The first article on this topic, written by Sharon Hays is entitled, "From Rods to Reasoning: The Historical Construction of Intensive Mothering."In this article Hays presents four historical stages of development in the cultural notions of appropriate mothering in America from the 17th to the 20th century.
"In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century New England there was no notion of childhood innocence, no protected place for children and no separate children's toys or games. Small children were dressed in swaddling clothes, subjected to floggings and sedated with opium" (26). "There was a belief in early childhood as a special and distinct stage; it was the stage when the child needed to be "redeemed" through strict discipline. The young child was not ignored but consciously molded by means of physical punishment, religious instruction, and participation in work life" (27). "For Puritan New Englanders the purpose of such early obedience training was to overcome the "sin nature" of the child. The primary guide for child rearing was the Bible, supplemented by the sermons and speeches of church and community leaders" (27). Wives were valued for their fertility but not for their child-rearing abilities. "Once a child was old enough to help, a mother served as the overseer of their labor in the household, making little distinction between servant children and her own children" (28). Her task was to "keep the children in line; ultimately she obeyed her husband" (28). The Puritan model was the dominant cultural model of the prerevolutionary era.
The next historical stage is that of the nineteenth century mother. "For the middle class urban dweller during that period, ideas of appropriate child rearing shifted dramatically" (29). "The young child was no longer seen as an agent of sin in need of redemption but was instead proclaimed and innocent "redeemer". Increasingly, motherhood was valorized, parents went to great lengths to prolong the period of childhood innocence, and affection suffused the mother-child relationship" (29). "By the second half of the nineteenth century child rearing was synonymous with mothering. The overall image of both was one of pervasive sentimentality mixed with purity, piety, and patriotism" (30). "No longer were the fathers the shepherds and mothers the sheepdogs. Mothers, and only mothers, now moral and pure, were the shepherdesses, leading their children on the path of righteousness" (30). "Although the father was still the ultimate authority, the mother now had a much larger and more valued role to play in shaping the child" (32).
The third stage came into view toward the end of the nineteenth century. "Middle-class child-rearing ideologies took a somewhat curious turn. A mother's instincts, virtue, and affection were no longer considered sufficient to ensure proper child rearing. She now had to be "scientifically" trained. With the growing belief in child rearing as a science, mothers' status as valorized, naturally adept child nurturers was diminished" (39). "The mother now had to more than set a good example; she needed to keep abreast of the latest information on child development and to practice the methods experts suggested. This was the era of strict scheduling, regularity, and letting the child "cry it out" rather than calming him with affectionate nurture" (39). This era was known as the progressive era (39).
The fourth historical stage is called the permissive era. "The ideology of permissive child rearing that dominates contemporary advice and provides the cultural model used by present-day mothers had its beginnings in the 1930s" (45). "The primary objective was no longer the rigid behavioral training of the child to meet adult requirements; nurturing the child's inherent goodness was again the goal" (45). This may sound the same as that of early nineteenth century, but its not. "Although the family had become child-centered then, child rearing was then perceived as guided by parents, in line with adult interests. Not until the "permissive era" did child rearing become "child-centered in the sense of being explicitly determined by the needs and desires of children" (45). "Child rearing was no longer centered on the good of the family and the good of the nation. It was now centered on the fulfillment of the child" (45).
"Not only is home life centered on children, but child rearing is guided by them. The child is now to train the parent. This is what intensive mothering is" (46). "The recommended methods of child rearing have become fully intensified: not only have they become expert-guided and child-centered, they are also more emotionally absorbing, labor intensive, and financially expensive than ever before" (46). The concept of intensive mothering does apply to my mother. She left her job when I was born and has not gone back to work since, because she wanted to be there for me. She was not intimidated by feminists claims that the family is an oppressive institution. She felt more fulfilled being there for me all the time than she would have if she had a normal job in the workforce. This applies too most of my friends mothers as well.
The second article on this subject written by Ann Crittendon is the introduction to her book The Price of Motherhood: Why the Most Important Job in the World is Still the Least Valued. In the introduction she points out what she believes to be the main indicators that mothering is devalued in the United States.
"Even now, the lack of respect and tangible recognition is still part of every mother's experience. Most people take female caregiving utterly for granted. The job of making a home for a child and developing his or her capabilities is often equated with "doing nothing" (2). "Thus the disdainful question frequently asked about mothers at home: "What do they do all day?" (2). "A mother's work is not just invisible; it can become a handicap. Raising children may be the most important job in the world, but you can't put it on a resume" (3). A woman with a master's degree, when looking for a job, was warned to not mention the thirteen years of caring for her disabled child. "She was told instead to pad her resume with descriptions of volunteer work and occasional freelance writing" (4). "The idea that time spent with one's child is time wasted is embedded in traditional economic thinking. Economic theory has nothing to say about the acquisition of skills by those who work with children; presumably there are none" (4). This is one main indicator that mothering is devalued in the United States.
"The policies of American business, government, and the law do not reflect Americans' stated values" (5). Crittenden states, "Across the board, individuals who assume the role of nurturer are punished and discouraged from performing the very tasks that everyone agrees are essential. We talk endlessly about the importance of family, yet the work it takes to make a family is utterly disregarded," (5).
"First, inflexible workplaces guarantee that many women will have to cut back on, if not quit, their employment once they have children" (5). "Second, marriage is still not an equal financial partnership. Mothers in forty seven of the fifty states do not have an unequivocal legal right to half of the family's assets" (6). "Third, government social policies don't even define unpaid care of family dependents as work" (6). "A family's primary caregiver is not considered a full productive citizen, eligible in her own right for the major social insurance programs" (6). These are all primary indicators.
The devaluation of a mother's work extends to those who do similar work for pay. "Wages for child care are so low that the field is hemorrhaging its best-trained people" (6). "Increasingly, day care is being provided by an inexperienced workforce. Just because caring work is not self-seeking doesn't mean a person should be penalized for doing it" (8).
"The dominant culture considers child rearing as unskilled labor, if it considers child rearing at all" (11). "No one is stating the obvious: if human abilities are the ultimate fount of economic progress, as many economists now agree, and if those abilities are nurtured in the early years, then mothers and other care givers of the young are the most important producers in the economy" (11). "They do have, literally, the most important job in the world" (11).
I do agree with Crittendon's view. I believe that mothering is completely underrated in our country. It is so important in creating young adults who will move on to great universities, and then to great jobs. My mom was a stay at home and she loved it. I can vouch for her that it was no easy task. It requires limitless energy. She was just as busy, if not more busy, than my dad who had a typical office job. Our government's policies and laws definitely do not take the importance of mothering into consideration. I agreed with all of her examples and explanations.
