Black and Blue: by Anna Quindlen The task assigned is a review of the book Black and Blue by Anna Quindlen. I will provide examples and summarize the main concepts of the book to include Intimate Partner Violence, Battering, and Intimate Terrorism. I will reference the text Family Violence, Across the Lifespan by Ola W. Barnett, Cindy Miller-Perrin, and Robin D. Perrin in order to support my theoretical claims. I will select a critical part of the book and explain why it was challenging to read and understand based on my perspective, and then select a character to analyze using one of the theoretical perspective. This book is sad and disturbing, the punishment inflicted on Fran by her husband Bobby Benedetto is unacceptable and …show more content…
It is hard to analyze Bobby as a character by using one theoretical perspective but I am confident that Lenore Walker’s “Cycle of Violence Theory” (Barnett, Miller-Perrin, and Perrin 315) best describes Bobby’s behaviors as a classic batterer. As defined, the theory has three phase’s, the first phase is “Tension Building”, minor incidents of violence, along with the build-up of anger, verbal put-downs, jealousy, threats, and breaking things. This phase could describe the initial escalation by Bobby to start intimidating Fran prior to their marriage. The second phase is the “Battering Phase”, where major violent outbursts occur like Bobby breaking Fran’s collarbone and nose. The last phase is the “Honeymoon Phase” where the perpetrator is remorseful and loving. There were times where this would apply, but Bobby was not consistently loving after he beat Fran, rather he would often attempt to downplay the intensity and effects or even blame Fran for causing the incident while downplaying his violence, and in some cases denying that it took place, as with the initial instance where Bobby explained that he “just came at you a lil”. Even though socialization theories are not explored in the nearly 400 pages of this book, the most significant and understandable piece of information comes from a brief dialogue between Fran and
Chapter 3 of Essential of Sociology: A Down-to-Earth Approach by James M. Henslin discusses the topic of socialization, which is the process by which people learn the characteristics of their group—the knowledge, attitudes, skills, norms, values, and actions thought appropriate for them. Sociologists try to determine how much of a person’s characteristics comes from “nature” (heredity) and how much from “nurture” (social environment). Studying feral, isolated, and institutionalized children, such as The Skeels/Dye Experiment, have helped them understand how “society makes us human.” The theories and research of Charles Horton Cooley, George Herbert Mead, and Piaget to explain socialization into the self and mind. Cooley’s looking-glass self theory focuses on how we believe others perceive us.
“Domestic violence is a type of abuse by one or both partners in marriage, friends, family, dating or cohabitation” (Aziz & Mahmoud, 2010). There are many forms of abuse from verbal and emotional to physical that often escalates over time in intensity for the victim. Data from the criminal justice system, hospital patient medical records and mental health records, police reports, surveys and social services reports of thousands of women revealed that many are injured and killed as a result of violence from someone close to them. “The US Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) defines domestic violence as a pattern of abusive behavior in any relationship that is used by one partner to gain or maintain power and control over another intimate partner regardless of race, age, sexual orientation, religion, or gender” (Robertson & Murachver, 2009). Researchers and the criminal justice system have not been able to agree on a clear definition to domestic violence which can range from physical injury, stalking, verbal abuse and humiliation, denial of shelter and access to money, and intimidation through aggressive behaviors. The definition of domestic violence may vary but the results from physical injury, mental and emotional trauma, and sometimes even death can last a life time.
A safety plan is an essential tool for people to use to assist women or men in domestic violence relationships. A safety plan helps explore and map out options and ideas to promote safety when domestic violence or family violence has occurred. This could prevent careless actions from happening such as not knowing where to go, or becoming the aggressor. Taking these precaution can help save the lives of women or men in an event of a violent episode of rage or frustration. It is important for the victim to strategize what are their alternatives and identify triggers of what causes the violence, in order to prevent it from happening. A safety plan needs to be tailored to the individual needs and should promote safety at any moment of altercation. A safety plan encourages building a trustworthy relationship that may help the victim coupe with the situation by exchanging thoughts and ideas. This relationship is an essential resource for the victim, as violence could happen at any time. A safety plan could encourage many women to finally get the boldness to leave their partners, but there are certain resource women need to be successful. In the novel “Black and Blue” Frannie Benedetto suffered horrible abuse by her police officer husband, Bobby. Frannie finally get the valor to leave him when she realizes that her abuse will never stop, no matter how good she is to her husband. Fran decide to runaway with her son Robert. She takes on the identity of someone
Module one focused on domestic violence and understanding the basics, which include the dynamics and common tactics that characterize domestic violence, impact on both the individual and society, and solutions to domestic violence. The website was easily accessible, and the information provided about the topic of domestic violence was both useful and interesting. Several statistics were given throughout the module that helped get across the seriousness of domestic violence. For example, one in four women are victims of domestic abuse within their lifetime. That statistic alone expresses how common domestic violence is within society.
Intimate partner violence is characterized not only by physical violence, but also sexual, emotional, and mental violence through the use of threats (Understanding Intimate Partner Violence, 2011). In Black and Blue, Anna Quindlen delves into the mind of a woman who faces intimate partner violence in her everyday life. Fran, or Beth, and her son attempt to get away from Fran’s abusive cop husband. While Black and Blue is a fiction novel, its points about intimate partner violence hold true in many cases such as the breaking of traditional gender roles, high levels of stress, alcohol overconsumption, and learned behavior.
As for Michele Paddon, creator of the Women’s program currently delivered by Changing Ways, she describes in her book abuse as the use of "[...] words, actions or behaviours – on purpose and repeatedly – with the intention of gaining control over that person" (Paddon, 2015). She also establishes three different dimensions of domestic violence, based on the work of Michael P. Johnson: common couple violence (CCV), intimate terrorism and violent resistance (VR).
