This film explores the social, psychological and cultural factors that contribute to violence against women regardless of ethnicity or economic background. Survivors, safe house administrators, counselors, police officers, and male abusers in counseling explore the many factors that contribute to the pervasiveness of this tragic aspect of American family life. Shot in battered women's shelters, urban and suburban neighborhoods, counseling centers, and even in a county jail where a woman has been incarcerated for the murder of her abusive husband. A Third World Newsreel production.