Clase de 6ºA

Gender-based analyses of domestic abuse research have been criticised by some researchers. Dutton & Nicholls (2005) confidently state that women are equally as violent as men. They defend the use of the CTS2 in domestic abuse studies stressing its accuracy in detecting violence, its ability to detect context and the extent of injuries as well as identify the gender of the main perpetrator. They further criticise Johnson’s distinctions between situational couple violence and intimate terrorism, arguing that they were based on non-representative samples and only served to draw attention away from female violence. They purport that feminist researchers are perpetuating a paradigm that, “denies female violence while generalising male violence patterns from the ‘patriarchal terrorist’ group to all batterers and, in some cases, men” (p705). However, Johnson (2006) criticises sampling strategies for over-stating the representativeness of sampling in random surveys which often have high refusal rates and are far from random. Moreover, Stark (2006) points out that male-to-female domestic abuse is “qualitatively different than other forms of abuse or assault in that it extends over time and through social space and exacts a significant toll that cannot be explained by injury or violence” (p1020). The fear and isolation that still exists for battered women after an abusive relationship

ends marks it out as a unique phenomenon that cannot be easily captured by a quantitative methodology. According to Dutton & Nicholls (2005) feminist researchers misguidedly adhere to their own political ideologies in an attempt to ensure the continuance of service provision for survivors. They reject the notion that their claims would lead to scarce resources being withdrawn from women’s support and safety services. However, in the current political and financial climate, women’s support services have already suffered substantial funding cuts (Valios, 2011; Pitt, 2011; Ishkanian, 2014), forcing a number of refuges to close (Laville, 2014a) with many more facing closure (Dunning, 2011; Salman, 2011). Thus, contrary to Dutton & Nicholl’s claim, feminist researchers’ concerns about the reduction of funds to existing services are entirely legitimate.

Dutton & Nicholls (2005) further criticise researchers whose beliefs about the world tend to be based on personal experience as, “a highly erroneous basis for making social judgements as we tend to give too much weight to single, salient experiences and to subsequently discount contrary data to the ‘confirmatory bias’ we have established” (p682). However, the experiences of frontline workers in the police, social services, housing and health services (my own included) who work with victims of domestic abuse every day are extremely valuable and research that portrays domestic abuse as gender-symmetrical simply does not reflect the reality of women’s lives as observed by those who support them (Yllo, 1993; Dobash & Dobash, 2004). Critics of the CTS are seen as non-scientific (Yllo, 1998) and experiences of abused women are often trivialised by researchers who subscribe to patriarchal perspectives of knowledge acquisition. Some authors go as far as to state quite candidly that feminist qualitative methods are seen as less valid and reliable than quantitative methods:

“[feminist researchers’] way of ‘knowing’ about the topic has not been gleaned through the scientific method which, supposedly, enables an ‘objective’ analysis. Rather, their understanding is grounded in body and feeling as well as mind. The fusion of thought

and feeling is regarded as diminishing rather than enhancing knowledge” (Yllo, 1998: p41).

Feminist researchers are, therefore, fully cognisant of their subjective positions to produce more robust data. My view is that research is an intrinsically political activity which scientific researchers seek to deny, a notion that Hoff (1998) refers to as “the myth of neutrality” (p274). That feminist qualitative research seeks to focus on the personal and private spheres of women’s lives, previously ignored by typically male researchers, does not render it diminished (Allen, 2011). Maynard rightly states: “feminism must begin with experience ... since it is only from such a vantage point that it is possible to see the extent to which women’s worlds are organised in ways which differ from those of men” (1994: p14).

