Aboriginal women are those related to intimacy for commercial purposes. They face many challenges in this line of endeavor as most of their clients or rather partners usually force them into activities that bring hurt in their lives. This paper will analyze a research conducted on aboriginal women and the activities they have gone through with their partners in comparison to non-aboriginal women. It will give more insight on the results derived from the research depending on the response the women in question gave. The paper will focus on several questions that shed more light on the research as well as give different perspectives according to the responses given.
Purpose of the study
The purpose of the study is to evaluate the importance of historical and social contexts of pre-separation and post-separation intimate partner violence. It also helps understand aboriginal/non-aboriginal women's inequalities in post-separation intimate partner violence challenges as well as give explanations of violence against aboriginal women that implicitly or explicitly blame aboriginal culture or aboriginal women for the high rates of victimization they experience. The chosen research design involves the structural violence approach which integrates the insights of past and feminist theories. It's appropriate for the stated purpose in that it brings out the incidents where women are abused depending on past events such as colonization as well the culture that allows aboriginal women to be violated. It also brings out the coercive control tactics that help measure gender inequality in intimate relationships.
Theoretical model being examined in the study
The theoretical model being examined in the study is the cycle of violence and the role of law enforcers to explain and investigate cases that emerge against aboriginal women. The theoretical model also involves the experiences of aboriginal women in relation to other economic, social and political aspects. The design depicts an opportunity to analyze the social and economic effects that affect the lives of aboriginal women. The research model includes the important facts about the experiences of Aboriginal women regarding the different forms of violence they go through as compared to non-Aboriginal women. It compares the encounters faced by aboriginal and non-aboriginal women in their lives with a partner before and after they are separated. It also focuses on the different perspectives where aboriginal women face such challenges due to their economic status or level of education.
Findings
The outcomes noted from the study depict that the results or findings are observable and measurable to some extent in that they show the past and ongoing effects of colonialism, socioeconomic marginalization, gender inequality as well as aboriginal women/non-Aboriginal women in equalities in post-separation intimate partner violence. These facts have credible face validity in that they portray the various forms of violence aboriginal women and non-aboriginal women go through in their life. They also show the percentages of women who have experienced violence in one way or another in their lives through the evidence the sample gave. The evidence shows that women are abused due to their lack of power and financial stability as opposed to men who feel superior to them.
Most women go through difficult situations in their lives due to the fact that they are discriminated against gender and denied rights ever since the pre-colonial period. These facts are reliable and valid in that most of the participants are either directly involved in aboriginal activities that end up bringing them hurt. It is also reliable due to the fact that the evidence or findings gathered are from people who have given their input to the study based on their own encounters. The information is gathered from women who were interviewed to give their personal experiences on the different forms of violence they went through with their current or former partners. This information largely relies on one source of information as it only considers women who have encountered these situations and does not consider others who have indirectly faced these challenges. The study draws a conclusive note based on the information gathered from women who participated in the interview without considering other sources of information.
Sample
The sample involves women within the provinces of Canada who were willing to give their personal information regarding the study of aboriginal and non-aboriginal women. Most of the women interviewed were either directly or indirectly involved in the violence with current or ex-partners. The sample also analyzes the economic and social status of the women who gave their input on the study as well as evaluating their levels of education and income earned in every household. It also compares the rates of incidents reported by aboriginal and non-aboriginal women on the forms of intimate partner violence and the causative effects that contributed to the study question. The participants are selected using random digit dialing and the data is analyzed through computer-assisted telephone interviews. This involves the evaluators calling the respondents on the phone and asking them questions related to the study. The participants are different in ages as the range was between 15 years and above.
They also differ in terms of race and income as the study evaluated their responses with respect to those who earned less than Canada $ 15000 and those who earned more than Canada $15000. This difference in income gave a variety of women in diverse social classes. The information given does not allow the generalization of results in that it gives different settings where people are diverse in aspects such as gender, class or age. Therefore, it would not be wise to generalize the information as different settings would give different scopes of information that would vary from what has been acquired in this study.
Limitations of the study
The design depicts various limitations such as many categories of women with huge ethnic and cultural diversity within them. The study aimed at explaining the wider view of aboriginal/non-aboriginal inequalities in post-separation intimate partner violence as applied in a structural violence approach. This aim of sampling these women proved small, the study did not subdivide the aim into the other major aspects. Another limitation was that the study brought about two negative consequences of colonialism which include gender inequality and socioeconomic marginalization. This showed that the study partly explained inequalities in post-separation intimate partner violence among aboriginal and non-original women in Canada. It also brought the issue that gender inequality experienced by aboriginal women may not have been caused colonialism. These limitations are fully described as they are clearly brought out on the areas they did not address or in the areas they generalized the effects from that were probably wrong.