The third article, written by Patricia Collins, is entitled, "Black Women and Motherhood." This article explains two types of mothering that black women tend to do. The two mother are bloodmothers and othermothers. "In many African-American communities, fluid and changing boundaries often distinguish biological mothers from other women who care for children" (178). "Biological mothers, or bloodmothers, are expected to care for their children. But African and African-American communities have also recognized that vesting one person with full responsibility for mothering a child may not be wise or possible. As a result, othermothers-women who assist bloodmothers by sharing mothering responsibilities-traditionally have been central to the institution of Black motherhood" (178).
Collins writes, "Organized, resilient, women-centered networks of bloodmothers and othermothers are key in understanding this centrality of women. Grandmothers, sisters, aunts, or cousins act as othermothers by taking on child care responsibilities for one another's children," (178). "In many African-American communities these women-centered networks of community-based child care have extended beyond the boundaries of biologically related individuals to include fictive kin" (179). "Othermothers can be key in helping bloodmothers who, for whatever reason, lack the preparation or desire for motherhood" (180). Othermothers not only feel accountable to their own kin, they experience a bond with all of the Black community's children.
"Motherhood-whether bloodmother, othermother, or community othermother-can be invoked as a symbol of power by African-American women engaged in Black women's community work" (192). "Moreover, much of U.S. Black women's status in African-American communities stems from their activist mothering as community othermothers. Some of the most highly respected Black women in working-class Black neighborhoods are those who demonstrate an ethic of community service" (192). "Black women's involvement in community work forms one important basis for power within Black civil society. This is the type of power many African-Americans have in mind when they describe the "strong Black woman" they hope will revitalize contemporary Black neighborhoods. Community othermothers work on behalf of the Black community by expressing ethics of caring and personal accountability" (192). "Viewing motherhood as a symbol of power can catalyze Black women to take actions that they otherwise might not have considered" (192).
The fourth and final article, written by Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas, is entitled "Unmarried with Children." The article takes a look at poor women's attitudes on and experiences with marriage and childbearing. It also addresses what society can do to help these women get out of poverty.
Edin and Kefalas write, "Promoting marriage among the poor has become the new war on poverty. And it is true that the correlation between marital status and child poverty is strong. But poor single mothers already believe in marriage" (17). A mother featured in the article, Jen, insists that she will walk down the aisle one day. "Most poor, unmarried mothers and fathers readily admit that bearing children while poor and unmarried is not the ideal way to do things" (17). When the authors asked mothers like Jen what their lives would be like if they had not had children, "they expected them to express regret over foregone opportunities for school and careers. Instead, most believe their children "saved" them. They describe their lives as spinning out of control before becoming pregnant" (18). "Children offer poor youth like Jen a compelling sense of purpose" (18). Jen paints a before and after picture of her life that was common among the mothers they interviewed. "Before, I didn't have nobody to take care of. I didn't have nothing left to go home for...Now I have my son to take care of. I have him to go home for...I don't have to go buy weed or drugs with my money. I could buy my son stuff with my money!" (18).
Few of these poor mothers have given up on the idea of marriage. "However, for the poor, marriage has become an elusive goal, one they feel ought to be reserved for those who can support a "white picket fence" lifestyle" (18). "These poor young women insist on being economically "set" in their own right before taking marriage vows" (18). "Jen measures her worth as a mother by the fact that she has managed to provide for her son largely on her own" (20). "Notably poor women do not reject marriage; they revere it. Indeed, it is the conviction that marriage is forever that makes them think that divorce is worse than having a baby outside of marriage. Their children, far from being liabilities, provide crucial social-psychological resources-a strong sense of purpose and a profound sense of intimacy" (21). In the end Jen believes Colin's birth has brought far more good into her life than bad.
The last thing this article addresses is what society needs to do to help these women get out of poverty. Edin and Kefalas write, "Until poor young women have more access to jobs that lead to financial independence, until there is reason to hope for the rewarding life pathways that their privileged peers pursue, the poor will continue to have children far sooner than most Americans think they should, while still deferring marriage. Marital standards have risen for all Americans" (22). "The poor want to marry to but they want to marry well" (22). Our society needs to create more jobs for these women so that they can pull themselves up from where they had the misfortune of starting. This might also include much better and readily available child care, as many of these young women will need to have their children looked after if they do get jobs.
My opinion is that I respect the attitudes these women have on marriage and childbearing. I thought it was inspirational that these women are able to acknowledge the fact that having a child may have actually helped them. It was not the attitude I expected to hear when starting this article. My opinion on what we should do for them is clearly stated in the above paragraph and i believe it to be incredibly necessary.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Childbearing, childrearing, and welfare
The first article written by Chris Hafner-Eaton and Laurie K. Pierce is entitled, "Birth Choices, the Law and Medicine: Balancing Individual Freedoms and Protection of the Public's Health." This article focused on the debate between whether it is better to give birth in a medical setting, usually a hospital, or to give birth at home with a midwife. The common belief is that giving birth at home with only a midwife is much more dangerous and increases the risks for the mother and the baby. This is not the case and leads into the reasons why some prefer to give birth at home with the assistance of a midwife.
According to World Health Organization officials. "Every single country in the European Region with perinatal and infant mortality rates lower than the United States uses midwives as the principal and only birth attendant for at least 70 percent of all births," (813). This shows that giving birth at home with a midwife does not increase the risk of infant mortality. In fact it seems to lower infant mortality rates. "Furthermore, the introduction of hospital-based and physician-attended births was associated with a dramatic increase in the rates of puerperal fever and maternal death" (815).
There recently has been an increase in the number of parents is the United States who are choosing to have their babies at home. "One frequently cited reason that has paralleled this is the increase in obstetrical attempts to manage and augment childbirth in a "medicalized manner" (814). "20 percent of mothers delivering in the hospital setting reported that they would have preferred a nonhospital delivery" (814).
"The midwife has been labeled the "guardian of normal birth" and reaffirms the mother as the active, rather than passive, participant in home births" (816). Some parents now prefer this idea of a more interactive birth, one that they can truly get involved in. This is a big reason for why parents are opting for home births. "Lay midwives have a special body of knowledge, gained through experience and familiarity with the female body, that they pass along to women, their partners, and families during pregnancy and birth. The combination of these aspects appeals to the segment of the population that desires control over their bodies" (819).
