I recently attended a Unitarian church service with my husband. The minister gave a sermon about the most recent challenge in her ministry; counselling male perpetrators of domestic violence. As a feminist, she said this was hard for her. She went on to talk about the conflict she had with the work, as well as the rewards and victories that she had.

It got me thinking. As a feminist, I obviously think that woman abuse is abhorant. As a socialist, though, I am less about crime and punishment, and more about looking holistically towards rehabilllation. We know that many perpetrators of domestic violence suffer horrible abuse and trauma themselves as children, etc.

So, I want to know how others feel about these issues.

1) Do we punish or rehabilitate offenders?

2) Can a relationship ever surive domestic abuse?
(I personally know of a couple who conquered
both acoholism and abuse)

quote:

---

3) Is there any room in our hearts, as feminists
to try to understand what causes abuse, be it
childhood trauma, emotional disturbance,
substance abuse, and forgive?

---

If you are asking suvivors of domestic violence, the answer is: depends on the individual, the situation, etc. If you asked me, as a survivor, I'd say, "the man who beat me and tried to kill me can rot in hell for all I care. I do not forgive him, nor do I think there is hope for rehabilitation." This is a personal truth (as in, 'this is how I feel, so it is true for me'), as opposed to a broad-based social or political truth.

Now, if you asked me this in the context of feminism and social change, my answer would be distinctly different. I would say that the only way to end domestic violence is to understand what the root causes are, and address them. While we can, and should, attempt to mend what is already broken (ie., rehabilitate the man who beats his partner and/or children), for both the sake of his victims and for his own benefit, we should place more of our energies on attacking the causes in a preventative way. It is far better for the violence to have never occured, than it is to simply attempt to prevent further violence once it has already happened.

I agree...on the societal level, my answer would also be that we should be concerned with identifying the ideological and material structures that lead to men's violence against women. On the personal level, I am sadly inclined to stamp them "irredeemable asshole" and be done with it.

But I see your point...the behaviour of any individual is both a reflection of and reinforcement of broader structures, so to what degree do we hold an individual responsible, and what do we do?

Edited to add:
I personaly have little patience with blaming it on the bottle, though. I also have real doubts about whether a relations can, or even should survive domestic abuse.

[ 20 October 2003: Message edited by: Mush ]

Well as for question #3, I don't think that I personally have a right to forgive someone for something that was done to someone else.

That being said, there have been and must be people that I stay away from to protect myself. If they are not willing to change, the only thing possible is to remove myself from contact with their various poisons.

The only rehabilitative treatment I'm familiar with is anger management classes for 1st time charged offenders. What do those involve? Do they work? I'm really curious.

I don't see past abuse, i.e. as a child by a parent as an excuse either but in terms of rehabilitation, past knowlege of any abuse is crucial IMO because that's how it has become a learned behavior. We learn from others esp. parents how to deal with situations and with emotions, i.e. anger. Those behaviors are often difficult to recognize in one's self let alone change. Any rehabilitation has to deal with this if it's a factor, in order to work. Punishment by itself won't work. Prison and jails is most often a place to learn violent behavior, not unlearn it.

[ 20 October 2003: Message edited by: Madame X ]

The class my friend teaches is in a group discussion format, much like those used in addiction treatment programs. Certain information is presented then participants are asked to participate in discussions. One point that is strongly emphasized is that perps must find another outlet for their anger besides violence ie: walks, timeouts, exercise, creativity, councilling, group and one on one support, etc.

For the most part, I still believe this. Certainly, by raising women's economic position in society we reduce their dependance on men to the point where they could leave a violent situation. By Funding things like shelters and day care programs, we offer abused women both refuge, and the possibility to begin anew.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Skye88:
However, these all seem to address the needs of women post-abuse. Why is it that individual men are still hitting individual women? What can we do to prevent that?

---

I'm not so sure...if women are truly economically independent of men, aren't the opportunities for abuse, and for being "stuck" in abusive relationships lessened? Hm..I guess this is really 'after' the abuse, but mightn't that make the difference between a single incident and years of abuse?

I'm not gonna ask the victims I know to forgive their ex-husbands and fathers. No way. That's between them and whatever it takes for them to heal. If that takes hating the SOB's guts till the end of time, best leave it there.

Societally, well, if you're not going to end up locking 'em up for life, you've got to let them out someday. So the question to me is less "should they be forgiven"? than, "can they be rehabilitated"? Obviously some, at least, can be, because they have been. Yet this is a dangerous venture, as re-offenders are very commonplace. As a result I think we need to delve deep: why did this guy do something so horrible? What are the chances that he'd do it again? Ideally, the system would begin therapy/treatment and examination from the moment someone was convicted of DV, and his release should be partly contingent on medical assessments.

Up a further level, the societal mores that lead to DV need to be examined and in some cases, changed. For instance, are we too quick to treat family problems as the business of the family, rather than as societal problems that society has its own interest in addressing? Do people in general lack the support structures that would avoid them from becoming desperately lonely, and therefore clinging even to failed relationships? Do economic and social stresses find their way out in family violence, because the family's the target who's right there with you all the time? Etc. etc.

personally, i tremendously disagree with skye88. at this point, with everything women have accomplished, that "inequalities" have very little to do with domestic violence. in support of this point, i point to the increasing numbers of female on male domestic violence (i believe it is nearly 50/50 now.). i mean, is it really realistic to believe men who beat their partners are only violent towards women, or are they just violent in general?

Look, I really don't want to get into the stats game, it doesn't lead to good discussion, and stats are nearly useless anyhow. My point here is that women are abusing their male partners in greater numbers then before, which I believe, shows that domestic violence really isn't that different from other violence. Some people are violent, and I don't think you can ever hope to explain why or fix the problem so long as you continue to attempt to attribute that violence to some sort of arbitrary classification.

However, I believe that at a certain age, conditioned or not, you are responsible for all the choices you make, which is why I continue to view DV as an individual issue. If all men are conditioned equally, then why do only some respond poorly in given situtations?

Mycroft wrote:

quote:

---

Perhaps "abuse" within relationships is not a gender-specific thing but it might take a physical dimension among men because men either tend to be stronger than women or because men are more conditioned to be physical when they are upset.

---

This is something that really interests me. How is it that this conditioning takes place, and can there be a feminist political project that focuses on changing it. Right now it seems like we are rectifying a lot of the past socialization of women, but what are we doing to change the socialization of men?

[ 20 October 2003: Message edited by: Skye88 ]

Initially, the domestic violence cycle begins with other posessive, controlling types of behavior over a woman's body, finances, her property, her social, economic life.

[ 20 October 2003: Message edited by: Madame X ]

I suppose, in support of your suggestion, women as a whole are certainly better off if there are fewer abusive men in the world. The abusers, with some exceptions, are not likely to seek education and change all by themselves. So if we're not going to lock up all abusers for ever, then we as a society have to find some way to rehabilitate them. We also want to find away to prevent the creation of more abusers in the future.

In some ways, particularly in light of the fact that many abusers were themselves abused, these men are also victims of the patriarchy. That certainly doesn't excuse their conduct, but it does link redressing their situation to the broader feminist cause.

[ 20 October 2003: Message edited by: robbie_dee ]