History & Definition of Family

Violence
The family as most of us
imagine it…
The New Reality….
 What makes a family?

Safe Harbor

Safe Place

Place of care
 Dysfunctional Behavior in Families
• The family is the most violent social
institution that exists today.
• Millions of families worldwide experience
the devastating effects of violence within
their own family setting
• Each year, millions of women and children
are the primary objects of psychological
physical, sexual and emotional abuse by
someone they know.
Dysfunctional Behavior in Families
• Violence in any form always has been a
natural occurrence of any culture
• Innocent children are the ones who suffer the
most due to their "size, age and dependency
status
 Definition of Family Violence
• Family violence is hard to define
• The incidence is difficult to estimate
– occurs behind closed doors - hidden,
unnoticed, and ignored
– victims may not recall abuse
– may not perceive the behavior as abusive
– may not wish to disclose the abuse
– may not even be able to report the behavior
• there is no way to know with certainty how
much family violence exists in society
WHO Statistics
 Statistical Summary
• Women and children are more likely to be
victimized in their own homes than they are
on the streets
• Family interactions comprise the single
greatest determinant of an individual’s level of
violence outside the home
• Children who are abused, or who witness
violence, are far more likely to engage in
violence themselves, both as children and
when they are adults
 The special case of the family
• The family is high on both intimacy and
privacy
• It is considered a violent group, social
setting, and institution
• All families have tensions, and all families
may occasionally resolve these tensions in
inappropriate ways.
• Even the best parents and the most loving
couples display inappropriate behaviors.
 WHY ARE FAMILIES VIOLENT?
• Structural Factors
– the amount of time family members spend together:
increases the opportunity for violence
– Power differential: those who are less powerful run a
greater risk for victimization
– family relationships are protected by law and are not
so easily severed
– states are reluctant to break up families give
dysfunctional families multiple opportunities to
change
– the privacy and autonomy traditionally granted to
families make violence relatively easy to hide
 WHY ARE FAMILIES VIOLENT?
• Idealization of the family
– (a) parental rights supersede children’s rights
– (b) parents can and should have control over the
development of their children
– (c) family members will act in the best interests of
children and elderly parents who are incapable of
caring for themselves
– (d) families rooted in traditional cultures are strong
families, even if some of their customs justify family
violence
– (e) families have the right to privacy and autonomy,
even if this right results in harm to vulnerable
members.
 WHY ARE FAMILIES VIOLENT?
• Family norms E.g. Spanking
– rates of physical punishment by parents (Phoenix
Children’s Hospital)
• (a) Nearly 66% of 1- and 2-yearolds
• (b) 80% by the time children reach 5th grade
• (c) 85% by the time adolescents are in high school.
– 73% of surveyed Americans agreed or strongly
agreed that it is “sometimes necessary to
discipline a child with a good hard spanking.”
(National Research Center)
 WHY ARE FAMILIES VIOLENT?
• Social tolerance of violence
– society’s acceptance, encouragement, and
glorification of violence contributes to abuse
in the family may have a spillover effect,
raising the likelihood of violence in the home
• women are depicted as sex objects and as victims
• Men are objectified
– Watching media violence constitutes a form
of social learning, a broadly accepted theory
that explains learning through observation
 WHY ARE FAMILIES VIOLENT?
• Social acceptance of violence
– Some sections of society would prefer that
battered women be “perfect victims,” those who
neither instigate abuse nor fight back
• Cultural factors
– Some cultures accept violence; others condemn it
– content of television programming as well as
movies, sports, toys, and video games
– cultural acceptance of male dominance
 WHY ARE FAMILIES VIOLENT?
• Individual factors
– mental illness or mental disorder, such as schizophrenia
– vulnerability to jealousy, or anger
– level of attachment
• affectional bond between a parent and a child or, later as an
adult, the bond between romantic partners
• disruptions in attachment are related to intense emotional
dependence
 Family Violence
• Stories of family
violence are diverse in
the media
• Some are
sensationalized
however most present
a reality that is not
unique
 History of Family Violence
• FV is now considered a social
problem
• FV was first considered a social
condition
• The state of a society as it
exists
Abuse and neglect of children as a social
condition
• Family violence & child abuse has always
been with us
• Ancient times: infanticides (as birth &
gender control, child labor, child sacrifices
(Greeks)
• Political powerlessness of children-
children are vulnerable and therefore
easier to be taken advantage of
– Seen as property of their parents
– Parents sometimes saw children as economic
liability
 Abuse and neglect of children as a
social condition
• Child sexual abuse:
– Historically these interactions were seen as
“appropriate and healthy” for children
• E.g. Papua, New Guinea: ingestion of semen from older
boys & men (via fellatio) is practiced for them to be
considered masculine, strong & sexually attractive to
women
• Sexual liberation perspective: Children should be given
the liberty to run their own lives as they choose including
the ability to determine how and with whom they should
have sex
• Transgenerational sex: Older adults tutor younger partner
on what to do
 Adult victimization as a social
condition
• English common law:
– A woman had no legal existence apart from her
husband
– Like children, she was the property of her husband
to be owned and controlled
– When a woman was raped restitution should be
paid to her husband or father for damages done to
the property
– Rule of Thumb: a man was legally allowed to beat
his wife with a stick so long as it is was no thicker
than his thumb
 Adult victimization as a social
condition
• Marital Rape:
– Marital exemption law: by mutual matrimonial
consent and contract the wife had given consent
and could not retract it
• Marital privacy issue contributed to the
invisibility of rape
 Social condition?

