Intimate Violence
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Robert Gelles' principal aim in Intimate Violence in Families is to clarify the extent and nature of such violence in the light of the most recent studies and to suggest prevention and treatment measures to deal with it. The volume is designed as an advanced textbook (with topics for discussion and recommended supplementary assignments) but also functions as a summary statement of the present state of the field and of Gelles' own view of causes, effects, and possible responses. Gelles begins by deconstructing popular myths and misconceptions surrounding familial violence. He reviews the history of the field and assesses current attitudes toward the problem. Gelles then discusses the two most common types of violence--against children and women--in some detail and includes a chapter on "hidden victims." Gelles demonstrates that these hidden types of violence (e.g., between siblings, against the elderly, among gay partners) expand the level of intimate violence considerably and merit far more attention than they have usually received. Gelles then discusses theories that explain familial violence and offers his integrated approach to family violence, an exchange/social control theory, and links it to a number of preventive approaches and treatment measures. Gelles' thesis is that people will engage in violence so long as the costs do not outweigh the perceived benefits, and that a society that implicitly and explicitly approves of some forms of intimate violence will pro
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factor in its perpetuation. As he notes, researchers have found that "experience with violence as a child is one of the most powerful contributors to attitudes that approve of interpersonal violence" (39).
Gelles defines physical violence as "an act carried out with the intention or the perceived intention of causing physical pain or injury to another person" (14). But he also finds it necessary to make a distinction between "normal" and "abusive" violence since social norms that view a certain level of "commonplace slaps, pushes, shoves, and spankings [as] normal or acceptable" are essential factors in his analysis (14). He distinguishes, therefore, between those actions widely viewed as acceptable and the "more dangerous acts of violence [that] have the high potential for injuring the person being hit" (15). This distinction is important, as his chapters on violence against children, violence against women, and hidden forms of intimate violence show, not because "normal" violence is in any way acceptable but because the notion that such violence is permissible strongly affects the gathering of data on intimate violence and is the basis for its perpetuation.
In each of his chapters on violence against different groups of
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Approximate Word count = 2956
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page)
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