Equality with a Vengeance Men's Rights Groups, Battered Women, and Antifeminist Backlash

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Equality with a Vengeance
Men's Rights Groups, Battered Women, and Antifeminist Backlash
Molly Dragiewicz
Northeastern Series on Gender, Crime, and Law
Northeastern University Press
2011 • 168 pp. 2 illus. 5 1/2 x 8 1/2"
Women's Studies / Law

$26.00 Paper, 978-1-55553-739-5
$85.00 Cloth, 978-1-55553-738-8

(Cloth edition is un-jacketed.
Cover illustration is for paperback edition only)

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A provocative investigation of how fathers’ rights groups are trying to erode the gains of the battered women’s movement

This book investigates efforts by fathers’ rights groups to undermine battered women’s shelters and services, in the context of the backlash against feminism. Dragiewicz examines the lawsuit Booth v. Hvass, in which fathers’ rights groups attempted to use an Equal Protection claim to argue that funding emergency services that target battered women is discriminatory against men. As Dragiewicz shows, this case (which was eventually dismissed) is relevant to widespread efforts to promote a degendered understanding of violence against women in order to eradicate policies and programs that were designed to ameliorate harm to battered women.

Endorsements:

“Equality with a Vengeance is a clear and convincing, finely contextualized account of violence against women and the multifaceted sources that help to understand its origin, pervasiveness and persistence. Dragewicz’s work stands to combat the resurgence of myths about interpersonal violence promulgated by anti-feminist fathers’ rights groups.”
—Susan Caringella, Professor, Department of Sociology, Criminal Justice Program, Western Michigan University

“This book is a major contribution to the field of domestic violence, as no one else is writing about the lawsuits being filed by men's rights groups around the U.S. whose purpose is to defund shelters for battered women. Dragiewicz analyzes the first of these suits in depth, explaining why the arguments made by the plaintiffs are wrong legally, and demonstrating the ways that these arguments mirror typical statements by batterers.”—Nancy K. D. Lemon, Lecturer, Berkeley School of Law, UC Berkeley

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MOLLY DRAGIEWICZ is Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Criminology, Justice and Policy Studies at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology.