How Have Recent Social Movements Shaped Civil Rights Legislation for Women?
The 1994 Violence Against Women Act from Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000 This collection links to 24 documents, prologue, endnotes, bibliography and related links including: • The Prologue on Laws Governing Wife Beating, 1800-2000 – “‘The Rule of Love’: Wife Beating as Prerogative and Privacy” by Reva B. Siegel. It has sections on race and class bias in prosecution of wife beaters and contemporary analysis of legal remedies around “gender-motivated violence.” • Testimony from the US 1993 Congressional Hearings on VAWA • American court challenges on issues of Gender Bias • U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of the 1994 VAWA Civil Rights Provision • The passage of VAWA 2000 • “She the People: The Nineteenth Amendment, Sex Equality, Federalism, and the Family,” by Reva B. Siegel, uses VAWA as an example to illustrate ways that U.S. legal practice doesn’t adequately cover women’s constitutional rights to be free from sex / gender discrimination.
