Intimate partner violence (or battering), like the sexism which supports and fosters it, is a practice of long standing in Western culture. From the Code of Hammurabi in 1800 BC (which decreed that a wife was subservient to her husband, who could inflict punishment on her with full impunity) to current laws exempting marital rape, legal systems conferred to men the absolute right of ownership of women, with violence and control as merely the logical extension of men’s ownership. Contemporary perspectives on intimate partner violence posit that abusive behavior is caused by individual pathology, a personal choice to use or be subjected to violence, with little regard for the socio-historical context and continuing social norms that give rise to the culture of sexism that shapes individual behavior. The consequence is a widespread failure of accountability for not only individual abusers but the systems that continually allow them to get away with it. Moving toward a successful solution to the epidemic of male violence against women requires that we better understand the “big picture” of how law and society have created and maintained male superiority and entitlement—forces integrally intersecting with white privilege, colonialism, and every other form of systemic oppression. This session will illuminate how, throughout history, the laws and regulations on men’s control of women condoned violence and restrained women’s options at finding safety; how legal reforms over the past 50 years have begun to turn the tide of this history; and how we can better position ourselves for a future in which intimate partner violence is merely a relic of an outdated system that no longer exists.