Barrie Levy
Throughout this year, we will be highlighting individuals or groups that have impacted our work over the last 50 years.
Barrie Levy
Co-Founder,, LACAAW & POV Advisory Board Member
Flashback to 1971: Two Women’s Centers (Crenshaw and Venice) - consciousness raising groups – women and girls of all ages – shy, ashamed, afraid – revealing, with extreme difficulty, their stories of sexual assault and sexual coercion – believing that they were alone, the only one this had happened to, and that it was their fault. Women became allies, supports – and shared our outrage, especially as we all realized that victim blaming had led to NO consequences for rapists. What an empowering time!
Several of us, with leadership from Joan Robbins, decided to take action. The first “Speak Out Against Rape” led to hundreds of calls to the Venice Women’s Center. Women wanted to talk, and to act. Eventually some of us organized a separate phone line for these calls – which became the first sexual assault hotline, and to an “antirape squad” that confronted accused assailants who had “gotten away with it.”
We trained women in crisis intervention, joined with a mental health center to write grants to pay for the hotline, and the Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women (now Peace Over Violence) was launched, with a 24-hour hotline and volunteers to accompany victims to the hospital, police stations and courts. We gave talks about sexual assault EVERYWHERE – to let women know they are not alone, and how to stand up against sexual assault. I was a trainer, hotline counselor, public speaker, and community organizer for many years, while also getting my MSW and working as a social worker, first in a hospital and then in a mental health center. LACAAW was powered by volunteers, many of whom had recovered from and were survivors of sexual assault.
In 1977, we realized that many of our hotline callers were in intimate relationships with the men who sexually assaulted them, and I began to search for resources for “battered women.” None existed, except for Haven House in Pasadena. With Ruth Slaughter from Haven House, we formed a task force that became the Southern California Coalition for Battered Women (SCCBW), to develop resources and to train volunteers to advocate for the special needs of battered women – for safety, shelters, and responsive criminal justice, health and mental health systems. We prioritized addressing the interconnections between racism and violence. With SCCBW support, thirty new shelters were launched in Southern California in the subsequent few years, and LACAAW expanded its focus.
In 1979, The LA County Board of Supervisors agreed with SCCBW and LACAAW that City and County agencies needed to improve their systems’ responses to make women safe in their homes and communities. The LA County Domestic Violence Council was formed, and I was the first Co-Chair, with Johnny Cochran from the District Attorney’s Office. It continues to meet regularly today - for community-based DV programs to meet with the heads of public agencies (DA, City Attorney, LAPD, DMH, Health Services, DCFS, etc.) to reform their policies and practices to ensure safety for women who are being abused and assaulted in their homes.
In 1984, after several years of talking with high school students about dating violence, I published, with the SCCBW, “Skills for Violence-Free Relationships,” the first curriculum for dating violence prevention with teens in the U.S., later further developed by POV as “In Touch with Teens.” A major focus of my work has been on teen dating violence: one of my books, “In Love and In Danger” has reached teens and adults all over the world. Patti Giggans and I co-authored two books about parenting for healthy relationships.
Since 1980, until I retired in 2020, I have been on the faculty of the UCLA Women’s Studies and Social Welfare Departments, teaching courses on violence against women. I have organized and worked with a project reaching out to men to dialogue about masculinity and violence prevention, including teaching a transformative Men’s Self-Defense class at Santa Monica College. For the past 10 years, I have been working with Debra Suh and the remarkable staff at the Center for Pacific Asian Families (CPAF), a sexual and domestic violence intervention and prevention agency. In addition, I have been a therapist in private practice, and with Kimberly Nao, I consult with non-profit organizations to help them to develop antiracist policies and practices.