Unfortunately, domestic violence remains a sensitive topic for many American families, even today. However, tremendous work was done by various feminist movements to bring awareness to this topic and, thus, make “wife-beating” a crime rather than a private family tragedy. There were many explanations for the possible causes of domestic violence, which subsequently led to the development of multiple theories. These theories, in turn, were heavily criticized by pro-feminist activists and redeveloped.
For generations, American law enforcement refused to treat separate cases of family abuse as a serious criminal offense. The situation dramatically changed after the two lawsuits: Bruno v. Codd and Scott v. Hart. The former was brought up by 12 female victims of domestic abuse and presented by Laurie Woods. The latter was the result of the police’s inadequate response to the complaints of two women who were represented by Pauline Gee. This paper is going to analyze the progress made in treating domestic violence, using multiple theories explaining this topic as an example, with the help of two academic articles, which provide sufficient and credible evidence.
The two academic papers (not counting Houston’s research) used for this essay proved their usefulness. The author of Domestic violence intervention and prevention programs: recommendations for implementing successful programs based his research on various data acclaimed from police reports and court archives. Stengel does an outstanding job in identifying Bruno v. Codd and California Scott v. Hart as starting point in legal reforms concerning legal interference in domestic violence (2019). Exploring gender differences in domestic violence reported to the NSW Police Force also includes an extensive research based on data gained from police reports. Therefore, the credibility of both sources cannot be questioned as they contain official secondary data.
Before the feminist intervention, many victims of domestic abuse were unable to deal with this problem themselves. Many were afraid to speak out and bring the public attention to their problem, and, thus, those carrying out the abuse remained unpunished by the law. Multiple theories arose to find the explanation for this. One of them tried to analyze the topic from a psychological perspective and focused on the abnormalities within social relationships (Houston, 2014).
This perspective was heavily criticized by feminist activists as it stressed the attention on the personal issues rather than the need for social change (Houston, 2014). It turned out that “battered” women were making attempts to deal with the situation but were not listened to by police, who refused to treat it as a criminal case. This subsequently led to two lawsuits against police departments: Bruno v. Codd and California Scott v. Hart. Despite the latter was rather unsuccessful, as no arrests were made, the needed attention was achieved, and by 1981 21 states allowed issuing arrest warrants for domestic violence (Stengel, 2019). Therefore, the psychological approach to this problem was wrong in ignoring the need to change the social perception of domestic abuse.
After the failure of the psychological approach, a new theory explaining domestic violence was developed. It is known as “Family Violence Theory,” and unlike the former, this one put its focus on the possible social causes of the grim topic. The theory explains the problem of domestic violence through the lens of various social factors, which can lead to it. In addition, “Family Violence” considers sexism as one of the causes. The main point of this approach, however, is the social stress, which can contribute to the amount of violence going on in a family (Houston, 2014). It helps to explain child abuse and reverse violence (performed by women on their husbands).
Feminists, despite taking similar approach, were still criticizing it for providing arguments, which justify family violence and misplacing the role of gender. The further critique of this theory involves the fact the theory was putting husband abuse as its main goal of the research and deliberately tried to prove that it was more prevalent (Houston, 2014). Overall, the “Family Violence Problem” was a major step forward to understanding the causes of family violence but did not prove itself useful in treating it.
Over time, more sophisticated approaches towards domestic violence were developed by feminist scholars, who made significant progress in bringing the long-needed attention of the general public to the issue. Feminist researchers put patriarchy as the critical issue, which needed to be dealt with to change the social perception of domestic abuse. One of the biggest achievements of this approach was recognizing sex as a status category, which, just like racial origins, had certain political applications towards it. Radical feminist scholars took it even further and compared violence against women to the political injustice towards black people (Houston, 2014).
Feminist writers argue that in patriarchal societies, sexual dominance is the key factor responsible for men abusing their power and getting various privileges (Houston, 2014). The success of these theories in changing the situation can be traced through the increased number of people appearing on the police records as victims and offenders after the reports of domestic violence (Wangmann et al., 2020). The ability to recognize the political context in domestic violence enabled feminists to raise the awareness needed to initiate social changes and make it a more punishable legal offense.
Another turning point in the approach towards domestic violence was the development of theories concerning this topic by feminist scholars. Apart from solely focusing on patriarchy, these theories provide useful insight on other issues regarding family abuse, which other authors previously ignored. These theories made significant progress in breaking the stereotype that cases of domestic abuse should remain a private family matter and, thus, raised the need for law enforcement to intervene (Houston, 2014). Furthermore, another belief was challenged, proving that domestic violence did not solely occur in economically unstable families and was rather a result of sexism (Houston, 2014).
In addition, these theories explain the phenomenon when “battered wives” remain loyal to their husbands despite experiencing abuse daily. The works of feminist scholars relate this to the acceptance of gender roles by women, who dictate financial dependence on their husbands and, thus, making the former unable to break abusive relationships (Houston, 2014). Therefore, these theories contributed to the rising awareness towards domestic violence and making it a more punishable offense nowadays.
In conclusion, significant progress has been made in treating domestic violence. The enormous work carried out by feminist scholars and activists helped to change long-standing views on domestic abuse. The older theories regarding domestic abuse appeared to be outdated and ignored the role of issues such as sexism or patriarchy in explaining the causes of family violence. Furthermore, some of the works contained unacceptable arguments like victim-blaming, whereas others tried to find ways of justifying the violence instead of dealing with it.
Feminist theories developed and improved arguments offered by other authors, making a difference in the social perception of family violence as well as suggesting many possible solutions to the issue. In addition, the effort of two attorneys Laurie Woods and Pauline Gee, must also be recognized. Their two cases, despite having mere success started resulted in a wave of legislations across the states, which allowed the arrests of domestic abusers. Overall, the need for feminist intervention in domestic abuse was loud and clear. Its contribution ultimately resulted in the proper legal treatment of the violence and penalties for those who performed it.
References
Houston, C. (2014). How Feminist Theory Became (Criminal) Law: Tracing the Path to Mandatory Criminal Intervention in Domestic Violence Cases. Michigan Journal of Gender & Law, 21(1). Web.
Stengel, A. (2019). Domestic violence intervention and prevention programs: recommendations for implementing successful programs. University of Wisconsin-Platteville, pp. 1-33.
Wangmann, J., Laing, L., & Stubbs, J. (2020). Exploring gender differences in domestic violence reported to the NSW Police Force. Current Issues in Criminal Justice, 32(3), pp. 255-276.