some traction on women’s victimization. This means that they have been forced to soften their analysis or omit some aspects of their understanding of the problem” (p. 5). While the intent may be good, feminists who returned to neutral terminology for reasons offered by Pease entered into an “unholy alliance” with neo-liberal states with no interest in eliminating women’s systematic oppression (Bumiller, 2008; DeKeseredy, 2020). A case in point is the Trump administration. One of its top priorities is to “reassert patriarchy” (Dragiewicz, 2008) by introducing new rules that reduce the liability of colleges and universities for investigating sexual assault claims and giving defendants the right to cross-examine survivors. Trump’s regime is also calling for institutions of higher learning to use narrower definitions of sexual harassment, relieving schools of the responsibility to investigate off-campus sexual assaults, giving schools the “flexibility” to create higher evidentiary standards, and establishing an appeals process (Butler et al., 2019; Green, 2018).

All of this comes at a time when many recent campus climate surveys show that at least one out of every four female undergraduate students has experienced one or more types of sexual assault during their university/college careers (DeKeseredy, 2018). Furthermore, the above “overhaul” of rules governing sexual assault would profoundly change how schools in the United States meet their obligations under Title IX, which is part of the U.S. Education Amendments Act of 1972. Title IX prohibits discrimination, denial, and exclusion based on gender in all schools. As well, it was designed to protect students victimized by sexual harassment and sexual assault (Wood et al., 2017).

Not only does the Trump government embrace both changing how colleges respond to sexual assault and using gender-neutral language, but it also rejects the notion of injurious nonphysical acts as constituting violence against women. It is well known among highly experienced feminist researchers, practitioners, and activists that woman abuse is multidimensional in nature. In other words, many survivors experience various types of harm, ranging from nonphysical acts such as coercive control to physical ones like rape. Referred to by radical feminists such as Kelly (1987, 1988), as the continuum of sexual violence, it was, prior to Trump becoming President, officially recognized by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women (OVAW). For example, up until April 2018, the Office defined domestic violence as:

A pattern of abusive behavior in any relationship that is used by one partner to gain or maintain power and control over another intimate partner. Domestic violence can be physical, sexual, emotional, economic, or psychological actions or threats that intimidate, manipulate, humiliate, isolate, frighten, terrorize, coerce, threaten, blame, hurt, injure, or wound someone. (U.S. Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women, 2017, para. 1).

Below is the current OVAW definition, which only includes acts of physical violence:

The term “domestic violence” includes felony or misdemeanor crimes of violence committed by a current or former spouse or intimate partner of the victim, by a person with whom the victim shares a child in common, by a person who is cohabiting with or has cohabited with the victim as a spouse or intimate partner, by a person similarly situated to a spouse of the victim under the domestic or family violence laws of the jurisdiction receiving grant monies, or by any other person against an adult or youth victim who is protected from that person’s acts under the domestic or family violence laws of the jurisdiction. (U.S. Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women, 2019, para. 1)

This definition is not embodied in official law or policy (National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, 2019), but it minimizes the painful reality of many survivors’ experiences. Regardless of whether they find nonphysical abuse to be more damaging than physical harm, women who are the targets of male violence are rarely only victimized by one type of assault. Rather, they typically suffer from a variety of injurious male behaviors that are included in the earlier OVAW definition (DeKeseredy et al., 2017). For example, 80% of the 43 rural Ohio women interviewed by DeKeseredy and Schwartz (2009) stated that they were victimized by two or more different types of abuse that exist on the continuum of sexual violence, a concept discussed in greater detail later in this article.

Attempts to reassert patriarchy in the United States certainly occurred well before Trump was elected. For instance, the claim that “women do it too” was used during President George W. Bush’s tenure to undermine the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) and efforts to support it (Dragiewicz, 2011). In 1994, the U.S. Congress passed VAWA, which is what the late Senator Paul D. Wellstone and his wife Sheila Wellstone (2001) called “the most comprehensive anti-violence legislation to date” (p. ix). Congress reauthorized VAWA in 2000, 2005, and in 2019. The Act created new penalties for gender-related violence and new grant programs to motivate states to address “domestic violence,” sexual assault, and stalking.

