(1999). Psychology and Domestic Violence Around the World. American
Psychologist, 54(1) (pp.21-29).
around the world have made contributions in research, clinical assessment,
and intervention and prevention of domestic violence. Each country has
unique factors that determine the services and resources available to
battered women, children exposed to domestic violence, and abusive partners.
However, it is the interaction among gender, political structure, religious
beliefs, attitudes toward violence in general, and violence towards
women, as well as state- sponsored violence, such as civil conflicts
and wars, and the migration within and between countries, that ultimately
determine women's vulnerability and safety. This article reviews the
latest psychological research and applications to intervention and prevention
programs. An introduction to the various articles (in this issue of
American Psychologist) that compose this international perspectives
section is also included.
et al. (1997). Providing Sanctuary for Battered Women: Nicaragua's
Casas de la Mujer. Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 18(5):
of participant observation and in-depth interviews (ten with key informants
and twenty-one with battered women) was used to investigate wife battering
in Nicaragua and the Casas de la Mujer, or women's centers, that have
been established to help abused women. The results are presented within
the context of the historical and structural realities of women's lives
in Nicaragua and the sanctions and sanctuary framework of cultural analysis
of wife battering. Nicaraguan wife battering is exacerbated in the context
of cultural traditions of acceptance of wife beating, machismo, and
the recent history of warfare. Findings about the relationship context
and intervention outcomes were similar to those found in studies of
battered women and shelters in the United States. The results were generally
supportive of the framework, demonstrating the importance of women's
solidarity groups, community sanctions against domestic violence, and
sanctuary for battered women.
Kantor, G.K. & Jasinski, J.L. (1998). Sociodemographic Predictors
and Cultural Barriers to Help-Seeking Behavior by Latina and Anglo American
Battered Women. Violence and Victims, 13(4), (pp.1-15).
a national survey were used to investigate the help-seeking efforts
of 1,970 Latinas (Mexican, Mexican American, Puerto Rican) and Anglo
American women who experienced battering by intimate partners. The findings
revealed that battered Latinas were significantly younger, less educated,
and more impoverished than Anglo women. Additionally, Latinas more often
categorized their marriages as male dominated and their husbands as
heavy drinkers. Bivariate analyses showed that Latinas who sought help
were significantly more acculturated and more likely to have a heavy
drinking husband than those who did not seek help. Although battered
women were active help seekers, Latinas underutilized both informal
and formal resources relative to Anglo women, with Mexican women least
likely to seek assistance. When sociodemographic predictors of help
seeking were analyzed, being youthful and Anglo significantly increased
the odds of help-seeking efforts. Low acculturation, as measured by
preference for the Spanish language, was the only significant cultural
barrier to help seeking by Latinas. ((c) 1999 APA/PsycINFO, all rights
& McFarlane, J. (1998). Severity of Spousal and Intimate Partner
Abuse to Pregnant Hispanic Women. Journal of Health Care for the
Poor and Underserved, 9(3), (pp.248-261).
pregnant women can result in complications to maternal and child health.
This study assessed the severity of intimate male partner abuse to Hispanic
pregnant women receiving prenatal care at an urban public health department.
Subjects responded to the Severity of Violence Against Women Scale,
and provided socio-demographic data. The mean age of the 329 pregnant,
abused Hispanic women was 24 years (range 15-42 years). The women had
an average of eight years of education, annual incomes of less than
$10,000, and most spoke only Spanish. In all, 30% of the women had been
threatened with death, 18% had been threatened with a knife or gun,
80% had been shaken or roughly handled, 71% pushed or shoved, and 64%
slapped on the face and head. Pregnant, abused Hispanic women experience
abuse of sufficient severity to pose a risk to maternal and child health.
Prenatal care provides a window of opportunity for routine abuse assessment
and counseling for low-income, Hispanic pregnant women. ((c) 1998 APA/PsycINFO,
all rights reserved)
& McFarlane, J. (1998). Utilization of Police by Abused and Pregnant
Women. Violence Against Women, 4(6), (pp.677-693).
the association of the severity of abuse among pregnant Hispanic women
and their use of police as a community resource. 329 Hispanic prenatal
patients (aged 15-42 years) at urban public health clinics, who were
assessed during routine prenatal care as abused, completed the Severity
of Violence Against Women Scales (L. Marshall, 1992) and were asked
about frequency and effectiveness of their utilization of police. Of
the 23% who had used the police, 72% reported that police were very
or somewhat effective. Of the women who had used police, 37% said that
the violence had ended compared with 22% of the nonusers. Women who
had used the police in the past 12 months had experienced more severe
abuse than those women who had not. Longitudinal research is needed
to determine whether increased severity precedes or follows abused women's
use of the police so that the women may be counseled appropriately.
((c) 1999 APA/PsycINFO, all rights reserved).
K.C. (1994). Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics,
and Violence Against Women of Color. In Martha Albertson Fineman &
Rixanne Mykitiuk, (Eds.). The Public Nature of Private Violence
(pp. 93-118). Routledge, 1994.
illustrates how patterns of subordination intersect in womens
experiences of domestic violence. While the intersection of race, gender
and class constitute the primary structural elements of the experience
of many Black and Latina women in shelters for battered women, there
are other sites where structures of power intersect, including immigration
status and language barriers. Focusing on two dimensions of male violence
against womenbattering and rapethis article considers how
the experiences of women of color are frequently the product of intersecting
patterns of racism and sexism, and how these experiences tend not to
be represented within the discourse of either feminism or antiracism.
In the first part of the article, the author discusses structural intersectionality,
the ways in which the location of women of color at the intersection
of race and gender makes their actual experience of domestic violence,
rape, and remedial reform qualitatively different from that of a white
woman. The focus of the second part of the article is on political intersectionality,
where she analyzes how both feminist and antiracist politics have functioned
in tandem to marginalize the issue of violence against women of color.
At the end, the article examines the implications of the intersectional
approach within the broader scope of contemporary identity politics.