Family Violence

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 fo

mechanisms that can protect victims of such violence. Gordon (p. 288) states that strategies of resistance for battered women have always been influenced by organized feminism which in turn "influenced social and legal policy, particularly through their interactions with social workers and other authorities." Gordon's argument is well structured and geared to demonstrate the veracity of her thesis. By linking economic dislocations and such important events as waves of immigration and the emergence of a professionalized social work profession to the changes in responses to family violence, this writer suggests that public attention to the problem of family violence is very much an artifact of such influences. Over time, this writer demonstrates as well that the culturally and historically variable meanings of fundamental familial concepts (i.e., marriage, husband, parent, child, rights) is directly related to the official societal and legal response to the problems of family violence. It is important to recognize that Gordon considers the 1960s to have been a period of enormous social change in which child abuse itself was "rediscovered." This conclusion appears to be consistent with other studies which emphasize the emergenc

Category: Psychology - F