Family violence is seen to forms: partner violence and child abuse. Much has been learned about both forms since the early 1990’s. Partner violence did not receive much focus by the public until the US Congress passed the Violence Against Women Act in 1994 following the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson, OJ Simpson’s wife (Cherlin, 2002: 258). It has been determined since then that “partner violence cannot be understood without acknowledging important distinctions among types of violence, motives of perpetrators, the social locations of both partners, and

It is not so simple to find a good solution mainly because it is difficult to articulate all of these perspectives. Each perspective is not always easily applicable because while the medical and the sociological models seem to be actively used, the political and family systems models seem to remain highly hypothetical. The different models also appear to be applicable in different situations. The sociological and family systems models tend to deal with common couple violence and “family-only” batterer; the medical and political models tend to deal with intimate terrorism and both the “generally-violent-antisocial” batterer and the “dysphoric-borderline” batterer. It is clear that domestic violence is a very complex issue. There are a variety of different types of family violence by a variety of different types of batterers in a variety of different contexts. In addition family violence is seen very differently depending on which perspective is taken. Naturally, because of this, there are also many potential solutions to the crisis.

the cultural contexts in which violence occurs” (Johnson and Ferarro, 2003: 494).

Feminists tend to take a political perspective, saying that societal values cause family violence. They believe that society has a “patriarchal structure that functions to subordinate women” and major institutions reflect these patriarchal values and encourage and maintain violence against women (Marin and Russo, 2003: 97). These feminists think social structures reflect inequalities that “reinforce the patriarchal world-view that male domination over women is normal, natural and expected” (Marin and Russo, 2003: 99). One trend notices was that men are more likely to be identified as batterers, but women who are identified as batterers are more likely to be charged with a serious crime. Their believe is that society tends to take responsibility off of male batterers and instead focus on blaming the woman’s behavior, defining it as “provocative” or “deficient” (Ferraro, 1997: 262).

The severity of child abuse came to light when six-year-old Elisa Izquierdo of New York City was beaten to death by her mother in1995. The mother was reported seven times to the authorities but no action was taken. Previously, a “family preservation” movement led to social services keeping abusive families together by helping with parental skills over putting the children in inadequate foster care (Cherlin, 2001: 258).

There are four major patterns of partner violence. Common couple violence arises after a specific argument and results in one or both partners physically attacking the other. Intimate terrorism is prompted by one partner’s desire to exert control over the other. This often involves emotional abuse as well as physical abuse. Violent resistance occurs when one partner, usually being the woman, fights back in response to abuse by the other partner. Mutual violent control, the final form of partner violence, is similar to intimate terrorism except that both partners are battling for control (Johnson and Ferarro, 2003: 495-496).

Some topics in this essay:
Besharov Laumann, Anderson Schlossberg, Johnson Ferarro, Marin Russo, North America, , York City, Johnson Ferraro, Holtzworth-Munroe Stuart, Claire Renzetti’s, family violence, partner violence, besharov laumann, besharov laumann 1996, laumann 1996, ferarro 2003, child abuse, johnson ferarro 2003, johnson ferarro, domestic violence, anderson schlossberg 2003, family systems, schlossberg 2003, marin russo 2003, child abuse neglect,