Problem of Domestic Violence

The murder of Nicole Brown Simpson in 1994 "has elevated domestic violence to a new level on the national consciousness, changing forever . . . the way it is viewed by the public" (Vobejda, 1994, p. 32). According to Carden (1994), "violence is a culturally transmitted 'disease' of epidemic proportions in the contemporary United States, and domestic violence (i.e., emotional and/or physical abuse between members of a nuclear family/intimate system) is one of the most insidious expressions" (p. 539). Finally, perhaps not only the public, but the police, prosecutors, legislators, and the courts, as well, will begin to comprehend that "between one-fifth and one-third of all women will be physically assaulted by a partner or ex-partner during their lifetime" (Birns, Cascardi, & Meyer, 1994, p. 50).

Ingrassia and Beck (1994) assert that "Americans often shrug off domestic violence as if it were no more harmful than Ralph Kramden hoisting a fist and threatening: 'One of these days, Alice . . . Pow! Right in the kisser!'" (p. 26). And according to Peterson (1992), "feminist scholars argue or imply a direct relationship between the degree of male dominance in a society and the extent of violence toward wives" (p. 98).

Nevertheless, the ill treatment of women has been reinforced by ancient legal doctrines which equated women with various chattels, as well as legal sanctions condoning the use of force against wives. According to Kurz (1992), the Supreme Court of Missi

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loving respite" (p. 549). According to Carden, one of the polar opposites in the "perceptual continuum of the etiology of wife abuse" is the profeminist research and clinical community (p. 551). The profeminist perspective would argue that "many women have not achieved the political, economic, and social independence that would empower them to leave violent relationships," as is similarly expressed in the patriarchal view which asserts that the wife shares in the responsibility for her husband's behavior (p. 552). Carden answers that: The sociopolitical response to the question "Why does he do it?" has been: He does it because cultural norms support his belief that (a) violence is an acceptable and effective method of resolving interpersonal conflict, (b) he is entitled to dominate and expected to control his wife, (c) it will get him what he wants, and (d) he can get away with it (p. 552). The principal failure of profeminist research in Carden's estimation, over the past decade or more, has been its inability to "uncover a unitary predisposing batterer profile" (p. 552). At the other end of Carden's continuum are three psychological theories, social-learning, attachment, and systems. The first two "locate the et

Category: Psychology - P