Mainstream legal responses to domestic violence vs. real needs of diverse communities.

• Position: Panel Discussion

Keynote Speaker MARCIA ANN GILLESPIE Editor-in-Chief Ms. Magazine Panelists HOLLY DEVINE Domestic Violence Program Director, Barrier Free Living Domestic Violence Program LOUISA GILBERT Co-Director, Social Intervention Group, Columbia University School of Social Work KIMBERLY A. MADDEN Legal/Social Work Elder Assistance Program, Jewish Association for Services for the Aged JENNY RIVERA Professor, CUNY School of Law AURORA SALAMONE Director, Elderly Crime Victims Resource Center, New York City Department of Aging Moderators ELIZABETH MURNO Assistant Director, Domestic Violence Law Project, Safe Horizon JESSICA F. VASQUEZ Soros Fellow, Sanctuary for Families MS. DOUGLASS: It is my very great honor to introduce our keynote speaker. Marcia Ann Gillespie has served as Ms. Magazine's (1) editor-in-chief since 1993. In addition to her role as top editor, Ms. Gillespie was named the president of Liberty Media for Women L.L.C., a limited liability corporation comprised of women investors that purchased the magazine in November 1998. (2) She brings her vibrant creative vision and finely-honed business acumen to her role as pioneering journalist and corporate strategist.

Gillespie's association with Ms. Magazine dates back to 1980 when she became a contributing editor. She went on to become a featured columnist and, subsequently, the executive editor of Ms., before being promoted to the top editorial position.

A trailblazer in the magazine industry as the editor-in-chief of Essence (3) from 1971 to 1980, Gillespie is credited with transforming the then-fledgling publication into one of the fastest-growing women's magazines in the United States. (4) During her tenure, Essence won a National Magazine Award, (5) the industry's most prestigious honor.

A vice president of Essence Communications, Inc. and a member of its board of directors, Gillespie was named one of the Fifty Faces for America's Future by Time magazine. (6)

At Ms., Marcia Gillespie has made a priority of moving the discussion of feminism forward while keeping it real with readers. To those who think they know what Ms. has to say, she says, "Think again." A feminist who wears makeup and high heels, Gillespie says that Ms. is a welcome table for a range of voices and views. Under her leadership, the magazine has reached an ever-more-diverse readership, attracting increasing numbers of younger women to the fold. (7)

We are so happy and honored to have you. Marcia Gillespie.

Marcia Ann Gillespie Editor-in-Chief Ms. Magazine MS. GILLESPIE: Good morning.

The thing that always pulls me to this subject starts out being personal. I always talk about the moments in life that mark you. I was eight years old. I was eating a bowl of strawberry ice cream with my best friend on my grandmother's porch. It was a hot summer day. Suddenly, an argument erupted across the street between a husband and wife. I guess it started inside the house, moved to the porch, and spilled out into the street. Then he beat her and beat her up and down the street. Neighbors looked and no one did a thing. Finally, someone called the police. After the police came, they chatted awhile, got back in their car and drove away. Nothing happened--just another woman being beaten.

A year later that same woman was dead. Her husband had killed her one night in a drunken rage. I remember my father sitting at the dining room table and saying to me and my sister and my mom: "You know, the terrible thing is he will be out before you've even remembered he was put in jail, because no one really cares when a husband kills his wife." Sadly, that was true.

I think it is always important to declare, so let me declare. I had a boyfriend once. I was in college. I have a big mouth. I said something that clearly rubbed him the wrong way. We were going up a flight of stairs. One minute we were going up a flight of stairs having an argument, and the next moment I was flying down a flight of stairs. Never in my wildest imaginings did I think someone was going to raise their hands and strike me. I had never been struck by my father. I will never forget hearing him say "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," over and over again, after I pulled myself up off the ground, trying to figure out if anything was broken.

Thank God again, my dear father, his words echoed in the back of my head. He said to me, "You know, if a man hits you once, he's going to tell you he's sorry. He may even cry. But if you stay, he will hit you again, and pretty soon it will be like brushing his teeth--he won't even notice."

