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Power and control

Alcohol does not cause domestic violence

by Clare Murphy PhD on January 25 2009

The link between alcohol and violence is oversimplified and creates false stereotypes. I bet if you thought of a man who perpetrated domestic violence against his female partner, you would guess he was probably drinking alcohol. In fact this assumption is supported by research that finds that men who use alcohol and who hit their partner are violent more frequently and with more severe consequences than men who do not use alcohol.

Social acceptance of the alcohol-violence link

Different cultures sanction different ways of behaving when under the influence of alcohol. Cross-cultural studies show that it is only western culture that exerts social messages that condone anti-social behaviour when drinking. In western society, drink and violence are thought to be naturally linked – caused by the loosening of brain functions that are believed to normally keep violence in check. But, there is a great deal of evidence to show that being violent when drunk is socially legitimised.

This then leads some male perpetrators of domestic violence (in western society) to drink alcohol on purpose to reduce anxiety and to muster the courage to beat their wives. As a study conducted by Coleman in 1980 showed, one man spent the day drinking and taking pills while preparing to brutally beat his wife the following day.

Alcohol and the loss of control are two common socially accepted excuses used by many men who hit their female partners. For example Gelles and Cavanaugh (2005) cited research that showed that there were men who beat their wives and then told police they lost control because they were drinking. But, when given a test, they were found not to be over the legal alcohol limit.

The myth of losing control

The link between alcohol and violence is commonly thought to lead to a loss of control. But domestic violence perpetrated by men is often deliberately aimed with a specific purpose in mind. For instance men tell researchers and stopping abuse programme facilitators that they hit their partner because they wanted her to cook the dinner on time, they wanted to stop a fight, to hurt her, to frighten or silence her, or to isolate her from family and friends.

There are men who blame alcohol and loss of control for their violence, yet simultaneously may be perpetrating an ongoing systematic pattern of non-physical forms of abuse and control. In this case, physical violence is just one tactic in a one-sided perpetration of power and control. Therefore this undermines any notion that loss of control is the key problem.

Attitudes contribute to violence

Other research notes that men who use alcohol, and beat their female partners, have attitudes that approve of aggression towards women. Or they have an underlying need for power and control over female partners.

The complex reality about men, alcohol and violence

  • Whether drinking, or not, male perpetrators may avoid dealing with relationship problems in positive ways.
  • Women’s stories show that their male partners who are intoxicated in public wait to beat her in private.
  • It is pretty rare that a man who uses alcohol, and then hits his female partner, will hit his boss.
  • Men choose who to hit, which part of the body to hit, how to hit – whether that’s a closed fist, an open hand, hair pulling, kicking or strangling.
  • Many men who drink do not hit their partner after drinking, but many of those men do hit her when sober.
  • One study found that, men who never drank, used violence against their partners more often than men who drank on occasion.
  • Importantly – many men who use alcohol never use violence against their female partners ever.

These findings completely undermine the direct causal link between alcohol and violence against women.

The masculinity-alcohol-violence link

Research conducted in New Zealand and Australia finds that media images and peer pressure links heavy drinking with a particular sought after form of masculinity – but only sought after by men who want to gain acceptance and recognition in the eyes of particular men. For those men, under-drinking is considered dishonourable and therefore breeds humiliation. The same findings hold for violence. There are men who must initiate or defend themselves with physical violence for the sole purpose of avoiding humiliation and to establish a particular form of masculine honour.

The alcohol-violence link debunked

It is evident then that alcohol does not cause domestic violence. Not all cultures show a link between alcohol and violence, rather western society, in particular, condones anti-social behaviour when drinking. This then gives those men who hit their wives a socially legitimate excuse, whereas men who drink and hit their partners also do so when sober. Two threads weave through this link between alcohol and violence – namely some men’s attitudes that it is okay to have power and control over women – and some men’s needs to practice a particular style of masculinity that guarantees rewards of honour and acceptance from particular people.

References

Bograd, Michele. (1988). How battered women and abusive men account for domestic violence: Excuses, justifications, or explanations? In G.T. Hotaling, D. Finkelhor, J.T. Kirkpatrick & M.A. Straus (Eds.), Coping with family violence: Research and policy perspectives (pp. 60-77). Newbury Park: Sage.

Coleman, Karen H. (1980). Conjugal violence: What 33 men report. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 6, 207-213.

Gelles, Richard J. & Cavanaugh, Mary M. (2005). Association is not causation: Alcohol and other drugs do not cause violence. In D.R. Loseke, R.J. Gelles & M.M. Cavanaugh (Eds.), Current controversies on family violence (2nd ed., pp. 175-189). Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Gondolf, Edward W. (1995). Alcohol abuse, wife assault, and power needs. Social Service Review, 69, 274-284.

