Constructions of local culture and impacts on domestic violence in an Australian rural community

Studies of domestic violence in rural areas have predominantly focused on barriers that keep women trapped in abusive relationships. The literature has frequently suggested that rural culture influences the incidence of domestic violence, the forms it takes, and how it is experienced. Yet there is surprisingly little research on how rural culture plays out in relationships between women and men who experience domestic violence. The study described in this paper explored local culture in a South Australian rural community and how it affected women's experiences of, and men's perpetration of, domestic violence. It found several local cultural discourses that bore on the issue, including self-reliance, pride, privacy, belonging and closeness, family, and Christianity. The power and influence of these discourses made it difficult to name and challenge domestic violence. The paper concludes with the argument that it is important to acknowledge and understand the values and beliefs of rural women and men when developing effective and appropriate responses to rural domestic violence. There is a need to move away from universal understandings of a rural culture to acknowledge discourses that have power and strength within a community so that we can sensitively challenge discourses that silence domestic violence.     

Preventing Domestic Violence by Changing Australian Gender Relations: Issues and Considerations

ABSTRACT

In recent years Australian governments have significantly refocused domestic violence policies to prioritise primary prevention strategies. The objective of such strategies is to change how Australians perceive, acknowledge, and respond to domestic violence as a gender-based problem. Recognising the value of these efforts to address oppressive cultural practices, we draw attention to limitations inherent in shifting culture as a means to prevent domestic violence. We demonstrate how governments may improve policy approaches by addressing the structural inequalities that have historically forced women into positions of subordination. This will help us move toward more effective and long-term solutions to domestic violence.

IMPLICATIONS

• Australian domestic violence policy must include structural and systems changes prioritising women’s equal rights in addition to equal opportunities.

• To change cultural attitudes and behaviours, we must alter the environment in which oppressions and opportunities are located.

• Social workers can shape the debate to ensure that changing culture to prevent domestic violence is conceptualised as part of a wider social and policy change agenda.

     

Domestic violence and South Korean women: the cultural context and alternative experiences

The present research contributes to the growing body of cross-cultural research on domestic violence. This is accomplished by answering the question of how severity of intimate partner abuse varies for (1) women incarcerated for the homicides of their male partners (2) abused women who sought domestic violence shelter, short of killing their intimate assailants, and (3) a group of South Korean females outside of domestic violence shelters or prison. The article concludes with a discussion of potential policy implications of the findings as well as promising directions for future research.     

Female domestic violence offenders: their attachment security, trauma symptoms, and personality organization

Unlike male domestic violence offenders, female domestic violence offenders have traditionally been overlooked in research and theory, despite the fact that females also have high rates of domestic violence perpetration. Towards the aim of extending extant research on male and female pepetrators of domestic violence, we examined attachment style, trauma symptoms, and personality organization in 33 female offenders receiving mandated treatment for domestic violence. These offenders were compared to 32 nonoffending women receiving psychological treatment. The Experiences in Close Relationships Revised (ECR-Revised) was used to examine adult attachment, the Trauma Symptom Inventory (TSI) was used to examine trauma symptomology, and finally, the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory III (MCMI-III) was used to examine cluster B personality traits. Analyses indicated that female domestic violence offenders reported less attachment security, more trauma-related symptoms, and more personality psychopathology (Antisocial, Borderline, and Dependent Subscales) than did nonoffender clinical comparison women.     

Domestic Violence and Aging

Women of all ages experience domestic violence, and the population of middle-aged and older women is growing rapidly. This article discusses how women’s issues, domestic violence, aging, and elder abuse all relate to social work education and then suggests how they can be integrated together into the social work curriculum through teaching about elder domestic violence.     

Domestic Violence in Nusa Tenggara Barat,Indonesia: Married Women's Definitions and Experiences of Violence in the Home

This article contributes to cross-cultural understandings of gender-based violence by examining women's definitions and experiences of domestic violence in Eastern Indonesia. The research was part of a larger study of human rights in maternal and neonatal health and involved a survey that integrated common anthropological practices in its development and delivery. This survey measured the prevalence of emotional and physical abuse, violence during pregnancy, unwanted sex and fear of violence among a sub-sample of 504 married Muslim women. Standard human rights definitions of violence were adapted to create locally appropriate definitions of economic violence, husband infidelity and unwanted sex within marriage. Survey responses indicated that the majority of women believed verbal abuse, threats of harm, economic violence, physical violence, control of women's mobility and a husband's public infidelity to constitute domestic violence. Our exploration of how Indonesian women understand domestic violence reinforces the salience of cultural specificity for different women's definitions of violence, as well as the applicability of internationally recognised definitions of gender-based violence.     

