Linda MacLeod is a freelance researcher and writer. She has written and spoken extensively on the issue of wife battering both nationally and internationally. A former researcher with the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women, she was the author of Wife Battering in Canada: The Vicious Circle (1980). Ms. MacLeod has worked as Chief of Criminal Justice Policy Research, Minister of the Soliciter General, and as Policy Associate, Family Violence, at the Canadian Council on Social Development. An Ottawa resident, she has written on a wide variety of women's issues, including female prisoners with children, victems of crime, and women and aging.