I believe that either choice is correct and that it just depends on the individuals. Some people have the type of personality where they would rather be in a hospital, in every medical setting because it makes them feel more comfortable, even if it is no more safe. On the other hand, there are those people who would rather be in a more casual environment. Given the fact that both methods seem to be equally safe, my opinion is that neither is better but that it just depends on what you personally want.
The second article written by Lawrence Friedman is entitles, "Who are Our Children? Adoption, Past and Present." It addresses the changes in legal ties between parents and children, as well as how adoption laws have changed.
The first issue is the legal ties between parents and children. "At one time, parental control over children continued as long as the children lived; for example, parents arranged their children's marriages" (272). "In those aspects of law that deal with children, there has been a strong, long-term trend toward emancipating the child from its father and from the family in general. The separation is absolute for adult children. Adults are now under no duty to obey their parents or to take account of them in any way; even the duty to support aged and infirm parents has been evaporating" (272). The law more and more recognizes the child as a distinct individual, even when the child is just a baby or very young. "The law punishes abusive or neglectful parents. It can take children away from a bad family and give them to a good family. It has the ability to act in place of the parents. In effect, children have legal rights as against their own mothers and fathers. If the children are too young to do it themselves, the state enforces these rights" (272). "However, even though the authority of the family is weaker than it was, it is still extremely strong. The state can take a child away from the family, but it does so reluctantly and in extreme cases. Law and society clearly recognize that in general the rights of parents are sacred. Parents have less control over their children, but parent's are still at the center of their young children's lives" (273).
The second issue addressed in this article is historically, what the purpose of adoption was. "In many systems, adoption was recognized as a way to guarantee that a family with no blood children would not die out. Adoption was a well-known feature of ancient Roman society" (273). "In France, adoption allowed for even adults to be adopted in order to carry on the family name. Until 1976, parents with children were not allowed to adopt" (273). "In colonial America, adoption could be seen as children who were bound out as apprentices, which meant that from a fairly young age they were living in somebody else's household" (274).
Over time, the laws regarding adoption have changed as well. In 1851, there was a strong movement to create adoption laws. "These laws rejected the common law understanding that blood relationship is crucial, and that people are joined by blood or marriage or not at all" (274). "However, in the beginning the procedure for adopting a child was not much different from procedures for buying or selling a cornfield" (274). "More and more though, the rules and procedures expressed the idea that the welfare of the child was the paramount interest" (275). "Informal adoption was the norm in England and the United States before more advanced adoption laws were set. Nobody needs a court decision or a formal document to take a child into a family, feed it, raise it, and love it" (275). "Demographic change has had an important effect on adoption and adoption practices. In the nineteenth century orphans were in plentiful supply. Women died giving birth; plagues and accidents carried off fathers and mothers alike. Those who had no relatives to take care of them were sent to orphanages" (276). "Mainstream adoption in the middle of the twentieth century was quite different from nineteenth century adoption. Middle-class people were living longer. Death in childbirth had become a rare event. In the age of antibiotics, plagues and epidemics did not take nearly as many people. Because of this, in the twentieth century adoption became more and more the destiny of children whose parents did not want them or were unable to resist social and legal pressures to give up their children" (277). "It was no longer about the parents dying and leaving children orphaned. More recently, the nature of adoption has changed again, in response to changes in social norms and in demography" (278). Today it is childless middle-class couples who wish to adopt and are fairly willing to pay good money to get a baby. Now there is a shortage of babies to adopt in the United States and people are going to other countries in order to adopt (278).
The third article written by Sharon Hays is entitled, Flat Broke with Children: Women in the age of Welfare Reform." This entire article focuses on a few different aspects of welfare. The first aspect is the conservative and liberal views of welfare. "The conservative critics of welfare offered the primary fuel for negative public sentiment" (12). "They accused welfare recipients of being lazy, promiscuous, and pathologically dependent, and they argued that the welfare system encouraged those bad values with overly generous benefits and "permissive" policies that provided incentives for family dysfunction and nonwork" (12). "They believed the welfare system not only perpetuated poverty, but by promoting laziness and single parenting, actually cause it to increase" (12). "Liberal scholars have agreed that there were problems in the old welfare system and among the poor. But they have argued that any problems of morality that existed among poor families were primarily the result, rather than the cause, of economic hardship" (12). So while conservatives claimed that the "value-orientation of the welfare system and the welfare poor needed overhaul, liberals emphasized that welfare policy needed to focus on providing better economic supports for the poor" (12).
Another thing to look at are the differences between the new welfare reform and the old. "Nineteenth century poor laws established the moral distinction between the "deserving" poor and "undeserving" poor" (13). "In the old system, the benefits were so dismally low that almost all recipients had to come up with additional sources of help just to cover the cost of their most basic needs. Its policies operated to make it all the more difficult to climb out of poverty, and its recipients were stigmatized" (11). "Further, despite the crucial importance of paid work and family ties in American culture, the old welfare system did very little to help recipients manage employment, to subsidize childcare, or to include poor fathers" (11). New welfare reform came in 1996. "This established the absolute demand that mothers participate in the paid labor force, offering no exceptions to the more "virtuous" or more vulnerable women. Most significantly, by ending the entitlement to welfare benefits, this law suggested that the nation no longer believed that women and children deserved any form of special protection" (15). Women were no longer seen as the dependent of men. They were now seen as beings who can be held responsible for their own lives and breadwinning.
There are two visions of work and family life embedded in this legislation. One vision is the Work Plan. "In the Work Plan, work requirements are a way of rehabilitating mothers, transforming mothers into women who are self-sufficient, independent, productive members of society" (19). "The Family Plan, on the other hand, uses work requirements as a way of punishing mothers for their failure to get married and stay married" (19). A"ccording to the Family Plan, work requirements will teach women a lesson; they will come to know better than to get divorced or to have children out of wedlock" (19).
Hays writes, "The two competing visions embedded in welfare are directly connected to a much broader set of cultural dichotomies that haunt us all in our attempts to construct a shared vision of the good society - independence and dependence, paid work and caregiving, competitive self-interest and obligations to others, the value of the work ethic and financial successes versus the value of personal connection and community ties" (19). "Depending on one's angle of vision, welfare reform can be seen as a valorization of independence, self-sufficiency, and the work ethic. On the other hand, it can serve as a condemnation of single parenting and a reaffirmation that women's place is in the home" (20). "In conclusion, if you get rid of all the controversy and contradiction of welfare reform, at the bottom one can find a set of honorable moral principles. The worthy ideals represent collective and long-standing commitments to the values of independence, productivity, citizenship, family togetherness, social connection, and the well-being of children" (21).