Hill, Linda. (1999). What it means to be a lion red man: Alcohol advertising and Kiwi masculinity. Women’s Studies Journal, 15, 65-85.

Holtzworth-Munroe, Amy, Bates, Leonard, Smutzler, Natalie & Sandin, Elizabeth. (1997). A brief review of the research on husband violence: Part I: Maritally violent versus non-violent men. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 2, 65-99.

Ptacek, James. (1988). Why do men batter their wives? In K. Yllö & M. Bograd (Eds.), Feminist perspectives on wife abuse (pp. 133-157). Newbury Park: Sage.

Robertson, Neville & Busch, Ruth. (1998). The dynamics of spousal violence: Paradigms and priorities. In M. Pipe & F. Seymour (Eds.), Psychology and family law: A New Zealand perspective (pp. 47-66). Dunedin, NZ: University of Otago Press.

Tomsen, Stephen. (1997). A top night: Social protest, masculinity and the culture of drinking violence. British Journal of Criminology, 37, 90-102.

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Fear and shame: The lifeblood that keeps ‘power and control’ alive

by Clare Murphy PhD on January 23 2009

If you have had abusive life experiences it is highly possible you were left with a legacy of fear and shame. Until you embark on a journey of healing this legacy by developing awareness, wisdom and empathy for yourself and others, these feelings may have led you down one of two tracks – to conformity or to rebellion.

Conformers

For those who conform, fear and shame subordinates, leads you to do as you are told, to do as the controller (or master) commands. Conformity leads to a gradual annihilation of yourself, your life-force, your aliveness. You become hypervigilant – always walking on egg shells for fear of doing something wrong – and then getting attacked because of it. The conformist is always aware of what others might be thinking and feeling. Always watching carefully in an attempt to keep safe.

Rebellers

For those who rebel, fear and shame lead you to reject controllers. They lead to seeking out other people who similarly rebel against controllers. They lead to affiliation with ‘bad boys’ and/or ‘bad girls’. They lead to deriding and bucking the authority that would squash you. Paradoxically, though, these behaviours lead the ‘rebellious’ to creating the SAME system. A new group which also entails hierarchies consisting of controllers and followers.

Here’s the nub. Groups of ‘bad boys’ and ‘bad girls’ have hierarchies consisting of controllers and followers.

There is a pattern here . . .

Aligning yourself with other rebels

You take the same controller ideas, techniques and values with you when you hang out with ‘bad boys’ and ‘bad girls’. Someone there tells the others what to do. Wherever you are on that spectrum, means you might become that controller. Or you might become the follower.

If you become the abusive controller within your new group of ‘bad boys’ or ‘bad girls’ – your fear and shame may make you violent. It will make you use and abuse others so that you feel powerful. You will do whatever it takes to win. You will do whatever it takes to avoid feeling fear, shame, weak or vulnerable. You will demand ‘respect’ from all your followers by making them scared of you. This is the bully pathway to becoming a domestic violence perpetrator.

If you become the loyal, acquiescent follower in your new group of ‘bad boys’ or ‘bad girls’ – yet again you lose yourself. You subordinate yourself to someone else’s rules. You treat the controller as the authority, as if they are right, as if they have the right to shape who you are and what you do. You suppress your own thoughts and feelings because the controller does not want your views. Sadly, the controller can only be who they are because you and other followers support them. But you think: “There is safety with my peers, this is better than other controllers” like teachers, mothers, fathers, sports coaches telling you what to do. You believe your new friends are superior to them and so deserve your respect. You and your friends all hate those other controllers. You gang up against them. But you never admit, or don’t easily recognise, that you are scared of the new controller that you have attached yourself to. You try to please them. The rot sets in. This is a pathway to becoming a victim of domestic violence. And – ironically – this is another pathway to becoming a domestic violence perpetrator.

How to step out of the loop of power and control

Given that fear and shame are the lifeblood of one-sided power and control – for both controllers and followers – it is pretty difficult for either to muster the courage to step away from this pervasive social problem. Change requires courage.

  1. The first step towards change is awareness. You have to be honest about the ways you are losing yourself. What are the costs to you of controlling others or of aligning yourself with controllers? Do you truly feel the psychological and physical safety you had hoped for? Be honest – deep down can you actually trust the controller? Do you feel respected for your own opinions, your own values – do you even have any?
  2. The second step is naming a clear set of pro-social values for yourself to move towards. When you run away from situations without clearly defining what you are moving towards you repeat old patterns. Your new set of values needs to honour your aliveness and to honour the aliveness of others.

Linking freedom with responsibility

Some people believe they have the right to freedom. But the perpetration of one-sided power and control means TAKING freedom from others. Whereas true freedom is always accompanied by responsibility – not only for yourself – but for others.

  • True freedom entails responsibility for the rights of others as well as yourself – which entails compromise.
  • True freedom does not mean stomping on others.
  • True freedom means risking possible rejection, being scoffed at or ostracised. But who specifically are you afraid will reject you?

