Why Men Commit Violent Acts Against Women: Feminist Research Dispels the Myths

"Young men are often not encouraged to break out of the expected masculine role with its own rules of what is required to be a man. They may become depressed and have lower self-esteem as they try to conform to the rules (Flood, 2001). Young men should have the opportunity to explore their privileged role in our inequitable society. They should learn to speak for the equity of girls and women ( Gollnick & Chinn, 2009)." The author's reference to "young" would most certainly apply to all men.

Social scientists have been documenting, what was once known as “wife abuse,” for centuries but violence against women was not recognized as a social issue until the 1970s. The women’s movement of the late 1960s and 1970s played a major role in raising awareness about this social ill and feminists were at the forefront of the struggle to expose violence against women for what it really is. Not a private matter affecting a few dysfunctional families or, where sexual assault is concerned, a crime committed by mentally ill men, provoked by the seductively dressed women that lead them on, and then reneged on what was originally consensual. But rather, the manifestation of a male dominated, sexist society (Renzetti & Bergen, 2005).
In leading the movement feminists organized ‘speak-outs’ where victims could discuss their abuse openly, established crisis lines for counseling and support and provided shelters for families transitioning out of their circumstances. In the early 1970s, “…Feminist social scientists started collecting data about partner violence and sexual assault and reframing research questions from, “What’s wrong with women who get raped or abused?” and “What’s wrong with men that abuse or kill the women they claim they love?” to “How do our society’s gender norms contribute to the high rate of violence against women?” and “Does the differential power that males and females have in our society contribute to the problem of domestic violence against women (Renzetti & Bergen, 2005)?”
Violence against women is now a major subfield of social science research and the most influential research in this subfield is published in Social Problems , the journal of the Society for the Study of Social Problems which covers sexual assault, wife abuse, sexual harassment, stalking, as well as institutional and feminist responses to violence against women (Renzetti & Bergen, 2005). This critical body of literature serves as the foundation for researchers to build on. The most common thread amongst the research cited in these articles is challenging "taken-for-granted knowledge", authors change the research lens and look at an issue in a new way, discrediting assumptions that their research exposed as myths (Renzetti & Bergen, 2005, p. 3). "Social Problems provides a lens through which we can analyze, question and dialogue about these critical issues” (Renzetti & Bergen, 2005, p. 10).

Myth: “Irrational, psychopathic men rape to satisfy their sexual appetite.”
54% of violence against women is perpetrated by someone they know (intimate partner, friend or acquaintance) but in most cases the violence is committed by an intimate partner (Renzetti & Bergen, 2005).

The men that refuse to take responsibility for their actions and the family members, friends and counselors that enable them, cite the following reasons for their violent behavior:
· Under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol
· Stress causes them to lose control
· Partner provoked behavior
· Grew up in an abusive household
· Victim of physical abuse
· Suffering from mental illness
(Renzetti & Bergen, 2005)

Research by Diana Scully and Joseph Marolla questioned the popular idea that rape is “ a non-utilitarian act committed by a few ‘sick men.’ Their findings reveal a number of motivations but all rapists interviewed shared a sense of entitlement to the women they objectified and enjoyed the dominance they felt over the women they raped (Renzetti & Bergen, 2005). Among the complex motivations revealed in their research, from the perspective of the convicted rapists, was the complexity of the motivations for rape which spurred future research into why men rape (Renzetti & Bergen, 2005).


Myth: “Women are as violent as men are toward their intimate partners”

This idea comes from research showing women as likely and some say slightly more likely to assault an intimate partner than men are (Archer, 2000; Fiebert, 1997; Strauss, 1999) (Renzetti & Bergen, 2005). According to Russell Dobash (Dobash & Dobash, 1979), the data used as the basis for this claim raises questions about its validity which makes the case for the assertion that men and women often provide different accounts of their own and their partner's behavior (Renzetti & Bergen, 2005).

