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From a speech given by Rev. Marie Fortune at the“First National Conference on Battered Women and Justice” in 1988. Rev. Fortune is an ordainedminister in the United Church of Christ and founderand Executive director for the Prevention of Sexualand domestic Violence in Seattle, Washington.
A Feminist Vision of  Justice
Alice Walker begins her book, The Color Purple, withthis: “You better not tell nobodybut God. It’d killyour mammy.” So Celieproceeds to tell God thetruth about her life. In her first letter to God,Celiedescribes the rape by her stepfather. When shecries out in pain, her stepfather chokes her and says,“You’d better shut up and get used to it.” Celiewrites, “But I don’t never get used to it.”We are here because we don’t never get used to it.We never get used to the injustice of woman abuse.We never get used to the injustice of woman abuse.We never get used to it because we know it is wrong.We know it is a sin, if you will. Woman abuse iswrong because it violates the right relation betweenwhat should exist between a woman and her partnerand her community. “Right relation” means arelationship based on trust, respect, safety,mutuality of power, and protection of those who arevulnerable. The injustice of woman battering is the
 
brokenness done to the body and spirit, and torelationships. Justice is understood as what is right, fair anddeserved. It refers to the healing of brokenness andassurance of protection from this violence in thefuture. Justice is made when the victim feelsempowered and whole again, when the situation hasbeen made right, and when her well-being isassured. Justice is made when the offender also hasbeen made whole by being called into account forthe damage that he has caused, acknowledging hisresponsibility for it, and changing his behavior sothat it is never repeated. Justice is not a word that we use comfortably. It is aword which seems to have lost its meaning, and sowe seldom use it. Perhaps our hope of achievingwhat is fair and right and deserved for those whohave historically been denied it has waned. In ourcynicism, we no longer even envision justice as apossibility, or we have passed justice-making on tothe justice system. If it does not happen there—andit frequently does not—it will not happen at all. Yet we long for justice. In our anger at what we seebeing done to women. In our own experiences of violence. In our frustration at working with thewoman who wants to “forgive and forget.” In ourdespair at working with a woman of color who isunwilling to use the legal system because it hasnever protected her before. In our feelings of powerlessness when we see batterers go from oneabusive relationship to the next. In all of these
 
situations, we long for justice. But it is a longingunfulfilled—a vision which we come to accept asimpossible.It is in the midst of these feelings that I amconvinced that we actually long for healing, forrestoration, for reconciliation. We use words like“justice” or “forgiveness” in hopes that these are themeans to accomplish that which we long for. We longfor this healing from very depths of our being, notexpecting that everything is going to be made fineagain, or just like it was before, but that it will bemade right in some way—that the brokenness whichresulted from the acts of abuse will be made wholesomehow. This is what we long for whether we arevictim, friend, helper, or abuser. We long to be madewhole again. We long for justice.Most of us here do what we do out of our longing for justice. In describing justice-making today, I will notbe telling you anything inside and outside the legaland criminal justice systems because our intuitionsabout justice have been right. I want to describe,ethically, what we already about making justice. The imperative to make justice from a feministperspective is based on five assumptions:First, embodiment is a crucial fact of our existenceand requires that we take violation of bodily integrityseriously. In other words, our bodies matter andwhat is done to them matters a great deal.Second, our relationships between and among oneanother are very important.
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