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by Red Crowley
Isolating the Problem
The accusation that women provoke men's violence against
them predates the battered women's movement. This sense of
provocation is so firmly entrenched in social consciousness
that until it is meaningfully addressed, a remedy for battering
will remain elusive. Women's provocation of men's violence
becomes a point of focus (either for denial or for confirmation)
for participants at virtually every Men Stopping Violence
presentation. Impatiently they struggle through our Opening
and Introduction searching for a crack in the monologue where
they can insert the fundamental question, "Who batters
and why?" The urgency to have this question answered
speaks to the strength of our resolve to eliminate this pressing
social problem. We feel that if we can determine who or what
is responsible for the problem, we can go about crafting solutions.
We search for causes and attempt to determine responsibility.
Such work is the logical first step to creating change. Our
personal experiences have validated this problem-solving strategy.
Simply stated, our thesis might be that if x causes y in
the population, then to eliminate y, we must eradicate x.
However, the complexities of life cannot be expressed by this
simple deductive formula. Problems occur in a social context.
So when we go about seeking remedies to a problem, we naturally
derive solutions based on our understanding of that problem
and its context.
If y is Lyme disease, hunches as to the cause, x, will likely
differ depending on whether those addressing the problem are
ethnologists, evangelists, epidemiologists, attorneys, biologists,
politicians, neurologists, etc. Here the social context in
which the problem exists guides our line of inquiry and directs
us to a recognized authority for the generation of possible
causes as well as solutions. Often the track record of a given
profession gives it a kind of established credibility and
an authority to define the problem and identify possible solutions.
Thus, in the example above, evangelists and politicians would
not generally have the defining authority that epidemiologists
and biologists would in our culture.
Addressing any problem involves reckoning with this complex
interaction of the problem itself, the social context, and
the authority to frame the problem and to identify acceptable
solutions. Often our strategy for understanding what and why
yields quite straightforward and effective results: Once epidemiologists
and biologists determined that blacklegged deer ticks carry
and spread Lyme disease, they knew where to focus prevention
efforts.
What happens, however, when this strategy is applied to
social problems? Here the social context and defining authority
are, in fact, x in our logic sequence (if x causes y, then
to eliminate y, we must eradicate x). Take, for example, racism
where whites have individual and institutional power over
people of color. Here the social context is a system of beliefs
and values that maintains the dominant group's status. Those
who benefit from this system may be responsible for both the
problem-abuse of power-and the discovery of a solution. How
does the problem get defined under these circumstances?
Shifting Responsibility
When addressing issues of oppression, it is of course
not in the perceived self-interest of the oppressor group
to implicate itself in the solution. In order for their authority
to be maintained, those in power are, by design, supposed
to benefit from and enforce the disparity in power between
themselves and the oppressed. Substantive solutions to human
oppression would involve a sharing of that power-a clear threat
to the status quo. For this reason, sharing power is seldom
considered a viable solution to those wielding power. More
typically the problem is redefined in order to blame the victim.
In this way, whites scapegoat people of color for our violence
against them. Given the social context, it does not seem unnatural
to do so.
So too, when seeking solutions to men's violence against
women, people often ask, sometimes with the best of intentions,
"What did she do?" or "What was she wearing?"
Unintentional though it may be, when we problem-solve by blaming
the victim with inquiries about her behavior rather than his,
it serves to deflect attention from the agency of the defining
authority and camouflages the supporting role of the social
context-the presumption of male superiority. With amazing
ease, we look away from the violence of those in power and
side with them against their victims. Those questions directing
our attention and blame toward the victim and away from the
perpetrator are so consistent with the social context that
nothing could seem more natural.
Blaming women for men's violence against them involves a
curious reversal that declares women to have the power in
the relationship-that women control the choices of the perpetrator
of violence. As men, we can make such assertions because the
social context of male superiority gives us the power to do
so. Thus when a man maintains that his partner provoked him
to violence, he is asserting that she has the power to control
his choices. The reality is that his violent choices function
to control her.
In fact, naming the provocateur can reveal (in code) who
has the real power in the relationship. The power to name
is, of course, a manifestation of the power to define reality.
For example, when the United States, a superpower, maintained
that Grenada, a small island nation, provoked us into invading
them, we were trying to shield our overwhelming power by declaring
them to have control over our choices. Conversely, it is nearly
incomprehensible that the United States could "provoke"
Grenada to invade us (my thanks to Kathleen Carlin for this
example). Similarly, men exercise their defining authority
to declare that women provoke us to sexual assault and battery.
