Domestic Violence in Society

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Recommended: Effects and causes of domestic violence

The Women's Aid federation defines domestic violence as the physical,

psychological, sexual or financial violence that takes place within a

family type or an intimate relationship, and forms a pattern of

coercive and controlling behaviour. It may involve partners,

ex-partners or other relatives. Though the more

common view of domestic violence is that it is the behaviour of some

disturbed 'sick' individuals.

However sociologists have questioned this, saying that it's far too

widespread to be the work of just a few individuals. Domestic violence

accounts for almost a quarter of all violent crimes and is estimated

that 6.6 million domestic assaults occur every year.

Domestic Violence follows certain social patterns and these patterns

have social causes. Most shocking of these patterns is that it is

mainly violence by men against women. Catriona Mirrlees-Blacks survey

in 1999 found that most victims of violent domestic crimes are women,

99% of all incidents against women are committed by men, nearly 1 in 4

women have been assaulted by a partner at some in her life and 1 in 8

have been repeatedly assaulted. Dobash and Dobash believe a reason for

this was that violent incidents could be triggered off by what men saw

as a challenge to there authority, such as his wife asking why he was

late home for dinner. They argued that marriage legitimates violence

against women by conferring power and authority on husbands and

dependency on wives. Official statistics on domestic violence actually

understate the true extent of the problem this is for two main

reasons.

Firstly many victims maybe unwilling to report the incident to the

p...

... middle of paper ...

...y that the reason many women tend to be the receivers

of domestic violence is because men feel that women sometimes

challenge there authority. Men all through history have been

socialised into believing that they have power over women and that

they have to provide for the family. This maybe one of the main

reasons for why domestic violence exists and why its mainly women

being the victims. Wilkinson's theory seems to be quite well though

out and has a good idea of why domestic violence actually occurs,

though if this is true then why are women mainly the victims? Liberal

feminists hope and believe that over time the problems that we suffer

today will just sort them-selves out, but will this really happen. If

we just leave the problems the way they are will they actually just

disappear, or will the problem become worse?

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