3 Women 3 Ways

WOMEN, PROTECTION ORDERS, AND THE REAL COSTS TO VICTIMS You’ve experienced violence from your partner, and everyone is telling you to get a protection order. Sounds right. The legal aid representative tells you how to proceed, it might help, and it doesn’t cost anything. Or does it?          Two researchers looked at whether getting a protection order had any impact on women’s earnings, and their findings may be a shock. And those findings covered six years of women’s earnings. Free to get a protection order? Think again. Melanie M. Hughes and Lisa D. Brush join us to look at their research and what it told them about women’s financial picture after getting a protection order. Hughes is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Pittsburgh. She uses quantitative approaches to study women’s empowerment, often focusing on groups of women who are particularly marginalized. She is coauthor of Women, Politics, and Power: A Global Perspective (3rd Edition forthcoming with CQ Press). Her research has b