rethinking domestic violence in theory and practice

Abstract

Drawing on the author's previous work, this article suggests that conceptual advantages result from envisioning domestic violence on a larger continuum of “normalized” to “extreme” sadomasochistic interactions (including gendered interactions that can also range from “ordinary” to “deviant” in how they are perceived). Thereafter, it may be harder to ignore how redressing social inequities involving gender as well as racial and class imbalances can amount, at least in terms of prevention, to anti-domestic violence measures of one important kind. More concretely, proceeding from the assumption that domestic violence remains disturbingly common (even though its exact scope is difficult to ascertain), this article contrasts how this social problem would best be approached in theory and how it often continues to be dealt with in practice. In making this comparison, a cursory review of recent policy developments in this area, from mandatory arrest policies and laws (and the criticisms these have engendered) to more recent interest in restorative justice and collaborative empowerment, is presented and incorporated into the paper's larger argument.

Notes

¹Connell distinguished hegemonic (or socially dominant masculinity) from other kinds such as subordinate masculinity (a category in which gay men, and other men who challenge masculinity itself, would be included) and marginalized masculinity (a category that includes men who have experienced other forms of dominance like racism and/or class subordination, thereafter experiencing gender-based power as in part compensatory).

²In Sadomasochism in Everyday Life (Lancer 1992), I refer to this as a characteristic of internal transformability; according both to Freudian psychoanalytic descriptions, and existential analyses as well, sadism and masochism are often two sides of the same coin. This means that the same person who may be a batterer (acting sadistically) at home may experience powerlessness (or feel masochistically situated) in a particular workplace environment or within a particular racialized interaction.