Black women experience a lot of things in life differently from others, because of their intersectionality of being not only a woman, but also black. They are a double minority and they feel this double minority through many different aspects within their lives. The aspect that black women deal with differently, is domestic violence. Black women experience and deal with domestic violence differently than white women, and anyone who else experience domestic violence. Through this paper I would like to explain this difference that black women face when tackling domestic violence due to the “family secret”, but also how it effects children within the black community, how it can affect the entire community, and lastly why black women should let go of the “family secret” to not only better themselves, but to better the black community. They experience a different struggle than other victims call the “family secret”. The “family secret” is in general, keeping the secret of domestic violence within the family because it is a family issue. The “family secret has destroyed families and caused many deaths within the population of black women. Other than these problems of holding this so called “family secret”, I want to speak on the effects this has on the black community, such as, how black women who do not speak on their issues of domestic violence continue a cycle of violence within young black girls. Black women need to speak on their issues of domestic violence, instead of
The article constructs domestic violence as an issue of gender, race and socioeconomic status. Women are identified as the “majority” of victims (Taylor 2014). Consequently, the article conceptually represents domestic violence as events of intimate terrorism where one partner violently terrorizes the other partner to gain complete control over the relationship, which is entirely perpetrated by men (Johnson 2012). With that said, Johnson (2012) points out that majority of domestic violence is situational couple violence, where both the man and the
Domestic violence is an issue in almost every corner in the world. It is a public health and human rights issue. The accepted levels of violence have changed with history and varies between societies. Here in the United States, according to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, on average nearly 20 people per minute are physically abused. 1 in 3 women have been victims of physical violence from an intimate partner. The presence of a gun increases the risk of homicide by 500%. On average 3 women are killed each day by an intimate partner, Intimate partner violence is 15% of all violent crime. An analysis done by Every Town for Gun Safety found that 54% of mass shootings were related to domestic or family violence. This paper will be looking at the problem of domestic violence in the United States through the sociological conflict feminist theory.
Intimate terrorism and Domestic Violence- according to the text (pg. 5)intimate terrorism is where the perpetrator uses violence in the service of general control over his or her partner; the partner does not. The word intimate terrorism may be new to us but basically means almost the same as domestic violence. Domestic violence is a type of violence geared mostly toward women (but not totally). This act violence involves violence along with general control. Francine Hughes’s husband displayed this type of violence and control over her even in how she dressed. Mr. Hughes did not mind abusing his wife in front of his family and friends. Women involved in this type of relationship usually do not fight back (they are terrified of their partner)
Walter (1969) gave a comprehensive definition of violence as “destructive harm including not only physical assaults that damage the body, but also techniques of inflicting harm by mental or emotional means” (p. 24). However, in the context of intimate relationships, the definition of violence requires more aspects to be determined. The basic questions to be asked when defining domestic violence proposed by Hegarty, Sheehan, and Schonfeld (1999) in their article A Multidimensional Definition of Partner Abuse are 1) which relationships should be included as domestic? And 2) how should violence in domestic life be defined? To answer these questions, Hegarty et al. said that it is important to choose the appropriate definition that is most relevant to the purpose of the studies. Dutton (2006) defined domestic violence in his book Rethinking Domestic Violence as “any violence occurring between intimate partners (same sex or other sex, married or unmarried) and against children” (p. 3), but further said that he will only focus on intimate
Although this is very devastating, this is not the first instance of domestic partner homicide occurring in the United States. About three women are killed everyday in the United States by current or former relationships.Violence against women affects many women across different cultures, race, ethnicities, etc., however in America, African-American women make up about half of female homicide victims even though they make up 13 percent of the population (O’Hara, 2017). Additionally they are victimized by domestic violence 35 percent more than white women (O 'Hara, 2017).We see how violence against women connects to the paternalistic roots, and also intersects with race being that African-American women are exposed to violence at a much higher rate than white women.
“Every year, in the United States there are over 3 million incidents of reported domestic violence. Every year, 4,000 victims of domestic violence are killed.” (Domestic Violence: Disturbing Facts about Domestic Violence). Domestic violence is a crime that is not just committed in the United States, but worldwide. This crime is committed every day, every hour, every minute, and every second. Anybody can be a victim or the abuser. This can happen to any child, man or woman. This is a horrific crime. Women are more likely to be the victim in domestic violence than men. “Forty-five percent of all violent attacks against female victims 12 years old and older by multiple
Domestic violence is something that happens every day around the world. Young, old, rich or poor, this is an issue that we must look at to better ourselves as a country. One of the things that we look at is how domestic violence relates to the different social classes of the country, this being upper, middle, and lower. Some would thing that it would be more common in lower classes, but the reality of it is domestic violence is a problem across all social classes. In this paper I will discuss different articles about domestic violence and its relation to social class. It is clear to see that many of the articles on this topic focus around women as victims and men get put into a category of the only ones committing violence. From different
Socialization is an ongoing process in which individuals obtains a personal identity, learns norms, values and behaviour appropriate to his/her position. People constantly require approval of the things they do, they continually seek to be socially competent and to be accepted by those around them. It is human nature to want to be similar from others in order to be accepted in a certain social spheres but at the same time wanting to be different and unique. There are primary and secondary agents of socialization. The primary agents are those that are basic and fundamental to social beings, these include family and friends from which we learn behaviour at young age; they transmit norms and values to us. The secondary agents are those that are more external to us than family such as social institutions/organisations, these include schools,