Influence of feminism and professional status upon service options for the battered woman

This paper reports on a survey of volunteers from domestic violence agencies and social workers throughout one state. Respondents were given a hypothetical case of an abused wife and asked to rate the level of their emphasis upon several services in their work with this woman. The services were divided into two categories: those which focused upon independence and those which focused upon interpersonal dynamics. It was found that feminist ideology and gender were better predictors of emphasis upon independence than either professional status, age, gender, experience with abused wives, or personal history with spouse abuse. The finding that social workers emphasized independence more so than did volunteers ran counter to some concerns expressed in the previous literature.