Linda Gordon's Heroes of Their Own Lives: The Politics and History of Family Violence describes the social, political, and cultural phenomenon of family violence largely directed against women and children in the period from 1870 to the 1960s. Her text is historical, descriptive, and analytic. As she states in her introduction, her thesis is that "family violence has been historically and politically constructed" (Gordon, p. 3). Further, Gordon (p. 3) believes that "family violence arises out of power struggles in which individuals are contesting real resources and benefits." This brief review will first summarize Gordon's central themes, then offer an interpretation of those themes and arguments. The report will conclude with a discussion of the significance of Gordon's arguments about the causes of and responses to family violence for a wider audience than that composed of social workers and students of social history in the United States.
Gordon divides her text and her discussion into a group of historical periods, reflecting the position that these periods of time correspond roughly to the social, cultural, political and legal shifts that accompanied new understandings and recognitions of family violence. Additionally, she positions her discussion within a decidedly feminist ideological framework, noting for example that "the feminist campaign for divorce also allowed the telling of shocking stories about wife-beating" (Gordon, p. 254). Several sections of the text focus on a specific type of family violence, such as incest, wife-beating, the problem of the single-mother, and emergent understandings of how power struggles and gender-based conflicts (creating a perception of women as "weaker") all contributed to recognition of the nature and the extent of the problem.
Gordon (p. 3) offers a wealth of statistical and anecdotal data to confirm her view that "the historical developments that influenced family violence...includ...