Often perpetrators and victims of one-sided power and control are too scared to change because they are trying to gain acceptance from other people – especially people who make them feel psychologically unsafe. Who do you try to please? Do you feel 100% free to be yourself around them?

Social responsibility

It is rare for bystanders to step in and take a stance against one-sided power and control.

Why is this?

  • Family relationships are considered private
  • Bad school boys are left to their own devices so they can ‘toughen’ up and become so-called ‘real’ men
  • Some ‘bad’ girls receive honour, prestige and acceptance from so-called friends for being violent
  • Violent boys most certainly receive such kudos from particular complicit male and female friends
  • Some consider it okay that heterosexual people to make fun of homosexual people
  • Others believe men have the right to control women
  • Yet others believe it is a parent’s right to control children by demeaning them

Many people do not understand the subtleties of power and control and the harm it causes. Some people knowingly condone this form of abuse, whilst others just don’t see it. Following the principles of Deep Ecology I consider the richness and diversity of all humans should be allowed to flourish. But one-sided power and control not only diminishes the life-force of the victim, it paradoxically diminishes the life-force of the perpetrator.

I’ll leave you with questions that Mahatma Gandhi might ask:

  • Do your actions work against others’ freedom to flourish?
  • Do your actions enable others’ freedom to flourish?

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Abusive vs healthy relationships: What’s the difference?

by Clare Murphy PhD on January 6 2009

People I meet say, “Isn’t everyone psychologically abusive sometimes?” Yes many people are. But there’s a big difference between healthy relationships and abusive relationships.

In a healthy relationship a person uses abuse on one-off occasions. You can predict that they will be caring, loving and respectful most of the time.

But in an abusive relationship a person uses abuse and control often. You can predict that they will abuse you – and that they will control you. Sometimes they are caring and loving.

One-off moments of abusiveness

In a healthy relationship the person using psychologically abusive behaviours will be abusive sometimes, not many times a day, not everyday. This person is willing to pull themselves back. They take responsibility for the harm they’ve caused. They are willing to learn – that means they are willing to be vulnerable. They are willing to grow and change – that means the relationship is a work in progress. The relationship is a creative adventure. When that person is abusive their apology means something. Their apology means something because they take real steps to build equality. Their apology means something because their behaviours change. Let’s pluck a figure out of the air – 95% of the time they are respectful.  They are willing to empathise with the pain they have caused. They compromise. There might be moments – 5% of the time – when they want things their way. Don’t we all? 

A healthy relationship takes two to tango

A healthy relationship entails two people who are willing – and do – resolve (or agree to differ) issues that crop up. Both people take responsibility for their behaviours. If one of the people wants and needs to win – this is not to the extent that the other person becomes physically and psychologically ill because of it. No one in a healthy relationship fears the other person. If they do feel fear – this will be short-lived because the other person takes responsibility and never behaves that way ever again. A healthy relationship is a safe place. A nurturing and nourishing place.

One-sided continuous pattern of abusiveness

An abusive relationship is a one-sided affair. One person is determined to get their way. They use ‘power and control’ to do so. They use a continuous pattern of behaviours over time. The behaviours are intended to dominate and to win. The behaviours are aimed at being right at all costs. The abuser intentionally chooses to use those behaviours to achieve their aim. To win. The victim must alter their behaviour but the abuser refuses to alter theirs.

The abuser does not want to resolve relationship issues

In a relationship with a control freak in charge, it is wrong to say, “it takes two to tango”. The abuser’s attitudes are destructive. The abuser might say they want to change – but they do not. They might make efforts to change – but revert. They might make a change – but add another abusive or controlling behaviour to their repertoire. The abuser has a sense of safety, the victim lives with fear. To win, the abuser ensures the victim’s self-hood must be diminished on all levels. The abuser uses any tactic to achieve their aim. Therefore, many tactics appear to be contradictory. The only constant is the intention to establish their ‘power and control’.

The victim does want to resolve relationship issues

The victim is often desperate to resolve relationship issues. They spend years trying to figure out why the abuser does what they do. They spend years altering their own behaviours. They continually try new ways to stop the abuse. This is why it is a misnomer to say that “it takes two to tango” in a relationship marked by one-sided power and control. The victim tries to figure out how to please the controller. The victim obeys. They victim resists. The victim fights. The victim lashes out in anger. The victim silences themselves. The victim pleads. The victim becomes ill – physically ill and/or psychologically ill. The victim might attempt suicide. They might attempt murder. The victim might kill themselves. They might kill the perpetrator.

What’s your story?

What are your experiences that define differences between a relationship marked by one-sided power and control and a healthy relationship where both people take responsibility for their actions and make changes accordingly? Please tell me your stories.

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