Heterosexual and Same-Sex Intimate Partner Violence - Essay Example

Heterosexual And Same-Sex Intimate Partner Violence s Sociology Department Domestic violence as a social phenomenon has been the subject of numerous studies and is given various definitions. Yet, the term ‘domestic violence’ incorporates rather narrow array of possible situations and people involved – it is generally associated with married opposite-sex couples (Sorenson & Thomas, 2009, p.337). Therefore, another term is accepted as more relevant for this issue, ‘intimate partner violence’ (IPV), for it allows to place all individuals being in non-marital relations – those who date, live together without being married or divorced men and women - inside the concept. According to the viewpoint of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, intimate partner violence is a case of psychological, physical or sexual abuse or harm caused by one partner to another (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2010). In other words, IPV is an undesirable side effect of romantic relations between people, which can be observed in all countries and in all social, economic, religious and cultural groups. The key difference of intimate partner violence from a regular conflict is that the former occurs systematically and involves combination of various types of violence. Banks and Fedewa state IPV to “occur to control, dominate, coerce, and isolate another individual within an intimate relationship, creating an imbalance of power between partners” (2012, p.194). Whereas a conflict has a clearly defined reason, violence is deprived of it and is generally aimed at gaining full control over the victim’s behavior and feelings. The tendency for domestic and intimate partner violence is generally believed to be the outcome of power misbalance, gender roles and certain characteristics associated with them. Therefore, it could be stated that gender character of domestic violence is shifted towards acts of violence committed by the individuals playing gender roles that demand more manifestations of masculinity, as masculinity is generally associated with power, aggression and violence, while femininity is characterized by submission. Naturally, this means that male-female relations in the society predefine the tendency for IPV, whereby females, which are traditionally granted a gender role of a woman with all its attributes, tend to be victimized most frequently. Fontenot et al. (2014, p.67) state the following in their research focused on IPV affecting women: “25% of women will experience violence by an intimate partner during their lifetime”. This tendency for violence, i.e. its mass effect produced on women, has deep roots in social and cultural conditions of the community. Our world is profoundly patriarchal and society uses all available tools to reaffirm male dominance over women. In the modern society, where women finally have more power and influence than they used to have, say, a century ago, the implicit need to maintain control is even greater. Therefore, it could be stated that “men’s violence to women arises from patriarchal values, which motivate men to seek to control women’s behavior, using violence if necessary” (Bates et al., 2914, p.42). The mentioned patriarchal values, in their turn, give rise to attitudes that support violence as an acceptable way to maintain control. As a result, males’ striving to control can be view not as a general pattern of interpersonal relations that can occur in both sexes, but as a product of patriarchal values. It goes without saying that, talking about domestic/intimate partner violence, people inevitably envision victimization of women by men, as this perception has long been fostered in our minds. However, as the growing body of studies shows, intimate partner violence isn’t the phenomenon characterizing only opposite-sex relationships and particularly men’s violent attitudes towards women; instead, it becomes clear that “both men and women are capable of intimate partner violence” (McDermott & Lopez, 2013, p.127); though cases of women being aggressors are less frequent. McDermott & Lopez (2013) also indicate that women and men have different motivations for perpetrating violence directed at their partners, and consequences of violence perpetrated by women tend to be less serious than those of violent actions committed by men. Gender roles and gender role stress Studying social context of violence in relation to masculinity, some scholars resort to the gender strain theory as one of the core premise for violence. In the theoretical framework developed by Pleck (1981), masculinity unfolds in accordance with cultural expectations imposed on men (Chrisler & McCreary, 2010, p.50), and socialization of masculine role might affect individuals, when certain norms of the role are followed. The gender role strain theory explains the preconditions of violence in terms of effect produced by traditional sexism in relation to women. As men strive to meet certain gender role expectations, extreme can be reached causing gender role stress. Three types of gender role strain (discrepancy, trauma and dysfunction strain) might eventually lead to violent behavior. For instance, if the man fears of failing to perform his masculine role involving domination over a woman’s decisions and behavior, gender role stress might eventually result in domestic violence. Intimate partner violence in heterosexual and homosexual couples Except certain superficial stereotypes concerning women’s disposition for IPV, there are profound fallacious beliefs that violence can occur only in opposite-sex relations. However, “physical violence occurs in 11–12% of same-gender couples, which suggests that domestic violence is an abuse of power that can happen in any type of intimate relationship, regardless of gender or sexual orientation” (Rohrbaugh 2006, p.287). Similar to heterosexual counterparts, the majority of same-sex couples tend to function rather well, but statistical data shows that “victimization within same-gender relationships is similar to rates observed in heterosexual couples” (Sylaska & Walters, 2014, p.134). Furthermore, in both types of relationships, aggressors, or batterers, resort to the same set of “instruments” to insure control and power over the victims: intimidation, physical violence and emotional abuse (Carvalho, 2011, p.502). Relationships between same-sex partners can be characterized by the frequency of domestic violence that is virtually equal to that of heterosexual partners. Numerous studies and articles provide rather lavish background for further insight into this problem and include rather illustrative stories of victimized LGBT individuals who have suffered domestic violence from their partners. The article of Maya Shwayder published in The Atlantic (2013) contains a considerable number of IPV cases in same-sex relationships occurring both in gay and in lesbian couples of varying age: these cases include various types of violence including sexual, physical (like battering) and psychological violence (for instance, the partner of one of the respondents threated to commit suicide in case of the former decided to break up with him). It is significant that traditional view of intimate partner violence that has been cultivated for years, included only heterosexual women as victims. Moreover, Shwayder (2013) points out that this perception was supported by the fact that the movement against domestic violence originally started as the movement aimed at protection of victimized women. As a result, a victim of domestic violence is envisioned