The fourth article written by Fred Block and others is entitled, "The Compassion Gap in American Poverty Policy." "Our society recognizes a moral obligation to provide a helping hand to those in need, but those in poverty have been getting only the back of the hand. In reality, they receive little or no public assistance" (14).
The first question to be addressed is how countries such as Norway understand poverty. "Our government's official poverty line is quite stingy by international standards. If we used the most common international measure, which counts people who live on less than half a country's median income as poor, then almost 20 percent of the American population would be considered poor" (14). "Children in single-mother households are four times more likely to be poor in the Unites States than in Norway. These other countries all take a more comprehensive government approach to combating poverty, and they assume it is caused by economic and structural factors rather than bad behavior" (17). This is the key difference in our understandings of poverty.
The second issue to be addressed is the prevailing theory of why poor people are poor in the United States. "The common theory is that the real source of poverty is bad behavior" (16). Block writes, "Since African-American and Hispanic women and men, as well as single mothers of all ethnicity's and races, are disproportionately represented among the poor, this theory defines these people as morally deficient," (16). "Its proponents assume that anyone with enough grit and determination can escape poverty. They claim that giving people cash assistance worsens poverty by taking away their drive to improve their circumstances through work" (16).
This leads to the next issue which is how this theory operates as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Those who lack compassion have made their own predictions come true. "They begin by claiming that the poor lack moral character. They use stories of welfare cheaters to increase public concern about people getting something for nothing. Consequently, our patchwork of poorly funded programs reaches only a fraction of the poor and gives them less than they need. Those who depend on these programs must cut corners and break rules to keep their families together. This "proves" the original proposition that the poor lack moral character, and the "discovery" is used to justify ever more stringent policies. The result is a spiral of diminishing compassion and greater preoccupation with the moral failings of the poor" (18). This is how this theory is a self-fulfilling prophecy. They insist that immorality is the root cause of poverty and when assistance to the poor is no where near enough, the poor have no choice but to break some rules in order to survive. Supporters of the theory then point at these infractions and say "see the poor are bad."
The last issue is that of the American Dream. "The American Dream includes owning a single-family house, full health insurance coverage, quality child care for a four-year-old, and enough annual savings to ensure that both children can attend a public, four-year college or university" (15). "The reason that the American Dream is now beyond reach for so many families is that the price of four critical services has risen much more sharply than wages and the rate of inflation: health care, higher education, child care, and housing" (19). "To make the American Dream more accessible to the poor we need new initiatives to expand the supply of these key services while assuring their quality" (19). "This requires accelerated movement toward universal health insurance and universal availability of quality child care and preschool programs. We need to move toward universal access to higher education and we need to create new public-private partnerships to expand the supply of affordable housing for poor and working families" (19). To do all these things requires restoring the value of minimum wage. "Between 1968 and 2002, the purchasing power of the federal minimum wage fell by a third. We need to reverse this trend and assure that in the future the minimum wage continues to rise with inflation. We could establish a stable income floor by transforming our present Earned Income Tax Credit into a program that provided all poor families with sufficient income to cover food and shelter. The key to making these policy initiatives feasible is to remind our fellow citizens what true compassion requires" (19).
The last article written by Dan Clawson and Naomi Gerstel is entitled, "Caring for our Young: Child Care in Europe and the United States." In the United States working parents struggle to arrange and pay for private care. Clawson and Gerstel write, "Publicly-funded child care programs are restricted to the poor. Although most U.S. parents believe that their children receive quality care, standardized ratings find most of the care mediocre and much of it seriously inadequate" (29). "This system of child care is in great contrast to those of Europe, most specifically in France. French child care is intended primarily as early education. All children, rich and poor, immigrant or not, are part of the same national system, with the same curriculum, staffed by teachers paid good wages by the same national ministry" (30). "In contrast, staff in the United States who work in child care earned $6.61, not only considerably less than teachers but also less than parking lot attendants" (31). Consequently employee turnover averages 30 percent per year, which is not beneficial for the children.
"Recent research suggests that the quality of care for young children is poor or fair in well over half of child care settings" (34). "This low quality of care, in concert with a model of intensive mothering, means that many anxious mothers privately hunt for high-quality substitutes while trying to ensure they are not being replaced. System administrators need to patch together a variety of funding streams, each with its own regulations and paperwork. Because the current system was fashioned primarily for the affluent at one end and those being pushed off welfare at the other end, it poorly serves most of the working class and much of the middle class" (34). "The features that are common to our peer nations in Europe would presumably be a part of a new U.S. system. The programs would be publicly funded and universal, available to all, either at no cost or at a modest cost with subsidies for low-income participants, The staff would be paid about the same as public school teachers. The core programs would cover at least as many hours as the school day and "wrap-around" care would be available before and after this time. Participation in the programs would be voluntary, but the programs would be of such a high quality that a majority of children would enroll" (34). This is what has to be done to improve child care in the United States.
According to World Health Organization officials. "Every single country in the European Region with perinatal and infant mortality rates lower than the United States uses midwives as the principal and only birth attendant for at least 70 percent of all births," (813). This shows that giving birth at home with a midwife does not increase the risk of infant mortality. In fact it seems to lower infant mortality rates. "Furthermore, the introduction of hospital-based and physician-attended births was associated with a dramatic increase in the rates of puerperal fever and maternal death" (815).
There recently has been an increase in the number of parents is the United States who are choosing to have their babies at home. "One frequently cited reason that has paralleled this is the increase in obstetrical attempts to manage and augment childbirth in a "medicalized manner" (814). "20 percent of mothers delivering in the hospital setting reported that they would have preferred a nonhospital delivery" (814).
"The midwife has been labeled the "guardian of normal birth" and reaffirms the mother as the active, rather than passive, participant in home births" (816). Some parents now prefer this idea of a more interactive birth, one that they can truly get involved in. This is a big reason for why parents are opting for home births. "Lay midwives have a special body of knowledge, gained through experience and familiarity with the female body, that they pass along to women, their partners, and families during pregnancy and birth. The combination of these aspects appeals to the segment of the population that desires control over their bodies" (819).
I believe that either choice is correct and that it just depends on the individuals. Some people have the type of personality where they would rather be in a hospital, in every medical setting because it makes them feel more comfortable, even if it is no more safe. On the other hand, there are those people who would rather be in a more casual environment. Given the fact that both methods seem to be equally safe, my opinion is that neither is better but that it just depends on what you personally want.
The second article written by Lawrence Friedman is entitles, "Who are Our Children? Adoption, Past and Present." It addresses the changes in legal ties between parents and children, as well as how adoption laws have changed.
