1. The part women play in domestic violence
Violence against women gets a lot of press at the moment. As a woman, I find male violence always inexcusable and repugnant. As a clinical psychologist though I understand quite a lot about how and why it happens – since I frequently come up against it in my work.
We need to give young girls better avenues than looking ‘pretty’ if they are to gain the levels of real power and authority that would put a swift end to domestic violence.
For sure, from a moral perspective the perpetrator is always at fault. Nonetheless, if we are to have any impact on stopping this violence, we need to understand how and why it often happens. From the perspective of how it actually comes to be, there is, in reality a 50:50 contribution to the final outcome of violence.
To explain what I mean, I want to tell you about a scenario I frequently see played out in various forms in my work in relation to domestic violence. Let’s say we have a male and female couple who are living together and he is becoming increasingly violent towards her. In my work, I have to retrain her exactly as much as I have to retrain him to correct this situation.
It happens like this. Early on in the relationship he becomes aggravated for some reason and raises his voice at her. She tolerates it, lets it go by, thinks to herself “he’s not too angry – no need to rock the boat”. At that stage he is at 4/10 in his level of anger. By not objecting she has just trained him that 4/10 is acceptable. So he continues to regularly reach that level.
Then a few weeks or months later something more aggravating happens and he yells at her and swears “you bitch”. He is now at 6/10 in his level of anger. She tolerates it, lets it go by, thinks to herself “that’s not much worse than before – no point in just aggravating him more”. By not objecting, she has just taught him that 6/10 is doable and calling her a “bitch” is OK.
Eventually he escalates further and she fails to object, teaching him at each stage that his level of anger is tolerable and has no consequences. Before you know it, he has reached 9/10 and he is smacking her head into the wall and calling her a “fucking c—“.
While, of course, there is never any excuse for being violent towards a partner, she has nonetheless contributed 50 per cent to how this domestic violence situation came to be. Interestingly, the same man would not have escalated his level of anger had she objected with proper authority when he reached 4/10, threatening him in no uncertain terms that she would leave him if that ever happened again.
Of course, the question still remains about the why aspect. Why do most women lack authority compared with men? For the answer to this we need to go back to early socialisation processes where research shows that girls and boys are treated completely differently from day one (despite parents insisting this is not the case). For a glimpse into how this happens, remember that you never need to teach your children to speak – they just “absorb” language and start speaking. This is no different to how children just “absorb” culture and values irrespective of whether those values are fair, unfair or repugnant.
Just consider how almost every girl wants to wear pink. Is this because girls are biologically programmed to love pink? Well, no – in fact we have no dendritic spine activity in our brains (indicating learning, cognition and memory) until after we are born – so girls must learn to love pink.
I always say in my work that “if your girl loves pink you are not giving her enough avenues to real power and authority”. In other words, girls love pink because, sadly, it is the best they can do – it gives them a slight sense of power by looking pretty. We need to give young girls better avenues than looking “pretty” if they are to gain the levels of real power and authority that would put a swift end to domestic violence.
Girls also learn to be passive, especially with physical pursuits requiring mental toughness. In sport, boys are taught to push through aggressively, taking the risk and putting their bodies on the line. In regards to physical pursuits girls are taught the opposite, and although it is not always sensible to play so hard, it certainly gives boys a much stronger sense of their own capacity and ability to make things happen. They learn to be active agents pursuing goals. In contrast, girls often learn that it is OK to collapse at sport, give up, cry and go home.
I can relate this to my own life. As a child I was allowed to get away with being fairly sooky and ineffectual in sport. I was good enough at it technically but I was never really expected to push through into the realm of real mental toughness. Then, as a young adolescent I found myself standing at the top of a cornice (I had snow skied since I was a tiny child) and it was very steep, narrow and ungroomed. My older brother jumped straight off the cornice without a second of hesitation and skied it aggressively and beautifully to the bottom.
Suddenly I thought: “I’m sick of being pathetic – he does it, why can’t I”. At that moment I decided to never again be passive. I took off, forcing myself to trust in my own ability, skiing forcefully, fast and with authority and I have skied that way ever since. Most of the girls and women I knew back then have still not taken this step of mental toughness and although they remain excellent technicians, skiing with beauty and grace, they never really learnt just how good they could be.
