Turns Out Domestic Violence Is Fine.

by Little Miss Attila on December 6, 2009

As long as you confine it to the other person’s property. Because 1) no one is particularly attached to his or her property, and 2) destroying property never leads to any sort of assault on someone’s person.

So we’ve got all that squared away.

Just to be safe, though, if you’re going to try this? I’d recommend making sure that you are a female in a heterosexual relationship. Because men are never the victims in a domestic violence situation. Well: hardly ever.

In other words, no: as someone who, at the age of 15, watched her mother smash her [the mother’s] boyfriend’s antiques, and burn his clothes in the backyard, and threaten his face and the windows of his VW bug with a hammer, I’m not impressed with the reasoning.

Via Moe, who’s riffing off of Insty’s and Dr. Helen’s recent posts on this odd double standard. I mean, I get that the probability is that Tiger Woods has been behaving badly in his marriage, and that he and his wife are in a precarious place in terms of their relationship, and that he’s had some advantages in life that other people would like to have.

And I also get that no one can push anyone’s buttons like his or her spouse: intimacy can be a rage-producing machine. But adults try to use their words.

Because unlike Jessica Ashley, most of us have graduated kindergarten. I hope Ashley’s husband doesn’t rip her blankie up next time he gets pissed off.

UPDATE: Cassandra takes the complementary position to mine, and has the advantage of having actually read up on the facts about Woods’s marriage, which I couldn’t really care less about. I think she was a bit tee’d off [intended] by some couple of comments over at Dr. Helen’s digs that were clearly misogynistic (that is, e.g., Woods’s wife is a prostitute).

Though on the surface I know it sounds like Cass and I disagree, I don’t really think we do so much: we’re both saying that there should be one standard of behavior within a marriage, for both men and women. And we’re both saying that people should control themselves and behave, as much as possible, like adults.

We both believe infidelity is wrong, and we both think violence is wrong. And, in fact, we both recognize that humans can only work toward the ideal of adult behavior: Cassandra discusses that phenomenon of quasi-violence in which one makes an angry physical-like gesture away from the the object of rage/love, in order to protect him or her. And that’s a valid technique: early on in my marriage, I unwittingly said something during what should have remained simply a heated discussion that landed right on an emotional button for my husband, and he threw the paperback book he was reading across the room. But sideways—not at me. An important distinction.

A week or two ago he made a remark that landed much closer to my metaphorical solar plexus than he had intended, and I threw a magazine at the bed, because I’m a passionate girl—even now, as an old lady.

And he pointed out, reasonably enough, that if I planned on losing my temper he was going to exit the discussion. So I came back to reality and explained why I’d overreacted.

But neither one of these incidents can be considered violence, any more than Cassandra’s examples of bitch-slapping one another, 1940s movie-style might be, or any more than injecting a little B&D into one’s bedroom antics might be. Okay: I’m conflating the two. Fact is, the bondage and sex-slapping stuff is harmless, but the slapping is an escalation, and in an emotionally charged atmosphere, escalation is dangerous. (More on bitch-slapping below.)

And if my husband had aimed that paperback book at me, it would have been an escalation. If I had aimed that magazine at him, it would have been an escalation.

I mean, I get that tempers flare: most of you know that a couple of months ago my mother ragged on me for a couple of hours on end while I was trying to clean hear house in the middle of the night—and this resulted in my hitting her wall with the full force of my fist (bad idea; plaster wall), and throwing something my brother had made in woodshop in junior high against . . . against a different wall (yeah; I’ll get it repaired, and then she and I can fight over it again—when I build that time machine I’ll go back and tell him to make two napkin holders, goddammit).

Yet, once again, I remain very concerned about what happens when people allow themselves to express themselves in violence directed toward those they love.

I do not care about whether Tiger Woods’ wife took out the back window of his car with a golf club, but if she did . . . Geez. That’s a lot of force, when you’re talking about automotive safety glass. A lot of force.

