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Through a
Sociological Lens
The Complexities of Family Violence
Donileen R. Loseke
“
F
amily violence” is an umbrella term that encompasses a vast variety of behaviors and people, including violence by parents toward children, violence by children toward parents, violence by men toward women, violence by women toward men, violence by adults toward elderly people, and violence between sib- lings. In this chapter I explore how sociological perspectives can help in understanding the phenomena of family violence as well as help in understanding the sources of the many controversies surrounding it.
THINKING SOCIOLOGICALLY ABOUT FAMILY VIOLENCE
While terms such as “family violence,” “wife abuse,” or “child abuse” most often are used without definition, a sociological perspective
called social constructionism emphasizes examining the power and meanings of words (Loseke, 2003). What is family? The title of this book, Current Controversies on Family Violence, directs attention to violence happening in a particular place —in families. This makes sense for the simple reason that FBI statistics (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1999) indicate that there is an aston- ishing amount of violence in American families. It also makes sense to focus on violence in families because, regardless of recurring com- plaints that actual families often fail their members, family remains an important cultural ideal: Most adults marry and desire children; the right to legal marriage is an important part of gay and lesbian political agendas. In theory and in practice, family is critical to Americans. While concentrating on violence in families makes sense, it raises a seemingly simplistic question: What is a “family”? For example, although there is more violence among people who cohabit than among those who are formally married (Anderson, 1997), are unmarried couples a family? And, if cohabiting heterosexual couples are family, then per- haps cohabiting lesbian and gay couples also should be included, because these relationships contain violence (Renzetti, 1992). What about couples who are merely dating—or who dated in the past? Here, too, there is much violence (Greenfield et al., 1988), but should these types of relationships be classified as family? In the same way, child sexual abuse is perpetrated by men who are “dating” children’s mothers (Patton, 1991, p. 228). Are such men family? In brief, “family” in this current historical era is a rubber-band term. At times, it seems to expand to include people in many types of relationships. The definition of family is critical for examining and understand- ing violence, because different types of relationships are associated with different characteristics, problems, and possibilities. There are experiential and practical differences between couples who are merely dating and those who are cohabiting, between cohabiting and married couples, and between heterosexual and homosexual couples. Children abused by their biological or legal fathers are in different circum- stances than those abused by their mothers’ informal partners. Muddled thinking results when differences are ignored; it matters how family is defined. What is violence? Examining and understanding family violence also requires care- ful attention to defining violence. What, specifically, do family violence
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violence in families , it makes more sense to examine the myriad forms of violence experienced by particular people : children, women, or the elderly. A sociological perspective encourages asking questions about the topic: What particular people are being included in definitions of family? What particular behaviors are being included in definitions of violence? Should the focus be on violence happening in families or on violence happening to particular types of people? Answers to these questions influence what is found, how it can be understood, and how it might be resolved.
THINKING SOCIOLOGICALLY
ABOUT RESEARCH AND STATISTICS
Observers note how divergent definitions of both family and violence have led to conflicting findings, to difficulty in comparing studies (Geffner, Rosenbaum, & Hughes, 1988; Tolliver, Valle, Dopke, Serra, & Milne, 1998), and to problems in developing theories (Azar, 1991). That is only the tip of the iceberg of dilemmas, because research on family violence of all types is plagued by myriad problems (see Belsky, 1993, for one review). Rather than detailing typical problems faced by researchers, I focus on some important questions that should be asked in order to evaluate research. One critical question is about the samples used to gather the data: Who was talked to and/or what records were examined? With the notable exceptions of the Family Violence National Studies (see Straus, this volume) and national crime victimization surveys (Greenfield et al., 1998), the great majority of research on this topic uses non-random samples. These commonly involve examining organizational records or talking with clients or service providers in places such as child wel- fare services, Child Protective Services, counseling centers, or shelters for battered women. Two typical biases result from such commonly used samples. First, these samples result in bias surrounding estimates of rela- tionships between violence and economic class. This is a well-known empirical association: As income goes down, the amount of violence (both in and out of families) goes up (Greenfield et al., 1998). While national probability samples find this association, data drawn from social service agencies magnify it. In the case of child abuse, this is
