Today, women continue to work toward blending diverse ideologies and personalities as they seek to impact social attitudes and laws in this land. The movement has worked legislatively to see that battering and rape are treated as crimes which afford victims of domestic violence the same rights a other crime victims. Traditionally, awareness of the gross injustices surrounding domestic violence has been compounded by inaccurate information. Batterers who have denied responsibility by blaming their victims have often been supported by institutions wishing to keep the family together. Criminal sanctions are essential tools in stopping abuse and violence.
Criminal punishment is one way to force batterers to assume responsibility for their actions.
Historically, marriage has been viewed as the domain of the husband. The woman has been perceived as property of the man, bound to obey him and subject to his control. There has been little objection to a man's using force against his wife. Women are socialized to nurture their partners. Institutions perpetuate male domination, men's status is upheld by the division of labor, and women are all too often economically dependent upon men.