The first issue is the legal ties between parents and children. "At one time, parental control over children continued as long as the children lived; for example, parents arranged their children's marriages" (272). "In those aspects of law that deal with children, there has been a strong, long-term trend toward emancipating the child from its father and from the family in general. The separation is absolute for adult children. Adults are now under no duty to obey their parents or to take account of them in any way; even the duty to support aged and infirm parents has been evaporating" (272). The law more and more recognizes the child as a distinct individual, even when the child is just a baby or very young. "The law punishes abusive or neglectful parents. It can take children away from a bad family and give them to a good family. It has the ability to act in place of the parents. In effect, children have legal rights as against their own mothers and fathers. If the children are too young to do it themselves, the state enforces these rights" (272). "However, even though the authority of the family is weaker than it was, it is still extremely strong. The state can take a child away from the family, but it does so reluctantly and in extreme cases. Law and society clearly recognize that in general the rights of parents are sacred. Parents have less control over their children, but parent's are still at the center of their young children's lives" (273).
The second issue addressed in this article is historically, what the purpose of adoption was. "In many systems, adoption was recognized as a way to guarantee that a family with no blood children would not die out. Adoption was a well-known feature of ancient Roman society" (273). "In France, adoption allowed for even adults to be adopted in order to carry on the family name. Until 1976, parents with children were not allowed to adopt" (273). "In colonial America, adoption could be seen as children who were bound out as apprentices, which meant that from a fairly young age they were living in somebody else's household" (274).
Over time, the laws regarding adoption have changed as well. In 1851, there was a strong movement to create adoption laws. "These laws rejected the common law understanding that blood relationship is crucial, and that people are joined by blood or marriage or not at all" (274). "However, in the beginning the procedure for adopting a child was not much different from procedures for buying or selling a cornfield" (274). "More and more though, the rules and procedures expressed the idea that the welfare of the child was the paramount interest" (275). "Informal adoption was the norm in England and the United States before more advanced adoption laws were set. Nobody needs a court decision or a formal document to take a child into a family, feed it, raise it, and love it" (275). "Demographic change has had an important effect on adoption and adoption practices. In the nineteenth century orphans were in plentiful supply. Women died giving birth; plagues and accidents carried off fathers and mothers alike. Those who had no relatives to take care of them were sent to orphanages" (276). "Mainstream adoption in the middle of the twentieth century was quite different from nineteenth century adoption. Middle-class people were living longer. Death in childbirth had become a rare event. In the age of antibiotics, plagues and epidemics did not take nearly as many people. Because of this, in the twentieth century adoption became more and more the destiny of children whose parents did not want them or were unable to resist social and legal pressures to give up their children" (277). "It was no longer about the parents dying and leaving children orphaned. More recently, the nature of adoption has changed again, in response to changes in social norms and in demography" (278). Today it is childless middle-class couples who wish to adopt and are fairly willing to pay good money to get a baby. Now there is a shortage of babies to adopt in the United States and people are going to other countries in order to adopt (278).
The third article written by Sharon Hays is entitled, Flat Broke with Children: Women in the age of Welfare Reform." This entire article focuses on a few different aspects of welfare. The first aspect is the conservative and liberal views of welfare. "The conservative critics of welfare offered the primary fuel for negative public sentiment" (12). "They accused welfare recipients of being lazy, promiscuous, and pathologically dependent, and they argued that the welfare system encouraged those bad values with overly generous benefits and "permissive" policies that provided incentives for family dysfunction and nonwork" (12). "They believed the welfare system not only perpetuated poverty, but by promoting laziness and single parenting, actually cause it to increase" (12). "Liberal scholars have agreed that there were problems in the old welfare system and among the poor. But they have argued that any problems of morality that existed among poor families were primarily the result, rather than the cause, of economic hardship" (12). So while conservatives claimed that the "value-orientation of the welfare system and the welfare poor needed overhaul, liberals emphasized that welfare policy needed to focus on providing better economic supports for the poor" (12).
Another thing to look at are the differences between the new welfare reform and the old. "Nineteenth century poor laws established the moral distinction between the "deserving" poor and "undeserving" poor" (13). "In the old system, the benefits were so dismally low that almost all recipients had to come up with additional sources of help just to cover the cost of their most basic needs. Its policies operated to make it all the more difficult to climb out of poverty, and its recipients were stigmatized" (11). "Further, despite the crucial importance of paid work and family ties in American culture, the old welfare system did very little to help recipients manage employment, to subsidize childcare, or to include poor fathers" (11). New welfare reform came in 1996. "This established the absolute demand that mothers participate in the paid labor force, offering no exceptions to the more "virtuous" or more vulnerable women. Most significantly, by ending the entitlement to welfare benefits, this law suggested that the nation no longer believed that women and children deserved any form of special protection" (15). Women were no longer seen as the dependent of men. They were now seen as beings who can be held responsible for their own lives and breadwinning.
There are two visions of work and family life embedded in this legislation. One vision is the Work Plan. "In the Work Plan, work requirements are a way of rehabilitating mothers, transforming mothers into women who are self-sufficient, independent, productive members of society" (19). "The Family Plan, on the other hand, uses work requirements as a way of punishing mothers for their failure to get married and stay married" (19). A"ccording to the Family Plan, work requirements will teach women a lesson; they will come to know better than to get divorced or to have children out of wedlock" (19).
Hays writes, "The two competing visions embedded in welfare are directly connected to a much broader set of cultural dichotomies that haunt us all in our attempts to construct a shared vision of the good society - independence and dependence, paid work and caregiving, competitive self-interest and obligations to others, the value of the work ethic and financial successes versus the value of personal connection and community ties" (19). "Depending on one's angle of vision, welfare reform can be seen as a valorization of independence, self-sufficiency, and the work ethic. On the other hand, it can serve as a condemnation of single parenting and a reaffirmation that women's place is in the home" (20). "In conclusion, if you get rid of all the controversy and contradiction of welfare reform, at the bottom one can find a set of honorable moral principles. The worthy ideals represent collective and long-standing commitments to the values of independence, productivity, citizenship, family togetherness, social connection, and the well-being of children" (21).
The fourth article written by Fred Block and others is entitled, "The Compassion Gap in American Poverty Policy." "Our society recognizes a moral obligation to provide a helping hand to those in need, but those in poverty have been getting only the back of the hand. In reality, they receive little or no public assistance" (14).
