Structural Violence: Hidden Brutality in the Lives of Women

Notes

151 IntroductIon 1. I have assigned pseudonyms and changed identifying details in order to preserve people’s privacy and confidentiality. 2. on violence against women in prisons, see Amanda George (1993), Luana ross (1998), Paula Johnson (2004); on violence against women who work in prostitution, see Giobbe (1994), Sanchez (1997a; 1997b); on violence by border agents against migrant women, see Bhattacharjee (2002a), Saucedo (2006). 3. I would like to thank Lubna chaudhry for discussions and analysis of structural violence. See Johan Galtung: “Violence is present when human beings are being influenced so that their actual somatic and mental realizations are below their potential realizations” (Galtung 1969, 168). 4. I draw here and in the following on text I develop more fully in Lugones and Price (1995). 5. I discuss this further later in the book. The following are a few representative examples: “The huge pile of data about battered women which the victim blamers have amassed reveals one critical fact: one battered woman is as different from the next as night from day. taken all in all, the studies show that all battered women have only one significant characteristic in common—they are all female. “Some battered women were abused as children; others were not. Some battered women never got past grade school; others hold advanced degrees. Some battered women have never held a job; others have worked all their lives. Some battered women were married very young, others in middle age, others not at all. Many battered women are very poor; many are well-to-do. Many battered women have “too many” children, others none at all. Many battered women are passive introverts; others are active extroverts. Some battered women drink too much or use drugs; others never touch the stuff. Many battered women are black; many others are white, yellow, red, brown. Many battered women are catholic; many others are Protestant, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, agnostic, atheist, Buddhist, Mormon. In short, there is not [a] typical battered woman. or to put it another way, any girl or woman might be battered” (Jones 1994, 85). Notes 152 notES to cHAPtEr onE “Battered women come from all types of economic, cultural, religious, and racial backgrounds. They are millionaires, and they are women on welfare; they are uneducated women, and they are practicing professionals with J.d.s and Ph.d.s; they are mothers and they are childless; they are religious and they are atheists; they live in rural areas, and in cities, and in small towns all over this country and all over the world. They are women like you. Like me. Like those whom you know and love” (Walker 1989, 101). “The ones that are on there I think are core tactics that almost all abusers use” (Power and Control 2010, in reference to the Power and control Wheel. Also see crenshaw 1991, for a similar analysis). 6. See Sudbury (2005); richie (1996); roberts (1998); Bhattacharjee and Silliman (2002); Andrea Smith (2005). 7. ultimately, racial differences that encode hierarchy may have emerged from colonialism itself (see, e.g., Quijano 2000). If that is true, then it is not useful to presuppose racial difference and then use “race” as an explanatory device. 8. Though I will not explore here the paradoxes of the construction of home, I have discussed elsewhere how the “home” is ideologically constructed as a place of safety and refuge that cloaks violence against women (Price 2002): “Homes figure centrally in most Americans’ perception of an ideal: of peace, succor, tranquility, achievement, intimacy, even moral rectitude; homes have accrued even a sense of sacredness for some. The desire for a home, moreover, the solace it seems to promise, makes it even more difficult [to perceive violence], especially if one becomes invested in that desire. It might seem initially intolerable , it might signal a deep sort of failure or a collapse, to countenance violence, even if violence is at the core of the construction of the home. ‘Home’ connotes a normative ideal that excludes the possibility of violence against women at the level of the meaning of ‘home.’ That notion of home needs to be shaken off in order to see that violence against women is abetted, enabled, by that normative ideal.” In that essay, just as in this book, I take up the voices of battered women to disrupt that dominant construction of the space of the home. Even as violence is erased at the level of the conventional meaning of home, battering and abuse are presupposed...