It is difficult to imagine women being "provoked"
by men to comparable levels of violence against us given our
overwhelming social and physical advantage. The person with
the "right" to ascribe fault is the one who has
disproportionate power (defining authority) in the relationship.
Be this as it may, buying into the belief that women provoke
the violence committed against them by men can be quite tempting.
It allays our fears that men's violence is random and capricious
("My wholesome behavior will spare me."); it gives
us a sense of satisfaction that we have played a role in solving
a major social problem; it feels safe because to ask women
to change their behavior is consistent with the social context;
and it avoids conflict with those in power.
Function vs. Cause
On the other hand, if we look at the function of men's
violence against women rather than its socially-fabricated
causes (In addition to women's behavior, unemployment, drug
and alcohol use, low self-esteem are often cited), we come
up with a very different definition of the problem and thus
different solutions. To do so, however, requires that we accept
the experience of battered women as the defining authority.
Unlike the strategy of blaming the victim, looking at the
function of men's violence is terribly anxiety producing.
Survivors from every imaginable setting tell us that men's
violence functioned to destroy their personhood and that it
served to control every aspect of their lives. So, when we
talk about a man's violence as "caused" by circumstances
and background, we make that violence seem as if it is not
under his control. But when we talk about battering as functioning
to get a certain result, we have to look at men's intentions
- men's violence against women as purposeful and calculated.
Examining the function of men's violence against women forces
us to come to grips with the fact that men want to control
women and act with intentional cruelty in order to do so.
This prospect is very disturbing and so we avoid struggling
with such ideas.
Historically, we have avoided this discomfort and explained
men's violence against women by blaming their victims. However,
that tack cannot end men's violence. Declaring women provocateurs
does not alter the function of men's violence (to control
women). It actually enhances it. Thus, despite the national
commitment to ending violence against women, one reason we
reap so few results is our widespread adherence to the myth
of provocation.
Entitlement and Provocation
Provocation is defined as "a response to a perceived
injustice; a vexation." The sense of being provoked depends
on what we feel we have coming to us-what we deserve and from
whom. I am not vexed by the fact that I did not receive the
Oscar for Best Actor this year but I do feel vexed by the
fact that my property tax went up 68% instead of the customary
5% per year. My expectations of what I am entitled to drive
my sense of injustice and my feelings of being provoked. Given
a social context portraying the subservience of women to men
as customary, how could gestures of independence by women
not be experienced by men as provocative? In a sexist world,
when women insist that power be shared, men experience it
as our being victimized and as women "asking for it."
Jim, a man in one of our classes, said it quite clearly. When
he was asked by his partner to put the deed to their house
in both their names, he told us, "She is using the fact
that the court sent me to this class to test me, and you guys
are helping her keep the pressure on." This attempt by
Jim's partner to assert her personal agency and function as
his peer was experienced by him as vexing because it threatened
his superior social status and flew in the face of the current
social context.
Paths to Justice
So how do we get ourselves out of this socially destructive
situation and end men's violence against women? I think the
process will be long and difficult because it involves a fundamental
change in our culture and will be experienced by men as turning
our world upside down. Typically, we respond to such attempts
to shift power with anger and our anger, understandably, makes
women uneasy. Our charge, then, is to learn to share power
with women and to get comfortable doing so. To make the answer
to the "why" of men's violence against women solution-based,
we must be willing to struggle with the function of that violence.
A daunting task indeed, but I would like to suggest some guidelines
to follow in our search for solutions.
- Deal with our discomfort as we look at men's violence
against women through the function lens rather than the
cause lens.
- Focus our interventions on men's accountability and women's
safety.
- As men, move out of silence and collusion about our contempt
and abuse of women and into a space of challenge, accountability,
and change.
- Experience men's accountability not only as a caring gesture
for women but also as a caring gesture for men; a call for
our humanity.
- Insist that the power to define an experience of violence
resides with the victim rather than the perpetrator.
- Understand that no amount of blame targeting the victim
will ever stop his violence.
- Assume that the current social context distorts our image
of the dynamics of battering in favor of men.
- Expect that solving social problems will, by definition,
involve challenging the status quo and ourselves.
If we can consistently and courageously hold these guidelines
in the forefront of our minds as we go about trying to end
battering, I believe that we can make substantive strides
toward our goal. Perhaps, if in fact it is what we truly desire,
eventually we can create peace in our communities.
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