Gender role in Intimate partner abuse victimization and perpetration has for the last several decades been debated. There are two perspectives that have emerged from the article that I have read. From family violence perspective, researchers seem to argue that both men and women are at equal rate violent and have called for the issue to be reframed from woman battering to more appropriate family violence. Feminist researchers on the other hand seem to have maintenance that men are most perpetrators that the police dealt with while in majority women are victims in the cases of IPA. The article relates with the topic Power Violence and Family in the textbook which gives details of domestic violence: About 96% of women who experienced nonfatal IPA got victimized by male.
Most men offenders were drop outs, unemployed, illicit drug users and alcohol abusers. Suggestion is that men in this case attempted to make compensation for their inadequacy and powerlessness general feelings because socialization process and cultural images encourage the men to appear self-sufficient and strong. Men inability to earn together with high-pressure occupation have left a lot of men feeling powerless and they have turned to supremacy physical expression in compensating lack of prestige and occupational success or satisfaction. Domestic violence is also associated with unemployment; regarding relative status, employed women have greater risks of IPA especially if husbands are unemployed. This results from husband not being accorded the accustomed respect due to his status loss especially when his education, and job opportunity fails to measure up. In such situations some men resort to invoking violence to their intimate partners through coercive power.
In order to maintain control over partners or wives, men try to be independent of their relationship through use of violence. An example in the text is illustration of Duluth and Minnesota male batterers that how physical and psycho emotional violence may result from need for power and control by male partners in what is called intimate terrorism. Women don’t enjoy being battered instead they persevere their battering partners and in most cases it is only after a long battering history that they walk out due Lack of personal power in them that starts with fear. Just as the article shows that men have the highest tendency of threatening their female partners, it is these threats that women fear. Example from the text is that an estimated 74% of women murders by the male partners were as a result of response to attempt by woman to walk out of the relationship or marriage.
There has been enormous persistence by husbands or ex-husbands in pursuing, beating or killing women that try to leave these abusive situations. This batterer reprisal fear is a continuous barrier to seek any police intervention. The article however has enhanced my prior understanding of the topic through providing the research results on the gender role in IPA. Example, more men perpetrators made a mention of specific threats than their counter female offenders. Male perpetrators also have a likelihood of having priory executed violence behavior than female offenders and this history of violence in men put them at the forefront of becoming majority of majority primary offenders while female are primary victims of intimate partner abuse.
The article enhances my prior understanding through its finding that in future, reappearing of male offenders was likely similar to female victims. In addition, more female victims of IPA report of being scared than the male victims of the female offenders. Power is ability of individuals to express their will. It may rest on personal and economic sources or cultural authorities which are gender based and involve emotional dependence and love on physical violence or interpersonal dynamics. Power on the other intimate partner therefore includes decision making, household labor division, control over money and an empowerment sense in the relationship.
American marriages tend to experience tension between gender identities on one hand and egalitarianism on the other which in effect make a preservation of male authority. Relative power of partners in marriage or in other intimate relationship seems to vary by social class, education, ethnicity, status, age, and other factors. It matters whether the woman works as well as presence of children and their age. Some policy makers however view postmodern family and individualized marriage as indicators of marriage institution that is breaking down or declining have proposed effective turnaround ways such as healthy marriage initiative and covenant marriage. Others have proposed for poverty and family struggle structural solutions like high women wages, development of neighborhood, more opportunities for employment and adequate minimum wage.
Intimate partner abuse (IPA) by both male and female is universally unacceptable. Men abuse is a social problem that is complex and requires close attention and the reduction of psychological and physical abuse require action to be taken in their early stages. Unlike abuse involving strangers, IPA partners are bonded by affection, attachment and love. Nonetheless, such assault acts and violence threats to partners are offences under the law.
References
Riedmann, M. A. (2009). Power & Violence in Families. In Marriages,Families & Relationships (pp. 338-75). Belmont,USA: Wadsworth,Cengage Learning.
Sillito, H. C. (2012). The Role of Gender in Officially Reported IPA. Journal of Interpersonal
Violence , 1-22.
