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33 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1009 (1999-2000)
Shifting Power for Battered Women: Law, Material Resources, and Poor Women of Color

handle is hein.journals/davlr33 and id is 1021 raw text is: Shifting Power for Battered Women: Law, Material Resources, and Poor Women of Color Donna Coker LatCrit Theory invites scholarship that centers the experiences of Latinas/os while tying those experiences to the project of social justice for all.1 This Essay treats as central the experiences of Lati- nas and other women of color who are battered by intimate part- ners and suggests a test for evaluating anti-domestic violence meas- ures that builds on those experiences. I argue that every domestic violence intervention strategy should be subjected to a material re- sources test. This means that in every area of anti-domestic violence law and policy, whether it be determining funding priorities, ana- lyzing appropriate criminal law or arrest policies, developing city ordinances or drafting administrative rules, priority should be given to those laws and policies which improve women's access to material resources. Further, because women's circumstances dif- fer in ways that dramatically affect their access to material re- sources, the standard for determining the impact on material re- sources should be the situation of women in the greatest need who are most dramatically affected by inequalities of gender, race, and class.3 In other words, poor women and, in most circumstances, * Associate Professor, University of Miami School of Law. I am grateful for the com- ments of my friends and colleagues Mary Coombs, Wes Daniels, Stacey Dougan, Angela Harris, Don Jones, Marnie Mahoney, Linda Mills, Linda Osmondson, Bernie Oxman, Rob Rosen, Frank Valdes, and Kate Waits. I am grateful for e-mail correspondence with Eve Buzawa, Jeffrey Fagan, andJoAnn Miller who helped me sort through research findings. Of course, I am solely responsible for any mistakes in this Essay. See Francisco Valdes, Under Construction: LatCrit Consciousness, Community and Theory, 85 CAL. L. REV. 1087,1094 (1997), 10 LA RAzA L.J. 1, 8 (1998). In this way, I hope to meet Sumi Cho's challenge that all critical race theory work should be subjected to a kind of political impact determination test. Sumi K. Cho, Essential Politics, 2 HARv. LATINO L. REv. 433, 434 (1997). ' The meaning of this will vary from region to region, but I do not mean to imply that a single analysis will answer the question with regard to all poor women of color. Regional differences, as well as differences among poor women of color, will determine the outcomes in different locales. See Elizabeth M. Iglesias & Francisco Valdes, AfLerword: Religion, Gender, 1009

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