After considerable thought I realized that in reality there is a group of individuals I might not be comfortable or open-minded working with. The group I speak of is that of battered women. As horrible as it sounds, I have never felt a great deal sympat
Being a fairly opened minded and non-judgmental person, I found myself in a dilemma trying to choose a group or social problem that I might have difficulty working with as a social worker. After considerable thought I realized that in reality there is a group of individuals I might not be comfortable or open-minded working with. The group I speak of is that of battered women. As horrible as it sounds, I have never felt a great deal sympathy for women who are abused by their husbands/boyfriends because I feel that they are downright weak. I often think to myself that it is the womans own fault for accepting the abuse. If the woman knows it is wrong, then why not just call the police? Why not just tell the abuser that they have a problem and that you are going to leave if they do not get treatment? Maybe ask him where he got the idea that he is allowed to hit you? I think my views may be this way for many reasons. I have never known anyone that has been a victim of this, I have never seen it happen firsthand. Maybe I feel like I am stronger than these women, that I’m not afraid of anyone. Nobody has the right to hit me, and especially not my significant other. I realize that the abusive men almost always “come to their senses”, beg for forgiveness saying they lost their head for a minute and promise that it will never happen again. That is when the woman accepts the apology and all is well until the second time, and after that it becomes a vicious cycle. That is where I say “Hit me once, shame on you. Hit me twice, shame on me.” After the second beating I would be out the door, why would I want to stay?
All through history men have been held responsible for their women and children. With that responsibility, men were given power. That is to say, men have historically had the power to use force to control the behavior of their dependents and were expected to use so-called reasonable force in the exercise of their responsibilities. At times reasonable force included death, and has typically included beatings and deprivation of food and other resources (Straus, Gelles, Steinmetz, 1980). To an extent, wife abuse was the right of a husband (Okun, 1986). The laws of chastisement date back to 753 B.C.. This law, also referred to as the “switch-thumb law”, allowed husbands to beat their wives with a rod or stick as long as its circumference was no larger that a man’s thumb. The rational for this law was that a wife was a man’s possession, like a cow, and he was responsible for her behavior. Therefore, he had the right to punish and discipline her (Okun, 1986). The Christian Church also played a role in wife abuse. In the Rules of Marriage, by Friar Cherubino of Siena, it states: When you see your wife commit an offense…Scold her sharply, bully and terrify her. And if this still does not work…..take up a stick and beat her soundly, for it is better to punish the body and correct the soul (Okun, 1986). This privilege of “correcting” one’s spouse was given only to men (Okun, 1986). The right of a man to kill his wife existed until the 1600’s in Russia and even until the 1900’s in some localities. In England, husbands escaped punishment for murdering their wives until the 1800’s. Wives had no right to refuse to have sex with their husbands. In fact, there was no such concept as “marital rape” until the 1970’s (Okun, 1986). In the 1880’s, England enacted several laws in order to protect women. These laws established life-threatening beatings as a ground for divorce, prohibited men from keeping their wives under lock and key, and deemed it illegal for a man to sell his wife into prostitution (Okun, 1986). The Constitution of the United States did not address issues regarding spouse relations, except for the fourth amendment which secures the privacy of the home. Thus, it was left up to state legislature to determine what was legal or illegal in regard to wife abuse. In 1864, North Carolina overturned the “finger-switch rule”. However, the court cautioned that a “man’s home is his castle” and that it was best to “draw the curtain’s” so that the spouses could “forget and forgive”. In 1871, Alabama and Massachusetts enacted a similar policy. In 1883, Maryland was the first state to outlaw wife beating. By 1910, 35 of 46 states granted divorce on the grounds of physical cruelty and many states made wife beating prosecutable as an illegal assault. In spite of this, police and courts often overlooked wife-abuse. As a result, the custom of chastisement still prevailed (Okun, 1986). From the 1920’s until the 1970’s the plight of abused wives was rarely heard. However, it was rediscovered because of three factors. The first, Kempe and Helfer (1963) published a paper on battered child syndrome. This awakened public awareness regarding family violence. Second, the nation became more aware of violence due to the civil strife of the late 1960’s and the early 1970’s, and also due to the Vietnam War. Lastly, the emergence of the feminist movement made the public more aware of the injustices women faced both at home and in the work place (Okun, 1986).
