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In the documentary Crime After Crime, Deborah Peagler suffered abuse from her intimate partner through her life. The abuse started in High School. When her mother introduced her to Oliver Wilson, his charming personality fooled everyone. Oliver forced her into prostitution to make money for him. When she refused, he beat her until she promised to sell herself. The beating gradationally evolved to bull whipping. In addition, all of this occurred during her junior and senior year in high school. Oliver felt it was his right to have ultimate control over Deborah, this fact is generally accepted in the society (Belknap 247). The male dominance, male authority over women is something taught to young children. It is sought to be the place of women to wait for the husband by the door when he comes home. The male masculinity fact kicked in and it drove him to force his dominance over Deborah into physical abuse. When Deborah refused to do his bidding, he felt it was necessary for him to show her who is in control by beating her. This is the message sent to young boys of past generations and a bit less for the current one through media and entertainment. Oliver kept Deborah in check through violence and the use of physical threats. They entered the honeymoon period after Oliver impregnated her. Deborah felt safe and believed the abuse would be over. However, the honeymoon period did not last long, and the abuse worsened (Herrera, 2013). This is a cycle of violence domestic dispute. Often the victim of the abuse would forgive the abuser during the honeymoon period, only have a short period of peace. Tension would build up in the relationship and a violent release of anger by the abuser. This cycle can go on for years. The victims are oft... ... middle of paper ... ...m would still defend the abuser and argue with the police. From the outside, all of this would make no sense. The abusers breaks down the victims psychologically over time, the victims would believe the beatings are their fault. This is unacceptable. However, the abusers usually come from abusive homes. He is merely doing his part to keep the abusive chain, where he learned through childhood experiences. It appears that Deborah’s mother is the one responsible for hiring the gang members to go see Oliver. The mother thought Oliver was a nice young man introduced him to Deborah. If nothing else, this should teach parents a lesson not to meddle in their child’s life. The mother suggested getting the local gang to help Deborah to end Oliver’s abuse, which resulted in his death. Although it is tragic that Deborah put in this situation, she is not the first, or the last.
The response to abuse has metamorphosed drastically from Janie’s time to present day. During the days of the early 20th century in which the novel was set, spousal abuse was accepted and even promoted in some cases. Astonishingly, when Tea talks with the men about beating Janie the men respect Tea Cake and admire the way Janie stays quiet during the ordeal saying, “wouldn’t Ah love tuh whip a tender woman lak Janie” (Hurston 148). They ignore the fact that Tea Cake beats her just to show other people that he is in charge; he beats her because of his own insecurities. In Alice Walker’s novel The Color Purple it is shown that the men as well as the women encouraged spousal abuse. When Harpo seeks advice on how to deal with Sophia it is Celie, another woman, who advises him to beat her. Although spousal abuse still occurs in many households today, it occurs in secrecy because there are laws that have been erected to protect against this type of abuse, and the punishment for this crime is harsh. Today, if a man hits a woman he is less of a man and a disgrace, not praised and admired as in the past.
Beaten wives are not such ideal victims because males want power and dominance (Christie (1986). The development has taken place ‘because we have improved morally, not because we are becoming more kind but we are now so affluent that party’s can leave- divorce (Christie (1986). It is no longer acceptable to put up with a domestic beating or raping, however this was not the case for Sarah (Christie (1986). However; for Steven Hunter was jailed for life with no parole for murdering a young Melbourne wo...
