In the study on domestic, family, and teen violence, most people agree that violence does not come from anger, being aggressive, or drinking alcohol. Mainly, it comes from the desire of an abuser to exert power over his or her victim. This is shown using the Power and Control Wheel, which was developed to show the types of abuses that are suffered by victims of family violence. The wheel shows that victims suffer from more than one form of violence and most times, abusers use different abusive tactics to control them. The essay will show that any person can be a victim or perpetrator of domestic violence, but studies show that men are mostly the perpetrators and women the victims.
Elements of Domestic Violence
Using Coercion and Threats
This involves making threats and executing them in order to hurt the victim or using other means such as threatening to break a relationship, to commit suicide, to report the victim to welfare, or threatening them in order to drop charges. According to the powerpoint (ppt) on Domestic Violence, it reveals that more than 80 percent girls that have been physically abused in their intimate relationships continue to date their abusers (Domestic Violence, 2019). Moreover, it reveals that 30 percent of women are murdered each year by their boyfriends.
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Using Emotional Abuse
Emotional abuse is making a victim feel unimportant before his or her abuser, such as by calling them names, making them feel that they are crazy, humiliating them, and making them to feel guilty (Domestic Violence, 2019). The Domestic Violence power point reveals that women are made victims because the social system defines them as inferior beings; therefore, this makes them vulnerable to emotional abuses from perpetrators.
Using Isolation
Isolation involves controlling the victims’ lives such as where they go, who they talk with, what they read, and using jealousy to justify their actions. On average, the Domestic Violence (2019), more women are murdered each year by the husbands because of their abusers as a result of confrontations that arise due to excessive monitoring.
Using Intimidation
This involves making the victim afraid by using gestures, actions, loud voice, destroying property, and displaying weapons. As Goode, Gelles and Cornell explain, a person gains personal, social, and economic control over the victim of violence after they intimidate them to maintain a dominant position (Schmalleger, 2018).
Using Children
Some people use children to make the victim feel guilty by sending children to deliver messages or threatening to take away children. This is revealed in the Domestic Violence ppt which indicates that some women get pregnant to ‘save a marriage’ (Spanking, 2019).
Minimizing , Denying, and Blaming
This refers to the behaviors of perpetrators of violence who tend to show a lack of seriousness for victims’ concerns. For example, the ppt reveals that men believe in a private nature of a family in which they do not tell or help women in order to remain being seen as aggressive and having authority over women (Domestic Violence, 2019).
Sexual Abuse
Some individuals are forced to engage in sex against their will and feel violated when they are treated as sex pets. For example, the ppt reveals that 1 in 4 girls are pressured to perform oral sex during intercourse (Domestic Violence, 2019).
Using Male Privilege
Men might use their dominance over women by treating them as servants or making most of the decisions without involving women. This amounts to a form of violence when women feel as being slaves. As ppt reveals, the British common law once allowed men to “chastise” with any reasonable instrument as ways of disciplining them (Domestic Violence, 2019).
Using Economic abuse
Men also prevent women from getting a job which compels women to depend on women for money. Historically, women have been treated as subordinates in social and economic positions, which devalue them and cause violence due to structural stress.
Victims and Perpetrators of Abuse
Various sources show that anyone can be a victim or a perpetrator of abuse, but the fact is 96 percent of all victims are women. Furthermore, anyone can be a perpetrator of domestic violence, but the fact is 92 percent of all perpetrators are men. Thus, a victim or a perpetrator emerges whenever there is an abusive relationship where one person gains and maintains control over the other.
Why Men Continue To Be Violent/Abusive
Men remain violent for many reasons, but some of them include having low self-esteem such that they show aggressiveness to women to show their extent of power. Another reason is that some men witnessed domestic violence when they were young boys, which manifests in having an aggressive behavior (Schmalleger, 2018). The third reason is that some men want to gain control and think that being violence works (Sociology 103: Chapter 6, 2019). Other reasons include blaming alcohol/drugs, hold rigid bipolar gender roles, have psychological problems, or are brought up in male societies that devalue women and girls.
Best Suggestion to Eliminate Family Violence from Society
The first suggestion is by using the psychiatric model to detect violence among families that is a result of personality disorder, mental illness, or substance abuse. Another way is by providing community support to children from abusive families so that to prevent them from developing stress ( Hess, Orthmann & Cho, 2016). Another way is by watching out for warning signs, such as people with extreme mood swings or have a family history of domestic violence.
Men remain being abusive to women because they suffer from low esteem which they hide so that women cannot see them as being weak. For this reason, there are various ways the victims of family violence can use to avoid being victimized which include avoiding signs and instilling good moral values among children. In any relationship, there are markers that can be used to detect people that are likely to be violent. The Power and Control Wheel helps to illustrate why there are victims and perpetrators of domestic violence.
References
Domestic Violence. (2019). Power Point Presentation.
Hess, K. M., Orthmann, C. H., & Cho, H. L. (2016). Criminal investigation .
Belmont: Cengage Learning.
Sociology 103: Chapter 6. (2019). Power Point Presentation.
Spanking. (2019). Power Point Presentation.
Schmalleger, F. J. (2018). Criminology (4th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