If women are to command proper authority with men we need to train young girls to take themselves much more seriously and develop the necessary mental toughness to push their own physical and mental limits. Men have been pushing their limits for generations and they are largely trained through sport to this end. Engaging in hard sport with much higher expectations attached to performance would be one important avenue to help girls develop the mental and physical toughness required to stop domestic violence.
So, while we ought to be absolutely outraged about the violence of men against women, we ought to be equally outraged by the learnt powerlessness of women to command enough authority to stop it in its tracks.
Dr Sallee McLaren is a clinical psychologist.
The Age, 13/5/2015.
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2. Don’t play the victim blame game with family violence
There are many toxic claims about women’s supposed complicity as victims of domestic violence. Illustration: Kerrie Leishman
Down the murky rabbit hole of social media, there are many toxic claims about women’s supposed complicity when men choose to use violence against them. That – and I’m removing the expletives and fixing spelling errors – women are somehow to blame.
They don’t stand up for themselves, they don’t push back, they play the victim. Or conversely, that they answer back and infuriate their attacker, don’t know their place. That women wear the wrong clothes (too short/long), walk in the wrong places (the park/the dark), raise daughters to be too submissive/aggressive, or want too much (or expect too little). That women bear some responsibility when they are battered, beaten, terrorised, or killed. Deeply – often wilfully – misguided, yes. And dangerous.
But surely, a view shared by a vitriolic minority, the bottom feeders of the online world? No, according to this comment piece by clinical psychologist Sallee McLaren published in The Age on May 13, which made me choke on my coffee.
To summarise, a woman makes a “50:50 contribution to the final outcome of violence” when a man assaults her. When he becomes violent she just tolerates it, and thereby gives him a green light to increase his aggression, she writes.
This “failure to object” allows his violence to escalate until this has reached “9/10” and he is “smacking her head into the wall”. And then (stay with me), we are told this is partly because girls are raised to be too submissive. The evidence? “Almost every girl wants to wear pink”. Right.
McLaren argues that “We need to give young girls better avenues than looking ‘pretty’ if they are to gain the levels of real power and authority that would put a swift end to domestic violence.” She says we needs to train young girls to take themselves more seriously and develop mental toughness.
I wonder what Jess would make of this. I interviewed her at her kitchen table last week in the two hours she had free between picking up her three girls and caring for her elderly mother.
This room is also her bedroom, she sleeps on the sofa and the kids bunk in one room, granny the other. Housing for those fleeing violence in Victoria is almost impossible to find.
Jess’s ex-husband was brutal. Daily beatings, psychological torture, intimate terrorism. He owned a cupboard of guns (all licensed). He beat the family pets.
Violence began during the honeymoon and continued for a decade. She never reported him to the police. Why? She was scared he would kill her. When she threatened to, he put a gun to her head. No arguing with that.
But nor did she “tolerate it”. Over many years she tried – despite her straitjacket of terror – to push back. It made no difference, she told me. Often it made it worse.
So what “rating” do we give Jess? Did failing to stop a man with a gun to her head mean she gave him permission to escalate the violence to 9/10? Do we perhaps need to have a word with her about letting her daughters wear pink? Instead of blaming victims, we should turn a blinding spotlight on men like Jess’ former husband, and the forces that shape them.
Yes, please let’s have a wider discussion about the immense pressure we place on young women and girls to play the princess, and adhere to a fatuous version of femininity.
While we’re at it let’s also consider the corroded version of masculinity that tells young boys emotional fluency is for wimps and they need to man up. In this retrograde world, achievement is measured on the sporting ground, or in the boardroom. And let’s face it – there’s not enough women at either.
The research in family violence shows – again and again – that is rigid gender stereotypes that fuel perpetrator’s attempts to use power and control women.
Look at any government framework for reducing family violence and the message is clear: the key to reducing family violence is promote equal and respectful relationships between men and women.
Parents don’t need to be told that there is pressure on their children to follow rigid gender roles. They’re the ones scratching their heads in the two-aisle toy stores and wondering how to best prepare kids for a world so intent on squashing vigorous little people into a mould.
Women are never responsible for behaviour of abusive men. Nor is it their job to “teach” their partners how to behave.
Instead, we need to tell women like Jess that they amaze us. They are survivors. She lived for 10 years in a hell on earth – her words – and now it is up to us to support her as she finds a safe life.
There have been 36 women who have been killed violently in Australia since the start of this year. We are counting.
Miki Perkins is The Age‘s social affairs reporter.
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