Abusive Relationships

Abusive Relationships, Patterns of Violence, the Future of the Family
Part 1
Some women remain in abusive relationships for different reasons. Some are scared to leave. Others feel that they still love the person so to leave because they are being abused would be wrong. Some see the abuse as a trade-off that comes with the security the person provides, such as money, shelter, etc. Sometimes there is a co-dependency and the person feels that life would not be any better without the person because there is going to be abuse in life no matter what. Women sometimes think they deserved it or that they made the person upset and that it was just for the man to beat or abuse them.
According to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (2017), African American women are the most likely to suffer from abuse, as 40% of black women experience violence from a partner. The characteristics of these women who are most likely to be abused is that they come from single-parent homes, broken homes, bad communities, poor socio-economic backgrounds, and drugs, alcohol and violence are part of their lives, so it is almost like it is expected: they may have had abusive childhoods, so they do not expect anything different in adulthood. They typically do not have a strong social support system.
Plus the media plays up this type of life as though it is normal. Black culture is full of examples of this kind of life, from hip hop music to TV shows and films—the lives of people tend to reflect the media that shapes them, so it is not surprising. Media plays a big part in cultivating communities. When the media is all showing the same negative images and stereotypes, people’s lives are impacted, and the culture of many African Americans is negatively impacted by these images. That is why it is so important for positive images to be presented in the media. Without them, more women are likely to continue to think this kind of abuse is normal and they will go on living with it.
Part 2
The most influencing factor impacting the future of the family will be culture. As the culture of today becomes more and more open to cohabitation, childbirth outside of marriage, and more closed off to the principles and values of religion, the family itself is going to change more and more. Today’s families tend to be mixtures of previously families that busted up: the busted up families get together with other busted up families and form mixed families. The traditional family unit is in decline because the morals and mores that defined the traditional family unit and disappearing from the modern culture. Media celebrates the homosexual family as though it were just as good if not better than the old traditional family unit. It does not matter that homosexuals cannot procreate because the culture has already accepted the idea of sex-without-procreation as normal and healthy.
It did that when it embraced birth control, which was actually set up by Margaret Sanger, who was a racist and eugenicist and wanted to use birth control to control the population of blacks and undesirables or “deplorables” as they are called today (Grossu, 2014; Reilly, 2016). But people began to like the idea of having sex without consequences. Sex without procreation became more and more popular as more and more people abandoned religion. Or they simply changed their religious principles and doctrines to accommodate the new lifestyles of the modern world. Even the Catholic Church hopped on that bandwagon in the 1960s when it held the Second Vatican Council in an effort to update the Church’s teachings to be more compatible with the modern world, as though that were somehow possible or even desirable by people who wanted to remain Catholic in principle and in faith.
The culture of the modern world has essentially given itself over to libertinism and so there is no more real hope for the family except for those people who either still come from traditional or semi-traditional families themselves, or who have been through the ringer and come out the worse for wear, finally realizing that there is something to be said for having a family and a stable unit to call one’s own because it provides support and fosters a sense of love and community and accountability and respect and duty and discipline and selflessness. All of those qualities go with marriage and religion and education and parenting.
But too many in this culture celebrate libertinism, which is self-centered. They celebrate the license to do whatever they want. They celebrate sending jobs overseas so that they can re-institute slavery and hire wage slaves in China to make the things that Americans want to buy. Americans don’t have to think about it because the slavery is not right in their face the way it was in the South in the 19th century. Plus, they can turn on their music or the shows and watch endless amount of pornography or listen to music that is sentimental or angry or so rhythmic it makes them want to get up and dance. In short, the culture has been hollowed out, just like T.S. Eliot showed it to be in his poetry of the early 20th century. Without culture, there will be nothing to fortify families. The songwriter and poet Leonard Cohen wrote, “I see the future, baby—it is murder” and that line was used by Oliver Stone in his film Natural Born Killers to show that if families want to survive the coming age they will need to be stone-cold killers, because the culture is going to be anti-family.
Part 3
Family, economics and society all make up the context of violence. There can be emotional or psychological violence, sexual violence and physical violence. Emotional violence consists of language that is abusive—remarks that put a person down repeatedly, or playing mind games with a person. A psychologically abusive person is always trying to humiliate another person or twist them all up inside so that they do not know what to think or do (National Center on Domestic and Sexual Violence, 2019). Using fear and aggression can be ways to engage in emotional and psychological violence. This type of violence is usually directed at weaker or more vulnerable people, such as women or children—because they are typically seen as more dependent and unable to defend themselves or stick up for themselves. So a lot of cases of child abuse result from this. So too does elder abuse. Elderly people are also very vulnerable to psychological abuse by their caretakers (Understanding Elder Abuse, 2019).
