Responding to Violence against Women: Models from the European Union Link to conference press release 5-6 November 2004 Pyle Center (702 Langdon St., Madison, WI) Featured Speakers: Myra Marx Ferree (Sociology and Center for German and European Studies, UW-Madison) Aili Tripp (International Institute, Political Science, and Women's Studies, UW-Madison) Barbara Lawton (Lieutenant Governor, State of Wisconsin) Sylvia Walby (Sociology, University of Leeds, UK) Monika Schröttle (Sociology and Women's Studies, University of Bielefeld, Germany) Maria Eriksson (Gender Studies, Göteborg University, Sweden) Rosa Logar (WAVE-Network [Women against Violence Europe]; Domestic Abuse Intervention Centre, Vienna, Austria) Arline Hillestad (Co-Chair of the State of Wisconsin Governor's Council on Domestic Abuse; Executive Director of the Family Center, Madison, WI) Tess Meuer (Staff Attorney, Wisconsin Coalition Against Domestic Violence; UW School of Law) Lisa Brush (Director, Family Violence and Self-Sufficiency Project; Department of Sociology, University of Pittsburgh) Sharon Lewandowski (State of Wisconsin Governor's Council on Domestic Abuse) Kitty Kocol (Head Administrator, Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services) This conference is free and open to the public - no registration required
Conference Description	Program (the full program can also be downloaded (pdf)	Participants	Campus Map
Conference sponsored by: The European Union Center and the Joint Center for Public Policy and the Status of Women (an effort of the Women's Studies Research Center and the La Follette School of Public Affairs) Cosponsored by the Center for German and European Studies
Conference Description     This conference unites European policy-makers and researchers on the prevention of violence against women with their Wisconsin counterparts. In the past few years, a host of new studies on domestic violence and policy responses to their findings have appeared in Europe. To encourage the cross-fertilization of ideas, the workshop will focus on public policy responses to violence against women in the European Union, and the issues of prevalence and focus that they address. These findings will be compared with the issues as they present themselves in Wisconsin and the greater Midwest. Our primary interest is to engage both legislators and scholars in discussion of how to conceptualize and implement effective policy on this important topic. We expect to stimulate a productive dialogue with local Wisconsin scholars, government officials and non-profit agencies. Our audience will be composed of various local groups, including the domestic abuse unit in the local police force, the Wisconsin Women's Network, the Wisconsin Coalition Against Domestic Violence, and students and faculty interested in these issues.
Conference Program      FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 5 8:30 Introduction Aili Tripp, Associate Dean of the International Institute and Professor of Political Science and Women's Studies Myra Marx Ferree, Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for German and European Studies 8:45 - 10:15 Panel I: WHY SHOULD STATES RESPOND MORE EFFECTIVELY TO VIOLENCE? Sylvia Walby, Sociology, University of Leeds, UK [Download: "The Cost of Violence" (Sylvia Walby), "Domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking: Findings from the British Crime Survey" (Sylvia Walby and Jonathan Allen)] Kitty Kocol, Head Administrator, Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services 10:30 - 12:00 Panel II: HOW DO WOMEN'S POLICY NEEDS VARY? Monika Schröttle, Sociology and Women's Studies, University of Bielefeld, Germany Lisa Brush, Sociology, University of Pittsburg and Director, Family Violence and Self-Sufficiency Project 12:00 - 1:00 Lunch hour 1:15 - 3:15 Panel III: CAN LEGAL CHANGE INCORPORATE WOMEN'S PERSPECTIVES? Maria Eriksson, Gender Studies, Göteborg University, Sweden Tess Meuer, Lecturer, UW School of Law; Staff Attorney, Wisconsin Coalition Against Domestic Violence 3:30 - 5:00 Panel IV: WHAT CONSTITUTES MORE EFFECTIVE INTERVENTION AND WHY? Rosa Logar, WAVE-Network (Women against Violence Europe) and Domestic Abuse Intervention Centre, Vienna, Austria Arline Hillestad, Co-Chair of the State of Wisconsin Governor's Council on Domestic Abuse, and Executive Director of the Family Center, Madison, WI 5:00 - 5:15 Closing Remarks: "Wisconsin Women=Prosperity" [link for more information] (Lieutenant Governor Lawton's initiative on the status of women in Wisconsin) WI Lieutenant Governor Barbara Lawton     SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 6 8:30 Breakfast 8:45 - 10:45 Round Tables In-depth discussion of comparative research and policy issues
