Family Violence

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Family Violence Sexual Abuse

• Chapter 13

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• Although not as dangerous as war zones or urban
  riot scenes,
• families households are dangerous places.
• A woman is beaten by her boyfriend or husband
  every 30 seconds.
• Each year, at least a million American children
  are physically abused by their parents.

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FAMILY VIOLENCE ABUSE

• Violence is "an act carried out with the
  intention or perceived intention of causing
  physical pain or injury to another person.
• Other prevalent forms of abuse include neglect
  emotional abuse.

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• Common couple violence refers to violence that
  erupts in the course of an argument as one
  partner strikes at the other in the heat of the
  moment.
• Intimate terrorism occurs in relationships
  characterized by the desire of one partner to
  dominate control the other.
• Violent resistance encompasses what is often
  meant by
• self defensive" violence.
• Mutual violent control encompasses the
  relationships in which both partners are
  violently trying to control each other the
  relationship.

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EXPLAINING FAMILY VIOLENCE

• Several theories have been proposed to explain
  why family violence exists.
• Patriarchy / male-dominance theory maintains that
  in societies where men hold the authority and in
  women and children are defined property, male
  violence against women and children is common.
  The personality theory of abuse maintains that
  the abuser's personality characteristics are the
  major determinants of family abuse.
• Social- learning theory posits that aggression
  and violence are learned by observing the
  behavior of others. Resource theory assumes that
  the more social, personal, and economic resources
  people have, the more power they command.
• Conflict theorists argue that women and children
  are victimized in the family not only because
  they have few individual resources but also
  because societal institutions rarely take
  violence against women and children seriously.
• According to exchange theory, the assailant's
  violent behavior and the victim's tolerance of
  the abuse carries more benefits than costs.

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PREVALENCE OF FAMILY VIOLENCE

• Battering includes slapping, punching, knocking
  down, choking, kicking, hitting with objects,
  threatening with weapons, stabbing, shooting,
  sexual abuse.
• A man who systematically batters is likely to
  believe the myths about battering
• believe in the traditional home
• have low self-esteem
• have a dual personality
• be sadistic, passive-aggressive,
• or pathologically jealous
• use sex as an act of aggression or believe in
  the moral rightness of his violent behavior.

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• The three-phase cycle of violence involves the
  building of tension, the explosion, the
  "honeymoon period"
• The "cycle theory of battering incidents"
  (Walker) proposes that there is a three-phase
  cycle involved in marital abuse.
• Beginning with the tension-building phase when
  the wife tries to prevent her husband's anger
  from escalating,
• leading to the acute battering incident where the
  husband explodes into a rage of abusing his wife,
  
• and ending with the calm that follows the
  incident where the husband begs his wife's
  forgiveness and promises that he will never hurt
  her again.

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• Marital rape is one of the most widespread
  overlooked forms of family violence, but many
  people
• (including the victims themselves) have
  difficulty acknowledging that forced sex in
  marriage is rape.
• Raping a wife has been a crime in all states
  since 1993.

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• I. Acquaintance rape (date rape) is the most
  common form of rape.
• Alcohol or drugs are often involved.
• 2. Physical violence often goes hand-in-hand with
  sexual aggression. Three-fourths of victims who
  were acquaintance rape victims sustained bruises,
  cuts, black eyes, internal injuries.
• 3. Much sexual communication is done nonverbally
  
• ambiguously, creating considerable confusion
• argument about sexual consent.

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battered women

• economic dependence,
• religious pressure to submit to her husband's
  will,
• belief that the children need a father,
• fear of being alone, especially as she may have
  been cut off from all other ties,
• belief in the American dream of family bliss,
• pity for her husband,
• guilt shame, feeling that it is somehow her
  own fault,
• duty responsibility to stick it out,
• fear for her life if she tries to escape,
• love for the partner, despite the battering,

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Learned helplessness

• It is connected to low self-esteem keeps
  battered women feeling that they cannot control
  the battering
• The woman's determination that the violence must
  cease is crucial to stopping it.

