The film the diary of a mad housewife produced in 1970 is based on the family of a New York based lawyer, Jonathan Balser who is controlling and abusive to his wife, Bettina Balser who also doubles up as the mother of his children. He does not show his love for his wife and frustrates her efforts to raise their two daughters. He is too busy chasing his financial goals in his thriving career and fails to play his roles of the family. The daughters equally disrespect their mother just like their dad and treat her with rudeness.
Benitta is sexually involved with another man who gets into relationships with women for his own self-centered interests and dumps them after he fulfills them (McCue, 2008). She finally dumps both men in her life in a quest to find herself. She believes that she lost herself and needed some time to get back to her feet. She enters into group therapy but the experience is not helpful. She thinks she is going mad and begins to keep a secret diary of events as a form of mental therapy. Her entries into the diary help her to uncover the kind of life that she is living.
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The film speaks to people of all generations about domestic violence, an issue that is present and key for the unit of the family. She searches for answers into the kind of life that has be fallen her and this resonates with her becoming a feminist; a universally common practice that make the rights of the female gender known to all.
The types of domestic violence in the film are emotional, psychological and sexual abuse. Emotional abuse is revealed where the husband, Jonathan constantly humiliates and criticizes his wife; this made his wife have a lot of self-doubt and low self-esteem. This resulted in Bettina beginning to doubt herself and view herself as worthless. Her children also did what they had seen their dad do to their mother and this added salt to the injury. The relationship between Jonathan and Bettina was unhealthy. Emotional torment is a characteristic of emotional abuse. The new lover Bettina had found while trying to fill the void her family had created turns out to be a self-centered man who has underlying issues with women since he gets into relationships to fulfill his own needs and later dumps the women who think that his intentions are genuine.
Psychological abuse occurs as a result of prolonged emotional abuse that instills fear in the victim. Jonathan did not meet the emotional needs of his wife. The sexual relationship she was involved with another man does not either; she slowly drifts into psychological pain. The kind of life she lives is full of fear and she finds temporary comfort in the secret diary she keeps. Fear is a characteristic of psychological abuse.
Sexual abuse is evident. Jonathan was a controlling and intimidating husband who ordered his wife around and frustrated her efforts (Roberts, 2002). The ideal kind of woman that society ascribes to must be a woman who is sexually submissive to her husband but in this case, the husband and no respect for his wife on sexual matters something that led her to seek for sexual meaning and pleasure outside her marriage.
In this film, Bettina is the victim. Her husband, lover and daughters abuse her. They all participate in driving the nails of the coffin of depression into which she had fallen. Her husband abuses her psychologically, emotionally and sexually. She has a spousal and sexual relationship that was not ideally intimate as these relationships are supposed to be. The daughters with whom she is supposed to have a parental relationship with turn out to be abusers of her emotional self. They humiliate and show lack of respect to her. They make her question her self-worth resulting in depression. She gets into sexual relationship with a man outside her marriage who also ends up driving her deep into depression. The woman in this film is the victim of domestic violence and this threatens her sanity almost making her mad. Her lover is also a victim as is depicted in his behavior. He falls in love with married women to avoid commitment. This may be because of past incidents that may have caused hurt and resentments towards commitments in his life (McCue, 2008). It is however not right to drive other people into despair while fulfilling your own selfish interests.
Signs and symptoms of domestic violence range from visible to invisible ones. It takes skill and education to be able to identify them because they are the same ones that are useful in persecuting the abusers in a court of law. Some of the symptoms that the character is showing include fear. Due to the life in the kind of relationships, she was involved in; she begins to fear that she will become mad and decides to keep a secret diary as a form of self-therapy. Her husband does not appreciate her appearance as a woman and this drives her into a state of despair.
Her husband frustrated her every effort including that of raising their daughters; a responsibility that they were supposed to co-share (Weiss, 2004). This made Bettina have a lot of self-doubt in herself lowering her self-esteem. In an effort to rekindle her self-esteem, her newly found lover George contributes into driving her into more depression.The character was in meaningless relationships. Her husband constantly frustrated all her efforts at being a good housewife and mother, made her doubt her self-worth and her fear of her life. She engaged herself with a user in quest to seek acceptance and admiration.
Bettina is an ideal American housewife who does all her household work and raises her children. Her husband is supposed to appreciate this and be a better partner but he is absorbed in chasing is career that he does not fulfill his roles as a sexual partner to his wife. This frustrates her that she goes away to find love and cheats on her husband. Infidelity is a symptom of domestic violence.
