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- 4. Characteristics Of Domestic Violence What does it mean? By Debbie
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- Rosenbaum and O'Leary reported that abusive husbands were more likely to have come from family backgrounds wherein they witnessed parental spouse abuse and/or were victims of child abuse; and that they were unable to properly assert themselves to their wives. Low self-esteem is widely recognized as a correlate of generalized aggressive behavior (Feshbach, 1971; Halleck, 1976; Rochlin, 1973), a relationship that has been empirically demonstrated in both analogue and field studies. Attacks or perceived attacks on an individual's self-concept have been viewed as an important source of aggressive behavior. The present results support the conclusion that wife abuse is associated with deficiencies in the self-esteem of the abusive husband. Abusive husbands had significantly lower self- esteem than their nonabusive counterparts, and further were significantly more likely to interpret their wive's behavior as self-esteem damaging.
- Thus, for example, in what may be the most widely cited theory of the pattern or cycle of violence, there is said to be at least three phases- the tension building phase, the acute battering phase, and the loving contrition phase - which ensnare women in a web of punishment and deceit (see Walker, 1979, 1984). From a symbolic interactionist point of view, an act of contrition is one example of an aligning action, offered in the hope of mending, if only temporarily, a break between socially established norms and misconduct (Stokes & Hewitt, 1976). symbolic interactionist - The process is further aided by our ability to think about and to react to our own actions and even our selves as symbolic objects. Thus, the interactionist theorist sees humans as active, creative participants who construct their social world, not as passive, conforming objects of socialization The symbolic interactionist perspective delineates the construction of the self and its interaction with others within social and cultural contexts; it also describes how individuals plan and reason their action and inaction with both themselves and others in society (Athens 1994; Athens 1995; Blumer 1969; Mead 1934). The symbolic interactionist perspective, on the other hand, acknowledges the free will of the actor and the interpersonal and social forces shaping and constraining that action. By offering aligning actions, social actors give neutral or positive meanings to behaviors that are "out of line." If, in turn, the aligning actions are "honored" by the offended party or parties (i.e., if others give the impression that they attach the same neutral or positive meanings to the apparent misconduct), then the aligning actions have the effect of "containing" or "minimizing" what otherwise might have been viewed as a relationship-threatening set of events. Max Weber (1864-1920) and the American philosopher, George H. Mead (1863-1931), both of whom emphasized the subjective meaning of human behavior, the social process, and pragmatism. Herbert Blumer, who studied with Mead at the University of Chicago, is responsible for coining the term, "symbolic interactionism," as well as for formulating the most prominent version of the theory Drawing on in-depth interviews with 50 white women who had been abused by their husbands or male companions, and who had come to a battered women's shelter for refuge, this study examines the interactional dynamics following acts of abuse, giving special attention to both the "acts of contrition" (and other verbal strategies) that men use and the kinds of responses that women give to these strategies. If, indeed, abusive men are less contrite as time goes on, this would indicate a shift in their perception of their violent acts. The fact that they would repent for their behavior the first time would indicate some acknowledgment on their part that what they did would be met with disapproval. Their lesser tendency to repent after the 2nd, 10th, or 50th time would indicate that they had begun to "normalize" their violent behavior (i.e., see their violence within the bounds of social acceptability). Mills (1985) described the "techniques of neutralization" that battered women use "to help them tolerate violent marriages." Mills (1985) found that one way that women "managed the violence" directed toward them was they used "justifications" (e.g., "compared to others, it seems my problems are small") to "minimiz[e] the significance of their victimization" (p. 109). Finally, Ptacek (1988), in a study of abusive men, discovered that he could classify the bulk of the men's accounts into either excuses or justifications. He also found that the men were more likely to excuse than to justify their behavior.
