How Economic Status And Gender Roles Affect Domestic Violence - Term Paper Example

How Economic Status And Gender Roles Affect Domestic Violence Introduction Despite the liberal movements that aimed to tear down the gender divisions within the society, there remains an unspoken but evident division between females and males, especially in their roles in the society. This division can be felt even within the basic structures of the family. Women empowerment and feminism has pushed for the independence and liberty of women from the conservative and traditional perspective of the family, wherein the husbands are in charge of the economic stability of the family, being providers of the family, and the wives are in charge of the psychological and moral wellbeing of the family, being the caretakers of the children and the husbands. Women’s roles are focused on taking childbearing, childrearing and fulfilling the duties of a wife, as nurturers of the relationship between the husband and the wife while the men’s roles are focused on supplying food for the table. Because of women empowerment, women have also started to expand their roles to the outside world, venturing in careers and professional growth that added income for the family, allowing them to share their husband’s role in providing economic and financial stability for the family. Because of this situation, the division between the roles of women and men have slowly blurred and even rejected by some. Through this struggle, women have also found themselves in the middle of another social issue, women abuse and wife battery. Being able to find independence through economic stability, wives find their welfares being jeopardized because of the social division of gender roles within the society. The socioeconomic status of women was seen as a mockery by some husbands regarding their capability as providers. An increase of abused wives has increased as the employment of married women increased. Studies have found associations between the socioeconomic status of these women with their abusive family environment. The changes in the socioeconomic status of women also brought a change in the relationships of husband and wives. Violence and abuse have been impacted by these changes because of the value placed on masculinity and femininity. As the woman rises in her professional career and earns enough for her own economic independence and financial stability for the family, the more the masculinity of men are threatened. This is impacted further by the structural, contextual and symbolic meanings within the marital relationship. Direction of Studies on Domestic Violence The dynamics of socioeconomic structures have been found to impact and influence the relationship of husbands and wives as income, education and employment are seen as indicators of economic resources (Kaukinen, 2004; MacMillan & Gartner, 1999). This, though, is not enough reason to lead to an abusive relationship, where the women are the victims. Masculinity is closely associated with economic stability and financial capability to lead a family life. A husband’s traditional role is to provide for his family. Without this capability, the husband is burdened with stress and pressure in finding a job that will make him capable. A man’s capabilities, then, is shown to be linked to being able to earn for their family’s provisions. Because of this incapability, the stress and pressure, husbands tend to direct their frustration and anger on their environment, which incidentally are their families (McCloskey, 1996). A psychological theory for this, is that men tend to express their frustration as aggression towards easy targets and those that they deem supposedly less powerful than them, their women and children. This is also one of the explanations why those families in the lower economic sphere tend to have more incidents of domestic violence than those who are economically stable. This also suggests that the lower the economic strain is on the family, the higher the possibility that the family will not experience any form of aggression. Another aspect of research finds that the higher the wife moves up the economic ladder, the more she involuntary makes the husband feels inferior. As said earlier, economic resources are men’s measures of their masculinity and capabilities. It is even their measure for their humanity. Because the wife is able to increase her value by being able to provide for the family, the status and the role of the husband is seen as something that is not solely their own responsibility or capability. This may infuriate the conventional feelings, sometimes subconsciously, of the husband. Whether or not the husband may be of a higher position or earns more money, the expanding world and independence of their wife still poses a threat to their roles. As the wife expands their economic capabilities, they expand their roles from the domestic sphere, and return, diminishes the economic hold of their husbands on their families. With this, men cannot say that they are the reason why their families are eating, and so there is a realization that wives can leave the marriage because they are now independent. Violence against their wives becomes the husband’s equalizer for this situation (McCloskey, 1996). Husbands go on this direction to maintain power over their families. This asserts their positions as the masters of their families, which is a very traditional way of thinking. The tendency of domestic abuse does not only increase as the wives go up the economic ladder. It increases more when the husband is or becomes unemployed. An important limitation of studying the relation of domestic violence and employment that MacMillan and Gartner (1999) suggests is the tendency of these studies to focus on “the separate effects of each partner’s employment status” (p.949). There are symbolic meanings within this status conditions that have great impact in domestic violence. Domestic violence that roots upon the socioeconomic differences between the husband and the wife increases and heightens, becoming even more dangerous as it is, when the economic resources of the wife is higher than the husband. Domestic violence then becomes a patriarchal control over the wife, to make the wife someone still under the control and mastery of the husband. Though MacMillan and Gartner (1999) argues that status incompatibilities have a higher significance with emotional abuse rather than physical violence. Studies of Kaukinen (2004) and MacMillan and Gartner (1999) suggests that employment itself does not result to domestic violence. It is the status incompatibilities that create friction within the relationship that causes violence. The effect of the wife’s employment is conditioned by the employment status of the husband indicating that the higher the wife’s position is in her employment and the lower the husband’s increases the probability of violence (Kaukinen, 2004). It has also been suggested by Anderson (1997) and Anderson and Umberson (2001) that violence is more prevalent in families that deviate from the traditional gendered structure of the family, making men as providers. Because this structure is discounted, the marital relationship changes and the husband may react negatively causing his abusive behaviour. Another significant direction that domestic violence takes is the roundabout effect of violence. It is suggested by McCloskey (1996) that wives work to find independence and freedom from the abuse of their partners. Unstable marital relations coupled with a family’s financial instability may prompt the wife to go out and find a job herself to provide for the family. Discussion and Analysis The structure and meanings within the marital relationship is important in understanding domestic violence. Employment may not always be the prime reason for violence though it may influence changes in marital relationship. It is important to understand the context and the meanings that both partners and their environments put on socioeconomic status of the husband and the wife to understand how domestic violence started or may have been affected. Violence may have been triggered by the fact that the wife is beginning to find independence from the husband, when in tradition they should have been dependent on their husbands. Further studies, then, should consider this limitation. It is important to analyze not only how socioeconomic status of women affect their intimate relationships, but it is also important to understand how these differences affect their partner. Violence is seen as a masculine way to handle frustration and anger. Because men lose the control over their socioeconomic status and of their wives, they hold on to something that they can use and assert control, and that is violence. Works Cited Anderson, K. 1997. “Gender, Status and Domestic Violence: An Integration of Feminist and Family Violence Approaches.” Journal of Marriage and the Family, 59: 665-669. Anderson, K., & Umberson, D. 2001. “Gendering Violence: Masculinity and Power in Men’s Accounts of Domestic Violence.” Gender and Society, 15, 3: 358-380. Kaukinen, C. 2004. “Status Compatibility, Physical Violence and Emotional Abuse in Intimate Relationships.” Journal of Marriage and Family, 66: 452-471. MacMillan, R., & Gartner, R. 1999. “When She Brings Home the Bacon: Labor-Force Participation and the Risk of Spousal Violence Against Women.” Journal of Marriage and the Family, 61: 947-958. McCloskey, L. 1996. “Socioeconomic and Coercive Power within the Family.” Gender and Society, 10, 4: 449-463. Read More