Myth: “Women stay with their batterer because they are economically dependent on them and/or do not have supportive family/friends to which they can turn.”

Research of Donileen Loseke and Spencer Cahill (Renzetti & Bergen, 2005) shows that both men and women have difficulty leaving their partners even if the relationship is nonviolent but not necessarily happy. Separation and divorce is difficult for all parties involved so their research re-labels a battered women’s decision to stay deviant to normal (Renzetti, Bergen, 2005). In addition, they point to overwhelming empirical evidence that the importance of financial stability and a strong support system is as much a motivating factor for leaving as it is for staying (Baker, Cook, and Norris; Bell, 2003; Moe and Bell, 2004) (Renzetti & Bergen, 2005). “The significance of this research is that it shifts the perception of battered women from passive victims with no options to social agents cautiously deciding whether staying or leaving is in the best interests their children and themselves. Besides, leaving does not ensure a women’s safety (Davis, Lyon, and MontiCatania, 1998; DeKeseredy, 1997; Fleury, Sullivan, and Bybee, 2000) (Renzetti & Bergen, 2005).”
The attention brought to this issue over the past 30 years has influenced local, state and federal policy. Crisis centers that began in the 1970s through grassroots efforts of these women have grown to over 1200 with a wide range of services including legal, medical and counseling and educational outreach. Many studies by feminist social scientists documenting the depth and breadth of this social ill helped pave the way for passing the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 and the reauthorizing it in 2000, which doubled funding for prevention and intervention initiatives (Renzetti & Bergen, 2005).
There are different schools of thought with regard to how we can end men’s violence against women. One is that a social problem needs a social solution by eradicating sexism and leveling the playing field between the men and women of our male dominated society. Another is that these "sick" men need mental/emotional healing through counseling and/or psychotherapy in order to change their behavior. A fact that cannot be ignored is that these so-called "sick" men have no problem controlling their behavior when it comes to dealing with their boss or other people in positions of authority so, clearly, there is a sense of entitlement that justifies violent behavior toward their intimate partner that would not otherwise be acceptable.
It's hard to ignore the catastrophic affect that violence against women has on our families and society at large and it is also important to acknowledge and address how men's health and well being is impacted. The stress of conforming to society’s definition of manhood, including the lifelong practice of suppressing certain emotions, must wreak havoc on them mentally and physically (the depression and low self-esteem cited in Gollnick & Chinn, 2009 are also contributing factors). It's no wonder that, around the world, women outlive men (Jones, 2001).
Kathleen Tierney's (Renzetti & Bergen, 2005) documentation of the first 10 years of the battered women’s movement, using social movements analysis, shows that, unlike other social movements, this movement did not gain momentum because of public outrage which was, at best, indifferent to the problem. Instead, the strong base and supporters recognized how providing resources to the movement would benefit them (Renzetti & Bergen, 2005). Tierney is concerned that yielding to pressure from funders may make the movement more mainstream and service oriented; less political and less radical. Sure enough, there is evidence that some agencies involved in the movement have toned down their feminist rhetoric to make their message more palatable to funders and some have compromised the feminist principles by adopting more bureaucratic policies (Donnelly, Cook & Wilson, 1999) (Renzetti & Bergen, 2005). At the same time many have held to feminist values. While avoiding a ‘militant image’ most agencies continue to lobby for meaningful social change which means challenging patriarchal inequality that favors batterers over victims (Renzetti & Bergen, 2005).


References
Gollnick, D.M. & Chinn, P.C., (2009). Gender and Sexual Orientation. Multicultural Education in a Pluralistic Society.
Jones, J., (2001). Around the Globe, Women Outlive Men [Electronic version]. Retrieved October 9, 2009. from http://www.prb.org/en/Articles/2001/AroundtheGlobeWomenOutliveMen.aspx
Renzetti, C. M. & Bergen, R.K., (2005). Introduction: The Emergence of Violence Against Women as a Social Problem. Violence Against Women. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.