Rethinking Violence against Women

288 Pages·1998·15.834 MB·English

by  Rebecca Emerson Dobash, Russell P. Dobash

RETHINKING
VIOLENCE
AGAINST
WOMEN
Sage Series on Violence Against Women
Series Editors
Claire M. Renzetti
St. Joseph's University
Jeffrey L. Edleson
University of Minnesota
In this series . . .
I AM NOT YOUR VICTIM: Anatomy of Domestic Violence
by Beth Sipe and Evelyn J. Hall
WIFE RAPE: Understanding the Response of Survivors
and Service Providers
by Raquel Kennedy Bergen
FUTURE INTERVENTIONS WITH BATTERED WOMEN
AND THEIR FAMILIESfedited by Jeffrey L. Edleson and Zvi C. Eisikovits
WOMEN'S ENCOUNTERS WITH VIOLENCE: Australian Experiences
edited by Sandy Cook and Judith Bessant
WOMAN ABUSE ON CAMPUS: Results From the Canadian
National Survey
by Walter S. DeKeseredy and Martin D. Schwartz
RURAL WOMAN BATTERING AND THE JUSTICE SYSTEM:
An Ethnography
by Neil Websdale
ATHLETES AND ACQUAINTANCE RAPE
by Jeffrey R. Benedict
SAFETY PLANNING WITH BATTERED WOMEN:
Complex Lives/Difficult Choices
by Jill Davies, Eleanor Lyon, and Diane Monti-Catania
RETHINKING VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
edited by R. Emerson Dobash and Russell P. Dobash
EMPOWERING SURVIVORS OF ABUSE:
Health Care for Battered Women and Their Children
edited by Jacquelyn Campbell
BATTERED WOMEN, CHILDREN, AND WELFARE REFORM:
The Ties That Bind
edited by Ruth A. Brandwein
RETHINKING
VIOLENCE
AGAINST
WOMEN
Editors
R. Emerson Dobash
Russell P. Dobash
Sage Series on Violence Against Women
ijfcv SAGE Publications
13^1 International Educational and Professional Publisher
^^/ Thousand Oaks London New Delhi
Copyright © 1998 by Sage Publications, Inc.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Main entry under title:
Rethinking violence against women / edited by R. Emerson
Dobash and Russell P. Dobash.
p. cm. — (Sage series on violence against women; v. 9)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7619-1186-3 (cloth: acid free paper)
ISBN 0-7619-1187-1 (pbk.: acid free paper)
1. Women—Crimes against. 2. Sexual harassment of women.
3. Family violence. 4. Wife abuse. 5. Women—Social conditions. I.
Dobash, R. Emerson. II. Dobash, Russell. III. Series.
HV6250.4.W65 R47 1998
362.88,082-ddc21 98-9084
98 99 00 01 02 03 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Acquiring Editor: C. Terry Hcndrix
Editorial Assistant: Fiona Lyon
Production Editor: Diana E. Axelsen
Editorial Assistant: Denise Santoyo
Typesetter/Designer: Rose Tylak
Indexer: Trish Wittcnstcin
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
1. Cross-Border Encounters: Challenges and Opportunities
Rebecca Emerson Dobash and Russell P. Dobash 1
Violence(s), Concepts, and Definitions 4
Working Across Disciplines 6
Methods of Study 8
The Importance of Context 9
The Extent of Violence Against Women 10
Physical and Sexual Attacks on the Body:
Definitions of "What Counts," "Marking"
the Body, and "Making" the Person 11
Intimate Violence in the Context of Violence
in the Wider Society 14
The Violent Event, Masculinity, and the
Context of Male Culture 15
Constructing Gender Through Violence,
Enacting Gender Through Violence 16
2. Rethinking Survey Research on Violence Against Women
Holly Johnson 23
Traditional Crime-Victim Surveys 25
The Conflict Tactics Approach 26
The Violence Against Women Survey 29
Constructing Definitions of Violence 34
The Prevalence of Violence Against Women 37
Test of a Theory of Assaults on Wives 41
Summary 50
3. Sexual Violence Against Women and Girls:
An Approach to an International Overview
Liz Kelly and Jill Radford 53
Emergence and Development of Issues 54
Definitions 56
Power and Male Domination 63
Offenders and Male Sexual Aggression 64
Impacts and Consequences 61
Institutional and Social Responses 70
Normalization and Resistance 73
4. Violence Embodied? Circumcision, Gender Politics,
and Cultural Aesthetics
Janice Boddy 11
Practices and the Literature 81
Marriageability and Identity: Toward a
Concept of Embodiment 93
On the Politics of Aesthetics 97
Conclusion 108
5. Violence Against Women in Societies Under Stress
Monica McWilliams 111
What Constitutes Violence Against Women
in Conflictual Societies? 112
Violence Against Women in Conflict Situations 114
Violence Against Women in the Family 119
Political Conflict and Domestic Violence:
The Example of Northern Ireland 129
Conclusion 137
6. Violent Men and Violent Contexts
Rebecca Emerson Dobash and Russell P. Dobash 141
Violent Acts and Violent Actors 143
The Constellation of Violence: Violence,
Injuries, and Controlling Behaviors 155
Men, Masculine Identity, and Violence 164
7. The Hand That Strikes and Comforts: Gender
Construction and the Tension Between Body and Symbol
Eva Lundgren 169
The Symbols of Violence or the Aesthetics of
the Gender Battle? A Symbolic Field
Based on Bodily Movement and Contact 171
The Masculine Symbolic Trinity: The Hand,
the Strap, and the Phallus 178
Women's Sexual Morphology of Touch as a
Symbolic Basis 180
Striking and Comforting—or the Hand as
a Constitutive Category 183
A Violent Sex Life: Regulative Flexibility
and Basic Constitutive Patterns 185
"The Stone" and "The Sea": "Different" or "The Same"? 188
"Different" Contents—"The Same" Function? 189
The Division Between the Bodily and the
Symbolic "Self"—The Strategy of the Abused Woman 191
The Body as a Category for Change? 194
Conclusion: A More Open Approach to Gender Theory? 196
8. Lethal and Nonlethal Violence Against Wives and
the Evolutionary Psychology of Male Sexual
Proprietariness
Margo Wilson and Martin Daly 199
Psychological Links Between Sexual
Proprietariness and Violence 202
An Evolutionary Psychological Framework
for Understanding Links Between Male Sexual
Proprietariness and Violence Against Wives 207
Hypotheses About Patterned Variations
in Male Sexual Proprietariness and Violence 214
Violence Against Wives and Children 224
Concluding Remarks 228
References 231
Index 251
About the Editors 271
About the Contributors 273

Acknowledgments
T
A his anthology benefited from two conferences funded by the
Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation in 1993 and 1995, where
scholars from diverse disciplines had an opportunity to discuss their
work and current thinking about violence against women. For that
early part of the project, we wish to thank Karen Colvard and Joel
Wallman of the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation. We also wish
to thank all the authors for their commitment to this project and
willingness to continue as it grew and changed; Dorothy Anderson,
who faithfully and professionally recorded the proceedings of the first
conference in Carmona, Spain; and Lauren McAllister, who had more
than her fair share of technological blips processing text and computer
discs on the way to the final manuscript. We also wish to acknowledge
support from the Scottish office, the Home Office, the Rockefeller
Foundation, NATO, and the Carnegie Foundation. The final collec-
tion and the contents herein are the sole responsibility of the editors
and authors.
IX