Men’s Violence Against Women and Children, Essay Example

Introduction

Many societies view women and children especially girls as inferior and apart from the many discrimination cases they experience, they are also abused in many ways. This is something that happens in many parts of the world and has resulted in the death and permanent damage of a lot of women and girls. This has also been a potential area of research for female researchers and one of them will be the focus of this paper. The feminist analysis here is therefore Domestic Violence Against Women: Understanding Social Processes and Women’s Experiences by Jan Bostock, Maureen Plumpton and Rebekah Pratt (2009). The analysis of this study is based on the social perspective where the researchers sought to find out the situations in the community that support abuse against the women.

The study has given analysis of several researchers that have been conducted on domestic violence. The researchers have simply given the results which are the findings of the studies and serve to give support to their study. Bostock et al (2009) make use of domestic violence victims in Northern England hence the study makes use of valid data to make conclusions. In the analysis, the study chose to interview the participants and provided the findings according to how the women described their ordeals from the start to the eventual impact the abuse had on the victims. There are many abused women who chose to seek help in various networks that give support to such people. Domestic Violence Against Women: Understanding Social Processes and Women’s Experiences also analyzes the support given to the women in the study by the various agencies and informal networks.

Analysis of the theory

The study finds out that dependence among many women is one of the reasons that abused women choose to stay in abusive relationships since they do not have any other source of income. The fact that these women cannot support themselves or their children on their own means that they keep subjecting themselves and the children to abuse. Many of them do not also know where and how to find help as they do not know the available organizations where they can be helped. There are those, such as the women in Bostock et al (2009) who have been to such institutions. For the victims, it not always easy making the decision to break the abuse and as Romito (2008) says, it is discovered from listening to the victims or survivors that they used various ways of getting help and some of them even had to do it indirectly or explicitly risking further  violence.

Bostock et al (2009) recommend that ways need to be found in which support organizations, friends and families can be involved in the process of helping the victims. They argue that many of the systems do not help to end but instead perpetuate the abuse for the women and children. This is because they allow or support the notion of males having more privileges than the females and one way they do this is by making the violence appear as if it is something normal. This means that they should have more stringent ways of dealing with the abusive men and taking actions that would serve to help reduce such cases. Renzetti and Bergen (2005) say that feminists have always called for changes to be made in hospitals and the criminal justice system where one of the changes has been to have an increase in the number of women working in such institutions.

Renzetti and Bergen (2005) in their study review Gardner’s analysis of literature where it is established that women were depicted weak in mind and body which makes them rely on others or men for security purposes. However, Bostock et al (2009) analysis shows that women can be independent only that many of them realize this after they have suffered in their respective relationships. Although they go on with their lives, the damage is always done to them and the children suffer in their later lives as well. During the interviewing, the participants in this particular study were able to acknowledge that domestic abuse was unacceptable and if they had realized this from the beginning and took the necessary actions, they would have saved themselves a lot.

Bostock et al (2009) find that the people around the affected women who include friends and family as well as the police are important in the safety of the victims. The authors insist that the victims need understanding from people and offering protection would help them get through their ordeals. The study also identifies reasons given by the participants as well as from other studies as to why many of the women stay in relationships where they are abused.  Some of them cite fear of losing financially support if they chose to leave their perpetrators or take action against them. Others simply cannot take action to avoid shame as they think making it public will display them in a bad image in the society. Romito (2008) focuses on how abuse on women and children is hidden. The author says that the society has also done well in trying to hide such vices just like the efforts the women’s movement are putting in place to fight the abuse.

The main strength of the theory in this study is that it has been derived from the real life experiences of women who have been abused before who the researchers sought to interview to find information for the study. This means that the theory presented is not just based on theoretical information but from valid data that can be verified. The participants presented their experiences with regard to their abuses and also discussed ways in which they have been able to bring back some normalcy to their lives. Bostock et al (2009) explaining some of the ways in which the participants chose to regain their independence and these included participating in activities they liked such as taking educational courses and reading. Thus, many of the researchers find that these support centers are important and therefore recommend they be placed in conditions that can best take care of the needs the women and children who are victims.

The theory from the study is also based on the analysis of 12 women and although this provides some good information for the study, it is still not sufficient to conclude. Thus, the study should have used a bigger sample to come up with the results. The children were also victims of the abuse and the study failed to take accounts of their experiences to find out how they may have been affected. Thus, this is one of the weaknesses of the theory presented by Bostock and the others. The mention of the children has merely been presented alongside the women but this cannot portray how they are affected especially when it comes to psychological damages on their lives. The study also focused on the social aspects or contexts and did not include other factors that may contribute to the problem. The authors chose to analyze the effects of patriarchal dominance which has been instilled in many societies such that the men feel they owe the women and choose to abuse them as a way of making them submissive.

The victims in Bostock et al (2009) study are not only abused but also experience other problems in their relationships. These include the men in their lives not being committed to the families as well as being irresponsible with finances. Irresponsible men also controlled the women financially which means they could not make their own decisions when it comes to money in the relationships. These led to further problems for the women and the authors have labeled such problems as abuse the women have to go through. For many of the victims, one of the things that contributed to their being abused for a long time was the belief that the men would change. However, this was never to happen hence the reason for the abuse having to go on.

Conclusion (own argument)

It is not very easy for domestic violence victims to come out and share their experiences as they are not one of the best. In the analysis above, the authors were at least able to get some women to provide information and were even willing to be interviewed. These are the few who have had the courage to find help in support organizations and agencies. There are still majorities out there who have never admitted to being abused for reasons known to them while some are still in these abusive relationships. Thus it is still very difficult to provide the exact or even approximate statistics about the number of women and children being abused as well as the reasons.  Making conclusions therefore becomes difficult since many researchers have a hard time identifying people who are willing to say they have been abused. Just like the authors propose, there is need to have awareness of the dangers of abuse and women need to be told they can find alternatives to their situations whether it is money that is making them victims or just fear of being labeled failures.

The notion that women and girls are unimportant which is leading to them being discriminated against by the men should be done away with. This can be done by educating women on their roles and why they need to have their own identities rather than being behind their men always.  Many of the support agencies are also not known and are not well equipped to give the protection the victims require. Many of the men threaten the women and that is why they fail to take action against them but these support agencies and organizations are supposed to assure protection and security to the victims. Many times victims try to find ways in which they can end the violence in their lives and ending the relationships only come as a last resort when they cannot handle abuse anymore.

Works Cited

Jan Bostock, Maureen Plumpton and Rebekah Pratt. Domestic violence against women: understanding social processes and women’s experiences. 2009. J. Community Appl. Soc. Psychol., 19: 95–110 (2009). DOI: 10.1002/casp.985.

Renzetti, C. M., & Bergen, R. K. Violence against women. Oxford, UK: Rowman & Littlefield. 2005.

Romito, P. A deafening silence: hidden violence against women and children. Bristol, UK: The Policy Press. 2008.