Ramos LL, Saltijeral MMT

Language: Spanish
References: 34
Page: 469-478
PDF size: 165.38 Kb.

ABSTRACT

The concern of this paper comes from a reflection on the phenomenon of violence against women in the context of intimate couple relationships. Even though studies dealing with the issue tend to focus on the presence of physical violence, it should not be forgotten that in the same relationships several types of emotional and sometimes sexual violence may co-exist. Violent men intentionally aim to create a threatening climate against women. To do so, they resort to devaluations, insults, threats, maltreatment, shouting, contempt, intolerance, humiliations, jealousy and accusations. Nevertheless, women are often unaware of many of them given the social tolerance towards overall abuse and the lack of institutional alternatives. There are, however, some difficulties to operationalize these behaviours. It is particularly difficult to measure the characteristic pattern followed by these relationships as this may involve very subtle forms of violence. Likewise, results obtained in the physical and psychological dimensions are usually kept as separate areas or they are presented at best in a mixed form to show the prevalences from the different surveys carried out. This article is a theoretical and statistical exercise aimed at constructing a typology of male violence against women. Its starting point is a proposal posing that in heterosexual relationships two types of violence are present. The first one may be called episodic violence, where one or both members of the couple carry out some violent act without the desire to control or dominate the other partner. In the other one, defined as intimate terrorism, the man acts out with the clear purpose of exerting both a violent and non-violent control and dominion over the woman’s actions, thoughts, and emotions. Although it is certainly arguable, it might be interesting to analyze this classification for it is risky to suppose that there are couple relationships where a symmetry in the use of violence exists both on the part of men and women —that is, that women are as violent as men. It is risky because it distorts violence’s gender nature by presupposing that the same behaviour may be exerted with the same physical and symbolic strength and that it will have similar consequences. However, we think it is worth taking it into account as a starting point for this analysis. To do so, a database derived from a study conducted among a sample of women attending general medical consultation was used. The main analysis axis was the indicator of having experienced a physically violent behaviour on the part of the partner during the last year. This was related to five emotional violence dimensions which represent different modalities as to their intentionality and impact. The groups thus formed were analyzed considering some variables which were previously regarded as associated to this form of violence, including demographic features, and some other features related to household income participation and the distribution of household keeping chores in the women’s families. Specific features regarding the violent relationship, such as the motives behind the physical violence episodes and the role played by alcohol abuse on the part of the male partner in these episodes, were also considered.

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