Domestic Violence Overview

The Women’s Aid Federation (2008) defines domestic violence as:
‘physical, psychological, sexual or financial violence that takes place within an intimate or family-type relationship and forms a pattern of coercive and controlling behaviour. It may involve partners, ex-partners, household members or other relatives.’

A common view of domestic violence is that it is the behaviour of a few disturbed or ‘sick’ individuals, and that its causes are psychological rather than social. However, sociologists have challenged this view. * Domestic violence is far too widespread to be simply the work of a few individuals. According to the British Crime Survey (2007), domestic violence accounts for almost a sixth of all violent crime. Catriona Mirrlees-Black’s (1999) survey of 16,000 people estimates that there are 6.6 million domestic assaults a year, about half involving physical injury. * Domestic violence does not occur randomly, but follows particular social patterns and these patterns have social causes. The most striking of these patterns is that it is mainly violence by men against women. For example, Kathryn Coleman et al (2007) found that women were more likely than men to have experience ‘intimate violence’ across all four types of abuse – partner abuse, family abuse, sexual abuse and stalking.
Similarly, Mirrlees-Black found that: * Most Victims are women * 99% of all incidents against women are committed by men * Nearly 1 in 4 women has been assaulted by a partner at some time in her life, and one in eight repeatedly so.

This is confirmed by Russell and Rebecca Dobash’s (1979) research in Scotland, based on police and court records and interviews with women in women’s refuges. They cite examples of wives being slapped, pushed about, beaten, raped or killed by their husbands. Dobash and Dobash found that violent incidents could be set off by what a husband saw as a challenge to his authority such as his wife asking why he was late home for a meal. They argue that marriage legitimates violence against women by conferring power and authority on husbands and dependency on wives.

Official Statistics and Others at Risk
Official statistics on domestic violence understate the true extent of the problem for two main reasons. Firstly, victims may be unwilling to report it to the police. Stephanie Yearnshire (1997) found that on average a woman suffers 35 assaults before making a report. Domestic Violence is the violent crime least likely to be reported.
Secondly, police and prosecutors may be reluctant to record, investigate or prosecute those cases that are reported to them. According to David Cheal (1991), this reluctance is due to the fact that police and other state agencies are not prepared to become involved in the family. They make three assumptions about family life: * That the family is a private sphere, so access to it by state agencies should be limited. * That the family is a good thing and so agencies tend to neglect the ‘darker’ side of family life. * That individuals are free agents, so it is assumed that if a woman is experiencing abuse she is free to leave. However, this is not true. Male violence is often coupled with male economic power: abused women are often financially dependent on their husbands and unable to leave.

Sociologists have identified other patterns of domestic violence in addition to male violence against women. According to Mirrlees-Black, social groups at greater risk of domestic violence include: * Children and young people * Those in the lowest social class * Those who live in rented accommodation * Those on low incomes or in financial difficulties * Those with high levels of alcohol consumption and users of illegal drugs. According to the British Crime Survey (2007), the offender was under the influence of alcohol in 39% of cases
Some of these groups overlap. For example, statistics show that children from lower social classes appear at higher risk of abuse and violence.
Although women appear to be the main victims of domestic violence, more recent figures from the home office (2010) show that men make up around 37% of the victims of reported domestic violence. This is no small number, but the campaign group Parity suggest that deeply ingrained gender roles often prevent male victims from admitting to being victims, fearing mockery and the questioning of their masculinity. This illustrates how official statistics on domestic violence can be criticised, as the real figure for male victims may in fact be much larger than the figure of those who actually report it. Official statistics only show the crimes that have been reported, so they are not always very useful for studying issues such as domestic violence.
The Radical Feminist Explanation

Radical feminists interpret findings such as those of Dobash and Dobash as evidence of patriarchy. For example, Kate Millett (1970) and Shulamith Firestone (1970) argue that all societies have been founded on patriarchy. They see the key division in society as that between men and women. Men are the enemy: they are the oppressors and exploiters of women.

Radical feminists see the family and marriage as the main source of women’s oppression. Within the family, men dominate women through domestic violence or the threat of it.

For radical feminists, widespread domestic violence is an inevitable feature of patriarchal society and serves to preserve the power that all men have over all women. Furthermore, in their view, male domination of state institutions helps to explain the reluctance of the police and courts to deal effectively with cases of domestic violence.

Radical feminists help to explain why most domestic violence is committed by men. They argue that violence against women is part of a patriarchal system that maintains men’s power. They give a sociological, rather than a psychological, explanation by linking patterns of domestic violence to dominant social norms about marriage.

However, faith Robertson Elliot (1996) rejects the radical feminist claim that all men benefit from violence against women. Not all men are aggressive and most are opposed to domestic violence. Radical feminists ignore this.

Radical feminists also fail to explain female violence, including child abuse by women and women’s violence against male partners. For example, Mirrlees-Black (1999) found that about in one in seven men has been assaulted by a female partner, and one in 20 repeatedly so. Also, Home office figures from 2010 show that men make up approximately 37% of all victims of reported incidents of domestic violence.

Wilkinson: Domestic Violence, Inequality and Stress

Richard Wilkinson (1996) offers an explanation of the patterns of Domestic Violence. He sees domestic violence as the result of stress on family members caused by social inequality.

Inequality means that some families have fewer resources than others such as income and housing. Those on low incomes or living in overcrowded accommodation are likely to experience higher levels of stress. This reduces their chances of maintaining stable, caring relationships and increases the risk of conflict and violence. For example: * Worries about money, jobs and housing may spill over into domestic conflict as tempers become frayed. * Lack of money and time restricts people’s social circle and reduces support for those under stress

The findings of Wilkinson (1996) and Mirrlees-Black (1999) show that not all people are equally in danger of suffering domestic violence: those with less power, status wealth or income are often at the greatest risk.

Wilkinson’s approach is useful in showing how social inequality produces stress and triggers conflict and violence in families. As those in lower classes face greater hardship and thus stress, this helps to explain the class differences in the statistics on domestic violence. However, Wilkinson does not explain why women rather than men are more likely to be the victims of domestic violence.