Thesis (MA - Psychology) - Massey University, 2005. This thesis focuses on Family Court Judges' responses to domestic violence and asks how these Judges make sense of domestic violence and their work within the Domestic Violence Act (1995) in providing effective protection for victims. The framework for the research uses a feminist post-structuralist approach. Two family Court Judges were interviewed and a discursive analysis was made of two published papers, taken from speeches made by Judges. The results of the discursive analysis indicate that within the legal discourse there is a move away from valuing the role of women's groups and feminist theory in regard to the construction of domestic violence. The current construction of domestic violence within the Judges' talk tended to value the role of father's rights groups and the patriarchal familial construction of the father/child relationship. Domestic violence is being constructed more in terms of provocation rather than in terms of power and control, which is the feminist construction of domestic violence that current legislation is base upon. These differences between the legal discourse and feminist discourse constructions of domestic violence raise important questions as to how the aims of the Domestic Violence Act (1995) are being constructed by the Judges and whether these constructions are impacting on the effective protection of domestic violence victims.--AUTHOR'S ABSTRACT

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