Dehumanising domestic violence

WITH the Domestic Violence (Prevention) Bill 2001 finally under consideration by the Centre, the Indian populace can no longer delay learning how to identify battering and recognising domestic abuse as a serious crime. Yet, if such learning is to be at all geared towards facilitating an actual transformation in the understanding of domestic violence, and not remain restricted to the level of defencive information gathering about the proposed legislation, then narratives of battered women can prove to be a valuable resource for those who attempt the difficult task of comprehending the various manifestations of this crime and its effects.

While Getting Out is a collection of biographical narratives of American women who safely left abusive husbands, it does have wider relevance, both because it addresses the experiences of women from varying ethnic and class backgrounds, and because despite crucial differences in women's responses to domestic violence, there are undeniable commonalities across cultures too. The biographies - compiled from autobiographical essays, diaries, newspaper and magazine articles, letters and personal interviews - deal with the life stories of women instead of focussing narrowly on the history of battery alone. This is sound methodological choice both ethically and in the interests of developing a sophisticated understanding of the issue, for it prevents a reduction of the woman's life to a mere research topic and paves the way for contextualised knowledge.

Divided into seven sections, the book deals with variegated contexts of battering, from experiences of privileged women to children and those of two-timing batterers who abuse wives as well as extramarital lovers concurrently. The next three sections focus on narratives that highlight various aspects of getting out, from the roles played by family and friends or shelters to the ways in which the "system", or socio-political structures other than shelters, such as the law, the medical system and such, can help women leave violent relationships. The final section focusses on the legacies of loss and death that often mark the process of escaping battering.

The introduction is useful for its precision. Distinguishing battering from beating (though the latter can be a part of the former), it defines battering as "an obsessive campaign, of coercion and intimidation designed by a man to control and dominate a woman, which occurs in the personal context of intimacy and thrives in the socio-political context of patriarchy".

Locating battering squarely within the gender politics of patriarchal power, it emphasises that it is systematic abuse premised on a privileged antagonism to one's particular gender, thus implicitly dismissing the counter claims "battered men" often assert in moves to reduce and trivialise the seriousness of domestic violence against women. By definition, "there can be no battered men: men can be treated unfairly and even brutally by women, but they cannot be battered ..."

Exploring both the interpersonal and the societal forms of gendered abuse, Getting Out lays out the patterns - dynamics, techniques and cycles - of battering ranging from the psychological to the physical, in both systematic and insightful ways. It reiterates the now established knowledge that intimidation and fear are central to the dynamics of battering: minimisation, denial, isolation, surveillance, and even threats to hurt children its typical techniques; and tension building, explosion and loving contrition to the common stages of the cycle of battering. It also highlights the dual Jekyll and Hyde personality of the batterer, with Dr. Jekyll holding the woman in love and hope, and Mr. Hyde holding her with fear. The book further attempts to push the boundaries of common knowledge, locating the reasons for a woman's secrecy, rationalisation of brutality, and denial of her own anger, not just in her commitment to religious ideals of serving the husband or the ideology of the family but also in attempts to recapture the illusion of a romantic utopia.

Goetting does not however analyse such psycho-cultural phenomenon in any depth or variation across the cultural background that the narratives are located in. Nor does she even begin to address the male psyche and motivations - rational or irrational - for battery. These are severe drawbacks in a book otherwise powerful for its narratives; it thus runs into the danger of flattening out patriarchy as a monolothic homogenous structure of power, and positing men as being inherently violent in intimate relationships.

Goetting stresses that a redefinition of self as victim rather than devoted mate is necessary for developing the determination and agency to leave an abusive relationship, and enumerates the factors, both of severity of personal experience or sudden boosts of self-esteem, as well as external catalysts such as changes in the law, support systems of friends, relatives or women's groups, or even an inheritance or promotion at work that may work as catalysts. In one of the narratives, in the section on "When the System Works" she demonstrates the power of mandatory reporting laws in the U.S. for physicians to whom battered women go for treatment. Often such laws help bring cases of battering to light, specially when women do not report in fear of violent reprisals from their partners.

One crucial point that the book makes is of the need for the criminal justice system and medical practitioners to recognise that getting out is a process rather than an event. Unable to appreciate the "processal nature of uncoupling", legal and medical professionals often lose patience with women's repeated requests for services and blame them for their own victimisation. Goetting cites research suggesting that women leave their abusive partners an average of five times before getting out and the entire process itself takes an average of 80 years, and emphasises the need for professionals to take this into account and provide support rather than blame.

The afterword, rather awkwardly titled "A Message for Battered Women" includes a brief and factual but extremely useful history of legislation against domestic violence against women in the U.S. It starts with the first official denunciation of it as a crime by the U.S. Government in 1984, and goes through successive laws such as the one prohibiting health and life insurance companies from discriminating against abuse victims, to the one that recognise stalking (a frequent problem for women who have left violent relationships) as a separate crime. Knowledge of these laws could prove to be extremely useful for legal activist groups, policymakers and lawmakers in the context of drawing up our own plans for legal action against domestic violence in India.

Finally, one of the greatest strengths of this volume lies in the power of its biographical narratives, that makes it difficult to ignore or marginalise the dehumanising nature of domestic violence. Arguing against the contemporary privileging of dessicated "objective" knowledge and factual information, Goetting makes a conscious political choice to inform reason with passion in the construction of her biographical narratives, breathing life into the principal and patterns of the battering process in a "powerful form of knowledge production".

KAVITA PANJABI

Getting Out - Life Stories Of Women Who Left Abusive Men, Ann Goetting, Columbia University Press, 1999, p.286, price not stated.

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