As for those movies from the 1940s, well . . . I don’t know if I can defend that a lot, but I should point out that the standards for onscreen sexual expression were quite different at that time, and that one way fimmakers were able to display the level of “spark” in a relationship (or courtship, or whatever) was by portraying anger, or sublimated sexual tension, rather than showing sexuality in a more overt way.

UPDATE II: Belatedly, also via Dr. H, Cathy Young‘s contribution to the debate. Again: I’m not particularly interested in what is happening in Tiger Woods’ marriage. I’m interested in what moral standards people have in common, and what can be legislated (battery) versus what must be handled through good, old-fashioned shunning (infidelity). [And now someone is going to come along and tell me that the crux of it is not so much the fact that female assaults upon males are less likely to be lethal, but that because women are more loyal than men, men have a sort of nuclear weapon in any given relationship that women lack. That will, in turn, bring us back to whether men really are more emotionally detached than women in relationships, or whether they simply hide it better. I tend to believe that with a very few exceptions it is the latter.]

UPDATE III: Carol’s Closet weighs in, and Carolyn cops to a double-standard in terms of how she might see a one-time incident of assault that is not part of a larger pattern. (Let’s for a moment leave aside Cassandra’s pivotal point that if Mrs. Woods merely broke a back window on a vehicle, outside the range wherein Mr. Woods might be harmed by the glass fragments, it was not assault, but rather property damage. She is correct, but I believe those who are concerned about her behavior perhaps being on a continuum with domestic violence suspect that Mrs. Woods might have menaced or threatened her husband. But no one knows, and my discussions have to do with the theory, rather than the specifics of what happened between the Woodses.)

I don’t know whether Carol is suggesting that the law should be slanted—that is, whether a police officer or a prosecutor should take her tack—or whether she’s only trying to underscore the notion that men’s superior upper-body strength should encourage them to keep the taboo against hitting women (which to those who adhere to the code often means that they must endure provocations from women, and never even hit back if the woman initiates a physical confrontation).

I asked the household criminology expert (the Marine MP) about this issue as it pertains to old-style male-dominated military bases in the 1970s. The household criminology expert tells me that at that time the ratio of domestic violence was still highly skewed in favor of male-on-female battery, but he also described at least one incident of female-on-male violence that I disassociated myself, crime-writer style, and went to the black humor place for a moment—just a few seconds, because I couldn’t fully cope with what he was telling me.

He also made the point that because a lot of females roughhouse less in their adolescence, and when they do it’s less likely to include strikes—they often have a much less precise notion of how much damage they may do when they do start hitting.

(“Funny thing,” I replied. “But remember that incident in the 1990s when that guy was baiting me before I’d had my morning coffee up at our cabin retreat, and I popped him? I had exactly that thought right before my arm shot out, and even as I lost control to the degree required to punch him in the jaw, I pulled the punch so I wouldn’t really hurt him.”

Of course, sometimes when I have PMS and start crying, I laugh at myself right in the middle of it all. I understand that this is not normal behavior.)

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Cassandra December 6, 2009 at 3:05 pm

You’re right. We do agree – one standard.

As you get older, you learn never to say “never”. I can’t condone hitting anyone, and I don’t condone hitting their car in a fit of rage (though there’s really no evidence that’s what she did). I just don’t call it “domestic violence” or assault. It’s property damage.

It just bugs me to see so many people trashing her on no evidence. I didn’t say a word about his cheating until AFTER he made his public statement b/c I didn’t think it was fair to berate him based on nothing more than my feelings about cheating.

Frankly, on first reading I was inclined to assume exactly what so many others have – that she got mad and whacked the outside of his car. It wasn’t until I read the police report, neighbors’ statements, etc. that I began to think I’d been wrong. As so often happens, the facts just didn’t fit my preconceived notions.

The funny thing about my post is that I’d no sooner written it than some guy came along and proved my point. He essentially just decided what he wanted me to say so he could go off on a rant about how I approve of domestic violence against men and honor killings :p

*sigh*

Great post, Joy.