- toward wives (1979). PATRIARCHY Dobash & Dobash (1979) see abuse of women as a unique phenomenon that is caused by the social and economic processes that directly and indirectly support a patriarchal social order and family structure. Patriarchy leads to the domination of women by men and explains the historical pattern of systematic violence directed at women. The patriarchy explanation suffers from being a "single factor“ explanation. Moreover, the variability of the independent variable (patriarchy) has not been adequately specified by the theorists. In its present form, a patriarchy theory is not amenable to an empirical test. Control, the second promising theme, is most visible in the feminist literature, which has argued that partner violence is primarily a problem of men using violence to maintain control over "their women," a control to which they feel they are entitled and that is supported by a patriarchal culture. We would agree that "domestic violence" or "battering" as it is generally understood by professionals and by the public is primarily a problem of heterosexual male control of women partners. In our review of this literature, we want to make a somewhat arbitrary distinction. Some writers have come to their focus on control issues through an analysis of the patriarchal roots of wife beating (Dobash & Dobash, 1992; Johnson, 1995; Pence & Paymar, 1993). Although this is our own primary orientation, we believe that a full understanding of partner violence must go beyond this feminist analysis to ask questions about the role of control in the generation of violence that may have little to do either with patriarchal traditions and structures or with individual patriarchal motives. families are terrorized by systematic male violence (patriarchal terrorism). It is argued that the distinction between common couple violence and patriarchal terrorism is important because it has implications for the implementation of public policy, the development of educational programs and intervention strategies, and the development of theories of interpersonal violence. Theoretically, the emphasis has been upon historical traditions of the patriarchal family, contemporary constructions of masculinity and femininity, and structural constraints that make escape difficult for women who are systematically beaten. *The first form of couple violence, which I will call patriarchal terrorism, has been the focus of the women's movement and of researchers work-ing in the feminist perspective. Patriarchal terror-ism, a product of patriarchal traditions of men's right to control "their" women, is a form of terror-istic control of wives by their husbands that in-volves the systematic use of not only violence, but economic subordination, threats, isolation, and other control tactics. The term patriarchal terrorism has the advantage of keeping the focus on the perpetrator and of keeping our atten-tion on the systematic, intentional nature of this form of violence. Of course, the term also forces us to attend routinely to the historical and cultural roots of this form of family violence. The causal dynamic of patriarchal terrorism is rooted in patriarchal traditions, adopted with a vengeance by men who feel that they must control "their" women by any means necessary. As one husband responded to his wife's protests regarding a violent episode during their honey-moon, "I married you so I own you" (Dobash & Dobash, 1979, p. 94). Escalation in such cases may be prompted by either of two dynamics. First, if his partner resists his control, he may escalate the level of violence until she is subdued. Second, even if she submits, he may be motivated not only by a need to control, but by a need to display that control, yielding a pattern observed by Dobash and Dobash (1979, p. 137), in which no amount of compliance can assure a wife that she will not be beaten
- Within the "extraordinary preeminence of violence in the extreme alienation of late twentieth-century America" there has been "an acceptance of violent imagery and narrative in postmodernity" (Grant 10). The ability to laugh at violence provides a type of "anesthesia to undermine any moral revulsion we might feel about violence" (Corliss 76). If the schizoid reality of postmodern society produces fractured individuals, then violence becomes a means by which the alienated and fractured individual can experience feeling and inscribe a history on his body. Inflicting pain on the body becomes a means of exhibiting endurance through visual signifiers like blood, cuts, and bruises. Wounding the self is a way to experience the certainty of existence known only through pain. The use of self-inflicted violence fits nicely within the postmodern paradigm because its relationship to the body is paradoxical. While it is the postmodern remedy to ahistoricity and fragmentation, violence simultaneously perpetuates this fragmentation because the wounding of the body results in a disruption of the totality of the coherent bodily narrative. Fighting and wounding is the only means by which the men in fight club feel truly "alive." According to postmodernists,o n the other hand, language and reality are inseparable. Language does not 'defer' to facts, declared Derrida (1973: 138), but instead social life derives its meaning from speech acts. Rather than a conduit, language is a creative force. Language use, in other words, institutes a set of rules that differentiates reality from illusion. Rather than objective, knowledge is outlined in terms of assumptions that are linguistically prescribed. Derrida( 1974: 158) makes this point with his now classic phrase, ’nothing exists outside of the text'. Reality does not condition speech, but is shaped by acts of linguistic signification . The idea that symbols and reality are inextricably united is not new to sociology. After all, symbolic interactionists make a similar claim. None the less, postmodernists aim to expand upon how these sociologists address this issue.