mainly as a heterosexual married women. However, the power balance and gender roles in same-sex couples provide sufficient grounds for expanding traditional perception of the IPV victim. Both in gay and in lesbian relationships, one of the partners typically assumes the role involving higher level of masculinity, shifting power balance to his/her advantage. It turns out that the general pattern of gender roles persists even in homosexual intimate relationships with the following difference: one of the partners, regardless of sex, assumes masculine role, while the other assumes the feminine one. For instance, one of the partners in a gay couple can be subjected to hegemonic masculinity pattern of behavior, which is defined as “culturally and socially valued expectation of gendered behavior formed in social environments such as neighborhoods, schools and families and manifested via action, behavior, and language» (Peralta & Tuttle, 2013, p.258). On the other hand, the other partner is likely to distance himself from masculine role expectations and assume a gender role that would correspond to the women’s one in traditional heterosexual framework. Therefore, the conventional heterosexual pattern of oppression accepted in the society is literally transferred on same-sex partners, with the victims experiencing nearly the same impacts of violence as heterosexual victims do (including risk of substance abuse, physical injuries and psychological trauma). This theory has been confirmed by the study conducted by Oringher and Samuelson (2011), which has thrown light onto correlation between gender roles (and their relevance for LGBT couples) and disposition for IPV perpetration in same-sex male couples. Particularly, the study has showed “that men who had perpetrated physical or sexual violence in their same-sex relationships reported higher levels of masculine behaviors” (Oringher & Samuelson, 2011, p.68). Despite numerous similarities in domestic violence patterns between opposite-sex and same-sex couples, there are also profound disparities between them. The most significant aspect of controversy is posed by the fact that same-sex couples live as “an oppressed minority in a heterosexist and homophobic society” (Brown, 2008, p.458). The commonly shared attitude towards homosexual couples contributes much to scale of the problem, because the victims of intimate partner violence in same-sex couples might be reluctant to report victimization because of fear of being condemned or blamed. Public reaction to the facts of partner abuse (for instance, the opinion that the victims might deserve violence) poses an additional threat for homosexual individuals, minimizing frequency of reporting and seeking assistance from various organizations. Therefore, accurate measurements and defining the scope of the issue become rather difficult because of unavailability of the data and varying samples (Loveland & Raghavan, 2014, p.52). Minority stress For years, public organizations have been handling the issue of abuse and violence as that related only to women, who suffered from their male partners, though same-sex marriages have already become acceptable and even legal in most of American states. Stating that the rate of domestic violence in homosexual couples can be even higher than in “normal” heterosexual relationships, researchers assert that the phenomenon of minority stress might be the additional precondition. Minority stress is typically defined as a regular high level of stress associated with the individual’s perception of her/himself as of a member of the stigmatized and marginalized minority (Meyer, 2013, p.4). Being afraid of possible negative reaction, member of LGBT community report IPV rather seldom, as they are afraid of being exposed to discrimination. Despite the fact that both homosexual and heterosexual abuse victims report rather similar patterns of victimization, bisexual, gay and lesbian community members face additional challenges related to service, assistance and legal aspect, which might restrain recognition of victimization for them (Blosnich & Blossarte, 2009, p.2182). It is reported that such abuse victims are very likely to face negative attitude and discrimination in regular “heterosexual” shelters for violence victims, as homosexual orientation – under the contemporary façade of tolerance – is viewed as “deviant and a departure from “natural” sexuality” (Baker et al., 2013, p.183). Seaman stresses that, except the minority stress, “another contributor to increased risk of domestic violence among same-sex couples could be that same-sex partners are unconsciously acting out an internalized homophobia they developed while being raised in a heterosexual society” (Seaman, 2014). Another difficulty arising because of the conventional belief that intimate partner violence is the matter of heterosexual couples only is that people suffering from abuse in homosexual couples often do not perceive themselves as victims. The reason of this misperception is rather simple: it lies in the abovementioned opinion that only heterosexual women can be domestic violence victims. Therefore, gays and lesbians are less likely to see themselves as an oppressed party, though they really are oppressed. At the same time, employees of different social institutions are still not used to homosexual relationships as a type of relation bearing much of the features typical for conventional opposite-sex couples. For instance, a man calling the hotline of IPV shelter can automatically be mistaken for an aggressor. However, it is necessary to understand that both sexes are capable of intimate partner violence depending on gender roles they assume. One more interesting point of view states that – similar to opposite-sex couples – less masculine partners are capable of violence in same-sex couples, too. This means that – like women can perpetrate violence over their male partners, homosexual partners assuming more “feminine” gender roles are also capable of violence over their more masculine partners, though such cases are less likely to occur (again, similar to the situation in “traditional” couples. Looking at similarities and differences between violence in homosexual and heterosexual couples, one would inevitably conclude that – despite numerous common feature this problem has in both cases – same-sex partners always face higher risk of violence and greater challenges in case of victimization. This unfavorable tendency is supported by the long-existing traditions and perceptions of intimate relationships accepted in our society, for they still persist regardless of the propaganda of tolerance. Fortunately, this issue has recently been received more attention from public organizations and researchers (it is obvious that the body of research on this topic has been growing rapidly), but there are still difficulties to be handled. The community needs to be educated it terms of gender roles and superficial nature of heterosexual-only pattern of IPV, because LGBT individuals face multiple types of oppression including orientation-related oppression on the part of “traditional” heterosexual people and gender oppression based on gender roles patterns assumed by them and their partners. A positive dynamics is observed on the governmental level, for the president of the U.S. signed a new act aimed against violence, which now protects not only women from heterosexual couples, but also everyone facing violence regardless of sex and orientation (Lederman, 2013). References BAKER, N., BUICK, J., KIM, S., MONIZ, S., & NAVA, K. 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