One could argue that some social scientists fall into the trap of “reification” (Hoff, 1990: p49), in which concepts such as ‘patriarchy’ and ‘sexism’ are seen as ‘things’ without demonstrating the connection between male-dominated institutions (including research) and the subjective understanding and behaviour of individual violent men: “Men know from experience that they can usually get away with violence against wives ... their victims, not they, will be held accountable” (Hoff, 1990: p49). Haaken (2010) criticises Dutton & Nicholl’s repeated attempts to “cast feminists as censorious and powerful enough to block scientific advancements at the national level” (p5). Haaken also criticises Dutton’s failure to differentiate between different strands of feminism by using a neo-Marxist view of radical feminism as his point of reference:

“[The] collapsing of feminist and Marxist categories under the rubric of radical feminism overlooks the complex history of feminist scholarship, including differences in liberal, cultural, radical, socialist and Marxist feminist positions on conceptualising violence. In summarily dismissing feminism, Dutton fails to map the very terrain on which he stakes his claims” (Haaken, 2010: p5-6).

It is difficult to reconcile Haaken’s and Dutton’s polemic positions but what Haaken is really objecting to is that abused women now find themselves in the unenviable position of being blamed by their violent partners and the wider community for the abuse they experience (LaViolette & Barnett, 2000). Such victim-blaming attitudes even extend to the legal system in which abused women seek justice for their abuse, evidenced by Gilchrist & Blisset (2002) in their research with sixty-seven magistrates. The study found that magistrates frequently minimised, denied and excused men’s violent behaviour while blaming victims for the abuse they experienced. One magistrate asked if an injury was still considered an assault if the victim did not require medical treatment while a suggestion of probation was made for a perpetrator who had had a ‘hard day’. Magistrates also questioned if there was a course the victim could attend so that she could “learn how to avoid being hit” (p359). Attitudes such as these may explain why only 4% of 869 violent incidents resulted in a conviction in the North of England with just 0.5% receiving custodial sentences (Hester, 2005). It is all too easy to see how women can absorb the view that they are to blame for their own abuse when victim-blaming attitudes are so blatantly evident in the criminal justice system ostensibly designed to protect them.

In addition to being blamed for the abuse they suffer, women are accused of perpetrating violence when trying to defend themselves: “To say that men and women reach equality when it comes to marital violence literally adds insult to injury” (Saunders, 1998: P108). Schechter (1998) states that, when one person has power over the other, “a relationship of domination exists. Battering deprives women of their dignity and control over their lives and is, therefore, an integral part of female oppression” (In Yllo & Bograd, 1998: p300). This is not the social reality that men usually experience. The above authors emphasise that violence against women is not a historical anomaly. Rather, the historical trace that allowed men, through the centuries, to perpetrate crimes of violence against women continues in many forms of oppression or complex rubric. The residual mark that men can oppress unabated or unjudged (and, as much

of the literature shows, without self-reproach) is symptomatic of the enduring inequality that Saunders and others highlight. Yet, if domestic abuse is reversed and men are subject to violence, very different conclusions are drawn. As a result, abused women are forced into the marginalised spaces of which Butler speaks, rendering them silent and invisible.

Issues of gender and prevalence in domestic abuse are clearly controversial ones. However, there is significant empirical and anecdotal evidence to assert strongly that domestic abuse is gender-asymmetrical with male-to-female violence occurring at rates of around 90%. Furthermore, gender inequality is perpetuated by key institutions in society, such as the criminal justice system, not only failing to secure justice for abused women but blaming them for the abuse they experience. Moreover, discussions that ignore the gendered nature of domestic abuse are unhelpful in attempting to tackle this most physically and psychologically damaging of social problems. This is summed up by LaViolette and Barnett who use emphatic terms when drawing equivalences between violence and gender:

“There is no research that can say the cost of women’s violence in any way matches that same violence perpetrated by men. The body of evidence suggests that there should be no argument. Diffusing energy into an ongoing gender war takes away from the critical task of developing effective intervention and prevention strategies” (2000: p109).

LaViolette & Barnett’s imperative statements come from the assurance of an overwhelming body of research which indicates that women are predominantly the victims of domestic abuse. The literature highlights that domestic abuse is a gender-asymmetrical social problem impacting negatively on abused women who have already internalised the blame that their violent partners attribute to them. Women are forced to see themselves as responsible for the abuse perpetrated against them while also enabling men to abdicate responsibility for their violence. Framing domestic abuse in this way has profoundly negative consequences for

abused women, particularly as service providers often reinforce damaging myths about domestic abuse in their day-to-day practice.