Now that we have history as a foundation, we can see why current thinking and response systems to domestic violence have evolved in disparate directions. Earlier in this module, we introduced you to our taxonomy of explanations for domestic violence. In this chapter we examine how explanations have influenced not only which systems provide responses to victims of domestic violence, but how they operate and create barriers for adequate and thoughtful responses to disabled women.
Remember that we categorized current explanations of domestic violence into three genres all which speak to cause: intrinsic, extrinsic, and interactive. While each of these broad categories is theoretically diverse, commonalities exist among the perspectives within each category that can be used for analysis.
The intrinsic theories include but are not limited to psychodynamic and characterological explanations which suggest that perpetrator behavior emerges from problems in predetermined development (Crowell & Burgess, 1996; Pierce, 1993; Walker, 1979) or in personality of either the perpetrator or victim (Simonson & Subich, 2001). Evolutionary theories posit that violence against women is caused by an innate male characteristic to control his female partner for the purpose of desirable procreation (Cromwell & Burgess, 1996; Muehlenhard et al, 1996). Intrinsic explanations provide the rationale for diagnostic and treatment approaches to perpetrators and victims in circumstances of domestic violence.
The extrinsic theories all explain violence against women as a function of contextual factors that teach, sanction and perpetuate violent behavior against women for multiple and diverse purposes that are dependent on the context (Gelles, 1987; Straus, 1980; Straus & Gelles, 1990). Included in these theories are social, cultural, political, and some feminist explanations that identify specific factors and their effects on gendered interaction. (Hooks, 2001). These explanations are typically seen as rationales for the development of battered women’s shelters and social change advocacy.
Interactive approaches are those which explain domestic violence as the interplay between intrinsic and extrinsic factors. Included in these approaches are family systems theories, open and closed systems frameworks and some feminist ideologies. From these explanations, family counseling is the most frequent response.
These categories are not mutually exclusive, and this overview provides only a very brief summary of the majority of perspectives that are advanced to understand and examine violence against women. However, this small overview reveals the continued focus on explanation as the primary lens through which violence against women is addressed. The definitions that emerge from these theoretical foundations thus are consistent in beginning with assumed cause. Criminal justice responses integrate all three genres and set domestic violence within a legal framework in which community response occurs at multiple levels: punishment of the perpetrator, retribution for the victim, community protection and safety by creating a disincentive for harm activity, and policy practice to fashion legislative responses identifying the limits of acceptable harm activity and explanations.
Diverse explanatory frameworks are important determinants not only in shaping responses, but in identifying who is a legitimately eligible for which type of response. Let us now look at theory as it frames identification and assessment of legitimate victimization.
While there are numerous ways in which identification and assessment have been approached, these strategies fall into two primary categories: those that rely on determining cause (harm activity) and those that are symptom-based (harm consequence).
This category of identification operationalizes victimization by harm activities perpetrated against a victim. National studies such as the National Crime Victimization Survey in the text Bachman & Saltzman, (1995) and the Sexual Victimization of College Women Study (Fisher, Cullen & Turner, 2000) rely on victim responses to questions about their exposure to harm activities that fall within the legal definitions of violence against women. Similarly, most screening approaches rely primarily on a woman’s response to questions assessing the presence of exposure to predetermined perpetrator harm activities (CDC, 2001). Victims must therefore be willing and able to respond to typically administered assessment items.
In services specific to violence against women, providers most frequently use measures that emerge from explanatory feminist theoretical traditions. Instruments such as the Revised Conflict Tactic Scales (Straus, Hamby, Boney-McCoy, & Sugarman, 1995) are regularly used to assess the degree to which identified victim harm was caused by specific harm activities assumed to be perpetrated by males who are exerting power and control over women victims. Recent abuse assessments geared toward women with disabilities have been developed, which also attempt to identify victim harm caused by specific harm activities that might be unique to disabled persons (Curry & Oschwald, 2000; McFarlane, Hughes, Nosek, Groff, Swedlend, & Mullen, 2001; Saxton, Curry, Powers, Maley, Eckels, & Gross, 2001).
