History is important part of understanding today. Unfortunately it's not
cool to learn history in our fast paced society, so we repeat our errors or like Mark Twain wrote, "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme."
An advocate recommended this book,
Battered Wives, which was written in the early 70's when domestic violence was almost completely invisible to all pillars of society, yet running rampant like a hidden cancer, eating away at the nuclear family and legal and civil rights of victims. Although the book is full of stats and facts, it's a very interesting read.
I am aghast while reading about an advertisement in 1975 Vogue, "a fashion layout in which a
couple was shown alternately fighting and caressing each other. In one photograph, the male model had just walloped the female model and her face was twisted in pain. .. It merely noted that the woman's jumpsuit could
really take the heat." In 1973, Ms. magazine used the same ad for a bowling alley which said,"Have some fun. Beat your wife tonight. Then celebrate with some good food and drink with your friends." Something like this would simply not fly today, but then I remembered a mass email from earlier this year about a t-shirt being sold on Amazon.com that read
"Anti-Abortion, but Pro-Date Rape."
How about the part in the book that talks about the Anthony Storr, Britains most literary psychiatrist, explaining that "The idea of being seized and borne off by a ruthless male who will wreak his sexual will upon his helpless victim has a universal appeal to the female sex." Okay, let's think about this:
Oh yes, I would just love to have some big hairy, stinky stranger in a loin cloth, conk me over the head with a club and drag me by the hair into a cave where he gives me STD's and a bastard child. Gee sounds like fun doesn't it ladies? So I am wondering where in the world does this guy get his information, and he must not have been very lucky with the ladies; therefore, felt men must resort to control over an unwilling female in order to mate. Old school right?
Fast forward thirty-some years and I am greeted with a song over the radio from the band du jour, Hinder, called Get Stoned with lyrics about what a nut his girlfriend is because she is always yelling at him, so he tells her to "
go home, get stoned, cause the sex is so much better when your mad at me...the breakup is worth the makeup sex your giving me." Okay, so he's not a stranger seizing her off, but it appears that instead of letting her go, he likes to exert his control over her sexually the most when she is angry and wants to leave him. She must like it best that way. Perhaps the healthy couple visited Storr for a couple of psychiatric sessions. Although ads like the jumpsuit and Storr's insightful perspective on female sexuality are unacceptable today, current media messages are not far off the mark.
In order to understand the deeper dynamics of the Power and Control in domestic abuse, one must learn more about history and the prominent beliefs of the day. I do not necessarily think badly about Vogue, Storr or Hinder because they are simply a product of cultural conditioning as we all are. It would be nice to simply tell people, "hitting your spouse is not okay" or "women enjoy romance as a prelude to sex rather than force" and they get the picture, but cultural change is needed and that means swimming against the tide from an ocean that is vast and deep.
Anthony Storr Hinder's Get StonedBattered Wives
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