The "Privacy" of Gendered Violence
We live in a modern state obsessed with law and order and marked by unprecedented levels of mass incarceration.
Yet some crimes are ignored or dismissed-- or at least enjoy a level of apparent acceptance by the public.
The following is the opener of "Violence and the Private: A Girardian Model of Domestic Violence in Society" by Brian R. Decker:
"Brett Myers punched his wife in the face. That's what the Philadelphia Phillies' ace pitcher's wife told police in June 2006. When the club was visiting Boston for interleague play, the couple was walking back to their hotel from a bar when they started arguing. Kim Myers said Brett, who is a foot taller than Kim and twice as heavy, 'hit her in the face twice with his fist.' According to witnesses, while Kim was cowering on the ground, Brett slapped her and attempted to drag her to her feet by her shirt and hair. She cried out, 'I'm not going to let you do this to me anymore.' When police arrived, she was crying and her face was swollen.
The district attorney arraigned Brett on assault and battery charges, but he was released and went on to start against the Red Sox the next day. Three months later, the court dismissed the case when Kim asked that the charges be dropped. Boston Municipal Court Judge Raymond Dougan reasoned that, 'domestic violence allegations are difficult for prosecutors to prove because they involve private relationships.' Brett expressed some semblance of regret, but not for the violence: 'I'm sorry that it had to get public.' "
The article goes on to trace the history of domestic violence, legally and publicly, as a so-called private issue.
The reason we call it "domestic violence" is that such issues were historically thought to be private and thus not a matter for courts or police. It was policy for police officers not to intervene in case of violence in the home.
In the 1970s, it was women rights advocates who fought for things like marital rape and violence in the home to be considered criminal behavior. They brought attention to the issue, challenging the dismissive responses of the criminal justice system to real cases of violence in women's lives. "The private is political", they famously pointed out.
That history was the starting point of my last post.
https://steemit.com/science/@jessij/images-of-gender-in-media-advertising
Discussions in the comments section of that post reminded me of this article, one that we read in the Contemporary Social Problems class I teach.
The carceral state we live in targets vulnerable populations and locks up nonviolent offenders. The latter have been a primary source of the massive growth of the U.S. incarcerated population in the decades since the War on Drugs began.
But actual violence, often gendered, is historically ignored.