NCJ Number
102232
Journal
Signs Volume: 8 Issue: 3 Dated: (Spring 1983) Pages: 490-531
Date Published
1983
Length
42 pages
Annotation
A review of the original research on child abuse, wife beating, and incest asserts that all violence must be viewed in terms of the wider social context and that inequalities based on sex and age underlie the social context.
Abstract
Family violence, like all other historical phenomena, occurs in a gendered society in which male power dominates. Although different forms of family violence have common features, they also have essential differences that require separate analyses. Research on child abuse has been strongly influenced by its initially narrow definition focusing only on physical injuries and symptoms that physicians could diagnose. Several distinct perspectives underlie child abuse research. In contrast, the literature on wife beating is less developed and less easy to categorize. Incest has only recently been studied extensively as a form of family violence. Researchers on all forms of family violence have focused mainly on individual relationships. They have neglected the analysis of the family as a locus of struggle as well of support and as a system that demonstrates gender and age structuring as a source of power differences and personal tensions. The literature also tends to focus on the victim rather than on the perpetrator. Domestic violence research needs to incorporate gender issues.