Domestic Violence is Gendered Violence
By Marie Hume B.A. M. Soc. Sc.
Domestic violence is not just about physical violence. It takes many forms – physical, sexual, verbal, financial and emotional. These forms of abusive and manipulative behaviours are about maintaining power and control of women by male abusers. (Mullender and Morley 1994).
The key component of the dynamics of domestic violence are the concepts of gender and power: Men as a social group have greater power than women and violence is an important way by which men maintain their dominant position. (Laing)
Consistently research shows us that in the majority of cases, men are the perpetrators of domestic violence.
· The Australian Bureau of Statistics found that one in four or five Australian women (23%) reported experiencing abuse from partners during their adulthood. The rate was higher (42%) among separated or divorced women when compared with the rate (8%) among currently partnered women. Within the last twelve months, 2.6 per cent of women had experienced physical or sexual abuse although women aged between 18 to 24 (7.3%) experienced more abuse from male partners than older women (Australian Bureau of Statistics 1996).
· The World Health Organisation’s 2002 Report on Violence and Health determined how globally, the overwhelming burden of partner violence is borne by women at the hands of men. (Taft)
· An exploration of all sources of data on domestic violence in Australia finds the consistent result that females are 88–92 percent of victims in most sources (Ferrante et. al, 1996: 104).
· Of the 1,253 spousal violence cases reported to West Australian police in 1994, females were victims in 91.4 percent of cases and males in 8.6 percent of cases. For women, incidents of domestic or spousal violence accounted for almost one in five reported attacks against them, compared to less than one in 50 for men. Females were ten times more likely than males to be victims of reported incidents of domestic violence in Western Australia (Ferrante et. al, 1996).
· In 1995-96 Victorian Police received 15,613 reports of incidents of family violence. Of victims, 81 percent were women, while men made up 83 percent of perpetrators. [Victoria Police. Crime Statistics 1995/96. Information provided by Victoria Police Family Violence Project Office, as cited by Flood]
· In 1995-96 there were 17,055 applications for Intervention Orders in Victorian Magistrates Courts. Of these applications 13,394 (or 79 percent) involved women as the victims of domestic violence, and 89 percent of applications taken out by women involved males as perpetrators. [Department of Justice Victoria. 1996. Crimes (Family Violence) Act Monitoring Report 1995/96. Caseflow analysis section, Courts and Tribunals Division, Department of Justice, Victoria.]
· From police records, domestic violence accounted for 13.6 percent of all forms of violence against women, but only 1.3 percent of violence against men. While from victimisation surveys, one-third of violence against women was domestic, versus less than 1 percent of violence against men. (The reason for the lower percentage of domestic incidents among the police statistics is that women are less likely to report a domestic than a non-domestic incident [Ferrante et. al, 1996: 104].)[1]
· Women are more likely to be killed by their current or former partner than by anyone else. In Australia the vast majority of victims of femicide (60%) are killed by their intimate partners in a private residence. (Bagshaw)
· Significant precipitators for men who kill their female partners are desertion, termination of a relationship and jealousy.
· Less than 10% of Australian male homicides are perpetrated by intimate female partners. (Bagshaw)
· In incidents where women kill their husbands, there has been a history of marital violence in over 70 percent of the cases, and over half of husband killings occur in response to an immediate threat or attack by the male partner [Bagshaw, citing Ho & Venus, 1995].
When men are subject to domestic violence by women, the violence is not as prolonged and nor is it as extreme, they are far less likely to be injured, they are less likely to fear for their own safety, and they are likely to have more financial and social independence. (Flood)
In the South Australian study Reshaping responses to domestic violence, a small number of callers were male victims of violence in heterosexual relationships.
Male victims’ experiences of DV differenced from females’ in the following ways;
· The men were not living in an ongoing state of fear of the perpetrator.
· Males did not have prior experiences of violent relationships.
· Violence after separation was less common. [Bagshaw)
The time around and after separation is most dangerous for women. (Pence 1989,Browne and Williams 1989 as cited in Mullender et al, 1994).
· Women are much more likely to be abused, and even killed, during times of separation and divorce (Bagshaw)
· Single women who have previously been partnered were at highest risk of assault with 42% reporting violence at some time during their relationship. Violence escalates at this time as the abuser recognizes that he is beginning to lose power and control by the separation (McInnes, 2001).
· Recent research by the Australian Institute of Family Studies identifies that 66% of marital breakdown involve violence, 33% of which were identified as serious violence (Australian Institute of Family Studies, 2000)
· In the South Australian study mothers stated that their abusive partners used the issue of child contact to continue their harassment after separation and divorce (Bagshaw)
Rather than seeing domestic violence as referring only to physical acts such as hitting or pushing, we need to recognise that verbal, psychological and emotional abuse is an important aspect of domestic violence. The vast majority of female victims in a South Australian study said that this abuse was often a daily event, and was far more devastating and long-lasting in its negative impacts. Threats of physical violence are as powerful in maintaining control as the actual incidents of violence themselves [Bagshaw).
Michael Johnson calls gendered domestic violence “patriarchal terrorism”. This represents some husbands’ practice of a terroristic control of their wives. It involves the systematic use of not only violence, but economic subordination, threats, isolation and other control tactics [Johnson, 1995: 284]. (He calls it patriarchal because he sees it as based in patriarchal ideas of male ownership of their female partners. Patriarchal terrorism is motivated by more general desire among some men to control “their” wives. E.g., so such men escalate the violence when and if they face resistance to subdue that resistance, and escalate the violence to display that control. As cited by Flood)
Bibliograpy
Laing, L. (2003) Responding to men who perpetrate domestic violence: Controversies, interventions and challenges (Australia Domestic Violence Clearinghouse. Issues Paper No. 7)
McInnes, E. (2001) ‘Single Mothers, Social Policy and Gendered Violence’ Paper presented to ‘Seeking Solutions’ Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Conference.
Mullender, A. and Morley, R. (eds) 1994 Children Living with Domestic Violence: Putting Men’s Abuse of Children on the Child Care Agenda, Whiting & Birch. London
Taft, A. (2003) Promoting Women’s Mental Health: The Challenges of Intimate/Domestic Violence Against Women. (Australia Domestic Violence Clearinghouse. Issues Paper No. 8)
Australian Bureau of Statistics. 1996. Women's Safety Survey. Canberra. Catalogue No. 4128.0.)
Ferrante, Anna et.al 1996 Measuring the extent of domestic violence, Perth: Hawkins Press (Crime Research Centre, University of Western Australia)
Michael Flood, Claims about Husband Battering
[1] Ferrante et. al define ‘domestic violence’ as referring only to criminal violence inflicted by one partner by another, which occurs between partners and ex-partners including those in boy/girlfriend relationships. I.e., they exclude instances of violence occurring in other family relationships such as between parents and children, or in non-intimate relationships between persons of the opposite sex [3].