Violence Against Women

In the first article, Felson has divided the theories behind violence done to women into two categories: gender and violent perspectives. Felson describes his gender perspective reasoning as the attacker is motivated for gender specific reasons and differences. Violence is done to the victim solely because she is a woman. The motivation comes froma sexual, sexist, or male-superior drive. On the other hand, violence perspective entails the idea that the attacker is motivated solely by violence, the desire to destroy, destruct, and lose control. The attacker yearns to dominate and be in control, and it just so happens that the victim is a woman.

I do not think there is any one answer that can group together all attackers and all abusers into one category. I think there are different combinations of motivations and reasoning behind the madness. I think the age, socio-economic background, race, and socialization of the abuser needs to be taken into account. It is almost impossible to try to pinpoint one clear definition and physiological make-up of an abuser. I would more lean to the idea of gender perspective. I can see how so many men are raised and grow up thinking that they must always be in control, are superior to women, and the woman must answer to them.

In the second article, Jones poses the daunting question to her readers, “Why doesn’t she leave?” This is a question that I have found myself asking so many times when watching a news report or reading a novel about a woman being abused. It seems like such a simple question and what we all assume to be a simple solution. Jones first blames her readers for even pondering a question like it, but she goes on to try her best to answer it for us.

It seems that only answer that she can really provide for us, is that these women simply can’t. They know and believe that if they could leave the man would find them again. They will never be free. Even if distance is separating them, the man will find a way to get her back. Women also cannot leave for financial reasons, tied with their children, the fear of supporting themselves and their kids on their own, no one to turn to for support or financial assistance. More often than not, these women become male-dependant. Maybe these men made them this way or maybe that was the fate of their relationship. It seems that there are just two many road blocks to find their road to freedom.

In the last article, the author, James Ptacket, conducted a small and intimate study to try and get inside the mind of an abuser. Instead of conducting a mass study to have a large survey pool, he interviewed a small number of men in order to spend longer amounts of time with them and gain their trust. At first, most of the men denied responsibility for their actions and did not see any reason to justify their actions. The majority of men blamed their abuse in a loss of control. They lost themselves in a complete tirade and state of anger. Most of these men were under the influence of drugs or alcohol. They were close to blacking out or blacked out when they performed acts of violence. They didn’t know what they were doing. This category of men is similar to Felson’s idea of violence perspective. These men desire to become violent without really knowing why or who they are doing it to. The other category of motivation came from being provoked from their female counterpart. If she acted out, did not follow his command, did not act as his inferior partner, the male became enraged. This is similar to the notion of gender perspective. The male is motivated solely be the biological difference between themselves and what he believes the gender differences that come with it.