NCJ Number
166627
Date Published
1996
Length
17 pages
Annotation
The Women's Support Project opened in 1983 as a voluntary organization based in east Glasgow, Scotland to focus on education about violence against women, providing resources, and encouraging an interagency approach to addressing the needs of abused women.
Abstract
Two of its aims were to bridge the gap between statutory organizations and feminist voluntary organizations and to develop ways of communicating the expertise of feminist organizations in supporting abused women. The project was initially regarded as focusing mainly on sexual assault, but its work focuses on all forms of violence, including childhood physical or sexual abuse. The project also works to increase understanding of the extent and effects of abuse, including how other forms of male violence facilitate or increase the effects of abuse. It focuses on issues such as when an abusive action such as emotional abuse becomes a crime and the impacts on women whose children are experiencing abuse. It analyzes the links between different forms of violence and names individual acts of violence as male abuse of power in the context of a patriarchal society. The development of a Scottish campaign of Zero Tolerance of male violence has reinforced this message; the campaign focuses on male violence and is not directed against men. Objections to spending public funds on such campaigns should be considered in terms of the money being paid to address the impacts of male violence. 12 references