The first question to be addressed is how countries such as Norway understand poverty. "Our government's official poverty line is quite stingy by international standards. If we used the most common international measure, which counts people who live on less than half a country's median income as poor, then almost 20 percent of the American population would be considered poor" (14). "Children in single-mother households are four times more likely to be poor in the Unites States than in Norway. These other countries all take a more comprehensive government approach to combating poverty, and they assume it is caused by economic and structural factors rather than bad behavior" (17). This is the key difference in our understandings of poverty.
The second issue to be addressed is the prevailing theory of why poor people are poor in the United States. "The common theory is that the real source of poverty is bad behavior" (16). Block writes, "Since African-American and Hispanic women and men, as well as single mothers of all ethnicity's and races, are disproportionately represented among the poor, this theory defines these people as morally deficient," (16). "Its proponents assume that anyone with enough grit and determination can escape poverty. They claim that giving people cash assistance worsens poverty by taking away their drive to improve their circumstances through work" (16).
This leads to the next issue which is how this theory operates as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Those who lack compassion have made their own predictions come true. "They begin by claiming that the poor lack moral character. They use stories of welfare cheaters to increase public concern about people getting something for nothing. Consequently, our patchwork of poorly funded programs reaches only a fraction of the poor and gives them less than they need. Those who depend on these programs must cut corners and break rules to keep their families together. This "proves" the original proposition that the poor lack moral character, and the "discovery" is used to justify ever more stringent policies. The result is a spiral of diminishing compassion and greater preoccupation with the moral failings of the poor" (18). This is how this theory is a self-fulfilling prophecy. They insist that immorality is the root cause of poverty and when assistance to the poor is no where near enough, the poor have no choice but to break some rules in order to survive. Supporters of the theory then point at these infractions and say "see the poor are bad."
The last issue is that of the American Dream. "The American Dream includes owning a single-family house, full health insurance coverage, quality child care for a four-year-old, and enough annual savings to ensure that both children can attend a public, four-year college or university" (15). "The reason that the American Dream is now beyond reach for so many families is that the price of four critical services has risen much more sharply than wages and the rate of inflation: health care, higher education, child care, and housing" (19). "To make the American Dream more accessible to the poor we need new initiatives to expand the supply of these key services while assuring their quality" (19). "This requires accelerated movement toward universal health insurance and universal availability of quality child care and preschool programs. We need to move toward universal access to higher education and we need to create new public-private partnerships to expand the supply of affordable housing for poor and working families" (19). To do all these things requires restoring the value of minimum wage. "Between 1968 and 2002, the purchasing power of the federal minimum wage fell by a third. We need to reverse this trend and assure that in the future the minimum wage continues to rise with inflation. We could establish a stable income floor by transforming our present Earned Income Tax Credit into a program that provided all poor families with sufficient income to cover food and shelter. The key to making these policy initiatives feasible is to remind our fellow citizens what true compassion requires" (19).
The last article written by Dan Clawson and Naomi Gerstel is entitled, "Caring for our Young: Child Care in Europe and the United States." In the United States working parents struggle to arrange and pay for private care. Clawson and Gerstel write, "Publicly-funded child care programs are restricted to the poor. Although most U.S. parents believe that their children receive quality care, standardized ratings find most of the care mediocre and much of it seriously inadequate" (29). "This system of child care is in great contrast to those of Europe, most specifically in France. French child care is intended primarily as early education. All children, rich and poor, immigrant or not, are part of the same national system, with the same curriculum, staffed by teachers paid good wages by the same national ministry" (30). "In contrast, staff in the United States who work in child care earned $6.61, not only considerably less than teachers but also less than parking lot attendants" (31). Consequently employee turnover averages 30 percent per year, which is not beneficial for the children.
"Recent research suggests that the quality of care for young children is poor or fair in well over half of child care settings" (34). "This low quality of care, in concert with a model of intensive mothering, means that many anxious mothers privately hunt for high-quality substitutes while trying to ensure they are not being replaced. System administrators need to patch together a variety of funding streams, each with its own regulations and paperwork. Because the current system was fashioned primarily for the affluent at one end and those being pushed off welfare at the other end, it poorly serves most of the working class and much of the middle class" (34). "The features that are common to our peer nations in Europe would presumably be a part of a new U.S. system. The programs would be publicly funded and universal, available to all, either at no cost or at a modest cost with subsidies for low-income participants, The staff would be paid about the same as public school teachers. The core programs would cover at least as many hours as the school day and "wrap-around" care would be available before and after this time. Participation in the programs would be voluntary, but the programs would be of such a high quality that a majority of children would enroll" (34). This is what has to be done to improve child care in the United States.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Violence in the Family
The first article about violence in the family was by Richard Felson and entitled, "Is Violence Against Women about Women or about Violence." In this article Felson addresses the genetic perspective as well as the violence perspective to understanding violence against women. The approach called the gender perspective is the perspective known to most of the general public. "Those who follow the gender perspective argue that men assault women in order to maintain their dominance" (21). "They believe that societies tolerate violence against women, leading offenders to think that they can get away with it" (21). "The reason they are able to get away with it is because victims usually do not report the incidents. They believe that this then leads to an epidemic of violence against women, most of it hidden" (21). However, there is know a new perspective called the violence perspective. The supporters of this perspective say that we should "rely on theories of violence and crime, not theories of sexism, to explain violence against women" (21).
There is prevalent evidence to support both perspectives. Felson takes the violence perspective in his book. He states that "sexism plays at most a trivial role. Typically men who commit these crimes commit other crimes as well, and their backgrounds and attitudes toward women are similar to those of other criminals" (21). Felson states that "they are versatile "bad guys" - selfish, not sexist" (21). "More support for the violence perspective is the fact that a survey revealed that husbands and wives actually hit each other with equal frequency. However, a husband is more likely to do serious damage" (21).
The gender perspective argues with the claim that wives and husbands hit each other equally. "They argue that frequency counts are misleading because wives use violence mainly to defend themselves" (22). "Homicide research does show that women are more likely to kill in self-defense than man, but police attribute only 10 percent of homicides committed by wives to self-defense" (22). This information can lend doubt to the claim from the gender perspective. "Additionally the gender perspective implies that men use violence against wives to maintain their dominance. However, a recent survey suggests that husbands are no more controlling than wives. The survey showed that men are more likely to prevent their wives from working outside the home, but women are more likely to insist on knowing who their husbands are with at all times. Overall the women are slightly more bossy" (22). This once again hurts the gender perspective. "Gender scholars have suggested that rape is used as a form of male domination and control" (23). In an influential book written on rape, Susan Brownmiller argues that rape is used to keep women in their place. "One example cited was that of the Mehinaku, a Brazilian Indian tribe, who use the threat of group rape to prevent women from observing certain male ritual objects" (23). "On the other side, scholars from the violence perspective suggest that rape is usually just sexually motivated" (23).
