Chapter 14: Family Abuse, Violence, and Other Health Issues

Summary:

This chapter of the book focused on family abuse, violence, and other health issues. The first main topic covered within this chapter is intimate partner abuse and violence. Intimate partner violence (IPV) occurs between two people in a close relationship. This has also been referred to, by some, as domestic violence. There are three different types of intimate partner violence, which are as follows:

· Physical Abuse è A person attempts to hurt a partner using physical force.

· Sexual Abuse è A person forces a partner to participate in unwanted sexual activity.

· Emotional Abuse è Threatening a partner in some sense, which includes a partner’s loved ones, possessions, and their own self-worth.

The number of intimate partner violence incidents has decreased over the past twenty years, though they are still drastically higher in comparison to male victims. There are also some specific characteristics of abusive and violent households. One characteristic is gender, in that women are much more likely than men to experience IPV over a lifetime. Men are more likely to commit familycide than women, in which an individual murders one’s spouse, ex-spouse, children or other relatives before attempting or committing suicide. Another factor is age, in that younger individuals are more likely to perpetrate or be a victim of IPV. Race and ethnicity are both lumped together as a third characteristic, in that Multiracial and American Indian women have the highest rates of abuse of all ethnicities of women. Social class is another important factor, as abuse is more common in low-income families. Some other terms to become familiar with:

· Marital Rape è “An abusive act in which a man forces his wife to have unwanted sexual intercourse.”

· Battered-Woman Syndrome è “A condition that describes a woman who has experienced many years of physical abuse and feels incapable of leaving her partner.” This process has three main phases:

o Phase 1 è The tension-building phase.

o Phase 2 è The acute battering incident.

o Phase 3 è Calm (the “honeymoon phase”).

New/Interesting/Unusual Items Learned:

I thought that the discussion of marital rape was both interesting and disturbing. It surprised me to some extent that it was the highest reported type of rape, yet some states chose to count this as a lesser offence than stranger rape.

Discussion:

My discussion question relates to the topic posed above. Why is it that these two forms of rape are treated differently, and is this segregation of punishments acceptable?

Karl Wahlen