Marginalized in the larger society and the mainstream women's movement, immigrant women are also outsiders in women's shelters, where racially sensitive and linguistically appropriate counselling is generally unavailable. In this book, Vijay Agnew documents the struggles of Canadian women's centres to provide better services to victims of wife abuse from Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean.

The study looks at every aspect of community-based women's organizations, including their funding, operation, and services. The result is a detailed picture of the problems and challenges they encounter on a daily basis. Agnew uses case studies, reports, and interviews to document the work of these groups and to show how race, class, and gender intersect in the everyday lives of the women who depend on them.

Although the women's movement initiated public discussion of wife abuse, the fight against abuse is now conducted primarily by the state through its allocation of resources. Agnew underscores the tension that often arises between the patriarchal state and feminist-inspired organizations, and the resulting difficulties in bringing about social change.

Vijay Agnew immigrated from India in 1970 and studied at the University of Waterloo and the University of Toronto. A professor of social science, she has taught at York University in Toronto since 1976, and is director of the Centre for Feminist Research. She is author of Resisting Discrimination: Women from Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean and the Women’s Movement in Canada, which won the Gustavus Myers Award in 1997 as “an outstanding book on the subject of human rights in North America.” Her other books are In Search of a Safe Place: Abused Women and Culturally Sensitive Services and Elite Women in Indian Politics.

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