Personally, after reading this article I tend to lean towards the violence perspective, but that could be because the author of the article is biased toward the violence perspective and therefore provides more evidence against the theories of the gender perspective. After reading about the survey in which woman are found to be more bossy, I found the claim by the gender perspective about dominance in husbands to have many weaknesses. This claim is central to their theory, hence why I tend to agree more with the violence perspective.
The second article about violence in the family was written by Ann Jones and entitled, "Why Doesn't She Leave?" from her book Next Time, She'll Be Dead: Battering and How to Stop It. In this article, Jones addresses exactly what the title says. She looks into why peoples immediate reaction to hearing about a wife being abused is "why doesn't she leave?" and how this can be an unfair question. Jones states that "this question is not a real question. it doesn't call for an answer; it makes a judgment. It transforms a social problem into a personal transaction and pins responsibility on the victim" (131). The question suggests two ideas. "First, it suggests that help is readily available to all worthy victims and second, that this victim must not be one of the worthy victims" (132). Jones writes that the answer is the simple truth; "that she is leaving, she does leave, she left" (132). What people do is question why she doesn't leave, even after she has left. One example to make this clearer is that of Karen Straw. Karen Straw had left her abusive husband and moved with her children to a welfare motel. She wanted a divorce but couldn't afford one. She obtained orders of protection from the court, but for two years her husband continuously cam after her. "Finally in December 1986, he broke into her room, beat her, raped her at knife point in front of the children and then threatened to kill her. She got hold of a kitchen knife, stabbing and killing him" (134). While on trial, a news anchor posed the question of why she would kill him instead of just walking away (135). The thing is she had walked away. "She had tried desperately to get away from him, but a flimsy piece of paper from court was not going to keep him away" (135). She had done everything she could to get away. With the news anchor asking that question it moved attention away from the brutally violent husband and onto the wife, who was the victim.
What Jones wants to show in this article is the fact that people have still not turned their attention from the victims to the violence of men. There definitely seems to be a gender bias in this situation. The issue presented by Jones can be related to the gender vs. violence debate presented in the first article by Felson. In this case I believe this should be looked at through the gender perspective. In society their is still this view as males dominate over females, even if it is now reduced. But this underlying belief can cause the public to take the perspective that the abused wife must be passive or helpless. What Jones is showing is that this is not the truth. The women take action, but without suitable support from the government their is only so much they can do to get away from a husband who most likely will take extreme measures to get to the wife.
In my opinion, i think the question "why doesn't she leave?" is horrible. It's a way to turn attention from the faults of the system. Karen Straw did everything that the government offered to try to get away from her husband. But what the government offered feel extremely short. It showed the terrible weaknesses in the system. It is easier for the public to ask the question of why didn't she leave, and then be able to speculate about passiveness, helplessness, dependency, etc. I think the question should be "What steps do we need to take in the government, so that men like Karen's husband cannot get to her even after she has left?"
The last article relating to violence in the family is by James Ptacek and entitled, "Why Do Men Batter Their Wives." In this article Ptacek looks at the explanations made by abusive men. In the article Ptacek points out the denials and justifications men use to explain their abusive behavior. Ptacek also shows the contradictions within their explanations. For this study, Ptacek conducted interviews with 18 abusive men. There are two types of accounts that are used by the abusive men. "The first is excuses. Excuses are those accounts in which the abuser denies full responsibility for his actions" (141). "The second is justifications. Justifications are those accounts in which the abuser may accept some responsibility but denies or trivializes the wrongness of his violence" (141). Often the abuser will use both excuses and justifications, which is where contradictions will arise.
"The most common way that batterers try to excuse their violent behavior is through an appeal to loss of control" (142). "Partial or complete loss of control is usually attributed to either alcohol or drug use or from a build up of frustrations. Of the 18 men interviewed, 94% said that their abuse was a result of either drugs or alcohol, frustrations, or complete loss of control. An alcohol-drug excuse is present in 33% of the men interviewed" (142). "With these men, when asked if they would be violent towards a woman again they said no if they could stay free of alcohol and drug dependency. A frustration-aggression description of violence is present in the accounts of 67% of the men" (143). "In the accounts of 56% of the men, descriptions of the violence are presented in terms of being completely out of control" (144). "Appeals to lose of control and victim-blaming are excuses that represent denial of responsibility. On the other hand, justifications are denials of wrongdoing on the part of the offender" (145).
The first category of justification is denial of injury. These men deny or minimize the injuries the women suffered. These men say that "the woman's fears were exaggerated, or possibly they will deny that the behavior was violent" (146). "The second category of justification is failure to fulfill obligations of a good wife. Of the 18 men interviewed, 78% gave accounts falling into this category" (147).
The definitions of excuses and justifications contradict each other. "One is a denial of responsibility, while one is a denial of wrongness. Most of the 18 men made statements falling into both categories, so they were obviously contradicting themselves" (149). "With one man, in the space of a few minutes, he went from denying responsibility, to seemingly accepting responsibility while minimizing the wrongness, to denying responsibility again" (149). This is an obvious contradiction and is just the man's attempt to make the violence appear more normal.
This article addresses the gender vs. violence debate. "Excuses and justifications are "standardized within cultures" and they are "socially approved vocabularies" for avoiding blame" (151). "These rationalizations represent culturally sanctioned strategies for minimizing and denying violence against women. The excuses of loss of control and provocation are largely taken at face value by the larger public" (155). "This shows a bit of a gender bias. People readily believe the excuses of these men. Clinicians tend to label the batterers as temporarily insane. Clinicians largely accept batterers' rationalizations for the violence" (153). The issue of people believing that women create their own victimization is discussed here as well. So once again I do believe that this shows the gender side of the debate. It seems again that men seem to get off easily.
There is prevalent evidence to support both perspectives. Felson takes the violence perspective in his book. He states that "sexism plays at most a trivial role. Typically men who commit these crimes commit other crimes as well, and their backgrounds and attitudes toward women are similar to those of other criminals" (21). Felson states that "they are versatile "bad guys" - selfish, not sexist" (21). "More support for the violence perspective is the fact that a survey revealed that husbands and wives actually hit each other with equal frequency. However, a husband is more likely to do serious damage" (21).
