Domestic violence is learned behavior

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Domestic violence is learned behavior:

• learned through observation• learned through personal experience• learned in culture • learned in family • learned in communities, schools, friends,

etc.

It may be aggravated, but not caused by

• illness • heredity• alcohol and drugs • lack of self-control• economic problems• anger/stress • the victim’s behavior or problems in the

relationship

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Violence is learned behavior

Boys growing up in families where father is violent are three times more likely to become perpetrators of partner violence in their adulthood

(study in Serbia 2003).

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Violence against women is a product of gender subordination

Four issues are consistently associated with societies with high levels of domestic violence:– norms of male entitlement/ownership of women

– male control of wealth in the family

– notions of masculinity tied to male

dominance/honor

– male control of decision making

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Cultural differences in the meaning of violence:

• In large parts of the developing world, wife beating is seen as a form of “correction” or chastisement

• Beating is acceptable as long as it is for “just cause”

• Acceptability depends on who does what to whom, for what reason

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Beating as discipline

• “I think that if the wife is guilty, the husband has the right to hit her…If I have done something wrong…nobody should defend me. But if I haven’t done something wrong, I have a right to be defended.”

-- Indigenous woman, Mexico

• “If it is a great mistake, then the husband is justified in beating his wife. Why not? A cow will not be obedient without beatings”

-- Rural man, Tamil Nadu, India

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An ecological framework for understanding violence

IndividualRelationshipCommunitySociety

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Conclusion

• Domestic and especially partner violence against women affects many women around the world -- with grave consequences for them and their children

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