Abstract

Bartky explores some subtle features of legal institutions that obstruct women’s attempts to use the law to diminish domestic violence. To begin with, legal practice is embodied in buildings of intimidating size and scale. In addition, law is practiced in forms of language that are inaccessible to ordinary women. Furthermore, judges and lawyers may abuse their power, intimidate the women who seek their help, and collude with each other in virtue of gender or class connections that the women do not share. Insofar as women are unable to gain redress from the legal system for the domestic violence they suffer, they fall outside the citizenship protection of the Social Contract, argues Bartky, and are effectively returned to the state of nature.