Belize Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey 2006 - GOB, UNICEF

n=1828
34.2% - Toledo; 6.2% - Belize Dist. justified violence in any situation.
17% justification among the poor and 5.9% among richer quartiles
 FV as a social problem
• Through social construction social conditions
become social problems
• Societal reactions that express concern and
outrage are central to the process of redefining
a social condition into a social problem
• Societal reactions can come from interest
groups:
– religious groups, individual citizens, social
movement organizations, political interests
groups, media, international bodies, etc.
• Interest groups engage in claims-making
(Raising Awareness)
– Activities of individuals or groups making
assertions of grievances or claims with respect to
some putative condition (Spector and Kitsuse,
1977)
 Social Constructionism
• the process begins when claims-makers
express anger or distress about a particular
condition that they see as highly objectionable
• As the cause of a particular claims-making
group becomes acknowledged by society
more generally, the social condition comes to
be defined as a social problem
• social constructionist perspective helps to
explain cross-cultural variations in definitions
of family viole
 FV as a social problem
• Child maltreatment and intimate partner violence were
first recognized social problems in the 1960s and 1970s
• Interest groups or claims-makers are actively involved in
the process of raising awareness about an issue (social
condition) that it determines to be unacceptable
• As the cause of the particular complainant group
becomes recognized by society then the social condition
becomes a social problem
• Social problems come and go as societal reactions
change
– May explain why cultural classification of abuse differs
• E.g In Japanese language there is no word for domestic violence: no
societal condemnation therefore not viewed as a social problem
 Discovery of Child Physical Abuse
• The house of refuge movement in the U.S in the 1800s
came from the principle of parens patriae—the right and
responsibility of the state to protect those who cannot
protect themselves—guided this movement (Pfohl,
1977).
• As a result authorities began to house children who were
neglected, abused, or otherwise on the road to ruin in
one of many state-supported institutions.
• The house of refuge movement represents the
government’s first attempt to intervene in neglect and
abuse cases
 The beginning of the modern
child protection movement
“In 1873, nine-year old Mary Ellen McCormack was an
orphan living in New York City with Francis and Mary
Connolly. Mrs. Connolly physically abused Mary Ellen
almost daily, often using a raw-hide whip. Mary Ellen
had few clothes, no bed, and was not allowed to leave
the house. After learning of Mary Ellen's plight, Etta
Wheeler, a Methodist social worker, went to the
Connolly's apartment to see the conditions under which
the child lived. Ms. Wheeler saw an undernourished and
uncared for child whose body bore the marks of
repeated beatings. For the next three months, Etta
Wheeler tried in vain to get someone to intervene on
behalf of this beaten child. The police said they could do
nothing, charitable institutions said much the same. The
law seemed to provide no means for any public agency
or private society to protect Mary Ellen….
 Mary Ellen McCormack (con’t)
….Unable to help this little girl through accepted
channels, Ms. Wheeler finally asked the Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (the "Society") to
protect Mary Ellen as an abused member of the animal
kingdom. Henry Bergh, the president of the Society,
agreed to act. On April 9, 1874, as the result of efforts
initiated by Etta Wheeler and Henry Bergh, a bruised
and battered Mary Ellen McCormack was brought into
a New York courtroom to tell her story to Judge
Abraham Lawrence. Her face bore a fresh gash which
would leave a life-long scar. Jacob Riis, then a
newspaper reporter, wrote that when Mary Ellen was
brought before the Court "...the first chapter of
