http://ms-jd.org/tag/domestic-violence The taxonomy view with a depth of 0. en http://ms-jd.org/stocking-my-legal-toolbox <div align="left">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.</p> <p>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.</div> <p><a href="http://ms-jd.org/stocking-my-legal-toolbox">read more</a></p> http://ms-jd.org/stocking-my-legal-toolbox#comments Internships and Clerkships Domestic Violence Poverty Public Interest Public Service Sexism Welfare Tue, 3 Jul 2007 15:19:38 -0500 Megan Suzanne Brown 406 at http://ms-jd.org http://ms-jd.org/silent-woman <p>On East Main Street in Columbus, Ohio, amidst motels promising cable television, an old bowling alley and various car repair shops, there is a dingy bar called the &quot;Silent Woman.&quot; The sign in front pictures a woman&#39;s voluptuous body--headless. Viewed from the backseat of my childhood station wagon on the way to the orthodontist, the airport, and the hairdresser, the landmark rattled my worldview. Was the woman on the sign somehow better without a mind or a voice? Was her body all that mattered to the men inside that bar, to beer-drinking men everywhere? My reaction to that disturbing image represents the earliest stirrings of my feminist instinct, which has shaped many of my life choices and fueled my desire to study the law.</p> <p><a href="http://ms-jd.org/silent-woman">read more</a></p> http://ms-jd.org/silent-woman#comments Sexism, Sexual Harassment, and Other Forms of Discrimination Domestic Violence Rape Wed, 13 Jun 2007 01:24:07 -0500 Megan Suzanne Brown 335 at http://ms-jd.org