Cruelty Towards Women

1726 Words4 Pages

Introduction The phone calls usually come late at night, near the end of my shift. Barley audible, a voice packed with emotion asks, "Is there room in the shelter," she is in danger and needs help. "Have you called the police," I know before she can answer, she has not. They never want to call the police; there is usually a reason, fear, children, or time. "[A]s many as 50 percent of homeless women and children are fleeing domestic violence,"(UNITED STATES v. MORRISON 2000). This assignment offers me the opportunity to understand the laws protecting battered persons and children and gives me the ability to offer better, more sound advice. I suspected domestic violence was a wide spread problem, when I read the following statistics I was shocked. "Three out of four American women will be victims of violent crimes sometime during their life,"(UNITED STATES v. MORRISON 2000). As a young girl in the fifties the attitude of my community was, "what went on in someone else's home was no ones business." Many thought, that if the woman just kept her mouth shut, did the right thing, her man would not resort to such extremes of temper. "Violence is the leading cause of injuries to women ages 15 to 44 ...."(UNITED STATES v. MORRISON 2000). The violent actions making this law necessary are not new, but the change in attitude and laws for women's rights are and so the legislation has become honed to fit the need for protection within the modern family. As a young woman in the seventies, I had the privilege of watching Betty Friedan, established the National Organization for Women (NOW) and reading Gloria Steinem's articles, and watching the interviews that brought awareness to a nation, who at that time, was seeking wrongs to be r... ... middle of paper ... ...States court of appeals for the tenth circuit. (2009). Supreme Court Cases: The Twenty-first Century (2000 - Present), 1-4. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.2-23-2011.https://login.cyrano.ucmo.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=19084840&site=ehost-live United States v. Morrison, Certiorari to the United States court of appeals for the fourth circuit. 99-5 Argued: January 11, 2000 --- Decided: May 15, 2000 Retrieved from http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/search/display.html?terms=violence%20women&url=/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0529_0598_ZD.html United States v. Ward.U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit. Fed Report. 1997 Nov 13;131:335-43. PMID: 11648635 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11648635 Violence Against Women Act of 1994, §40302, 108 Stat. 1941-1942.

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