Firstly many victims maybe unwilling to report the incident to the police, In 1997 Stephanie Yearnshire found that on average a woman may suffer around 35 assaults before making a report. Secondly police and prosecutors maybe somewhat reluctant to investigate, record or prosecute those cases that are reported to them. According to David Cheal this reluctance is due the fact that the police make 3 assumptions that cause them to be unwilling to become involved in the family. The first assumption is that the family is private so access to it should be limited, secondly they see the family as a good thing and so they tend to neglect the ‘darker side’ of it and thirdly its assumed that the women is able to leave if she is suffering abuse and is unhappy, though this is not technically true many women that suffer abuse are often financially dependant on their husbands and are actually unable to leave.
Radical Feminists believe that all societies have been founded in patriarchy and that the key division in society is not between social classes but between men and women. Radical Feminists see men as the enemy, the source of women’s oppression and exploitation and they see the family and marriage as the key institutions in patriarchal society, to them its all very one sided, men benefit from women’s unpaid domestic labour and they dominate women through violence and threat of it, women gain nothing from the relationship. For Radical feminists the patriarchal system must be overturned especially the root of women’s oppression, which are men and the family.
However Marxist feminists unlike radical feminists ague that the main cause of women’s oppression in the family is not due to men but due to capitalism. They see capitalist society as divided into two different social classes: The capitalist class, they own the means of production and the working class, who have only there labour to sell and the capitalists exploit it for profit. Marxist feminists believe that the oppression of women serve several purposes for capitalism. Women reproduce the labour force and socialise the next generation of workers, they absorb the anger that would otherwise be directed at capitalism and the women are seen to be used as a ‘reserved army’ of cheap, easily disposable labour when extra workers are needed. It’s also seen that the oppression of women in the family is linked to the exploitation of the working class. Its been argued and is believed that the family in order to replace capitalism with a classless society, must be abolished.
Sociologists have also identified other patterns of domestic violence in addition to male violence against women. Other groups at risk are children, those in the lowest social classes, those who live in rented accommodation, low incomes or in financial difficulties and also people with high levels of alcohol consumption and users of illegal drugs. Richard Wilkinson offered an explanation of these patterns. He sees stress in the family caused by social inequality as the cause of domestic violence. People on low incomes or people living in crowded living conditions are more likely to suffer from stress which reduces there chances of maintaining a stable relationship and also increases risk of conflict. However Wilkinson doesn’t explain why women rather than men are more likely to be the victims of domestic violence.
In conclusion it seems as though domestic violence is a major problem in society today especially as the police tend to turn a blind eye to most events reported to them. The family is supposed to be a happy environment but in reality this couldn’t be further from the truth. The its seems as though the Marxist feminists believe that what oppresses women in the family isn’t men but is capitalism and that the family structure should be abolished.
Dobash and Dobash like Radical feminists have a gender related oppression and say that the reason many women tend to be the receivers of domestic violence is because men feel that women sometimes challenge there authority. Men all through history have been socialised into believing that they have power over women and that they have to provide for the family. This maybe one of the main reasons for why domestic violence exists and why its mainly women being the victims. Wilkinson’s theory seems to be quite well though out and has a good idea of why domestic violence actually occurs, though if this is true then why are women mainly the victims? Liberal feminists hope and believe that over time the problems that we suffer today will just sort them-selves out, but will this really happen. If we just leave the problems the way they are will they actually just disappear, or will the problem become worse?
