ࡗResearch on Domestic Violence in the 1990s: Making DistinctionsThis review of the family literature on domestic violence suggests that two broad themes of the 1990s provide the most promising directions for the future. The first is the importance of distinctions among types or contexts of violence. Some distinctions are central to the theoretical and practical understanding of the nature of partner violence, others provide important contexts for developing more sensitive and comprehensive theories, and others may simply force us to question our tendency to generalize carelessly from one context to another. Second, issues of control, although most visible in the feminist literature that focuses on men using violence to control ''their'' women, also arise in other contexts, calling for more general analyses of the interplay of violence, power, and control in relationships. In addition to these two general themes, our review covers literature on coping with violence, the effects on victims and their children, and the social effects of partner violence.She wandered the streets, looking in shop windows. Nobody knew her here. Nobody knew what he did when the door was closed. Nobody knew. (Brant, 1996, pp. 281)

KATHLEEN J. FERRARO is the director and an associate professor of women's studies at Arizona State University. She has been a scholar-activist in the area of violence against women for twenty-five years and is currently writing a book on the relationship between intimate violence and women's criminality to be published with Northeastern University Press (2004). She is a member of the Board of the Arizona CoalitionAgainst Domestic Violence and Women Living Free, a nonprofit organization serving women in prison and those recently released. ANGELA M. MOE is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at Western Michigan University. She earned her doctorate in justice studies from Arizona State University in 2001. Her research, teaching, and activism center on issues of gender and justice, specifically violence against women, the links between women's victimization and criminal offending, and women in correctional settings. She is currently involved with research concerning battered women's self-help efforts and experiences with social institutions.

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