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Darleen Click December 6, 2009 at 6:43 pm

on a societal level, incidental property damage (throwing a book, breaking a plate, slamming a door so hard it comes off the hinges) is not really DV if not directed at the other or done as part of a threat directed at the other (“this is what will happen to YOU if you dont …”)

The LAW on the other hand, varies from state to state and unfortunately sometimes cops are – pun here – handcuffed in their ability to decide to obey the spirit of the law rather than enforce the letter of the law.

Does it make any sense for cops to be instructed in a “zero tolerance” manner when it comes to DV that they will arrive on-scene and even with no physical evidence of assault, arrest both parties and take the minor kids to CPS?

There was enough reasonable doubt on the events of that night without Tiger or Elin willing to talk to the cops (their constitutional right) that there was no case.

Certainly, with no history, no injuries and no cooperation, no DDA would file on it either.

IF she had actually hit him and caused physical injury, all bets would be off and I’m sure the FL cops would have taken her in right there. FL DV law is pretty clear and Tiger’s not wanting to file charges would have had no effect. Similar to CA DV law.

IF there was a fight over his “transgressions” I’m glad he attempted to walk away and I’m glad if she felt an overwhelming urge to hit something, it was just his car. (BTW, safety glass is built to shatter if struck with a small hard object. Mythbuster’s episode on how to escape from a car underwater)

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Darleen Click December 6, 2009 at 6:45 pm

oh btw I have a scheduled post to go up tomorrow morning on proteinwisdom about a weird angle this story has taken.

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Belinda Geiger December 6, 2009 at 9:18 pm

Not funny, not one little bit. Anyone driven to rage and violence needs to STOP IT right now.

Any woman/person who has been battered will not be laughing along with you, regardless of whether it is property damage or bashing in of a skull.

There is no excuse for violence. It is not necessary to hurt, maim, endanger, or otherwise beat someone (or their property) for whatever slights one perceives.

Many women are cheering I suppose, another mighty-one has fallen, but that is truly beside the point. It just encourages violence. Can we never grow up enough to stop this insanity?

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Cassandra December 7, 2009 at 12:28 am

on a societal level, incidental property damage (throwing a book, breaking a plate, slamming a door so hard it comes off the hinges) is not really DV if not directed at the other or done as part of a threat directed at the other (”this is what will happen to YOU if you dont …”)

That’s a very useful point – Darleen explained what I was trying to get at better than I did. I can see how property damage could be used to intimidate or harass but that’s not the type of thing I was talking about (and her explanation makes that more clear, I think). I also wasn’t talking about someone who, every time there’s an argument, explodes and starts punching walls or hurling things about.

Does it make any sense for cops to be instructed in a “zero tolerance” manner when it comes to DV that they will arrive on-scene and even with no physical evidence of assault, arrest both parties and take the minor kids to CPS?

Perfect demonstration of why zero tolerance policies are so dumb.

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Carol December 7, 2009 at 5:01 am

At best, I did a very clumsy job of saying what I meant to say. That could be because my position is hardly defensible. I do have a double standard and I do believe that violence is wrong regardless of sex. A little hard reconcile, let alone explain, let alone defend.

Darlene and Cassandra are both doing a much better job at this than I so I’ll stop digging myself a hole and leave it to them.

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Darleen Click December 7, 2009 at 6:00 am

Belinda

Do you consider breaking a plate “violence”?

People lose their temper. It is a great thing if we can teach people skills to channel that temper but we are still left with a person who has to think enough to engage that skill.

When my girls were teens (having four there was a time there were at least 3 of them teens in the house), their tempers were things of legends.

Guess what? I got a punching bag and hung it out on the patio and got them gloves. There was many a time they’d go out and whack the heck out of that bag (even a little kick boxing). Defused their anger pretty quick.

They were being “violent”, but it was channeled into an acceptable expression.

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John December 7, 2009 at 6:34 am

The litmus test for sexism: Switch the genders of any instance of domestic violence. You’re a sexist if you feel differently about it after the switch.

