Domestic Violence Flashcards
What is domestic violence?
What are the 4 types of domestic violence?
Sexual, physical, neglect, emotional
Dobash and Dobash
- interviewed women in women’s refuges in Scotland and used police and court records to research DV
- found that violent incidents would be set of when the husband saw the wife challenge his authority
- they argue that marriage legitimises violence against women
What is the problem with defining DV ?
- it is different for everyone
- emotional abuse can be hard to decipher
Why might DV be underreported ?
- it is hard to build a case around it because it happens in a private setting
- victims may be scared to report it to the police because their abuser could hurt them even more if they found out
Why might DV may b e under recorded by the police ?
- some police don’t see it as their problem and more as a private family matter
-they may not be able to get enough evidence for the crime to be convicted - the police may not take it seriously depending on their opinions around it
Why might an interview about DV produce invalid results ?
- depends one who is interviewing
- victim may feel intimidated by the interviewer so won’t tell them the whole story
What are the difficulties in study DV ?
- difficult to obtain valid info
- statistics rely on reports by individuals and the recording of the police
-information maybe misinterpreted or misunderstood by both sides of the interview - male researchers may receive different answers to male researchers
- difficulties in defining DV
Criminal statistics on DV
- victims may be unwilling to report it to the police
STEPHANIE YEARNSHIRE (1997) - found that on average a woman suffers 35 assaults before making a report
- DV is the violent crime most likely to go unreported
Why do victims not report it ?
- they love their abuser so much that they think they can change them
- they blame themselves for the violence
- feel they make not be taken seriously
- afraid of repercussions
Police records on DV
- police prosecutors may eye reluctant to record, investigate or prosecute cases that are reported to them
David Cheal (1991)
- found that police officers may not record DV reported to them because the police and other state services are not prepared to be involved within the family
THREE ASSUMPTIONS - family is a private sphere so access from state agencies should be limited
- family is a good thing so agencies tend to overlook the darker side of it
- individuals are free agents, so it is assumed that they are able to leave the situation
What is the dark figure of crime ?
unreported crimes
Who are the main victims of DV apart from women ?
- children
- poor people
- young adults
- those who live in rented accommodation
- drug users and alcoholics
- mirrlees (black identified)
Radical feminists explanation of violence in families : Kate Millet (1970) and Shulamith (1970),
-argue that societies have been founded on patriarchy
- they see division in society as between men and women
- men are the enemy/exploiters/oppressors of women
- widespread DV is an inevitable feature of patriarchal society and the main source of women’s oppression
Radical feminist explanation of violence in families : Kathryn Coleman et Al (2007)
- found that women were more likely than men to have experienced ‘intimate violence’ across all the 4 types of abuse
Radical feminist explanations of violence in families : Evaluation
- criticised by Faith Robertson Elliot (1996)
- rejects the radical feminist claim that all men benefit from violence against women
- not all men are aggressive or support DV
- fails to explain female violence
Materialist explanation on violence in families : Wilkinson and Pickett (2010)
- focuses on economic and material factors such as inequalities in income housing to explain why some groups are more at risk than others
- see domestic violence as a result of stress on family members caused by social inequality
Materialist explanation on violence in families : Evaluation
-useful in showing how social inequality produces stress and triggers conflict
- doesn’t explain why women are the main victims
Marxist feminist explanation on violence in families : Fran Ashley (1972)
- describes wives as “takers of shit”
- argues that DV is the product of capitalism
- male workers are exploited at work and their frustrations are taken out at home