Discussion
The findings from the study are that strong correlations between coercive control and post-separation intimate partner violence where women may have experienced coercive control without post-separation intimate partner violence but almost never experience post- separation intimate partner violence without at least some coercive control. These findings provided a basis for speculation of a link between coercive control and physical and sexual post-separation intimate partner violence. The study contributes to the social work knowledge base in that it helps understand and address coercive control as well as the mechanisms by which coercive control leads to post-separation intimate partner violence. The contribution is limited in that it does not show any associations between education, employment status or household income among the other issues to the mechanisms that cause coercive control.
Qualitative analysis
The purpose of the study is to examine the rates at which women are exposed to post-separation intimate partner violence in terms of physical and sexual attributes. It also aims at analyzing the underscores of the importance of historical and social contexts to post-separation intimate partner violence. The research design chosen is appropriate for the stated purpose in that it shows the rates and percentages of women who reported to have been involved in intimate partner violence. It also aims at evaluating the different levels of violence that aboriginal and non-aboriginal women go through depending on the factors of gender, race and social inequality.
The theoretical concepts being examined in the study are that colonization can be in one way attributed to the post-separation intimate partner violence as most of the inequality factors emerged due to the degradation of women. It also discusses the issue of rates of post-separation intimate partner violence in terms of how different they are to the types of intimate partner violence for aboriginal and non-aboriginal women in Canada. The other theoretical concept discussed is whether aboriginal/non-aboriginal differences in the distribution of coercive control, socioeconomic and demographic determinants explain the higher rates of post-separation intimate partner violence observed among aboriginal compared with non-Aboriginal women in Canada. The theory provides credible background for the project as it gives more insight on the issues that need to be addressed in terms of the facts that lead to coercive control in aboriginal/non-aboriginal women as compared to intimate partner violence against women in Canada. The areas of interest are fully covered in their diversity as complexity as issues of intimate partner violence are properly addressed and women of different ages and social classes are analyzed depending on their experience.
The procedures used in the study are not appropriate for dependability; credibility and conformability in that they use phone interviews where the respondents may lie about the information they give. It is also not reliable in that the information given cannot be verified.
The sample includes all aboriginal and non-aboriginal women who reported having been previously married or in a common law relationship and who reported having contacted their ex-partners in the 5 years before the interview. This brought the final study population to around 2,355 women who included 125 aboriginal women 2230 non-aboriginal women. The participants were selected using random digit dialing and data are collected using computer assisted telephone interviews. The sample contains women who voluntarily gave information regarding their forms of intimate partner violence in their marriages and those who had made contact with their ex-partners in the last five years before the interview was conducted. The participants are different in that they vary by age and gender as well as social status. The difference may have been noted on the different levels of income earned in every household where intimate partner violence was noted. The information provided in this sample does not make it possible to transfer the results to other settings in that they will bring different results. This setting has different women who differ in terms of income earned and ethnicity or race. Therefore, the results would produce different analysis.
The limitations in this study are that the 2004 GSS data were inadequately operationalizing structural arrangements such as colonization and gender inequality. The available variables in this study only measure limited present-day consequences of colonization and one dimension of gender inequality. Direct measures of colonization such as residential school and attendance history of forced foster care, as well as additional measures of gender inequality such as contextual measures of wage inequality between men and women, would have strengthened the application of a structural violence approach by providing a more comprehensive assessment of the core constructs in our conceptual model. The findings are linked to the data in that they provide more insight on the data collected as an analysis of the number of women who had reported to have been involved in intimate partner violence. It also shows the variations in the number of aboriginal and non-aboriginal women who had received government assistance over the various forms of violence. They are fully described in that they properly define the areas that are not addressed.
The findings of the study show that aboriginal women report experiencing higher rates of coercive control by an ex-partner than non-aboriginal women. The findings also give the determinants that explain the differential occurrence of coercive control. Male coercive control can also be related to gender inequality. Another finding is that aboriginal women face more coercive control than non-aboriginal women due to the fact that coercive control is brought about by gender inequality. The findings are highly linked to the data in that the participants gave their personal information that brought to the analysis and conclusion. The information gathered is a true reflection of the personal experiences of the participants. An outsider can easily follow logic from the data to the final product in that they can relate the experiences given by the participants with the conclusion parts. The results are a clear reflection of the respondents in that they give the personal response of the participants. The Inquirer only gives the reflection through the analysis. All voices are not considered in the response as some aspects are not examined. Therefore, the analysis leaves the analysis to the evaluator without considering other bodies that have helped give different perspectives. The study provides reliable information for the social work knowledge base in the involvement of community members and participants who give more insight on the findings. The limitation of the contribution is that aboriginal women continue to face devastating experiences of past and ongoing colonialism which are the primary reasons for aboriginal women’s marginalization in society.
References
Pedersen, J. S; Malcoe, L. H; Pulkingham, J. (2013). Explaining Aboriginal/Non-Aboriginal Inequalities in Postseparation Violence Against Canadian Women: Application of a Structural Violence Approach. Violence Against Women, 19 (8), 1034-1058.