Participant Biographies Lisa Brush (Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Pittsburgh; Affiliate of the Women's Studies and Cultural Studies Programs, as well as the University Center for Social and Urban Research) conducts feminist research on states and social policies, welfare reform, and violence against women. In 2003, AltaMira Press published her book Gender and Governance as part of the Gender Lens Series. She teaches classical sociological theory, research design, and a variety of substantive courses to undergraduate and graduate students. Maria Eriksson (Researcher, Department of Gender Studies, Göteborg University, Sweden, and coordinator for the Nordic Council of Ministers' research programme Gender and Violence 2000-2004 [www.norfa.no]) focuses in her research on policy and practice regarding men's violence against women, parenthood and the post-separation safety of women and children. Publications in English include: "Violent Men as Good-Enough Fathers? A Look at England and Sweden", in Violence Against Women (2001, with Marianne Hester); "Men's Violence, Men's Parenting and Gender Politics in Sweden" in NORA: Nordic Journal of Women's Studies (2002); "A Visible or Invisible Child? Professionals' Approaches to Children Whose Father is Violent to the Mother" in Eriksson, Hester, Keskinen, and Pringle, eds., Tackling Men's Violence in Families: Nordic Issues and Dilemmas (forthcoming). Myra Marx Ferree (Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for German and European Studies, UW-Madison) studies transnational feminist activism and the relations between women's movements and civil society. Her most recent book Shaping Abortion Discourse: Democracy and the Public Sphere in Germany and the United States (with William A. Gamson, Jürgen Gerhards and Dieter Rucht, 2002) examines the contest over meaning being waged by social movements, political parties, churches and other social actors in Germany and the U.S. Professor Ferree’s research interests include gender; social movements and collective action; work and family; and Germany and Eastern Europe. Arline Hillestad (Co-Chair of the State of Wisconsin Governor's Council on Domestic Abuse, and Executive Director of the Family Center, Madison, WI) has been Executive Director of the Family Center for the past 20 years, and has been actively involved in developing and implementing services to meet the complex needs of domestic abuse victims. Services range from outreach in the school systems for children affected by domestic violence to rural outreach to a supervised visitation/exchange center, with specialized services for older victims and Hmong. She was appointed to the Governor's Council on Domestic Abuse in 1989 and has been active with the Council's Access Committee that works to reach and serve diverse, underserved populations. Kitty Kocol (Division Administrator, Children and Family Services, Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services) is head of a team responsible for ensuring that practices and polices in child welfare keep children safe, move them towards permanent homes, and enhance their well being. The Division is also responsible for the work of the Milwaukee Bureau of Child Welfare and for licensing day care and child care facilities in the state. Kitty Kocol has previously served as the Executive Director of the Office of Crime Victim Services in the Wisconsin Department of Justice, and as the Executive Director of the Task Force on Family Violence in Milwaukee. Barbara Lawton (Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor) was elected as Wisconsin's first woman Lieutenant Governor in 2002. She was a founding member of the Educational Resource Foundation and then a founding trustee of the Greater Green Bay Area Community Foundation. She has served on the Planned Parenthood Advocates-Wisconsin Board and helped to found Latinos Unidos and Green Bay's Multicultural Center. She served on the first Advisory Board to Entrepreneurs of Color and was the recipient of the Fort Howard Foundation's first Humanitarian Award. She served on the "Citizens' Panel for a Clean Elections Option" (later known as the "Heffernan Commission") and continues to lead work toward genuine campaign finance reform in Wisconsin. Sharon Lewandowski (Domestic Abuse Program Coordinator for the Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services, and State of Wisconsin Governor's Council on Domestic Abuse) manages the $8 million in