Violence Against Women

1. The gender perspective is the notion that men victimize women in order to maintain their dominance over the "inferior gender." It usually involves the woman keeping quiet about the incident(s) so that these acts of violence never get reported to the police. This helps it become that much easier for men to abuse women, so the cycle continues and progressively gets worse. The other perspective, the violence perspective, states that men who commit crimes against women are not necessarily sexist, but are rather overall violent in general. Men who are committing crimes against women are committing other crimes as well and can be characterized as violent in nature. Felson tends to lean more toward this perspective and backs up his argument with evidence that I am a bit skeptical of. He says that recent surveys have shown that both men and women use physical force at the same rates. Also, John Archer found that wives are more likely to initiate violence. Felson also claims that husbands are no more controlling than their wives. As for rape motives, Felson claims that young men have sex on their minds, not the domination of women. He also says that men who rape and/or inflict violence upon their wives also commit other crimes and do not merely specialize in violence against women.

I am very skeptical of Felson and his claims. He mostly uses phrases such as "evidence shows" and "research suggests," but where is this evidence/research coming from? He does not make any specific references to any creditable sources. Also, because I am a woman, I am naturally biased towards this article. I feel as though Felson is trying to prove that women are not as innocent as they seem and men who commit violence against women are not just specifically targeting women, but also commit various other crimes. I just find all his evidence hard to believe because how often do you really hear about women killing their husbands on the news or in the newspaper ?! I know I hardly do! I believe that violence against women is very psychological and that there is a clear motive. For the most part, men are physically stronger than women. So it is much easier for a man to abuse a woman (rather than vice versa), which gives men a sense of power. Despite what Felson's evidence shows, I believe a man's "power trip" directly relates to sexism. Therefore, I would have to side with the gender perspective.

2. Jones provides the accounts of a couple different women to explain why women do not neccessarily just get up and leave if they have been battered and abused by their husbands. A lot of women are only familiar with abusive husbands and have inevitably became dependent on them. It is easier for the outsider to just say "just leave him and escape!" but it does not prove to be that easy in the mind of a battered woman. Their confusion is deeply rooted and many of them do not know whether to blame their abusive husband or themselves. In the story of Tracy Thurman, she was badly beaten to the point of disfigurement, and still did not want to move out of the town that she was from. When asked, "why don't you just leave?" she answered, "Why should I? I grew up here. My family is here, my support is here. I can go to another state, but even if I was in Hawaii...he's going to find me no matter where I go." Tracy is clearly demonstrating a sense of helplessness, which a majority of women suffer from after being battered and abused.

This article is using the gender perspective to highlight the reasons for violence agaist women. A lot of the abuse and violence stems from a man's urge to feel dominant over women. A lot of women become helpless because they are naturally physically weaker than a man, which inevitably fuels a man's sense of superiority.

3. Ptacek observed right away that batterers were more inclined to make up excuses rather than justify their actions. Their most common excuse for their actions was that they "lost control" and in some cases, they were affected by drugs and/or alcohol. Other excuses that they used involved blaming the victim. More disturbingly, they regarded verbal aggressiveness as the equivalent to physical aggressiveness. In others words, if the wife instigated verbal abuse on her husband, it gave the husband an excuse to retaliate with physical violence. As for actual justifications, many men utilize the denial of injury claim. They minimize their injuries and say that "women bruise easily." Also , a lot of men have a sense of male entitlement in which they use to further justify their actions. The problem with these justifications is that there are a lot of inconsistencies. For example, men are likely to deny their actions, but then eventually accept responsibility of their actions and downplay the wrongness. Some men then proceed to deny their actions once again, as if they are caught in a vicious circle. Loss of control and provocation cannot explain the violence. They are merely contradictions that attempt to excuse men from their actions.

This article most definitely supports the gender perspective (as opposed to the violence perspective). The main focus in this article is clearly violence against women and maintaining dominance over them. As I had stated above, a lot of men have a sense of male entitlement, which directly supports the gender perspective. They undermine their physical force and in a lot of cases, don't even accept responsibility for their actions. Most of these men featured in the article were not really committing any other crimes (which would support the violence perspective). These were men that mostly just battered their wives.