12

• Characteristics of parents who abuse their
  children may include physical punishment by
  one's own parents
• Children who are abused are often labeled by
  their parents as "unsatisfactory" may be a
  "normal" child (who is the product of a difficult
  or unplanned pregnancy or who is the wrong sex)
• The family ecosystem may include serious problems
  contributing to stress

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• Physical abuse refers to an ongoing pattern of
  bodily injurious acts.
• In Munchausen syndrome by proxy, an adult feigns
  or induces illness in a child to attract medical
  attention and support for herself and her child.
• Sexual abuse includes making a child watch sexual
  acts, fondling a child, forcing a child to engage
  in sexual acts for pornography and incest.
• Child neglect is a failure to provide basic
  caretaking obligations.
• Language neglect includes discouraging the
  child's communication skills.
• Emotional maltreatment conveys to a child that
  they are inferior, worthless, flawed, unloved or
  unwanted.
• This may include spurning (threatening to hurt,
  kill or abandon a child), isolating (denying a
  child opportunities to interact with peers or
  adults) or corrupting (modeling, permitting or
  encouraging a child's antisocial behaviors).

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CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE

• The incest taboo, which forbids sexual
  intercourse between close blood relatives, is a
  cultural norm in almost all known societies.
• Incest is defined by law as sexual intercourse or
  marriage between family members.
• A national survey found that 15 of adults said
  they had been victims of unwanted sexual
  intercourse and touching as a child.
• Theories about the role of the mother in the
  incestuous family can be classified into three
  categories
• as colluder (sacrifices her daughter either
  intentionally or inadvertently),
• as dependent (a helpless person who is suffering
  from a disabling condition like depression or a
  physical infirmity),
• and as victim (fails to intervene because of her
  own victimization as a child).

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Abused children are more likely to

• have parents who abuse drugs and alcohol
• live in larger families
• have parents who are experiencing economic stress
  and poverty,
• live in homes where there is wife abuse and
• have divorced parents.
• Children who survive often suffer from
  physiological, social and emotional problems.
• Incestuous relationships in childhood often lead
  to lack of trust, fear of intimacy and sexual
  dysfunctions in adulthood.

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HIDDEN VICTIMS SIBLINGS AND ADOLESCENTS

• There are various forms of sibling abuse,
  including name-calling and ridicule (the most
  common form), degradation, promoting fear,
  torturing or killing a pet, and destroying
  personal possessions.
• Most parents view sibling violence as a normal
  part of growing up.
• However, 10 of all murders in families are
  sibilcides, killing of one's sibling.
• Men, are more likely to be the perpetrators and
  victims of sibilcide and the average age of the
  victim is 33.

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• About 20 of teenagers are abused by their
  parents.
• Being abused and witnessing domestic violence has
  twice the negative effect on children's
  development.
• Adolescent victims are more likely to be victims
  of other crimes, problem drug users as adults,
  serious property offenders and serious violent
  offenders.

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• Baby boomers, now in their early forties to late
  fifties, are often referred to as the sandwich
  generation because they care not only for their
  own children but also for their aging parents.
• Elder abuse, sometimes called elder mistreatment,
  includes physical abuse, negligence, financial
  exploitation, psychological abuse, and
  deprivation of basic needs, isolation from
  friends and family and failure to administer
  needed medications.
• Elder abuse is called the hidden iceberg because
  84 of cases are not reported. Elderly women are
  more likely to be abused.
• Adult children are the largest group of elder
  abusers, followed by the victim's spouse.
• Overall, men are more likely to be abusers.
• Risk factors for elder abuse include shared
  living arrangement, weak social network, alcohol
  use and abuse, impairment of the care giver or
  care recipient, physical and emotional dependency
  in the abuser-abused relationship, medical costs,
  stress, negative personality characteristics, and
  the intergenerational transmission of violence.

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Programs

• Child abuse prevention (CAP) programs have aimed
  at teaching children that they have rights
  including the right to control their own bodies
  genitals, the right to feel "safe," the right
  not to be touched in ways that feel confusing or
  wrong.
• Other CAP programs are directed at parents to
  help them educate their children.
• CAP programs for professionals encourage them to
  watch for signs of sexual abuse to investigate
  children's reports of abuse.
• In recent years, both the American Medical
  Association (AMA) the federal government have
  become more actively involved in fighting
  domestic violence.