Complexity of domestic violence in a South Asian context in Hong Kong: cultural and structural impact

With the dearth of empirical research related to the experiences of domestic violence among South Asian communities in Hong Kong, this study engages with migrant South Asian women’s subjective understanding and experience of domestic violence. Presenting women’s narratives of their experiences with domestic violence allow for a better understanding of the complexities that inform and shape women’s experiences and decision-making in the face of partner violence. This empirical study investigated South Asian women’s experience of domestic violence in the context of Hong Kong through in-depth interviews with 14 South Asian women who had experienced abuse and 6 helping professionals from 4 social service agencies. Analysis of the data revealed that the nature and context of abuse posed as a barrier in their help seeking. The findings highlight the importance of understanding the influence of cultural and structural conditions and the difficulties and complexities women face that increases women’s vulnerability to abuse. This paper offers an analysis of how structures thereby come to impact on women’s distress and vulnerability. The study also highlights the need for inclusive service provision for minority ethnic women experiencing domestic violence.     

Belonging: women living with intellectual disabilities and experiences of domestic violence

Women with an intellectual disability are under-represented in domestic violence research, yet they are one of the most vulnerable groups who are at risk of violence and abuse. This article aims to contribute to the domestic violence field by reporting on a narrative dialogic performative study, which utilised a feminist poststructural perspective to explore significant relationships and the concept of belonging in the lives of women with a mild intellectual disability. Four in-depth narrative interviews were conducted. The study found that the women shared similar stories of devaluation and rejection in childhood and hence the women’s search for belonging contributed to their vulnerability to exploitation and abuse in domestic violence relationships. The paper argues that gendered discourses and constructions of intellectual disability regulate domestic violence as a personal problem or way of life for women with intellectual disabilities.     

Praise Is Not Enough

This article argues there is a need for a more encompassing understanding of the relationships between domestic violence and all forms of marginalisation in the Australian context. Specific attention will be given to the invisibility of class and poverty in contemporary discourse about domestic violence in the mainstream population. That there continues to be a higher prevalence of domestic violence, and more severe physical injury sustained as a result of domestic violence among population groups living with poverty, exposes the partiality of mainstream knowledges informing Australian domestic violence policy and practice. This article proposes prevention efforts must accommodate how class and the effects of poverty interlock with other aspects of social identity to shape the experience of domestic violence for people both victimised by, and perpetrating violence.     

Talking about violence: a microanalysis of narrative processes in a family therapy session

In this article, we look at the development in family therapy of narratives about domestic violence. We report on microanalyses of a family therapy session, using narrative research methods, including some conversation analytic tools. The main questions posed in this investigation were: How does storytelling of a highly charged and delicate topic like domestic violence develop in the session?; how do the different actors in the therapy room contribute to telling such stories?; how do actors try to put forward domestic violence as a conversational topic? and how do different actors react to these attempts? Our research illustrates how the recounting of stories of violence seems to go hand in hand with modes of interaction that discourage the telling of these stories. In the back‐and‐forth process between voices of hesitation and voices of reassurance, the participants weigh the level of safety in the session. In as far as the voices of hesitation can be reassured of the safety, it becomes gradually possible to talk about delicate, problematic experiences, such as violence in the family.     

‘She Knew What was Coming’: Knowledge and Domestic Violence in Social Work Education

Social Work educators are aware that within any class of social work students there are likely to be students with first-hand experience of domestic violence. The Writing Stories project was designed to engage students with social policy learning using experiential accounts. An unintended outcome of the project was the disclosure of students' experience of domestic violence. The accounts of violence offer an interesting juxtaposition with the formalised academic story of violence. This paper, by drawing on the concept of banality, aims to uncover how knowledge is presented in those stories and what challenges this may pose for educators. Feminist research highlights the need for researchers to enable women to tell their stories. Social work values also stress that service-user experience should be central to theorising and knowledge production. However, within an educational relationship these stories also need to be examined for how they can both provide a basis for knowledge and compete with, clash or resist other forms of knowledge. The key argument is that neither the formal, academic forms of knowledge, nor the experiential should be privileged. Instead, it is by working across a spectrum of epistemological methods that practice is best contextualised.     

Intimate partner violence, women, and work: coping on the job

Intimate partner violence is a significant health problem for women, with consequences extending to work as well as society at large. This article describes workplace interference tactics, how women cope with violence at work, and workplace supports for a sample of recently employed women with domestic violence orders (DVO; n = 518). Results indicate that violent partners used a wide range of work interference tactics, that women were more likely to tell someone at work about the victimization than they were to hide the information, and that coworkers and supervisors provided a range of supports to women who did disclose their situation. Implications for further research and practice are discussed.     

Technology as a Weapon in Domestic Violence: Responding to Digital Coercive Control

ABSTRACT

Technology-facilitated domestic violence is an emerging issue for social workers and other service providers. The concept of Digital Coercive Control (DCC) is introduced to highlight the particular nature and impacts of technology-facilitated abuse in the context of domestic violence. While practitioners have become more adept at working with women experiencing DCC, there is still little known about its dynamics and whether this violence requires a change in current service responses. This article explores findings from survey research conducted with 546 Australian domestic violence practitioners about the ways perpetrators use technology as part of their abuse tactics. The findings demonstrate that DV practitioners believe perpetrator use of technology is extensive and has significant impacts on the safety of clients. A major dilemma faced by practitioners is how to promote and facilitate client safety from DCC while still enabling safe use of technology so clients can remain connected to family, friends, and community.

