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Rebekkah Adams, Glass Houses: Saving Feminist Anti-Violence Agencies from Self-Destruction.

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Rebekkah Adams, Glass Houses: Saving Feminist Anti-Violence Agencies from Self-Destruction (Halifax and Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing 2008)

REBEKKAH ADAMS's critique of governance and internal conflict in anti-violence agencies is based on twenty years of experience as a front-line worker and manager. Her central argument is that grassroots feminist organizations have been forced to abandon egalitarian and non-hierarchical forms of governance because government funding made them accountable to the state rather than to the women's movement and women and children who are trying to leave abusive relationships. Consequently, board members and managers with more training in business administration than in antiviolence work now run shelters and rape crisis centres, and they have abandoned the feminist principles of the grassroots movement to end violence against women. The book addresses important issues about conflict in anti-violence agencies, but too often Adams makes sweeping generalizations about board members, managers, and front-line workers that ultimately undermine the usefulness of the solutions she offers.

Adams...

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