The gender perspective argues with the claim that wives and husbands hit each other equally. "They argue that frequency counts are misleading because wives use violence mainly to defend themselves" (22). "Homicide research does show that women are more likely to kill in self-defense than man, but police attribute only 10 percent of homicides committed by wives to self-defense" (22). This information can lend doubt to the claim from the gender perspective. "Additionally the gender perspective implies that men use violence against wives to maintain their dominance. However, a recent survey suggests that husbands are no more controlling than wives. The survey showed that men are more likely to prevent their wives from working outside the home, but women are more likely to insist on knowing who their husbands are with at all times. Overall the women are slightly more bossy" (22). This once again hurts the gender perspective. "Gender scholars have suggested that rape is used as a form of male domination and control" (23). In an influential book written on rape, Susan Brownmiller argues that rape is used to keep women in their place. "One example cited was that of the Mehinaku, a Brazilian Indian tribe, who use the threat of group rape to prevent women from observing certain male ritual objects" (23). "On the other side, scholars from the violence perspective suggest that rape is usually just sexually motivated" (23).
Personally, after reading this article I tend to lean towards the violence perspective, but that could be because the author of the article is biased toward the violence perspective and therefore provides more evidence against the theories of the gender perspective. After reading about the survey in which woman are found to be more bossy, I found the claim by the gender perspective about dominance in husbands to have many weaknesses. This claim is central to their theory, hence why I tend to agree more with the violence perspective.
The second article about violence in the family was written by Ann Jones and entitled, "Why Doesn't She Leave?" from her book Next Time, She'll Be Dead: Battering and How to Stop It. In this article, Jones addresses exactly what the title says. She looks into why peoples immediate reaction to hearing about a wife being abused is "why doesn't she leave?" and how this can be an unfair question. Jones states that "this question is not a real question. it doesn't call for an answer; it makes a judgment. It transforms a social problem into a personal transaction and pins responsibility on the victim" (131). The question suggests two ideas. "First, it suggests that help is readily available to all worthy victims and second, that this victim must not be one of the worthy victims" (132). Jones writes that the answer is the simple truth; "that she is leaving, she does leave, she left" (132). What people do is question why she doesn't leave, even after she has left. One example to make this clearer is that of Karen Straw. Karen Straw had left her abusive husband and moved with her children to a welfare motel. She wanted a divorce but couldn't afford one. She obtained orders of protection from the court, but for two years her husband continuously cam after her. "Finally in December 1986, he broke into her room, beat her, raped her at knife point in front of the children and then threatened to kill her. She got hold of a kitchen knife, stabbing and killing him" (134). While on trial, a news anchor posed the question of why she would kill him instead of just walking away (135). The thing is she had walked away. "She had tried desperately to get away from him, but a flimsy piece of paper from court was not going to keep him away" (135). She had done everything she could to get away. With the news anchor asking that question it moved attention away from the brutally violent husband and onto the wife, who was the victim.
What Jones wants to show in this article is the fact that people have still not turned their attention from the victims to the violence of men. There definitely seems to be a gender bias in this situation. The issue presented by Jones can be related to the gender vs. violence debate presented in the first article by Felson. In this case I believe this should be looked at through the gender perspective. In society their is still this view as males dominate over females, even if it is now reduced. But this underlying belief can cause the public to take the perspective that the abused wife must be passive or helpless. What Jones is showing is that this is not the truth. The women take action, but without suitable support from the government their is only so much they can do to get away from a husband who most likely will take extreme measures to get to the wife.
In my opinion, i think the question "why doesn't she leave?" is horrible. It's a way to turn attention from the faults of the system. Karen Straw did everything that the government offered to try to get away from her husband. But what the government offered feel extremely short. It showed the terrible weaknesses in the system. It is easier for the public to ask the question of why didn't she leave, and then be able to speculate about passiveness, helplessness, dependency, etc. I think the question should be "What steps do we need to take in the government, so that men like Karen's husband cannot get to her even after she has left?"
The last article relating to violence in the family is by James Ptacek and entitled, "Why Do Men Batter Their Wives." In this article Ptacek looks at the explanations made by abusive men. In the article Ptacek points out the denials and justifications men use to explain their abusive behavior. Ptacek also shows the contradictions within their explanations. For this study, Ptacek conducted interviews with 18 abusive men. There are two types of accounts that are used by the abusive men. "The first is excuses. Excuses are those accounts in which the abuser denies full responsibility for his actions" (141). "The second is justifications. Justifications are those accounts in which the abuser may accept some responsibility but denies or trivializes the wrongness of his violence" (141). Often the abuser will use both excuses and justifications, which is where contradictions will arise.
"The most common way that batterers try to excuse their violent behavior is through an appeal to loss of control" (142). "Partial or complete loss of control is usually attributed to either alcohol or drug use or from a build up of frustrations. Of the 18 men interviewed, 94% said that their abuse was a result of either drugs or alcohol, frustrations, or complete loss of control. An alcohol-drug excuse is present in 33% of the men interviewed" (142). "With these men, when asked if they would be violent towards a woman again they said no if they could stay free of alcohol and drug dependency. A frustration-aggression description of violence is present in the accounts of 67% of the men" (143). "In the accounts of 56% of the men, descriptions of the violence are presented in terms of being completely out of control" (144). "Appeals to lose of control and victim-blaming are excuses that represent denial of responsibility. On the other hand, justifications are denials of wrongdoing on the part of the offender" (145).
The first category of justification is denial of injury. These men deny or minimize the injuries the women suffered. These men say that "the woman's fears were exaggerated, or possibly they will deny that the behavior was violent" (146). "The second category of justification is failure to fulfill obligations of a good wife. Of the 18 men interviewed, 78% gave accounts falling into this category" (147).
The definitions of excuses and justifications contradict each other. "One is a denial of responsibility, while one is a denial of wrongness. Most of the 18 men made statements falling into both categories, so they were obviously contradicting themselves" (149). "With one man, in the space of a few minutes, he went from denying responsibility, to seemingly accepting responsibility while minimizing the wrongness, to denying responsibility again" (149). This is an obvious contradiction and is just the man's attempt to make the violence appear more normal.
This article addresses the gender vs. violence debate. "Excuses and justifications are "standardized within cultures" and they are "socially approved vocabularies" for avoiding blame" (151). "These rationalizations represent culturally sanctioned strategies for minimizing and denying violence against women. The excuses of loss of control and provocation are largely taken at face value by the larger public" (155). "This shows a bit of a gender bias. People readily believe the excuses of these men. Clinicians tend to label the batterers as temporarily insane. Clinicians largely accept batterers' rationalizations for the violence" (153). The issue of people believing that women create their own victimization is discussed here as well. So once again I do believe that this shows the gender side of the debate. It seems again that men seem to get off easily.
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