IMPLICATIONS

• The use of digital technology in domestic violence creates a significant practice issue for Australian domestic violence practitioners.

• The development of a practice framework for responding to digital coercive control may assist practitioners to highlight the risks posed by this abuse, while still enabling women and children the freedom to participate in the digital realm.

     

Financial consequences of leaving violent men – women survivors of domestic violence and the social assistance system in Sweden

Being self-sufficient, having an economy of your own, does not only safeguard basic resources such as food and shelter but is also a prerequisite for ensuring full participation in society. Research shows that women subjected to domestic violence often suffer from economic abuse and experience economic hardship within and after their relationships. Without economic support it is harder for abused women to break up and the risk of returning to a violent partner increases. The aim of the article is to understand how survivors of domestic violence experience financial vulnerability and what implications these experiences have on social work within the social assistance system. Based on 13 in-depth interviews with women survivors, our study describes how debts and stolen money, together with difficulties on the labour market, affect their ability to have a reasonable economic standard (long) after breaking up. Several of the women describe how social workers in different ways have recognized them by giving emotional support, cognitive respect and social esteem. However, social workers have also mimicked patterns of abuse from their ex-partners.     

Domestic Violence,Children's Agency and Mother–Child Relationships: Towards a More Advanced Model

Although domestic violence research increasingly recognises children's agency, this awareness has not extended to our understanding of children's relationships with their abused mothers. Findings suggesting that some children actively support their mother, and encourage her to leave the perpetrator, have been consistently under‐discussed. This article argues that the model of parent–child relationships used by most domestic violence research sees children as passive and contributes to mother‐blaming discourses. Analysing key quantitative and qualitative research, I suggest that a more sophisticated model of parent–child relationships is needed to understand how children's agency affects them, their mothers and the domestic violence situation.     

The Batterer's View of the Self and Others in Domestic Violence

Researchers estimate that 3-4 million women are abused by intimate partners each year, and the United States Surgeon General reports physical abuse as the leading cause of injury to women in the U.S. Although numerous studies have examined survivors'perceptions of domestic violence, few have examined battery from the perpetrator's perspective. We use a symbolic interactionist perspective to examine in-depth interviews with thirty-three male batterers and a demographically matched comparison group of twenty-five nonviolent male subjects. Our findings indicate that batterers minimize others'negative views of themselves, and they dissociate themselves from their partners'physical and emotional injuries. The comparison subjects, on the other hand, consider others'negative views of themselves, and they describe a deeper understanding of their intimate others'problems. We argue that an understanding of the batterer's perception of himself and others in domestic violence will help counselors develop techniques to stop male violence against women.     

The Life Course: A Sociological Introduction

Abstract

Recognition of the deleterious effects of domestic violence on women's mental health has highlighted the potential benefits for women of collaboration between mental health and domestic violence services. Yet the different histories, knowledge bases, and organisational cultures of the mental health and domestic violence sectors present formidable challenges to the development of effective collaborative work. This article draws on a large research enquiry, involving four separate but related studies, which explored aspects of collaboration between these two service sectors. It focuses particularly on data collected in interviews with practitioners from mental health and domestic violence services who were participants in an action research study (one of the four studies), which was aimed at discovering the factors that contributed to enhanced collaboration and the benefits of this for women who experience both domestic violence and mental health issues.     

SASA! Together: An evolution of the SASA! approach to prevent violence against women

One in three women globally will experience intimate partner violence (IPV) with devastating consequences for individual survivors, their families and communities. While prevalence remains high, violence against women is not inevitable and community mobilization approaches have emerged as particularly promising for transforming the gender inequitable norms and practices that underlie violence. The SASA! Activist Kit to Prevent Violence Against Women (SASA!), developed by Raising Voices in 2008, provides a theory-based approach for mobilizing communities to transform power imbalances between women and men through critical discussion and positive action. In this article, we provide the rational for revising SASA! after ten years of program learning and formal research. We aim to contribute to the knowledge base around what works to prevent IPV by describing the core enhancements in the revised version--called SASA! Together—and linking these changes to Raising Voices’ program learning and broader advancements in the field. In addition, we reflect on how current debates—such as how best to “scale up” violence prevention programs—were considered and resolved in SASA! Together. The paper concludes by sharing lessons learned that may provide guidance for future revisions development and revisions of evidenced-based programs.     

Victims or Pets?

This article addresses the issues presented in the book Dominance and Affection by Yi Fu Tuan (1984). Tuan proposes that dominance coupled with affection will create a pet and that dominance without affection will create a victim. Tuan shows how plants, gardens, women and children are all dominated at times, but under the guise of affection. These ideas are then related to male-female relationships, especially in situations of domestic violence where women are often dominated both with and without affection.