Domestic violence
“”
If you're constantly being mistreated, you're cooperating with the treatment. |
| —BSD fortune[1] |
Domestic violence refers to acts of violence conducted by one member of a household against another, in most cases, a man attacking a woman. Although incidences of domestic violence have been reported in every ethnic group, age, and income bracket, domestic violence is most common in poorer families,[2] or people with a history of violence.
Domestic violence with the woman attacking is just as likely as domestic violence against men in the UK, but suffers from less of a social stigma. [3]
Contents |
[edit] Conceptions of domestic violence
[edit] Legal
Too often, domestic violence is trivialized by police and society as being merely a "domestic issue," not requiring policing by the state. Usually, police will not get directly involved with domestic issues unless specifically one partner reports the incident, this making it a legal rather than domestic matter - cases of gung ho cops fighting for women, as portrayed in LA Confidential for example, are quite rare, and often illegal and beyond the jurisdiction of police anyway. Such an attitude is not helpful as it fails to recognize the level of hurt and suffering as well as often the financial and social inability of the abused partner to leave an abusive relationship.
[edit] Religious
Some cultures and religions, including (historically) Christianity and Islam, have permitted men to "discipline" their wives to a certain extent, due to the vows of obedience made by wives to their husbands. Most often the holy texts that endorse such a thing are merely interpreted to mean that the man is the "head" of the house (more liberal interpretations take these more figuratively or ignore them entirely), but some extremes do interpret this to include physical discipline.[4] These interpretations and the manifestation of them as abuse are almost exclusively a form of fundamentalism.
[edit] Radical feminist
Radical feminists, following their general pattern, do not view domestic violence as an individual act of violence, but as a manifestation of patriarchy — i.e., a class action by which the male gender holds the female gender in place.[5]
Consequently, radical feminists take a particular interest in domestic violence, and were heavily involved in starting the women's shelter movement, to provide support to women fleeing violent relationships.
[edit] See also
[edit] Footnotes
- ↑ By no means are we blaming the victim, but if you don't seek help...
- ↑ http://www.abanet.org/domviol/statistics.html American Bar Association - Domestic abuse statistics: "Studies consistently show that at least 50 to 60 percent of women receiving public benefits have experienced physical abuse by an intimate partner at some point during their adult lives, compared to 22 percent of the general population."
- ↑ https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publications/abstract.aspx?ID=178705
- ↑ Christian Domestic Discipline
- ↑ Compare: the Marxist view of the State as exclusively a tool of class oppression.