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because protective service workers are likely to simply assume child abuse is occurring when parents are poor (Howitt, 1992; Lane, Rubin, Monteith, & Christian, 2003; O’Toole, Turbett, & Napka, 1983). In tech- nical terms, providers tend to overdiagnose abuse in poor families. It follows that children from poor families will be overrepresented in research relying on information from child protection agencies. In the case of wife abuse, women often rely on shelters because they do not have the money to pay for a hotel (Loseke, 1992). Poor women therefore are over- represented in research using shelters as sites for data collection. Hence, while national random sample studies do show associations between all forms of violence and income, these associations are magnified when data are collected from social service agencies. There is a second bias resulting from research samples that rely on social service agencies. By definition, women in shelters have experi- ences severe enough to lead them to leave their homes; by definition, parents being monitored by protective service agencies are people whose behaviors are evaluated as extreme enough to warrant inter- vention. Yet data from such samples all too often are generalized. Data on the characteristics and experiences of women shelter residents are generalized to all battered women; data on the characteristics and expe- riences of parents monitored by child protective agencies are general- ized to all abusive parents. Thinking sociologically about research also requires being thoughtful in interpreting statistics, especially those presented in the mass media. The mass media are well known for their tendencies to offer glib, “sound bite” answers to perplexing and complicated questions, as well as for their tendencies to magnify and distort information in ways that increase audience interest (Loseke, 2003). It is not that uncommon, for example, to hear statements such as “Abused children grow up to be abusive adults,” or for so-called relationship experts on talk shows to tell a troubled woman, “Your husband hit you because his parents hit him.” Such statements contain two types of statistical errors. First, associations between violence and particular characteristics of people often are enormously inflated. Data testing the “intergenerational transmission of abuse” theory, for example, do not support the deter- ministic statement that “abused children grow up to be abusive adults.” While there is a moderate association between experiencing child abuse and becoming a child abuser (Black, Heyman, & Slep, 2001), that associ- ation is nowhere near perfect (Kaufman & Zigler, 1993). Likewise, there
Complexities of Family Violence——
The Psychological Level
Humans are characterized by complex and symbolic thinking, remembering, emotions, needs, and desires. It follows that there can be psychological risk factors for violence. Psychological risk factors of violence that routinely are relayed through the mass media often are trite and mundane and rely on circular reasoning. For example, arguments that violence is caused by “stress” or “low self-esteem” say little, because, except at the most extreme, such terms resist empirical measurement. Yet even when psychological diagnosis is done rigor- ously by highly trained professionals, references to individual-level psychopathology are necessary only to understand the most extreme violent behavior (O’Leary, 1993). Psychological theories are of no help in understanding why “spankings,” “pushes,” “shoves,” and “slaps” are a routine feature of family life; they become necessary when violence is obviously and most certainly abusive. While recognizing biological and psychological risk factors, socio- logical perspectives strongly argue that these rarely are sufficient, and often are not even necessary, to understand violence. The search for the risk factors of violence can not end at the level of individual biology or psychology.
The Interactional Level
Because family violence involves people who know one another, violence might be associated with characteristics of interaction. Some observers, for example, use categories such as “common couple violence” (Carlson, 1997; Johnson, 1995) or “mutual combat” (Straus, this volume) to conceptualize violence between adults that results from the complexities of family life when disagreements can lead to argu- ments and arguments can lead to violence. While marriage counselors offering couples therapy focus on changing patterns of interaction associated with violence, much cau- tion is in order, because “common couples violence” is only one form of violence between adults. The other form is “wife abuse” (Loseke & Kurz, and Yllö, this volume). This is one-way violence, where women are victims and men are offenders using violence to control women. While wife abuse involves an interactional dynamic because men inter- actionally intimidate women (Lloyd, 1999), it is a grave error to specu- late that battered women are implicated in this interactional dynamic.
Complexities of Family Violence——
The interactional level therefore can account for only some violence. Too much emphasis on this interactional level can divert attention from understanding the complexity of violence (Bograd, 1984); it can serve to unjustly blame victims.
