violence against women

The gender perspective is based on the predication that we live in a sexist society. As a result, violence against women is often not reported to police. When it is, it is often not prosecuted and the offending male escapes punishment. This also looks at violence against women as just that...men committing violence against women. The violence perspective does not assume we live in a sexist society, just a violent one. It looks directly at statistics saying that men are more likely to commit a violent crime, and most often against other men. When they commit crimes against women, it is because they are a criminal, not a sexist.
It is my position that in order to get a full picture, you must take both perspectives together. Looking at violence as the sole fault of criminals or "bad guys" completely ignores the fact that we DO live in a sexist society. To deny it would be to move backwards from our progress during the ongoing women's movement.
Jones claims that the answer to the question “why doesn’t she leave?” (as pertains to battered women) is that they most certainly do leave. The story about Karen Straw, where she tried to separate for two years, tried to have him prosecuted for 2 years, and then ended up being beaten, raped and held hostage, tell a powerful story. The most telling factor was probably that Karen was the one who ended up being prosecuted when she finally defended herself. This story would support the gender perspective as described by Felson. It shows that it is difficult, if not impossible to fight back against a battering husband, let alone just simply leave, even though one might try.
One of the most common excuses men used, according to Ptacek, was the denial of responsibility. They would claim that they had lost control of themselves, therefore minimizing their actual responsibility in the battering. Some even cited drugs or alcohol in their loss of control. Ptacek even claimed that many of the men thought physical violence was an appropriate response to a wife’s verbal abuse. Another common excuse is that women are exaggerating their injuries. That is, the men do not beat their wives “that bad”.
The contradictions within these excuses are everywhere. Ptacek describes that most men wanted to keep their dominance. Loss of control is no excuse if your behavior patterns say otherwise. Writing threatening letters to their wives, or driving them back to their mothers so they can show them how to be a wife are a few behaviors described in the article. If battering was a “loss of control”, then these men would not be exhibiting these other sexist behaviors. It is this attempt by men to maintain dominance over women by any means necessary that supports the gender perspective. The fact that it is so accepted that men would behave like this shows the depths of our society’s misogyny.