Last semester I participated in a law school clinic in which we represented local college and graduate students receiving public assistance. Most of our clients were women, and most were mothers who were balancing going to school, raising children, and struggling to meet the workfare requirements mandated by the 1996 changes in welfare law (the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act). This summer, I work at a clinic representing women in family court with domestic violence–related cases. Our clients are typically women seeking family court orders of protection against an abusive intimate partner or former intimate partner, and if they have children with him, we may help with their custody, visitation, and/or child support issues.

I have relatively little experience in these fields, and yet I am struck by how both the welfare and the family court systems oppress women, especially mothers. As a legal intern, the public assistance cases I worked on were never-ending battles against the bureaucratic machine that is the welfare system. In domestic violence cases, the battle is against both the family court legal process and a manipulative batterer at the other end, who has driven our client to court through his abusive power and control.

In theory, welfare is temporary assistance from the government for families in need. In reality, welfare is punishment. The welfare system is cruel; it strings poor people along in an endless series of appointments with apathetic workers who do not answer their phone calls or return messages.

Here is a typical experience of one of our law school clinic clients: A woman has a chemistry exam at the same time as an appointment at her job center, and nobody answers the phone when she calls to explain the conflict. Soon she receives a letter asking her to come to another appointment because she missed the first appointment. She cannot make it to this appointment because her son has an asthma attack. Soon she receives another letter informing her that her benefits will be discontinued. If she doesn’t request a fair hearing within a certain number of days, then her benefits will be cut off before the hearing. But what about chemistry? And asthma? And motherhood? In theory, education should be the way out of poverty. In reality, the welfare system treats education as a privilege that poor people do not deserve.

As legal interns, we looked for holes in the administrative process and prayed for the welfare machine (the Agency) to have made mistakes. We hoped the Agency sent the letter to the wrong address. We hoped the Agency alleged a missed appointment on the wrong date. We hoped the Agency were late sending us information we requested. We relied on these procedural arguments so often because arguing that poor women deserve better simply doesn’t fly when you’re dealing with a cold, heartless machine.

Women confront another type of machine in family court as victims of domestic violence. Even though most New York judges, attorneys, and court staff are educated about domestic violence, the legal process itself creates obstacles for women trying to keep their kids at home and their batterers away. As legal interns, we write petitions with our clients for orders of protection. During the initial interview, a client might describe how her batterer stole money from their joint bank account, or brought a new girlfriend to the hospital at the birth of their child, or listened in on every phone conversation she had with her family and friends. While these acts of power and control paint a picture of an abusive relationship, they do not hold weight in a petition to the court for an order of protection, because they do not constitute “family offenses.”

Moreover, custody and visitation disputes in family court may force women to defend their mothering in a way women who are not victims of abuse never have to do. Last but certainly not least, in New York, only women who are married to or have a child in common with their batterers may seek help in family court. Women whose abusers are other women, or women who are in dating relationships with their abusers, have no choice but to turn to the police and the criminal court system for legal remedies.

I chose a career in public interest law so that I would have the tools to advocate for women. Lately though, I feel as if I am holding a tiny screwdriver—the kind used for tightening miniature screws on eye glasses—in the face of a towering turbine. Whether the welfare machine or the family court machine, both systems should provide avenues for women to navigate their way out of poverty and domestic violence. Yet both systems hold women back.

My tiny screwdriver doesn’t discourage me, though. Instead, the women for whom I have advocated have inspired and energized me. Their strength and resiliency is my toolbox. Now I just need more tools to fill it up.