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Cassandra December 7, 2009 at 6:51 am

That seems pretty fair to me.

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Cassandra December 7, 2009 at 6:56 am

That said, I think we do “feel” differently about a whole slew of behaviors. One columnist (it may be the one Attila linked to) said something about how we judge a woman far more harshly for not wanting to stay home with the kiddies than we do a man.

And that’s true.

We judge a man far more harshly for not being a good provider than we do a woman.

Though it probably makes sense to make fewer knee jerk judgments, still there are real reasons for this kind of bias. I think the perception of the likelihood of serious bodily harm is greater when a man is the aggressor. Unless, of course, a weapon equalizes things. Not necessarily fair, but also not necessarily unreasonable … in the aggregate. The problem is that there’s no such thing as an aggregate victim.

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Little Miss Attila December 7, 2009 at 9:10 am

People are entitled to have their own subjective reactions, but the law should attempt as much gender-blindness as possible.

We’ll see about a couple of the double standards you list if Sarah Palin decides to run for President . . . those two points you mention (women not staying at home, men deciding to stay at home) are some of the most common slams against the Palins from liberals. (Which of course is hilarious.)

Just to make my own position clear, I think morally we should strive to leave physical expressions of our anger out of the house as much as possible precisely because it is so hard. I want to reinforce a taboo that I concede I have not lived up to myself.

What the LAW should do is quite another matter, and zero tolerance laws are awful: they are one-size-fits-all solutions to the problem.

So it is fine for Carol to advocate, for example, that men (like Moe Lane) should feel free to–or be encouraged to–live a code of “no hitting women,” as a means of respecting their upper-body strength, women’s more delicate necks, etc.

It is NOT, however, okay for a double standard to be enshrined into law. (I also am personally skeptical about whether any man’s resolve could stand up to sustained physical assaults, or even verbal assaults, from his wife. Anyone can be provoked, but we don’t try because it is hard to build–and easy, heartbreakingly easy, to destroy.)

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Micha Elyi December 7, 2009 at 11:37 am

Cassandra (Pearl Harbor Day at 6:56 am) said, “I think the perception of the likelihood of serious bodily harm is greater when a man is the aggressor.”

That perception is the source of the commonplace belief that only a man’s violence is violent, a woman’s violence is cute.

Uh, so if you’re shot first but with a lower caliber weapon than the one you yourself are packing your assailant should catch a break?

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Cassandra December 7, 2009 at 6:27 pm

*sigh*

That’s not at all what I said. I’ve said over and over and over again that I think the standard should be gender blind.

So you don’t get to just ignore that. Or put words in my mouth so you can argue with a position I haven’t advanced :p

The actual DV stats show men being seriously injured far less often. It’s still wrong, but most people distinguish, for instance, between an open handed slap and a knife wound or roundhouse punch. They are both violent, but the first won’t be anything close to life threatening unless the woman is as big as you are (which isn’t usually the case).

Let’s look at actual statistics:

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, between 1998 and 2002:

* Of the almost 3.5 million violent crimes committed against family members, 49% of these were crimes against spouses.
* 84% of spouse abuse victims were females, and 86% of victims of dating partner abuse at were female.
* Males were 83% of spouse murderers and 75% of dating partner murderers

* 50% of offenders in state prison for spousal abuse had killed their victims. Wives were more likely than husbands to be killed by their spouses: wives were about half of all spouses in the population in 2002, but 81% of all persons killed by their spouse.

It’s hard to cover up murder. Let’s look at an earlier 10 year study:

* In a 1995-1996 study conducted in the 50 States and the District of Columbia, nearly 25% of women and 7.6% of men were raped and/or physically assaulted by a current or former spouse, cohabiting partner, or dating partner/acquaintance at some time in their lifetime (based on survey of 16,000 participants, equally male and female).

Patricia Tjaden & Nancy Thoennes, U.S. Dep’t of Just., NCJ 181867, Extent, Nature, and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence, at iii (2000), available at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/pubs-sum/181867.htm

* Approximately 1.3 million women and 835,000 men are physically assaulted by an intimate partner annually in the United States.