Sexual violence includes rape, sexual harassment, using male privilege or one’s position of power over another to get sexual favors or to make someone feel uncomfortably by using sexual remarks. The #MeToo movement was all about raising awareness about sexual violence in the workplace where many women and some men felt the situation in society had gotten out of control (North, 2019).
Economic abuse can occur whenever a person is prevented from getting a job or from becoming economically or financially independent (National Center on Domestic and Sexual Violence, 2019). It happens if the person is cut off from funds and has no access to money to support oneself. It happens if the person is only given an allowance and that allowance is used as leverage over the person. Whenever money is used as a source of power over another there is likely going to be some form of economic abuse. This happens with elderly persons, too, when they are abused by others who refuse to give them access to their own money.
Some interventions have been put in place to help alleviate these forms of violence. For instance, emotional and psychological violence has been met with initiatives at schools and workplaces that are meant to help people who are caught in these situations. There is the National Domestic Violence Hotline which can be used to report a situation of this nature. Teachers and managers are being trained to recognize this type of abuse and therapists and counselors are trained in different ways to provide therapy and counseling interventions to help people cope with this type of abuse. It is recognized as abuse and people can get help from social services to deal with it so they can get on a better footing in life.
With sexual abuse, the #MeToo movement has made a difference and now workplaces are taking notice and implementing tougher sexual harassment policies. Social media has been a big factor in raising awareness on this issue and the platform is still recognized as a good way to promote interventions to stop sexual harassment. Policies in workplaces that are being designed to address this issue include sexual harassment training and diversity and inclusivity in the workplace culture. However, sexual abuse can happen elsewhere—in the home, in schools, in any type of organization where there is a vulnerable person like a child and a person in a position of power. There is a lot of social concern about this issue so more people are watching.
With economic abuse it is harder to implement interventions on this issue. Most people do not know what it is or how it works or how to recognize it. So there is not a great deal being done about. Other than elder abuse, most people could not say how or in what situation this might happen.
These interventions that do exist can be helpful but it is really the case that more is needed—but what is the problem. More interventions are unlikely to have any impact unless they are striking in the right way. What is really needed is preventive medicine. Abuse is a problem in cultures that are decaying. Abuse does not occur in healthy cultures or societies because the people have been raised and taught to respect life, to respect others, and to be fair and just in one’s dealings.
Today’s culture is very inhumane and does not teach people to respect others or to respect oneself. It is all about Egoism and people feeling like they are entitled. If they do not get their way, they feel they have a right to let the whole world know about it, and if they want to oppress or abuse someone else then that is their right because they think the entire universe revolves around them. The culture has taught them to think that they are important and all that matters most in this world is their own will. They are taught to believe that they are the best, that they are perfect, and that everyone else needs to accept their will. Abuse happens when their will is not accepted.
There is no intervention for this but an intervention that gets to the cultural ill that is affecting society and the family and the individual. The education has become too liberal and rooted in modern philosophy. It needs to get back to first principles, to character education, to Plato and Aristotle so that children can grow up knowing what is virtuous and what is wrong. This is the only intervention that will really work in the long run.
References
Grossu, A. (2014). Margaret Sanger, racist eugenicist extraordinaire. Retrieved from https://www.frc.org/op-eds/margaret-sanger-racist-eugenicist-extraordinaire
Institute for Women’s Policy Research. (2017). Violence Against Black Women – Many Types, Far-reaching Effects. Retrieved from https://iwpr.org/violence-black-women-many-types-far-reaching-effects/
National Center on Domestic and Sexual Violence. (2019). Appropriate Sanctioning of Domestic Violence Crimes. Retrieved from http://www.ncdsv.org/images/KCSDV_AppropriateSanctioningDVCrimes.pdf
North, A. (2019). What’s next for #MeToo? This college might have the answer. Retrieved from https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/10/10/20885824/me-too-movement-sexual-assault-college-campus
Reilly, K. (2016). Read Hillary Clinton's 'Basket of Deplorables' Remarks About Donald
Trump Supporters. Retrieved from https://time.com/4486502/hillary-clinton-basket-of-deplorables-transcript/
Understanding Elder Abuse. (2019). A guide for Ohioans. Retrieved from http://www.odjfs.state.oh.us/forms/num/JFS08098/pdf/