Victims as Offenders: The Paradox of Women's Violence in Relationships

Notes

151 Notes Chapter 1 Defining the Dilemma 1. Some of this chapter draws upon S. Miller (2001) and Iovanni and Miller (2001). 2. See Dobash and Dobash 1992; Matthews 1994. For example, in the pro-choice movement, as funding became available for activists to “make careers out of being movement leaders,” the movement itself became more professionalized and formal (Staggenborg 1988). 3. Many of these laws were constructed in order to avoid civil liability suits charging that police did not respond appropriately to domestic violence calls for police service when crimes involve intimate partners rather than strangers (Lyon 1999), and ignored or delayed response, which violates the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (see Thurman v. City of Torrington, 1994). Chapter 2 The Controversy about Women’s Use of Force 1. However, other researchers believe that hitting even once conveys the possibility to everyone that hitting could happen again, and that violence does not have to happen again to remind who has the power (Belknap and Potter 2005). 2. The use of “same-gender” was coined by Perilla et al. (2003). 3. Perilla et al. (2003) offer a caution about the risks of using a feminist analysis to explain same-gender intimate violence, maintaining that it could fuel myths such as: “(a) gay male violence is logical because men are violent and violence is uncommon in lesbian relationships because women are nonviolent; (b) same-gender partner violence is not as severe as that which men perpetrate against their female partners; (c) because both partners are of the same gender, it is mutual abuse; and (d) as a reflection of heterosexual domestic violence, the perpetrator in homosexual couples must be the ‘man’ or ‘butch’ and the victim must be the ‘woman’ or ‘femme’” (p. 21; see also Merrill 1996). Chapter 3 The Research Project 1. Reliability concerns the extent to which findings can be replicated. Validity concerns the extent to which data actually reflect what investigators set out to measure . 2. Although battering occurs within same-sex relationships, the focus for this analysis is on heterosexual domestic violence because at the time of the data collection, there were no lesbian clients arrested and mandated for treatment who participated in the groups. Lesbian clients have the option to participate in group or individual counseling. Material was presented in group sessions using references to both heterosexual and lesbian relationships. 3. This twelve-week commitment differs from the men’s program commitment of sixteen weeks. Both programs operate with sliding scales, based on an individual’s income . Since women typically earn less than men, their program costs were often less expensive. 4. The facilitator’s name, Mary, is a pseudonym. All names of group participants are also pseudonyms. Chapter 4 On the Beat 1. Before beginning, the researchers were trained to follow Lofland and Lofland’s fieldwork steps (1995, 89–98): During the period of observation, take notes to aid memory and to let respondents know that they are being taken seriously; convert these to full field notes at the end of each shift to minimize the time between observation and writing so that crucial material is not lost; write up observations fully before the next trip to the field; and, when additional information is recalled, add it to the written notes. For the research team, field notes were a “running description of events, people, things heard and overheard, conversations among people, conversations with people. Each new physical setting and person encountered merit[ed] a description” (Lofland and Lofland 1995, 93). Investigators distinguished between the respondents’ verbatim accounts and their own paraphrasing and general recall. 2. For instance, one white male officer, who commented on the appearance of all women they passed during the shift and talked a lot about sex with his girlfriend, said to a male student ride-along, “I am so glad I got you to ride-along with. We could talk about pussy all night. You never know who you are gonna get when you get a ride-along, and it would have sucked to get a girl or some loser guy. This is really cool.” 3. The two most common misdemeanor charges for domestic violence offenses in this state are offensive touching (OT) and terroristic threatening. “A person is guilty of offensive touching when the person intentionally touches another person either with a member of his or her body or with any instrument, knowing that the person is thereby likely...