This is not an issue, therefore, that is distant from me. I am not the only person in this room who could stand and declare having had an incident, or more than one incident. I know there are people in this room who are victims and survivors. I know there are also people in this room who have been witnesses.

Everyone in this room is committed to making a difference. I am not a lawyer. I am not an expert in domestic violence. I do not run a shelter. I do not work in family courts. But I am an observer and an activist.

Forty-some years ago, when this phrase, "domestic violence," first appeared, (8) it was a shock because the silence was broken at last. We had given an unnamed factor of life a name. We were able for the first time to look at a phenomenon not as an isolated incident, but as something that was part and parcel of our society--domestic violence.

We have created a shelter system. (9) We have created laws never before on the books. (10) We have changed the way society views one of its most pervasive problems.

At the same time, although we have made several steps in the right direction, there are still many obstacles to overcome. Newspaper headlines, like the ones in the New York Post, often talk about a partner who goes on a killing spree and kills his wife, and perhaps even his children. The Post called it "love gone awry." (11) What's love got to do with this?

Far too often we still see news reports about someone with a restraining order whose husband or partner still managed to find them and murder them, often in front of their children--another statistic, another life lost. (12)

We know, too, that there is this still very pervasive feeling in many communities that this is a private matter we should not be intruding in, and the most important thing is to let families work out their problems. (13)

In this country today, we are seeing one of the greatest increases of immigration since the turn of the prior century. (14) We are seeing more and more people coming in from varying communities in which the whole conversation about domestic violence is yet to begin. (15)

We are seeing something else as well. We are seeing a period in this country where, for lots of reasons, people are feeling silenced about a domestic violence issue. They are feeling silenced for many reasons.

"I am a woman and an undocumented alien. I am terrified of going to the authorities. If I speak out to the authorities, I may end up in holding in a detention center en route back to the place I tried so desperately to leave. (16) I'm silent."

"I am a woman who speaks very little English, and therefore the whole maze of who to call and who to talk to, eludes me because I am distanced by the barrier of language." (17)

"I am an African American woman living in this country, only too aware that more African American men spend time in jail than spend time outside of jail. (18) I worry that I am merely adding to an overburdening problem, one which reverberates on me and my community and family in a thousand different ways."

"I am an old woman in need of constant care from family members. I am being abused by a member of my family, and I am shocked and ashamed and vulnerable, and I fear if I turn in my family member, I will end up institutionalized someplace, and that is the last thing that I want."

There are lots of reasons we still see silence.

"I am a well-to-do woman living a relatively `privileged and affluent' life, and the price of that privileged and affluent life is that my husband knocks me around on occasion. But I am terrified of what would happen to me and my children if I stepped out and spoke out, losing the things that have kept me comfortable even in my pain."

We are still silent because the truth is we have cobbled together a system of protection. We have cobbled together something out of nothing. Yet, the fact remains that for many of us that system is still not strong enough or secure and it is terribly frightening.

"Why should I have to leave my home? Why should I have to leave my home to be safe?" is what women ask. "Why should I have to abandon everything I have known in order to be safe?" a woman asks. "Why should I have to uproot my children and end up in sometimes unsafe environments for all of us while fleeing an unsafe environment in my home?"

We know the problem is still larger than our solutions. Within the judicial system there are still judges who do not get it, who do not understand what we are talking about and who still want to blame and dismiss and belittle the problem. (19) And we know some thing else, that the cycle of violence does not start or stop with one person; it is a continuing spiral that affects generations after generations after generations. (20)

Whatever we are doing when the violence is happening does not address the fact that we have to get to the root of the problem. We are managing band-aids, but still not getting at why people strike out and hurt each other. We have not moved to make anger management something like reading, writing, and arithmetic, something taught and discussed from the time we are little people throughout our adult lives. We cannot just pretend that if we do not talk about the root of this problem we are going to get to the real root of the solution.

You know I am the editor-in-chief of Ms. Magazine. That means I am a feminist, does it not? I know in America today, that is the biggest "F"...