Book Review - Violent Partners by Linda G. Mills, J.D., PhD.,

Linda Mills’ biography states that she is a lawyer and social worker and the founder of the Center on Violence and Recovery at New York University. She admits that she grew up in privileged, attending Beverly Hills High School in California.


In order to establish her expertise in the area of interpersonal violence, Linda Mills tells her tales of intimate partner violence in high school and college. She considers her family’s “high tolerance” for her maternal grandfather’s verbal abuse as part of the reason she stayed in one of her relationships past the point she feels she would have otherwise.


In Violent Partners, Linda Mills is very critical of the domestic violence movement and states specifically that in her experience and in the experience of others that domestic violence advocates see their primary goal as convincing the victim (most likely a woman) to leave her abuser. She relates the history of the domestic violence movement and a few case histories in order to make her point that the domestic violence movement is not meeting the needs of the partners in intimate partner violence. Indeed, she explicitly works to make the case that both the abuser and the victim are active participants in the ongoing abuse and by not addressing the needs of the abuser and encouraging the victim to leave the domestic violence movement has failed in its endeavors to end intimate partner violence.

Dr. Mills also relates a number of cases and research in order to support her premise that women are just as violent as men. One case history is about Brenda Aris, a woman who killed her husband after fifteen years of abuse. Dr. Mills states that the fact that Mrs. Aris appeared to premeditate the murder of her husband (she was at a neighbor’s home, saw the gun, stole it and then shot her husband multiple times after a period of intense abuse on his part) is sufficient evidence to show that Mrs. Aris was as much of an abuser as her husband. Dr. Mills does not speak to the trauma of the victim or its effects on the children. She goes on to speak about the daughter of Brenda Aris and her violent behavior as an adult as another indicator of the violence of women.

Dr. Mills cites extensive research done my Murray Strauss, an UNH researcher known for his tendency to use data without context to further the belief that women are just as violent as men. She also states (pg. 33) “As anyone who regularly watches the reality show Cops can tell you, the police often arrive on the scene to discover a drunk and mutually combative couple yelling at each other, shoving each other, and hotly declaring that the other person started it.” She also cites the increase in arrests of women since mandatory or preferred arrest policies have been adopted as further proof that women are just as violent as men.

In her chapter, The New Grassroots Movement, Linda Mills appears to promote the work of SAFE (Stop Abuse for Everyone), founded by Jade Rubic to serve “those who typically fall between the cracks of domestic violence services: straight men, gays and lesbians, teens, and the elderly”; SAFE New Hampshire founded by Lee Newman who specifically states he feels like “a watchdog” to ensure that domestic violence advocates in New Hampshire are doing their job; and Violence Anonymous, a program that uses the 12 Step model of Alcoholics Anonymous, and encourages the attendance of couples.


Dr. Mills also encourages couples counseling (long considered risky for survivors by the domestic violence movement) and other group programs including peacemaking and healing circles for anyone involved in a violence relationship.

Linda Mills denies that she blames the victims, but states the following (pg. 204) “the problem is: that batters as adults were usually victims as children, we teach men to become abusive – they aren’t born that way; and that all of us, men and women, are responsible for making people violent. I also started to recognize that many of us were far more complicit that we realized in contributing somehow to a violent dynamic – that mothers and wives, as often as fathers and husbands, could do an enormous amount to reduce violence if we were willing to understand how we all played a role in it.”

Amidst her criticism of the domestic violence movement, her promotion of alternative “new grassroots movements” and her own healing/peacemaking circles, Linda Mills does an injustice to the many victims who have been empowered and led to the road of recovery by the advocates in domestic violence programs throughout the country. She does not appear to encourage dialogue with the domestic violence programs and she is strongly supported by many of the father and men’s rights groups throughout the country.

There may be a place for the type of information she is providing but she appears to be making broad generalizations based on one-sided (and sometimes shoddy anecdotal i.e. Cops) research in order to justify the abuse that occurred in her own life. It is concerning that she is receiving so much press and media coverage (she has appeared on Oprah and the O’Reilly Factor) without representation by the domestic violence movement.