Domestic violence is a vicious cycle; one parent abuses their child, their child grows up and abuses their child, and the cycle continues until someone decides to break it. Sometimes domestic violence takes many generations before someone decides to stop the cycle. The parent who breaks the cycle wants a better life for their child than what they had. For most parents this is the ultimate goal of raising children, giving them a better world than the one you had because parents typically want the best for their children. In Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, Bruce Bechdel wants his daughter to be the opposite of him. He wants her to be a heterosexual woman but once it is clear
Domestic violence has been plaguing our society for years. There are many abusive relationships, and the only question to ask is: why? The main answer is control. The controlling characteristic that males attribute to their masculinity is the cause to these abusive relationships. When males don’t have control they feel their masculinity is threatened and they need to do something about it. This doesn’t occur in just their relationships, but rather every facet of life. Men are constantly in a struggle for power and control whether it is at work, home, during sports, or in a relationship, this remains true. So the only way for them to get this power is for them to be “men”; tough, strong, masculine, ones that demand and take power. Where is this thirst for control coming from? Is it the natural structure of a man or is it a social construct? The answer is that it’s the social construction of a patriarchy that results in this thirst for control due to fear. The fear is being emasculated, whether it is by gayness, or femininity. Men use the fear created from domestic violence to gain control, but yet women do have some control in a relationship it is this vague boundary of how much control that leads to domestic violence.
Such abuse is illustrated in the book when Esperanza writes about a girl by the name of Sally. Sally is a victim who makes up excuses regarding her abusive father because she is terrified to tell the truth. Sally says, “He never hits me hard” (92) which is her way of denial of anything being wrong. In this quote, Sally admits to being hit by her father, however, she defends him even though “her skin is always scarred . . . when he hit her with his hands just like a dog” (92). The male dominant figure in this situation views women as a property and not as human beings. The fact that Sally’s father hits her as if she was an animal shows that he views her less than a person, a property or some type of possession. Because her father does not want another male presence to interfere with his possession, he takes out his frustrations on his daughter as a result of male intrusion. On the other hand, Sally’s mother does not take the appropriate course of action and would rather demonstrate her accepted female gender role through submission. Instead of ending the abuse, her mother attempts to alleviate the pain inflicted by her father by rubbing “lard on all the places where it hurts” (92) covering the evidence of her daughter’s abuse-related
I decided to pick the topic of abuse after viewing the movie The Yellow Wall- paper. After watching the movie and seeing how badly Mary Wollstonecraft was treated, it made me want to know more about abuse on women and what could be done to break the chain of abuse. I believe that no abuse is acceptable and that any man that has ever abused a woman in anyway should face major consequences. That is my main point to this paper, that the laws are not strong enough and that more effort should be done so that no women is ever abused in anyway shape or form again. To start, I will give some statistics about police and how they handle calls from wives that have been abused. "Police were more likely to respond within five minutes if the offender was a stranger than if an offender was known to the female victim" ("Response"1). Also, it has been recorded that once a women in Boston called in that her husband had beaten her and the policeman's response was, "Listen, lady, he pays the bills, doesn't he? What he does inside of his house is his business"(Straus, Gelles, and Steinmetz 301). With a response like this, why even bother calling the police. That is why we must come together and start over from the inside out. We need to make every one in any position of power know that any abuse on women is wrong. The truth is that, "90% of all family violence defendants are never prosecuted, and one-third of the cases that would be considered felonies if committed by strangers are filed as misdemeanors (a lesser crime)" ("Response"1).
the abuser is in total control. Threats by a man to kill a woman if she
Domestic Abuse Cause Walker argues that men abuse women because men want to have the upper hand in the marriage and the only way they can assert their dominance is by beating their wives. Walker make Mr. ___ use the simile of comparing wives, in general, to small children, stating how the husbands have to assert their dominance and have to do so by beating them. The purpose of this is to make the reader understand the logic of why husband beat their wives.
In chapter 5 of Images of color, images of crime author Peggy McIntosh refers to White privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets that can count on cashing in each day, but about which 'meant' to remain oblivious. White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools, and blank checks. It is apparent that white people receive unearned advantages and benefits that are not accessible to people of color. In fact, how can someone even question that the fact that people of color are treated differently than Whites, when African Americans constitute a significant portion of individuals who are incarcerated today. Here is an example of an experience that I had a few years ago that made me realize that I was treated differently because I was not white. I worked at the Ymca for about three years at a summer camp, which was predominantly white. I loved working there, but I kept to myself because I was treated differently from my co-workers. In fact, the white individuals that I worked with would constantly ma...