Identification of victimization through examination of harm consequences is based on the notion that a constellation of observable conditions, risk factors, and behaviors, if unexplained by other causes, may be an indication of victimization. Included in the symptom list are repeated trauma and post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) from reported accidents (Briere, et al, 1995; Gamble, 2000). Once victimization is suspected, methods of screening and identification involve standardized assessment or sensitive probing about the explanation for the descriptive conditions, with assurance of safety as a primary concern. Among the factors which are likely to result in the woman’s verification of violence are a trusting relationship between the provider and the alleged victim, and expectations on the part of the victim that she will not experience harm, loss, shame, or any negative consequences as a result of the report (Hotch et al., 1996). Symptom-based screening tends to be idiosyncratic and context dependent, rendering it unstable for the purpose of systematic identification (Saltzman et al., 1999; CDC, 2001).
Factors, such as safety, cultural role expectations and values, geography, physical, sensory and language barriers, social environment, and dependence, confound the development of consistent and systematic methods to screen, identify and assess the severity of victimization (DeKeseredy, 1998; Jasinski, 2001).
If we think about the current nature of identification and assessment, it is not surprising that an understanding of prevalence, incidence and the nature of domestic violence is equivocal and exclusionary of many groups of women, including women with diverse disabling conditions.
In the text that follows, we discuss only some of the challenges that interfere with adequate, systematic identification and assessment of harm activity, consequences and explanations. We refer you to the excellent resources in the reference section for more detail and analysis.
To begin, let us first consider identification instruments such as the Revised Conflict Tactic Scales (Smith, 1990) which are regularly used to assess the degree to which identified victim harm was caused by specific harm activities assumed to be perpetrated by males who are exerting power and control over women victims. These scales, based on feminist explanations, may not be sensitive to the harm activities that produce harm consequences in many groups of disabled women (DeKeseredy, 1998). For example, Gilson et al. (2001) have shown that direct assault is not always a primary cause of harm in violence against disabled women. Serious harm consequences for disabled women might result from activities that would never be considered as harm activities in any of the predominant theories of violence against women. Consider simple actions such as leaving objects on the floor. While most women could bend and retrieve them or step over them, a woman with poor balance might be seriously injured from tripping. Thus, the groups who do not fit within current explanatory theories are excluded from policy, services and justice responses in large part because they cannot even be identified.
A second challenge occurs as a result of limited provider training in disability. Providers who are not trained to distinguish observable consequences of disabling conditions from those resulting from violence may therefore be inaccurate in applying these tools to women with disabilities. Once victimization is suspected, because of the high incidence of perpetration from providers, women with disabilities may not be willing to disclose violence to any provider or professional.
As we indicated above, the examples only represent the tip of the iceberg. But they do explicate how predetermined harm consequences and activities, based on predominant explanations limit the identification and inclusion of disabled women in domestic violence response systems.
Before leaving this chapter, we share with you some of the emerging research on disability and domestic violence. The literature is in its infancy, but begins to provide an empirical and illuminating look at disabled victims and systems while raising questions and directions for future inquiry.
To ground the research findings in lived experience let us introduce Sharon. We interviewed Sharon in 2003. Sharon is a disabled woman who has experienced harm consequences perpetrated by her husband’s harm activity. She lives in a rural location in a southeastern state in the U.S. Sharon acquired a disabling medical condition at the age of 29. During her graduate education, in which she was pursuing a master’s degree in education, she sustained an injury resulting in serious degenerative disk disease and spinal cord injury. By age 36, Sharon was unable to walk, work as a teacher because of environmental barriers to the one school within traveling distance, and had limitations in activities of daily living due to severe pain and lack of assistance.
Fortunately, Sharon and her husband had built an accessible home for her needs when she was first injured. However, after 28 years of marriage, Sharon’s husband told her that he was leaving, and was planning to sell the house. Her husband’s action for a non-disabled woman might be considered as cruel or insensitive, but for Sharon, selling the house would leave her virtually homeless.
Now, onto the research literature!
Chapter 4 continues on next page.