VAWA, due in large part to the lobbying efforts of conservative men’s rights groups, now views women and men as victims of intimate violence and sexual assault, and it allows for the provision of services to men. This is a major swing because, as Dragiewicz (2008) notes, VAWA “was passed in part because the existing ‘gender-neutral’ laws were not being enforced equitably in the context of the patriarchal subordination of women. Police failure to respond to men’s violence against female intimates was pervasive prior to VAWA” (p. 130).

In addition, under Bush’s leadership, the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), which is the research wing of the U.S. Justice Department, replaced the term “violence against women” with IPV, and it was introduced into federal requests for grant proposals (RFPs). ⁴ What is more, NIJ no longer required applicants to add social scientific theoretical frameworks to their proposals and the research requested was mainly evaluations of programs funded under VAWA using randomized clinical trials (RCTs) (Jordan, 2009; NIJ, 2007). Technology-oriented research was also a top priority during this time. ⁵ Although marketed by the Bush regime to be scientific and apolitical, RCTs were, and continue to be, used to target feminist theories and research methods as political rather than scientific (DeKeseredy et al., 2017).

A neo-liberal approach is now the dominant paradigm for running institutions of higher learning in many societies, one that monetizes and quantifies every aspect of university/college life (Donnermeyer & DeKeseredy, 2018; White, 2018). Consequently, effectively responding to Hunnicutt’s (2009) call for crafting a sophisticated feminist theory of woman abuse that prioritizes the concept of patriarchy is nowhere near as valued by senior administrators as obtaining outside grant support. Under enormous pressure to obtain external research funds that include overhead costs, a sizable portion of feminists with quantitative skills, almost all of whom are liberal feminists, do not criticize the current state of RFPs, but instead “go with the flow” and develop atheoretical, gender-neutral grant proposals to ensure their survival in institutions of higher learning (DeKeseredy, 2016).

There is another group of feminists that includes those who publicly identify themselves as radical, socialist, intersectional, or as other types of critical scholars (e.g., Fitz-Gibbon et al., 2018) who now use the term IPV. Based on her analysis of bibliometric databases, Jordan (2009) contends that this transition reflected a change in the field’s operationalization of violence against women and more inclusiveness regarding the types of relationships in which violence is experienced (e.g., married and nonmarried, current and former, same and opposite gendered). Inclusivity is essential, but there are other ways of being all-encompassing that do not unintentionally align with the interests of men’s rights activists (MRAs) and other conservative, heteronormative organizations consisting of “angry white men” who are experiencing aggrieved entitlement:

It is that sense that those benefits to which you believed yourself entitled have been snatched away from you by unseen forces larger and more powerful. You feel yourself to be left to a great promise, the American Dream, which has turned into an impossible fantasy for the very people who were supposed to inherit it. (Kimmel, 2017, p. 18, emphasis in original)

The “American Dream” Kimmel refers to is one in which White, heterosexual men are superior to, and receive more privileges than women, ethnic minorities, and members of the LGBTQ community. It is easy to say that progressive, inclusive politics and analyses are distinct from right-wing agendas, but the reality is that in Canada, the United States, and elsewhere, “Neutral terminology coupled with MRAs attacks on spaces and services dedicated to women survivors have facilitated a constriction of resources dedicated to women and a blurring of who does what to whom” (Sheehy, 2018, p. 251). Thus, to avoid buttressing the interests of right-wing men and the women who support them, more specific terms that describe the violent experiences of LGBTQ community members should be seriously considered. Some examples are “intimate violence against lesbian partners,” “intimate violence against gay partners,” and “intimate violence against trans partners.”