children's rights was being written.”
• As a result of the claims-making of child
advocacy groups, many US state legislatures
passed child protective statutes in the early
1900s, criminalizing parents’ abusive and
neglectful behavior and specifying procedures
for meeting the needs of abused and
neglected children (Pleck, 1987).
• This has evolved to medical and other
professionals legally required to report
incidences of suspected child abuse
 Discovering Intimate Partner
Violence
• Important precursor to the discovery of
marital violence
– The women’s movement of the mid-1800s called
attention to the subordination of women
– the suffragist movement of the early 1900s - the
struggle for the right of women to vote
– the feminist movement of the mid- to late 1900s-
discrimination against women especially in the
workplace
 Discovering Intimate Partner
Violence
• The first shelter for battered women -Chiswick
Women’s Aid opened in England in 1971
gained worldwide public attention
• The National Organization for Women (NOW)
was able to change laws to protect married
women in 1976
• Most recent legal changes involve recognizing
marital rape as a form of domestic violence
 Discovering elder abuse
• Elder abuse has been one of the last forms of
family violence to receive societal attention
• The first research on elder abuse did not
appear in the Social Science Index until 1981–
1982
• Following the child abuse model, claims-
makers successfully advocated for laws that
make the reporting of suspected elder abuse
mandatory for certain professionals
DEFINITION OF FAMILY VIOLENCE
(FV)
 Definition of Family Violence (FV)
• Family violence includes family members’
acts of omission or commission resulting
in physical abuse, sexual abuse,
emotional abuse, neglect, or other forms
of maltreatment that hamper individuals’
healthy development (Levesque (2001))
• Involves:
– acts of omission: failure to act
– acts of commission: performing acts that result in
harm
 Scope of Family Violence
• Takes many forms of abuse,
mistreatment or neglect
• Any form of physical assault, including hitting,
slapping, biting, or pushing
• Behaviors such as name calling, excessive rule
making, and monitoring a person's whereabouts
or denying them access to their money also fall
within the definition
 Family Violence
• Involves
– Violence in intimate relationships (Domestic Violence or
Intimate Partner Violence)
• Spousal abuse (men/women; men/men; women/women), dating
violence, etc.
– Child abuse
• Physical abuse, sexual abuse and exploitation, neglect, emotional
and financial abuse (e.g. exposure to spousal abuse)
– Dating Violence
• Verbal, emotional, psychological, physical, and/or sexual abuse
– Abuse of older adults
• Physical & sexual abuse, financial abuse and neglect
 The Continuum of FV
• Something that begins rather inoffensively, such as a
minor critical remark or a push, may, upon
escalation, become a very serious problem.
• Without some kind of help, the violence gets worse
• The end result can be death
 Common Myths About Family
Violence
• Family violence is uncommon - Family
violence is far more common than is generally
realized
• Only poor people are violent –Reports show
higher rates of family violence in lower
socioeconomic groups
– People who are poor and lack other resources
may be more likely than those who are better off
to turn to police and social service agencies, and
therefore have their violence represented in
official estimates of family violence
 Common Myths About Family
Violence
• Abused children always become abusive
partners or parents.
• Battered women “ask for it.”
• Family violence sometimes “just happens.”
• Minor acts of family violence are always trivial
and inconsequential.
• Alcohol and drugs are the real cause of family
violence
• Women who claim date rape are “lying,”
“deserve what they got,” or were “asking for it.”
 References
• Barnett, O.W., Miler-Perrin, C. L. and Perrin,
Robin., (1997). Family Violence Across the Life
Span: An Introduction. Thousand Oaks, CA:
Sage Publications.