1 - Domestic Violence, Violence against Women, and Patriarchy

Summary

Chapter One, “Domestic Violence, Violence Against Women, and Patriarchy,” examines heterosexual domestic violence with a female victim from a patriarchal perspective. This chapter argues that two forms of patriarchally styled violence-“patriarchal terrorism” (Johnson, 1995), which is an accounting of physical violence, and “coercive control” (Stark, 2007), which is an accounting of emotional violence-must be brought together in order to understand the depths and terror of domestic violence. This chapter, which is primarily theoretical rather than analytical, argues strongly that police officers need to pay closer attention to “verbal” or “noncriminal domestic” calls, because they involve real forms of violence.