How scholars define any social problem helps determine research strategies that are used, the types of theories that drive data collection, and the data analysis techniques selected. Definitions are, then, “primal sociological acts or decisions” (Ellis, 1987, p. 210). As IPV now dominates the definitional discourse on violence against women, it is not surprising that the overwhelming bulk of research about private violence that appears in major journals based in the United States is atheoretical and constitutes what Mills (1959) calls abstracted empiricism (e.g., research divorced from theory). Consider that, at the time of writing this article in November 2019, no theories were mentioned in the titles of all nine articles that appeared in what was then the latest issue of Psychology of Violence (Volume 9, Number 6, 2019). The same can be said about all six articles that appeared in what was at the same time the latest issue of the Journal of Interpersonal Violence (Volume 34, Issue 23–24, 2019). These two journals are widely read and cited, and they devote much space to offline and online intimate violence, but nowhere to be found in the recent issues I examined is the word “feminist.” As well, one would be hard pressed to find a speculative theory piece, one that does not include analyses of original or secondary quantitative data, in any of the leading mainstream violence journals in the United States. My very first journal article (see DeKeseredy, 1988) was such an offering, and the outlet where it appears (Journal of Family Violence) no longer seems interested in speculative theory pieces, as demonstrated by the list of recent articles found at the journal’s website. ⁶

This is not to say, however, that every U.S.-based journal relevant to this discussion is atheoretical or gender-blind. Fortunately, the peer-reviewed periodical Violence Against Women, edited by feminist scholar Claire Renzetti, routinely features tests of theories and feminist analyses of various types of woman abuse. So does the journal Feminist Criminology. And, of course, there are still journals produced in the United States that are decidedly dedicated to feminist analyses of a myriad of issues (e.g., Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society). There are also European-based journals that are very receptive to feminist theoretical and empirical offerings, such as the Journal of Gender-Based Violence and the British Journal of Criminology. Published in Australia, so is the International Journal of Crime, Justice and Social Democracy. Other venues could easily be mentioned here, but the point remains that feminist sociological theoretical work that prioritizes patriarchy is shut out by newer and older more conservative ways of knowing. This problem warrants much attention and a major collective response because, in the words of Pease (2019), “When we allow one paradigm to dominate the discourse about violence against women, a regime of truth is established, and other theoretical approaches are marginalized and excluded to the point of ignoring their existence” (p. 5).

Certainly, if you were not familiar with feminist theories of violence against women, or of other social problems for that matter, you would not know that radical, Marxist, post-modernist, or any other type of feminist theory in the field existed from reading Violence and Victims, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, Psychology of Violence, the Journal of Family Violence, and other orthodox periodicals. Also, there are some peer-reviewed journals that are explicitly anti-feminist and their editorial boards claim that the importance of gender and patriarchy needs to be proved, rather than disproved. Partner Abuse is a prime example. Its website says:

Partner Abuse seeks to advance research treatment and policy on partner abuse in new directions. A basic premise of the journal is that partner abuse and family violence is a human problem and that the particular role of gender in the etiology, perpetration and consequences of emotional and physical partner abuse cannot be assumed, but rather must be subjected to the same empirical scrutiny as any other factor. Just as treatment decisions ought to be based on sound assessment protocols, policies on partner abuse ought to be based on an understanding of the full range of available research, without regard to political considerations. The journal is therefore open to original research papers and articles on controversial subjects such as mutual abuse, family violence, female perpetrators, male victims, alternative types of batterer intervention programs, couples and family counselling, and the limitations of current arrest and prosecution policies such as mandatory arrest and one-size-fits-all mandated batterer treatment. (Partner Abuse New Directions in Research, Intervention, and Policy, n.d.)

“All writing is political” (Sartre, 1964, p. 29) and by denouncing feminist approaches and advancing conservative ones, Partner Abuse’s editorial board is engaged in a process of anti-feminist activism and trying to advance its own political agenda. It supports the goals and objectives of MRAs and other right-wing movements determined to minimize the severity of male-to-female violence and other highly injurious symptoms of patriarchal control and domination. This cohort and similar ones are succeeding because, returning to Pease (2019), “gender analyses of violence against women have been depoliticized and accommodated to neo-liberal government policy discourses” (p. 6). What is to be done? It is answers to this question to which I turn to next.

