When challenging media discourses with ideologies and the expectations of family discourses, many will tend to be careful and cautious about how they will involve themselves within it. Personal safety may selfishly be considered to many as more important than what is going on elsewhere. This can produce all types of anxieties as well as prejudices due to one’s own fear of becoming a victim of crime.
‘Getting involved’ can achieve all sorts of personal problems and in some cases, it may be perceived to be better not to intervene through the fear of repercussion or even intrusion. There are still people who believe that the ‘normal ideal family’ should consist of, mother, father and child/ren (with father in hierarchy position) and believe the nuclear family is necessary in order to produce, good law abiding citizens. This can put extreme pressure and a large emphasis of blame (in some cases) towards young teenage mothers, same sex or single parent families. In the case of single parenting, it can be easy to assume there was a lack of commitment, without taking into consideration the reasons why some women are raising their children alone.
Some women may have been forced into this position due to experiencing violence in the home. What once may have appeared to the outside world like the ‘ideal family’, could in fact have been a very trying time for them living with a very controlling, intimidating and violent person.
With family violence on a patriarchal level, and usually the man, his behaviour can be very dominating and controlling enabling him to produce (again, what appeared to be on the outside) ‘the ideal family’. Along with the violence, bullying and intimidation are generally parallel with his behaviour, and with this in mind, self esteem of his victim/s may be so low, it prevents them from developing any skills to challenge or even question his behaviour. This in turn, can provide the assumption that the family have an apparently well structured and managed home.
Women’s Aid groups, aware of the problems with domestic violence in the home, have, for over the past three decades argued that men have used their masculinities to dominate and control their families, exploiting their power by intimidating and abusing their status in the household. They started to educate and voice how violence in the home was shaped. Violence came in many forms, none of which were acceptable. If animals had rights, then so should women and children.
Over the years violence in the family home became less tolerable and was described with three main categories: physically; punching, kicking, slapping etc. and/or using objects or weapons, sexually; rape, molestation and assault and psychologically; intimidating, insulting, and harassment. Many women were now able to identify domestic violence as a crime and in light of this, some women took advantage of any help that was provided, however unfortunately some did not, and today, still do not. It comes as no surprise that two women each week die as a result of domestic violence. (Book 1, Chapter 5, p.197)
Speaking out about violence in the home, can still be a very difficult thing for many victims to do. With all sorts of reasons, shame, appears to be a primary explanation along with, not being believed. Those who did tell, further worried that there would be consequences such as; further violence on release of a charge or imprisonment, (not just to them but possibly friends and other family members too) or in the case of ethnic minorities, women may suffer deportation if they have been married for less than a year and coming from overseas. In fact, when it comes to ‘other cultures’, many ‘British’ people who do accept domestic violence is wrong in the western culture, still consider it acceptable in cultures other than their own, and even believing it is morally wrong for westerners to intervene. Unfortunately it does not end here. There are still many perpetrators who believe that their behaviour is actually part of family life, acceptable, ‘within reason’.
It’s possible the perpetrator may after an incident feel some remorse; however it is very likely another incident will emerge and very unlikely he would feel responsible for his own actions. Putting the blame on to his victim and adding to this, family discourses who accept that violence is necessary in order to maintain an ‘orderly home’, ‘chastisement’ is in some cases still seen as an appropriate way of making sure boundaries are not crossed and rules are followed leaving the victim in the position of questioning her own behaviour. In light of the latter, this could partly explain why so many people did not consider domestic violence as a crime.
Defining violence in the home is really challenged with another question, what discourses allowed the perpetrator to believe that his behaviour is a respectful way to provide security for his family? In answer to this, one’s cultural or historical beliefs can be sure signs of justification and morally they are in fact doing no wrong. It can be argued that some men believe their women have a subordinate role, and that the use of violence is permitted in order to keep there women in line, with this in mind culture can play a very big part in how victims interpret domestic violence in the home, especially when many women do not actually see themselves as ‘victims of crime’. (Book 1, Chapter 5, p.225, Moxton, in Home Office, 2000, paras 59 and 61).
Victims of domestic violence today can greatly appreciate the hard work originally started out by the women’s movements in the 70’s. Today domestic violence is finally seen as a criminal offence and perpetrators of domestic violence should now have to face courts and the consequences of breaking this law. With more resource and welfare agency intervention, and in particular media discourses of information, Domestic violence is seen to be tolerated less by many individuals, shifting the ideology that it is something which is part of ‘family life’.
However with all this in mind, it is still considered to be less important and even ‘newsworthy’ than ‘ordinary crimes’. Domestic violence still does not hold onto the public’s imagination in the same way. Society still appears to be more interested by what places to avoid, what is going on around the UK, and what they can do in order to protect themselves, without realizing that in fact at any one time, they too could be affected by ‘hidden crime’. Okay, so child abuse and domestic violence today is less acceptable and more visible within media discourses, and victims are seen to be taking advantage and ‘telling’ on their perpetrators, however we still seem more fascinated about what we read, watch and listen to when it comes to all stories about ‘crime’ and clearly when it comes to our personal safety, individuals adopt a more selfish attitude through the fear of the information we take in. With personal motives and gain put primarily on the agenda, ‘hidden Crimes’ are seen to be less personal.
Until you are faced with dealing with a subject over and over again, as with the domestic violence issue, attitudes will always be focussed on street crime as a concern for their welfare, and robberies, burglaries, assault, and so on will always hold the publics’ imagination, regardless of what else is going on around the world that.
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References:
The problem of Crime, Chapter 5 p.197, Esther Saraga.
The problem of Crime, Chapter 5 p.225, Home Office (2000) Criminal Justice Conference: Violence against women conference report, London, Home Office.
