The violence of power and control

By Alison Towns

The Herald series on violence is beginning to show what social scientists have been aware of for some time: just what a violent society we are, and how such violence is endorsed by the cultural values and beliefs with which we are raised.

There are a number of tensions already emerging in the subtexts of the articles. These are worth articulating since they demonstrate some of the ambiguities that create debate and that can prevent change.

One tension is evident from the assumption that violence emerges from anger.

When Benny Haerewa was described by his partner Te Rangi Whakaruru to be calmly positioned opposite little 4-year-old James Whakaruru as the boy leaned crumpling against the wall, black and blue from bruises, it hardly sounded the description of an angry man.

The assumption that most violence emerges from a loss of anger control needs to be contested.

If loss of anger control was a legitimate explanation for violence we would be seeing many more deaths from violence. Most people who use violence seem to be sufficiently in control to stop before they kill.

Many are sufficiently in control to makes sure they employ such violence behind closed doors.

Physiological psychologists have shown that men who perpetrate the most harmful violence against their partners are those who become more contemptuous and controlled during discussions with their female partners over difficult issues, rather than those who become aroused through anger.

Remember the days of corporal punishment in schools?

Such acts of violence against children were carried out for the purposes of "discipline," control and authority, and were often calmly enacted by deputy principals whose tasks were to enforce violence under the guise of discipline.

Many experts on violence now accept that while the experience of the perpetrator may be of anger, the violent act is more often about power and control over the person abused. It is about who should have authority and what counts as a transgression of such authority.

If we understand violence as being about power and control, we can more readily see how it is related to social values, beliefs and understandings: If male strength or power is valued as the defining feature of masculinity, violence may be used to firmly place a man within that male culture.

Real or imagined affronts to one's masculinity or control may then bring a violent response. If men are seen as legitimately dominant and entitled to forgo, for example, domestic and parental duties, women are expected to accept their authority and transgressions may be punished by some men through violence.

His violence becomes the means by which the woman is controlled and his masculinity articulated.

If children are expected to understand parental authority from an early age, without consideration of their developmental level, their actions can be more readily interpreted as a transgression of this authority, requiring "discipline" through violence.

These cultural supports for violence are intricately linked to power and control and who has authority.

A second tension concerns the prevalence of male partner violence over that of female partner violence. Experts have been pointing for many years to the importance of context in making sense of partner violence. For example, who initiated the violence is meaningless without an understanding of the context.

Some women in relationships with men who use violence against them are able to recognise the build-up to another physical attack. It may involve his breaking all of her belongings, his verbally abusing her for hours or days on end, his accusing her of sexual transgressions or his subjecting the children to intimidating and frightening tactics.

Some women hit to precipitate the violence and bring an end to the attack they know is coming. Some women initiate hitting out of distress and frustration. Some women hit to protect their children from being hit.

Male partner violence against women is about the use of violence or the threat of violence to exercise power and control.

As Neil Jacobson, an American expert on the subject said: "Without fear there can be no battering. In 20 years of research with couples and 20 years of clinical experience I have yet to encounter a man battered by a woman.

"However, I have encountered plenty of women who push, shove or hit men, usually in self-defense, often out of frustration, but seldom if ever as a method of control."

Another tension is evident in the article on women's violence and it concerns the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate violence.

Was it by accident that this article was so tellingly placed opposite an article titled "Wife 'would have fought her killer'"?

Legitimate violence is, for example, violence used in self-defence which is commonly considered to be the use of reasonable force to prevent further violence.

Repeated bashing or punching by a man in response to a woman's push or a slap would not be considered self-defence.

Girls and women have been encouraged into self-defence courses in order for them to feel confident in dealing with bullies, and to be confident with those men who attempt to exercise power over them through violent actions such as rape and bashings. And, yes, feminists have encouraged attendance at such courses.

To suggest that feminism condones violence, other than legitimate violence, would be an affront to most feminists.

As a feminist my concern is with fairness, justice and equity for women. For me, feminism in relation to violence is not about being anti-men, but about being against illegitimate violence perpetrated against women and children, regardless of the gender of the perpetrator.

The reality is that such violence is predominantly perpetrated by men in the home.

Another tension involves the association of the term "discipline" with hitting or smacking children. Psychologists have known for many years that physical violence used against children is not an effective means of disciplining children.

There are many other forms of discipline that do not require hurting children and making them fearful of their parents.

Smacking or hitting simply teaches children that fear in the home is normal and legitimate.

Young children who are exposed to violence are more likely to be irritable and to suffer sleep disturbances. The normal development of trust in such children may be hampered.

For some children, exposure to violence in the home teaches them to become perpetrators of violence, while for others it teaches them to become paralysed in the face of threats of violence. Smacking and hitting as discipline teaches some children to become hostile and resentful of those in authority.

If discipline is understood as teaching children how to behave through the ways in which we ought to behave, and through the ways we like to be treated, then discipline would never involve violence.

A final tension concerns the issue of ethnicity. How comfortable it would be for those of us who are Pakeha to consider violence to be largely a Maori and Pacific Island problem. But we need to be very careful how we interpret Government statistics here.

Police officers will tell you that they are more readily able to investigate violence in Polynesian families than they are in Pakeha families, because Pakeha men draw on their right to privacy to prevent police officers from entering the home.

Adages such as "a man's home is his castle" and "what I do in my home is my business" are employed to support male violence and to prevent police involvement.

Arrests, therefore, are likely to be more readily made of those Maori and Pacific Islanders who welcome the police officer into their homes.

Pakeha influences brought to Maori the notion of male dominance in the family - so harmful to women - and Pakeha brought to Maori and Pacific Islanders the notion of "spare the rod and spoil the child" - so harmful to children.

We need to claim the best of all cultural values if we are to prevent violence.

* Dr Alison Towns is research associate in the department of psychology at Auckland University.