Moving Feminist Sociological Analyses Forward

For feminism to advance within the sociological study of violence against women and other fields, it is necessary to continue conducting new empirical and theoretical work that both “resurrects the concept of patriarchy” (Hunnicutt, 2009) and avoids simply espousing “oppositional rhetoric” about orthodox social science (Carlen, 2011). Feminisms that highlight patriarchy do not have to justify their existence, have much to offer, and open up new avenues of exploration. Yet, they are not granted equal status in the extant social scientific literature on male-to-female violence. It is highly unlikely that feminist offerings will eventually “get equal play” in periodicals like the Journal of Interpersonal Violence, but there some effective ways of “getting the message out” to a broader audience, some of which are suggested here.

Informed by Currie’s (2016) call for a progressive “globally engaged criminology,” one useful technique is to develop a larger international network of colleagues and continually share our work with scholars, activists, and practitioners in other countries and within the nations in which we live and work. This is especially important for violence against women researchers because they typically work in silos where they share a discipline but not the same field of study as their colleagues (Jordan, 2009). For example, I am the only sociologist in my academic unit who consistently studies violence against women with a feminist gaze on patriarchy, and the same can be said about many, if not most, similar feminist woman abuse researchers based at other schools. This is highly problematic for junior faculty needing mentoring to help them navigate the often toxic, highly competitive academic system and to constantly remind them that feminist work on patriarchy is important (Jordan, 2009).

Such networking, thanks to the creation of new electronic technologies like Skype and Zoom, is happening, but it needs to take place on a larger scale. Electronic networking will become even more necessary as postsecondary school conference travel funds become more scarce. Keep in mind, too, that constant electronic communication with outside colleagues not only promotes intellectual cross-fertilization, but it is also an important means of dealing with fear and anxiety spawned by total withdrawal or massive reductions of state support for universities/colleges and the termination of tenure and faculty input into governance (White, 2018). Feminists based in the liberal arts and humanities, as well as other progressive academics, have a fear that is well-founded, because many schools in this current era of Trump, populism, and a rising right are cutting programs that do not have a major economic impact (Winlow, 2018). Related to these problems is that some U.S. institutions of higher education are attacked by the conservative National Association of Scholars for “harboring too many liberals” (Burawoy, 2005).

These problems in today’s academy divert much attention and energy away from concentrating on developing new research and theories and need to be effectively addressed for feminist scholarship to move forward. Maybe the first step is to contemplate this statement in Winlow’s (2018) obituary for Steve Redhead, a former Professor of Cultural Studies at Flinders University in Australia: “[W]e should think about how much time we waste on pointless tasks foisted upon us by our employers, and those we willfully take up to the detriment of those who deserve our time and care” (p. 35). Hence, we must always remember that we have friends, loved ones, and colleagues who care for us and who need our support as much as we need theirs. These people truly matter, and they can help us maintain our intellectual focus and reduce our anger and anxiety. As well, they help us stay true to the spirit that drew us to feminist work on violence against women in the first place (Muzzatti & Rothe, 2013).

There is much talk today in sociological circles about the importance of doing public sociology (Burawoy, 2005). This involves, among other things, scholars presenting sociological work to the general public in a highly intelligible fashion and learning from the nonacademics they engage with. Feminists, many of whom are sociologists, are also deeply concerned about communicating with multiple publics in sincere, meaningful ways. Moreover, Renzetti (2018) reminds us that:

Unlike other perspectives, feminism is not solely a set of theories; it is also a social movement informed by a theoretical framework with the goal of collective action to eliminate sexism and promote gender equity in all areas of life. . . . [F]eminist social scientists . . . are engaged in what sociologist Joann Miller (2011) called purpose-driven research . . . that raises public awareness, in this case, of gendered inequalities, and that produces useable knowledge that contributes to the social reconstruction of gender and gender relations so they are more equitable. Feminist researchers strive to acquire scientific knowledge through the research process that empowers individuals and groups to act to change behaviors and conditions that are harmful or oppressive. (pp. 75–76, emphasis in original)

Moving forward means being true to the above words and developing a resurgence in public efforts to use feminist empirical and theoretical work to curb woman abuse. One way to do this is to recruit more public feminists. This is not an easy task in the current neo-liberal academic environment. Many colleagues would like to get involved with political movements aimed at broader social change, but they do not have the time. Nearly all their energy is eaten up by the growing number of classes they must teach and the administrative tasks they are required to perform, in addition to the number of publications and grant proposals they are mandated to produce. Equally important is the fear of being denied tenure or promotion or not having their contract renewed (Donnermeyer & DeKeseredy, 2018).

