Families and Violence

1
Families and Violence

• Domestic Violence
• Marital Rape

2

• Domestic violence is the leading cause of injury
  to women between ages 15 and 44 in the United
  States - more than car accidents, muggings, and
  rapes combined.

3
The Problem

• Every 9 seconds a women is beaten in the United
  States.  
• Between 3 and 4 million women are battered each
  year.
• 85-95 of all domestic violence victims are
  female.
• Women age 20 - 34 endure the highest rates of
  domestic violence.
•  Domestic violence is the leading cause of injury
  to women.

4
The Problem (Cont.)

• Although only 572,000 reports of assault by
  intimates are officially reported to federal
  officials each year, the most conservative
  estimates indicate two to four million women of
  all races and classes are battered each year. At
  least 170,000 of those violent incidents are
  serious enough to require hospitalization,
  emergency room care or a doctor's attention.

5

• Women of all cultures, races, occupations, income
  levels, and ages are battered - by husbands,
  boyfriends, lovers, and partners. (Surgeon
  General Antonia Novello, as quoted in Domestic
  Violence Battered Women, publication of the
  Reference Department of the Cambridge Public
  Library, Cambridge, MA)

6
Relations of Privilege Within Families-

• Violence as a means of social control
• Violence as a reassertion of privilege
• Violence as entitlement
• Violence and masculinity

7
Understanding Family Violence-The Gender Component

• Men's violence against women and children is the
  most common form of domestic violence in American
  society.
• Men assaulting their women partners comprise
  between 86 and 98 of family violence-related
  arrests.
• About 1/3 of women report being the victims of
  domestic violence

8
Violence and Masculinity The Triad of Mens
Violence (Kaufman)

• 1) Violence Against Women
• 2) Violence Against Other Men
• 3) Violence Against the Self
• Mens Violence reinforces domination over women.
• Masculinity is fragile. With it comes privilege.
  Violence sustains and bolsters these privileges.

9
Victimization and Gender

• Over two-thirds of violent victimizations against
  women were committed by someone known to them
• 31 of female victims reported that the offender
  was a stranger.
• Approximately 28 were intimates such as husbands
  or boyfriends
• 35 were acquaintances
• The remaining 5 were other relatives.
• In contrast, victimizations by intimates and
  other relatives accounted for only 5 of all
  violent victimizations against men.
• Men were significantly more likely to have been
  victimized by acquaintances (50) or strangers
  (44) than by intimates or other relatives.)
• (Ronet Bachman Ph.D., U.S. Department of Justice
  Bureau of Justice Statistics, "Violence Against
  Women A National Crime Victimization Survey
  Report," January 1994, p. 1)

10

• Annually, compared to males, females experienced
  over 10 times as many incidents of violence by an
  intimate.
• On average each year, women experienced 572,032
  violent victimizations at the hands of an
  intimate, compared to 48,983 incidents committed
  against men. (Ronet Bachman Ph.D., U.S.
  Department of Justice Bureau of Justice
  Statistics, "Violence Against Women A National
  Crime Victimization Survey Report," January 1994,
  p. 6)

11

• Every day four women die in this country as a
  result of domestic violence, the euphemism for
  murders and assaults by husbands and boyfriends.
  According to the FBI, approximately 1,400 women a
  year are murdered by husbands or boyfriends.

12
How Do Gender Scripts Contribute to Domestic
Violence

• How do enactments of masculinity and femininity
  contribute to domestic violence?
• How do attitudes about gender contribute to the
  problem?
• How do cultural attitudes regarding families
  contribute to the problem?

13
Women and Children

• The 1996 New Zealand Government Statement on
  Family Violence recognizes that "There are
  significant links between violence against women
  and abuse of children. One of the most common
  contexts of child abuse is a situation where a
  child's mother is being beaten by her male
  partner."

14
The Impact on Children

• It is estimated that annually, 3.3 Million
  children witness the abuse their mother or female
  care-taker.
• Violent juvenile offenders are four times more
  likely to have grown up in homes where they saw
  violence.
• Children who have witnessed violence at home are
  also five times more likely to commit or suffer
  violence when they become adults.

15
The Victims

• Women are 10 times more likely than men to be
  victimized by an intimate.
• Young women, women who are separated, divorced or
  single, low- income women and African-American
  women are disproportionately victims of assault
  and rape.
• Violent attacks on lesbians and gay men have
  become two to three times more common than they
  were prior to 1988.
• An average of 28 of high school and college
  students experience dating violence at some point.

16
Pregnancy and Domestic Violence

• 26 of pregnant teens reported being physically
  abused by their boyfriends -- about half of them
  said the battering began or intensified after he
  learned of her pregnancy.

17
Health and Domestic Violence

• Women who are battered have more than twice the
  health care needs and costs than those who are
  never battered.
• Approximately 17 percent of pregnant women report
  having been battered, and the results include
  miscarriages, stillbirths and a two to four times
  greater likelihood of bearing a low birth weight
  baby.
• Abused women are disproportionately represented
  among the homeless and suicide victims.
• In some cases, victims of domestic violence are
  being denied insurance in some states because
  they are considered to have a "pre-existing
  condition."

