Thus, 'abusive' men who are not criminals can be punished through monetary awards. For example, sexual harassment laws have their roots in Title VII, the fair employment provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which provides civil penalties. In the early '80s, when radical feminists waged war on the porn industry, they did so through local ordinances that declared pornography to be a form of discrimination on the basis of sex. Women who had posed for periodicals like Playboy would have been able to sue in civil court for damages. They could claim that their civil rights had been violated, irrespective of whether they had fully and knowingly consented to participate in the pornography.
Civil courts offer the second advantage of being far less stringent than criminal ones.
This is important for crimes such as rape, which are notoriously difficult to prove. Civil court requires only a preponderance of the evidence, which can mean as little as 51 percent certainty. Moreover, in civil court, the rules of evidence are more relaxed and women are not subjected to severe cross-examination. Rape cases that have been dismissed by a criminal court may well succeed in a civil one. Nevertheless, the VAWA allowed her to bring civil suit against them.