“Rank does count” (White, 2018). Therefore, senior faculty, given their relatively safer space in the academy, should devote some of their time to the cause. There are a number of excellent role models and a highly inspirational one that immediately comes to mind is Gail Dines, a radical feminist who is, according to The Guardian, “The world’s leading anti-pornography scholar and activist.” For over 30 years, she has been simultaneously studying pornography and struggling to end it in ways too numerous to describe here. Nonetheless, one of her most important contributions to the social movement against porn warrants some attention. Dines is the founder, president, and CEO of Culture Reframed, a progressive organization that, as stated on its website (https://www.culturereframed.org), provides “education and resources to build resilience and resistance to hypersexualized media and porn.” On top of being involved with this work, Dines speaks to audiences around the world and participates in forums that include the United Nations. Furthermore, she regularly appears in the mainstream media (e.g., ABC, CNN, National Public Radio).

Joanne Belknap, former President of the American Society of Criminology (ASC), is another highly seasoned feminist scholar who deserves much recognition for devoting part of her energy and time to progressive struggles for social change. The case described here is but one example of her numerous efforts. In 2002, Lisa Simpson and two other plaintiffs filed a lawsuit against the University of Colorado. During a recruiting weekend, some football players and recruits sexually assaulted them. In their lawsuit, the plaintiffs argued that there were previous assaults by players, the university was aware of these prior attacks, and that the university violated Title IX by not acting to prevent further sexual assaults (Fleury-Steiner & Miller, 2008).

In 2005, a male judge dismissed the lawsuit. His decision was met with a major outcry, especially among the feminist community, including members of the ASC’s Division on Women and Crime. Based at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Belknap, six undergraduate students, and some feminist activists in the community confronted and challenged the university’s administration on behalf of the rape survivors. Together with two colleagues, Belknap also created a consensual-sex training program for the University of Colorado’s football team. Similar to many other women who challenge the patriarchal status-quo, she experienced some of the vicious tactics of the anti-feminist backlash, such as threatening phone calls (Belknap, 2005; Fleury-Steiner & Miller, 2008).

Belknap continues to do outstanding research and remains heavily involved in practical feminist efforts to eliminate woman abuse. With the help of progressive organizations such as Legal Momentum, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the American Association of University Women, the plaintiffs appealed the dismissal, and it was overturned in September 2007 (Fleury-Steiner & Miller, 2008; Simpson v. University of Colorado, Boulder, 2007). After that, the case was settled for approximately US$3 million, and the University of Colorado appointed an independent adviser on Title IX, sexual harassment, and sexual assault (Burnett & Vaughn, 2007).

Much attention is now devoted to police violence against people of color in the United States. The bulk of the critical scrutiny, however, has focused almost entirely on the plight of young, heterosexual Black men. This is worrisome because many women of color and indigenous women are targets of such violence. Andrea J. Ritchie, an intersectional feminist, is one more salient public feminist role model who raises awareness about this major social problem through her writings, legal work, and advocacy, not only about these women, but also around the criminalization of LGBTQ people of color. Her 2017 book, Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color, is one of her many important efforts to, in her words, compel “us to consider what it would mean for women to no longer be invisible in the discourses of racial profiling, police brutality, mass incarceration, violence, and safety” (p. 3). Regardless of whether we are involved in academic work or praxis, Ritchie’s work tells us that we should always be conscious of who we are excluding from our work and that we are not hearing their perspectives (Gilfus et al., 1999).

