t call it quits and go home! "
These statements are typical of the feelings which dominate the surveys. In many cases, because the woman feels she cannot refuse sex because of the expectations of marriage, the husband may not think of himself as ever having raped his wife. Of course their behaviour is uncaring and insensitive, ignoring their wife's sexual needs, of which at times they appear to be oblivious. But to say this kind of unwanted sexual activity (I call it this because in many cases the women do not feel it was rape, or that it was forced on them, because they accepted it) has nothing to do with sex is to gloss over the incredibly stunted and unfulfilling personal lives women and men have compared with the happy, smiling stereotype of the TV ads. In some ways, it is surprising that it is only a minority of women who suffer sexual assault and a minority of men who perpetrate it. This fact is an optimistic sign and affirms the refusal of the oppressed, both men and women to surrender their human sympathy completely in the face of the barrage from capitalism which degrades everything including sex to money relations.
The crime statistics Brownmiller relied on showed a clear class bias towards the disadvantaged involved in rape. However the question is far more complex when we look at domestic violence. Obviously men of all classes are influenced by the sexism of society, and are likely to see marriage as a licence to dominate their wives, because unequal relations exist between men and women of all classes. However, there is debate over whether sexual abuse occurs at different rates in different social groups and if so, why this is the case.
Because of the political shift away from class politics, not just by feminists, but in the academic world and even sections of the left, the analyses and surveys are heavily oriented towards trying to prove that class plays no role. One way of doing this is to put up straw positions. Jocelynne Scutt argues that her study В«denies the theory that feelings of powerlessness and frustration solely underlie child abuse ... В»(my emphasis). Of course, these would not be sufficient to explain all abuse in the family; firstly it has to be explained why the overwhelming majority of abuse is by men towards women and adults to children. So the question of gender and attitudes to childhood, the role of the family etc have to be part of an explanation. She continues to make a more reasonable claim, that her survey does not prove these feelings В«are experienced mainly by lower socioeconomic strata men В». However, her study cannot tell us anything conclusive about the incidence of violence or reactions of individuals to their situation because it is too small a sample (312 participants) and is based on replies to a questionnaire. In another example she knocks down the argument that В«unemployment inevitably increases wife-beating В»(my emphasis). Such a statement would be absurd: today there would be a massive outbreak of marital violence, as un-employment skyrockets. But she does admit that unemployment made it more difficult to leave a violent situation, which does mean more violence for that woman than if she were well off.
There is an interesting contradiction in some of the arguments. Scutt is determined to discount economic pressures, or feelings of powerlessness arising from bad living conditions, an oppressive job and so on. She even suggests that men of higher socioeconomic position may be more violent because they internalise the social message of men's dominance more thoroughly. She speaks for many feminists when she puts the emphasis on the fact that В«fathers are rulers in their household; he who rules is powerful В». Yet when it comes to child abuse carried out by women, she accepts that feeling trapped, unable to cope and economic stress are contributing factors.
In spite of all the disclaimers about social class, in Family Violence it is accepted without question that Aboriginal communities suffer a high level of domestic violence. Liz Orr rejects the analysis that class may be significant, but then says В«violence is endemic in contemporary Aboriginal society В»- why? p> There is an assumption that if we can attribute the violence to В«colonisationВ», В«cultural subjugationВ» or В«spiritual denialВ», then it is nothing to do with socioeconomic factors, that the theories of class have been defeated. В«ColonialismВ» is presumed to be something other than imperialism, or class society, which axiomatically impacts negatively on the lives of the disadvantaged and oppressed. The fact that cultural subjugation and spiritual denial lead to increased levels of violence proves, rather than disproves, that unequal relationships between women and men can only be understood in the framework of a class analysis. This reveals a problem which occurs throughout the wri...