The Social Structural Level
While recognizing that in some ways each family is unique, socio- logical perspectives focus on examining characteristics shared by many, if not most, families. A full understanding of something as complex as family violence requires looking closely at how social environments can be a risk factor for violence. Not surprisingly, because family violence can be conceptualized as including many types of behaviors (from “spanking” to “murder”) involving victims and offenders in any and all family categories, there is not one sociological theory that can adequately account for all violence. Feminism (Yllö, this volume), for example, is a form of sociological theory that explores the consequences of the gendered social environ- ment. Theories informed by feminism are excellent in examining the social conditions and forces allowing and even encouraging the victim- ization of women by men. Yet, as Yllö comments, feminist-inspired theories are not particularly useful in understanding other forms of violence, such as child abuse, sibling abuse, or elder abuse. In addition, because feminist theories begin with the a priori labeling of women as victims and men as offenders, they also are unable to conceptualize women’s violence toward men except as violence done in self-defense. While sociological theories of family violence are woefully undeveloped, two general theories of crime and violence have obvious relevance to the topic of family violence.
Control Theory. Rather than asking why some people are violent, control theory asks why most people are not violent. The theoretical answer is that people are controlled by bonds to other people and to social insti- tutions and by the fear of punishment. Some research has demon- strated this relationship for family violence: Men who have strong attachments to and who fear negative sanctions from significant others are less likely to be wife abusers than are men who do not have such attachments (Lackey & Williams, 1995). Likewise, the threat of arrest for wife abuse is a deterrent (control) primarily for men who have valued attachments to home, work, and community (Sherman, 1992).
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which is associated with higher rates of family violence of all types (Belsky, 1993; Williams, 1992). Likewise, the gendered core of typical divisions of labor, as well as stereotypical ideas about gender, are associated with wife abuse (Brown & Hendricks, 1998); strong beliefs that parents have the right to discipline and control their children are associated with child abuse (Belsky, 1993). Furthermore, the ideal- ized image that family members should know the intimate details of one another’s lives leads families to be emotional hotbeds: Family members often know better than any one else what can be said or done that will most deeply hurt another. Examining the characteristics of family as a social institution leads to a perplexing realization that the very characteristics drawing people to value family relationships create a fertile ground for violence. Ideas about how families should be organized, typical ways family members behave toward one another, and the characteristics of the social struc- tures supporting these ideas and expectations allow—if not downright encourage—violence.
THE IMPORTANCE OF THINKING SOCIOLOGICALLY
My goal in this chapter was to demonstrate how thinking sociologi- cally about family violence means thinking in complex ways. This is the power of sociological perspectives: To think about and question research before accepting findings, to understand differences between statistical associations and predictions about individual behavior, to understand that humans are complex creatures and that what goes on inside us is influenced by what goes on outside us. Sociology is a way of thinking about the world. Yet clearly, sociological perspectives are not as popular as psycho- logical perspectives, especially those routinely paraded through the mass media. The compelling nature of psychological perspectives makes sense because they seem to pose simple solutions to severe and complex problems: If violence is about individual psychopathology, then violent people merely need to be “repaired” and the problems will be resolved. The allure of psychological perspectives also is that these theories pertain primarily to people who use extreme violence, and these are the people who are the object of public fascination. Finally, psychological theories are undoubtedly more popular than sociological theories because they do not challenge us to think
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about relationships between social organization and violence. Sociological perspectives encourage us to explore how family violence—in its many forms—can be a consequence of a lack of com- munity or of poverty. These perspectives encourage us to explore how the ideas, practices, and arrangements of the institution of family can create a fertile ground for violence. Yes, indeed, sociological perspec- tives raise difficult questions. Yet violence can not be understood or stopped if such questions are swept under the carpet simply because they are troublesome.
REFERENCES
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Straus, M. A., Gelles, R. J., & Steinmetz, S. K. (1980). Behind closed doors: Violence in the American family. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Stith, S. M., Rosen, K. H., Middleton, K. A., Busch, A. L., Lundeberg, K., & Carlton, R. P. (2000). The intergenerational transmission of spouse abuse: A meta-analysis. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 62, 640–654. Tolliver, R., Valle, L. A., Dopke, C. A., Serra, L. D., & Milner, J. S. (1998). Child physical abuse. In N. A. Jackson & G. C. Oates (Eds.), Violence in intimate relationships: Examining sociological and psychological issues (pp. 1–24). Boston: Butterworth-Heinemann. Williams, K. R. (1992). Social sources of marital violence and deterrence: Testing an integrated theory of assaults between partners. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 54, 620–629.
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