Patricia Tjaden & Nancy Thoennes, U.S. Dep’t of Just., NCJ 183781, Full Report of the Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence Against Women: Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey, at iv (2000), available at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/pubs-sum/183781.htm

* Intimate partner violence made up 20% of all nonfatal violent crime experienced by women in 2001.

Callie Marie Rennison, U.S. Dep’t of Just., NCJ 197838, Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime Data Brief: Intimate Partner Violence, 1993-2001, at 1 (2003), available at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/ipv01.pdf

* Intimate partners committed 3% of the nonfatal violence against men.

Callie Marie Rennison, U.S. Dep’t of Just., NCJ 197838, Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime Data Brief: Intimate Partner Violence, 1993-2001, at 1 (2003), available at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/ipv01.pdf

* In 2000, 1,247 women and 440 men were killed by an intimate partner. In recent years, an intimate partner killed approximately 33% of female murder victims and 4% of male murder victims.

Callie Marie Rennison, U.S. Dep’t of Just., NCJ 197838, Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime Data Brief: Intimate Partner Violence, 1993-2001, at 1 (2003), available at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/ipv01.pdf

* Access to firearms yields a more than five-fold increase in risk of intimate partner homicide when considering other factors of abuse, according to a recent study, suggesting that abusers who possess guns tend to inflict the most severe abuse on their partners.

Jacquelyn C. Campbell et al., Risk Factors For Femicide in Abusive Relationships: Results From A Multi-Site Case Control Study, 93 Am. J. of Public Health 1089, 1092 (2003), abstract available at http://www.ajph.org/cgi/content/abstract/93/7/1089

* Of females killed with a firearm, almost two-thirds were killed by their intimate partners. The number of females shot and killed by their husband or intimate partner was more than three times higher than the total number murdered by male strangers using all weapons combined in single victim/single offender incidents in 2002.

The Violence Pol’y Ctr., When Men Murder Women: An Analysis of 2002 Homicide Data: Females Murdered by Males in Single Victim/Single Offender Incidents, at 7 (2004), available at http://www.vpc.org/studies/wmmw2004.p

Even if you ignore everything but the Justice Dept. figures, they’re pretty lopsided.

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Little Miss Attila December 7, 2009 at 8:31 pm

I do not believe that anyone who has lived with a woman who is either physically abusive or verbally abusive regards female violence (or the idea therof, or the threat thereof) as “cute.”

I actually think that Dr. Helen, Cassandra, Fausta and I all occupy similar spots here philosophically, inasmuch as we all four argue for a single standard. The differences lie in where we happen to be placing the emphasis, from moment to moment. (For instance, I can toggle back and forth in a heartbeat between discussing what it’s like to live in fear of a female rage-aholic, and my awareness that an average-size male could snap my smallish neck in a matter of minutes–and my tall husband could do it in seconds if he ever went around the bend. Fortunately, he never will.)

Yet I believe that a lot of people who are weighing in on the Woods’s marriage are refugees from bad experiences with heterosexuality, and are mostly logging on to the innernets to tell everyone else how awful their ex-husbands and ex-wives really were. A lot of the people who are very engaged about this are talking way, way past each other.

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Cassandra December 8, 2009 at 6:54 am

I actually think that Dr. Helen, Cassandra, Fausta and I all occupy similar spots here philosophically, inasmuch as we all four argue for a single standard.

I think that’s probably a fair assessment.

My angle is – and always has been – balance and perspective. People on the internets have a tendency to read to satisfy their confirmation bias and skip over anything that doesn’t fit whatever agenda they’re interested in. We all brandish this study or that one, this factoid or some other, that supposedly confirms whatever notion we’re flogging at the moment :p

I guess I just don’t think that “women are evil” makes any more sense as a mantra than “men are evil”. The truth is usually a bit more complicated than that.

Not that I’m claiming to know what the truth is!

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