Like radical feminists, intersectional feminists such as Ritchie are critical of liberal feminism and cooptation, but they call for all feminists to devote considerable attention to the intersection of race/ethnicity, social class, sexuality, immigration status, and other types of inequality (Collins & Bilge, 2016; Crenshaw, 1991; Renzetti, 2018). Intersectionality is front and center in much of the North American feminist criminological literature on male violence against Black women, and Hillary Potter’s (2008) Battle Cries: Black Women and Intimate Violence is but one major example.

The suggestions for moving forward presented here are obviously not exhaustive and there are numerous other innovative strategies to seriously consider. Moving forward, too, sometimes requires looking backward and revisiting some important contributions from the past. For example, there are sound theoretical and empirical reasons for returning to Liz Kelly’s (1987, 1988) continuum of sexual violence. The strength of Kelly’s offering is that it highlights the commonalities and cumulative effects of seemingly distinct abusive behaviors and challenges the usual tendency of social scientists to theorize about other people, rather than with them (DeKeseredy, 2019; McGlynn et al., 2017). In fact, for numerous women, nonphysical and physical assaults “seep into one another” (Ptacek, 2016, p. 128). Consider that DeKeseredy et al.’s (2019) campus climate survey found that many female students experienced polyvictimization, which means having been targeted by multiple victimizations of different kinds of behaviors located on the continuum of sexual violence, not just multiple experiences of the same type of abuse (Mitchell et al., 2018).

Feminists have a long history of conducting small-scale, relatively inexpensive, local community surveys, which should also be revisited since grants to conduct larger ones will become even more scarce in the near future. Still, financial reasons should not be the primary determinants of this work. There is literature showing that local surveys provide richer contextual data on the experiences of survivors in specific neighborhoods, and their experiences may be different from those of survivors in other places (DeKeseredy, 2016; Jones et al., 1986). Consider that rural women in the United States report higher rates of all types of intimate violence than do their urban and suburban counterparts, due in part to lack of access to support services (DeKeseredy et al., 2016). This challenges the assumption that “one size fits all” policies are useful, something that local studies have told us for years.

These are just two examples of what can be achieved from looking backward. Equally, if not more, important is to, as Pease (2019) puts it, “Bring back the language of patriarchy as the basis for a nuanced conceptual framework for addressing men’s violence against women” (p. 6). It is not that this language does not exist, but it is increasingly becoming more marginalized in the academic community and elsewhere.

Conclusion

There will probably be some, or much, disagreement with the historical section of this article. This is not a problem, and there should be constructive criticism of this chronicle. As Michalowski (1996) states in his analysis of the story of critical criminology, “This is all to the good. I increasingly suspect that we can arrive at a useful truth by telling and hearing multiple versions of the same story” (p. 9). Although many readers may take issue with the presentation of events described earlier, it is doubtful that they would disagree with the fact that feminist work on how patriarchy shapes violence against women and societal reactions to it is thinning, especially in North America. As well, in this neo-liberal era, it is widely known that many who oppose feminist inquiry perpetuate myths about feminist schools of thought and are heavily involved in a process of demonstrating that their perspectives on woman abuse are more authoritative. They, too, are getting stronger every day because it is their voice—not those of feminists or survivors—that is the loudest.

There are some reasons to be optimistic, and one is the powerful impact of the #MeToo movement which reinvigorated and heavily publicized the feminist sociological argument that woman abuse is a widespread social problem. It is essential to build on this energy and avoid just bemoaning the state we are currently in. Collaboration and communication are key tools that will help revitalize feminist work on violence against women. There are, of course, other useful strategies, and a multipronged approach is necessary. Until the time comes when we witness a new surge in feminist analyses of patriarchy and its influence on violence against women, in addition to doing much to advance the field, we must also constantly remind each other that we are doing good scholarship and engage in a process of “seeing our success” (Vera-Gray, 2018). Yet, we must also keep in mind the words of Australian feminist political economist Jacqui True (2012): “Researching violence against women—the point is to end it” (p. 183).