Member-only story
Reflecting on the Domestic Abuse Debate: Why it Needs to Change
The mainstream perspective on domestic violence sees it thusly:
Domestic abuse/violence is perpetrated predominantly by men, against women, to establish power and control over them. The ‘batterer’s’ actions are consciously chosen patterns to gain power over women. He feels entitled to abuse women, and he is the end-point of a culture of brutal masculinity that sees men as the rightful patriarchs over women. Women do not abuse men usually — sometimes, in odd cases, they might, but women’s violence is frequently in self-defence.
The interdisciplinary research over the last several decades has punctured this perspective significantly. It has brought to attention the existence of both male victims and violence in same-sex intimate relationships. It has also found striking numbers of mutually abusive couples, and has shown that the use of violence is more complex and often more likely to be associated with attachment distress, psychopathology, poor conflict skills, economic despair and senses of powerlessness than simply patriarchal conditioning.
Historically, patriarchal society was an influence in domestic violence perpetration in the Western world. Women were little more than chattel for much of our history, having no legal rights and viewed essentially as children. Furthermore, in the…
