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Women's Studies: An inter-disciplinary journalPublication details, including instructions forauthors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/gwst20

Leigh Goodmark. A TroubledMarriage: Domestic Violenceand the Legal System. NewYork: New York UP, 2012Llana Carroll aa New York University , New YorkPublished online: 04 Feb 2013.

To cite this article: Llana Carroll (2013) Leigh Goodmark. A TroubledMarriage: Domestic Violence and the Legal System. New York: New York UP,2012, Women's Studies: An inter-disciplinary journal, 42:2, 220-222, DOI:10.1080/00497878.2013.747387

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Women’s Studies, 42:220–222, 2013Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLCISSN: 0049-7878 print / 1547-7045 onlineDOI: 10.1080/00497878.2013.747387

BOOK REVIEW

Leigh Goodmark. A Troubled Marriage: Domestic Violence and theLegal System. New York: New York UP, 2012.

BY LLANA CARROLL

New York University, New York

Leigh Goodmark’s A Troubled Marriage: Domestic Violence and theLegal System traces the history of domestic-violence law over thepast 40 years and argues that the current legal system is inade-quate: built on an antiquated theory of “dominance feminism” itdoes not safeguard as many people as it might. As an alternativeto the current system, Goodmark recommends an anti-essentialist,women-centered policy including community-based accountabil-ity programs (8). This is a radical proposal, one that Goodmarkearns by analyzing the development of domestic violence law. Sheuses both theory and legal case studies to build her narrative: it isan effective strategy, one that makes Goodmark’s criticism of thecurrent legal system convincing.

In chapter one, Goodmark gives an overview of dominancefeminist theory, which contends that women’s subjugation to menis tied to their sexual subordination (10). While Goodmark ulti-mately disagrees with Catherine MacKinnon’s use of this idea tobuild policy, she gives MacKinnon credit where it is due: her cat-egorization of battered women helped propel domestic violencelaw forward. Because of MacKinnon’s work, battered women wereno longer seen as victims of individual men, but of a patriarchalsystem that “encouraged men to use violence to control their wivesand failed to punish them meaningfully (if at all) for doing so”(14). Advocates for battered women used this essentialist posi-tion to implement “law, policy, and practice” helping to create thedomestic violence law we know today (15).

Chapter two defines and historicizes domestic violence law,which Goodmark says could have “more ambitious goals” (45).And to reach them, she suggests a broader definition of domes-tic violence is required. Goodmark cites a number of scholars on

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Book Review 221

this point, including Margaret E. Johnson, who suggests that thelaw’s “preoccupation” with physical violence deemphasizes otherforms of abuse—what Johnson calls “intimate terrorism” and soci-ologist Evan Stark has named “coercive control” (45–46). Usingthe work of Johnson and Stark as evidence, Goodman begins toemphasize more carefully the insidious role of psychological abusein relationships that turn violent.

“Deconstructing the Victim,” the third chapter, explores therole of the victim in domestic violence cases. Goodmark citesFreud, Helen Deutsch, and other psychologists who claim thatwomen are masochistic and therefore can potentially becomeattached to their abusers. This is a compelling argument, butone, Goodmark reports, that has been superseded by the idea of“learned helplessness” introduced by Martin Seligman and furthertheorized by Lenore Walker in her influential book, The BatteredWoman. The results of learned helplessness can be devastating:without rehabilitation abused women can become psychologi-cal cripples—that, or, they can become violent, going so far asto kill their abusers or even themselves. Walker compares bat-tered woman syndrome to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD);the effects of which, she argues, make it difficult for women toleave abusive relationships. What Goodman reemphasizes hereis that abuse does not come in one form. No two cases are thesame. In the next two chapters, Goodmark suggests that “separa-tion” and “mandatory intervention,” the two central proceduresof current domestic violence law, do not attend to this complexity.

Separation and mandatory interventions, as Goodmarkreports, are not flawless practices: enforced separation and draw-ing of protective orders often cause a recurrence of violence(112). Therefore, Goodmark is a proponent of legal mediation.It is a practice that relies on the idea of autonomous individuality,that each person is capable of acting in his or her own best inter-est. Goodmark believes in the autonomous individual, and thinksthat women should be able to choose how to resolve domesticviolence matters themselves. In chapter six, “Reframing DomesticViolence Law and Policy: Anti-Essentialist Principles” Goodmarkclaims that “anti-essentialist feminist legal theory provides sucha lens” for the restructuring of domestic violence law to reflectbattered women’s autonomy.

As Goodmark explains, anti-essentialist feminist theoryclaims that there is no such thing as “a unitary, overarching

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222 Llana Carroll

women’s experience” (136). This theory calls for a broaderunderstanding of women’s multiple identities and experiencesand demands a “woman-centered” domestic violence legal systemthat would contextualize each woman’s case at its most complex(141–142). Goodmark also suggests that “strategic essentialism,”a term she borrows from Gayatri Spivak, might be employedfor particular political ends without diminishing the power ofindividual women’s narratives of abuse. To make new policieseffective, Goodmark also argues that we must not immediatelycondone the men who abuse their partners without looking atthe complexity of their lives, too––men who abuse their partnersare subject to the same overwhelming variety of social forces asthe women they target.

Finally, in chapters seven and eight, Goodmark imagines whata legal system reconstructed to her vision might look like. To doso, she first narrates a case study that proceeded through today’slegal system. Then Goodmark creates an anti-essentialist retellingof the same case, imagining how it might proceed if the lawembraced some of the policies she studies. For example, “in lieuof traditional prosecution,” Goodmark’s imaginary protagonist,Karen, “might opt for restorative justice practices” instead (169).In chapter eight, “Beyond the Law,” Goodmark advocates for“justice beyond the justice system, economic stability, meaningfulengagement with men who abuse their partners and communityaccountability” (178). Of these “extra-legal anti-essentialist”practices, Goodmark is particularly invested in “community-basedtruth commissions” (179). Truth commissions place responsibilityfor assigning reparations on the abused women, as well as mem-bers of their communities. Drawing on evidence of such practicesfrom Asian and Pacific Islander groups in the United States,Goodmark claims that “achieving justice for women subject toabuse does not require a formal structure or process” (184).

While I value Goodmark’s ambitious proposal for overhaul-ing the domestic violence legal system, I wonder if her finalrecommendation might be overly hopeful: would truth commis-sions work broadly in the United States where we are used to amuch different domestic violence legal system? Can a physicallyand psychologically abused woman always act in her own bestinterest, and define and seek justice for herself? Maybe. But thepsychoanalytic theorists who Goodmark only glosses in chapterthree might suggest otherwise.

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