The theoretical explanation of the kind of domestic violence in the film is using the feminist theory. This theory explains that discrimination in intimate relationships like marriage may be due to inequality. It reinforces male power and female subordination in marriage. This theory wields more power on men and views women as inferior. This is understandable in the film where Jonathan is busy chasing his financial success and being the renowned lawyer that he is, society has elevated his status. Bettina on the other hand is a housewife; a much lower status and this gives her powerful husband the right to be domineering in her affairs.
Bio psychosocial theory that combines both biological and psychosocial behavior explains the film. Biological predisposition places Jonathan at a more superior gender; therefore, he discriminates his wife. Psychosocial behavior such as the aggressiveness in which he pursued a successful law career may also have played a part in his behavior towards is wife whose career as a housewife is with less aggression.
Social learning theory explains the kinds of relationship that the character was involved. After being unsatisfied in the abusive relationship with her husband that left her with a low self-esteem and despair, she got into another relationship with another man seeking to get the comfort but ended up being emotionally and psychologically abused(Akers, 2009). This is in line with the social learning theory that suggests, “Exposure to violence in one context increases the risk of violence in other contexts.”
Prevention is better than cure. There are moments in the film that may have made a difference in the character if intervention was soonest. A good example is before she went looking for another man to fulfill her sexual desires. If she had sought psychological help at this point and found a helpful doctor, chances of falling into further physical abuse would be lower. This is because, at this point, she had lost her self-esteem and was seeking worth in herself by finding a replacement for her husband. The new relationship was supposed to help her fill the void that lack of self-esteem had left.
Another opportunity where intervention may have made a difference was immediately her children began being rude to her and treat her the same way their father did. Counseling for the children on respecting their mother may have even helped their father to see her differently and begin respecting and supporting her (Roberts, 2002). Unfortunately, it was not until the problem was evidently big that there was intervention.
It is important to curb a problem at its early stages before it becomes worse. A strategy I would have used to help the character is the cognitive and behavior theory. By using this model, it will be easier to intervene in the problem of the victim that is extreme in depression. This theory combines both the cognitive and behavioral aspects of an individual related to the situation in which they are. It involves three criteria steps where one uses the perception, interpretation and processing of the behavior of the victim.
Using this model, the victim will assess her own line of thoughts. This will help in helping the victim come up with the perception they had before showing the extreme sign of despair in this case. It is the feeling that an individual had before they drifted in the condition they are. The perceptions include long durations of sadness among others. The perception of sadness because of things they were told or treatment by their partners may be a reason.
Interpretation is the second step in the intervention process. The individuals in this case the character will help in the interpretation of their own perception. The character was in depression that was due to being constantly sad due to the external pressure in their surroundings. It will also help them in realizing that they have a problem.
The third part of this intervention model is the processing. After identifying the problem that they have, it is only necessary to solve. Solutions can only be possible with the help of the character. The character helps by identifying their own ways into making amends with themselves. Lessons on the importance of taking responsibility of her choices and find ways of moving past them are important. This way it will be easier not to place blame on people for the situation.
A comprehensive intervention plan involves individual and group therapy with the aim of making the character safe. Both forms of therapy will create an ownership into the condition of the character and begin the healing process (Weiss, 2004). By being in a group with other people of the same problem as hers, they will be able to empower each other to overcome them. In the end, there will be safety of the character either as an individual or with other people.
Some of the real time resources that may help the character in dealing with depression include the Domestic Violence hotline. When she experiences incidences of violence, she should call the number and get help. It is a hotline number that may even help in persecuting the perpetrators in this case her husband. Another real time resource is her therapist since they will help her come up with ways of dealing with this problem. Involvement of her time in practicing her hobbies is another real time resource that will occupy her mind to stop thinking about the problems that she has. Solving domestic violence is possible to avoid threatening the family.
References:
Akers, R. L., & Jensen, G. F. (2009). Social learning theory and the explanation of crime: A guide for the new century . New Brunswick: Transaction Pub.
McCue, M. L. (2008). Domestic violence: A reference handbook . Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO.
Roberts, A. R. (2002). Handbook of domestic violence intervention strategies: Policies, programs, and legal remedies . Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Weiss, E. (2004). Surviving domestic violence: Voices of women who broke free . Volcano, Calif: Volcano Press.