funding that is provided for domestic abuse programs around the state. She is also active in legislative and policy work related to domestic abuse issues. Her most current projects include efforts to improve collaboration between domestic violence and child welfare programs and efforts to design services for deaf women. She is also the staff person for the Governor's Council on Domestic Abuse. Rosa Logar (WAVE-Network [Women against Violence Europe], and Wiener Interventionsstelle gegen Gewalt in der Familie [Domestic Abuse Intervention Centre], Vienna, Austria) is a national and international women's human rights activist. She was one of the founders of the first Austrian women's shelter (1978), as well as a co-founder of the WAVE-Network (1994). Since 1990 she has lectured at the School for Social Work in Vienna. She is the director of the Domestic Violence Intervention Program in Vienna (founded in 1998) and in 1994-96 helped draft the new Domestic Violence Bill in Austria. She has written numerous articles, as well as information and training materials, and is co-author and co-editor of several books on violence against women and children. She is currently participating in the EU research project Coordinated Action on Human Rights Violation (CAHRV) based at the University of Osnabrück, Germany. Tess Meuer (Staff Attorney for the Wisconsin Coalition Against Domestic Violence [WCADV] and lecturer at the UW-Madison and Marquette University Law Schools) previously worked for the Wisconsin Department of Justice in the Office of Crime Victim Services and served as the Executive Director of the Wisconsin Equal Justice Task Force (a statewide group appointed by the Wisconsin Supreme Court Chief Justice to investigate gender bias in Wisconsin's legal system). Prior to that she worked as a legal advocate for battered women. She co-authored Legal Manual for Sexual Assault Advocates (Wisconsin Coalition Against Sexual Assault, 1994), and has written articles on domestic violence in later life for the Wisconsin Lawyer and the national Elder Law Journal. She has served on the State Bar's Commission on Violence and as a member of the Wisconsin Supreme Court's Gender Neutrality Committee. Monika Schröttle (Researcher, Sociology and Women's Studies, University of Bielefeld, Germany) is a specialist in the field of gender-related violence research. Together with Prof. Dr. Ursula Müller she was project director for the first large-scale German representative survey on violence against women. She has studied the extent, causes, and socio-political background of violence against women in intimate relationships in the former East Germany in the process of system transformation. She is currently involved in developing national and international networks in the field of violence research. She is also co-coordinator of a European subnetwork on prevalence and health impact research, which is part of the EU's CAHRV research project (see above). Aili Tripp (Associate Dean of International Studies, Director of the Women's Studies Research Center, and Professor of Political Science and Women's Studies, UW-Madison) is author of Women and Politics in Uganda (2000) and has edited Sub-Saharan Africa: The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Women's Issues Worldwide (2003), and co-edited The Women's Movement in Uganda: History, Challenges and Prospects (2002). She has also published articles and book chapters on women and politics in Africa; women's responses to economic reform; and transformations of associational life in Africa. She is currently co-authoring a book on the political impact of women's movements in Africa. Her teaching and research interests are in African politics, comparative politics, and gender studies in an international context. Sylvia Walby (Professor of Sociology, School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Leeds, UK) has previously been Professor of Sociology at the University of Bristol and also the founding Director of the Gender Institute at the London School of Economics. Books include Gender Transformations (1997), Theorising Patriarchy (1990), and Patriarchy at Work (1986). She is currently working on a programme of research on globalisation to be published as Complex Modernities and Globalisation (2005). Two recent reports on domestic violence are: Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault and Stalking: Findings from the British Crime Survey. Home Office Research Study 276 (with Jonathan Allen, 2004), and The Cost of Domestic Violence (London: Department of Trade and Industry Women and Equality Unit, 2004).