18
Costs to Businesses

• Each year, medical expenses from domestic
  violence total at least 3 to 5 billion.
  Businesses forfeit another 100 million in lost
  wages, sick leave, absenteeism and
  non-productivity. (Domestic Violence for Health
  Care Providers, 3rd Edition, Colorado Domestic
  Violence Coalition, 1991.)
• It is estimated that 25 of workplace problems
  such as absenteeism, lower productivity, turnover
  and excessive use of medical benefits are due to
  family violence. (Employee Assistance
  Providers/MN)

19
Of Victims of Domestic Violence

• 96 experience problems at work due to abuse  
• 74 are harassed while at work by their abuser
• 56 are late to work
• 28 leave work early
• 54 miss entire days of work

20
Is Income a Factor?

• Domestic violence rates are five times higher
  among families below poverty levels.
• Severe spouse abuse is twice as likely to be
  committed by unemployed men as by those working
  full time.

21
What Does this Tell Us About Domestic Violence

• Stress is a factor
• Financial Security is an insulator

22
Class Does Insulate, But it Allows Escape

• Violence is the reason stated for divorce in 22
  of middle-class marriages. (EAP Digest
  November/December 1991)

23
Challenge to the Class

• From 1983 to 1991, the number of domestic
  violence reports received increased by almost
  117. (NYS Division of Criminal Justice Services,
  1983 and 1991)
• How would you explain this?

24
Child Abuse and Neglect

• In 2001, approximately 903,000 children were
  found to be victims of child maltreatment.
• More than half of child victims (57 percent)
  suffered neglect.
• Approximately 1,300 children died of abuse or
  neglect during the year 2001, a rate of 1.81
  children per 100,000 children in the population.

25

• In the adult retrospective study, victimization
  was reported by 27 percent of the women and 16
  percent of the men.
• The median age for the occurrence of reported
  abuse was 9.9 for boys and 9.6 for girls.
• Victimization occurred before age eight for 22
  percent of boys and for 23 percent of girls.
• Most of the abuse of both boys and girls was by
  offenders 10 or more years older than their
  victims.
• Girls were more likely than boys to disclose the
  abuse.
• Forty-two percent of the women and thirty-three
  percent of the men reported never having
  disclosed the experience to anyone.Source
  Finkelhor et al., 1990.

26
Sexual Assault

• Every year approximately 132,000 women report
  that they have been victims of rape or attempted
  rape, and more than half of them knew their
  attackers.
• It's estimated that two to six times that many
  women are raped, but do not report it.
• Every year 1.2 million women are forcibly raped
  by their current or former male partners, some
  more than once.

27
Marital Rape

• Approximately 28 of victims are raped by
  husbands or boyfriends, 35 by acquaintances, and
  5 by other relatives. (Violence against Women,
  Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Dept. of
  Justice, 1994)
• Approximately 1,555,600 adult American Women have
  been victims of one or more forcible rapes by
  their husbands. (Crime Victims Research and
  Treatment Center, 1992)

28
The Under-Report of Sexual Assaults

• 90 of sexual assault victims who knew their
  attacker did not report the attack to the police
  (Bohmer, C. Parrot, A. Sexual Assault on
  Campus. Lexington Books New York, p. 31, 1993)

29
Vulnerability

• Persons with disabilities are at 1.5 to 5 times
  the risk of sexual abuse and assault as are
  members of the general population (Sobsey, Dick,
  R.N. Ed.D., Violence and Abuse in the Lives of
  People with Disabilities The End of Silent
  Acceptance? p. 52, 1994)

30
Childhood Sexual Abuse

• Family violence and abuse are among the most
  prevalent forms of interpersonal violence against
  women and young children -- both boys and girls.
  The sexual abuse of a child should never be "just
  a family matter," but many children are afraid to
  report an incident to the police because the
  abusers are too often a family friend or
  relative.
• Approximately one-third of all juvenile victims
  of sexual abuse cases are children younger than 6
  years of age. (Violence and the Family, Report of
  the American Psychological Association
  Presidential Task Force on Violence and the
  Family, 1996.)
• According to the Justice Department, one in two
  rape victims are under age 18 one in six are
  under age 12. (Child Rape Victims, 1992. U.S.
  Department of Justice.)

31

• Risk factors for perpetrating sexual violence
  include early sexual experience (both forced and
  voluntary), adherence by men to sex role
  stereotyping, negative attitudes of men towards
  women, alcohol consumption, acceptance of rape
  myths by men.

32
The Abuse Prostitution Connection

• Men and women who were raped or forced into
  sexual activity as children or adolescents were
  four times more likely to work in prostitution
  compared with non-victims (Population Reports
  Ending Violence Against Women, 2000)
• 57 of prostitutes reported being sexually
  assaulted as children (Farley, Melissa Barkan,
  Howard. "Prostitution, Violence Against Women,
  and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder." Women
  Health 27(3) 37-49. 1998)
• Children who are sexually abused are 27.7 times
  more likely than non-victims to be arrested for
  prostitution as adults (Wisdom, C. Victims of
  Childhood Sexual Abuse Later Criminal
  Consequences. Washington D.C. U.S. Department of
  Justice, National Institute of Justice, 1995)

33
Peggy Sanday- Rape Culture

• Rape cultures share three common ideologies
• Male Dominance
• Competitive Hierarchy
• Violence

34
Sexual Violence Rape Culture

• Characteristics of a Rape Culture (Peggy Sanday)
• Male Dominance
• Gender Segregation
• Violence

35
Solutions For Change

• What do you propose?