To begin, a male influence, one provided by a father is important for a boy’s life. A father figure teaches a boy how to treat women in a way that no mother could. Additionally, the author Wes’s father dies when he was only three years old. He was in Wes’s life for a short period, and Wes decided to use the stories and few memories of his father to guide him throughout his entire life. The author writes, “‘ Main man, you just can’t hit people, and particularly women. You must defend the, not fight them. Do you understand?’” (15). This demonstrates that the lack of a father figure had a profound influence on the author as he grew up in a female dominated household with no significant male presence. His father taught him the importance of treating
“Crime myths are powerful constructions of reality because they speak to our personal values and beliefs and are steeped in rich symbolism, which reinforces those values and belief.” (Kappeler & Potter, 2004) Crime myths are created when a series of fictional events that are later altered so that they become social and political problems. The media plays a major role in the creation of crime myths they broadcast images and videos to go along with the crime myths, they also use social context that play on humans thought on the community seeing it as unsafe. Myths also contain some measure of economic conditions that then cause reactions by politicians to create new laws to prevent these myths from becoming major problems in the criminal justice system. (K&P, 2004) In order for a statement to be characterized as a crime myth, if the crimes instill fear and threaten the vast majority of society. (K&P,2004) Crime myths are made up of components that targets and identify of a distinct deviant population, they involve innocent and helpless victims, the emergence of brave and virtuous hearos ,comes as a threat to peoples established norms, values, or traditional lifestyles.
Furthermore, the role of gendered power is significant in both child protection and abuse. It is argued that as well as an exploitation of power, child abuse originates from conflict over gender identity and male authority, with male authority being expressed directly through violent control over women and children (Evan and Flitcraft, 1988). The feminist interpretations of power that have stemmed from the original emergence of feminist criminology in the 1970s have had significant influences on modern child protection policy, both positive and negative. These influences have seen a shift from traditional ‘victim blaming’ tendencies, toward acknowledging masculine power dynamics and utilising ‘victim oriented’ solutions. These positive solutions take into account the relative powerlessness of children in abusive situations, which enables a better approach to rehabilitating victims (Carrington 2008, 79).
Standards, behaviors, expectations, routines, and practices are another aspect that needs to be addressed when using the Social-Psychological theory. A method of controlling the women is when one does not perform as expected, their punishment is to watch another women be tortured for her mistakes. A practice use is threatening the person’s family, depriving the person of basic necessities, such as food, water, or sleep. Severe beatings are within a normal course of daily events for victims that do not comply with the enforced routine. The women are expected to meet the “johns” and comply with all requests without any fuss. Constant use of these practices wears the spirit out of the women and they become docile, while looking to numb the internal pain with drugs and alcohol.
This typology involves either a passive woman who abuses due to an abusive male partner or a male-female couple who both equally abuse (Vandiver & Kercher). There are many issues involved with these typologies. The first issue is that the male becomes primarily responsible for the abuse instead of the female. In the situation of a passive woman whose abusive partner forces her to abuse, the victims of the abuse are most often their own children. In situations of domestic abuse, most women worry about the safety of their children or others before their personal safety. This makes it difficult to believe that a woman, even under severe abuse, would harm her children. In the case of a team who takes part in the abuse equally, when coupled with the idea that women are not physically capable of violence, the male gets burdened with the responsibility for the crime. The titles of the typologies themselves place the largest emphasis on the male and hence unconsciously place the responsibility of the crime on the male partner. Comparatively the male typologies use a more gender neutral term, “gang rape,” which makes all participating offenders responsible for the crime regardless of their level of participation. The criminal justice system overlooks these female offenders because of the idea that they
Men generally wear the pants in the relationship rather than the woman, meaning they often take full control over the woman. Phrynion, evil men, has beaten all of them, but has never touched Mama. However, no one would “arrest a rich powerful man because a woman of no reputation was beaten in an ill-reputed place” (Galloway 68). A Greek Woman’s husband had full authority over them because Aristotle thought that women could not make decisions for themselves (Greek Boston). Adding on, domestic violence and physical abuse