Bishop, Patricia

English

Canadian Woman Studies / les cahiers de la femme (E-Journal, York University)

restraints," can be misleading. One hit is an assault. More needs to be said about the establishment of a pattern. Quotations from many survivors are used extensively with some of the speak- ers being identified by terms such as "Janine, a Latina," "Lisa is a Tlengit In- dian," "May is a Chinese-American," and "Melissa, a white woman." As well, one speaker is identified as living in a black community. Other than the chapter for lesbians, these are the only references to cultural groups that provide a sense of inclusiveness for diverse populations. This is not adequate to make it truly inclusive. Missing is any reference to the complex- ity of class, ethnicity, colour, race and physically challenging factors affecting abused women. These issues are too im- portant to have been overlooked. If the handbook is to be useful to all the abused women in this multicultural community, it must speak more directly to them of their particular life situations. Many of the useful services and re- sources named are specific to the Ameri- can reader. It would be extremely valu- able to have an appendix that gives the names and phone numbers for similar services in Canada. However, many of the suggested organizations and steps to con- tacting them are easily translated into Canadian terms. Certainly this manual would be an excellent resource for wom- en's neighbourhood drop-in centres, for the literacy programs now available to women, and wherever women gather to- gether. It fulfills a very important purpose of providing knowledge and empower- ment in a format and vocabulary truly accessible to abused women who have previously been excluded by many of the more complex texts available. It is a wel- come addition to the resources for em- powering women to make decisions about their lives, to ask for what they want, to appreciate themselves, and "to be free." GUIDE D'ANIMATION POUR ATELIERS CONTRE LA VIOLENCE Ina Motoi. Quebec, ~ditions Frangoise Marois, 1991. CONTAMINATION DE LA VIOLENCE Lucienne Bushnell et Ina Motoi. Toronto, Editions Femmes Racines [B paraitre incessamment] . Par Sylvie Clamageran Depuis sa fondation, en 1982,leRkseau des femmes du Sud de lYOntario a mis en place de nombreux services etprogrammes pour les femmes. Cette annk, le Rbeau publie un guide d'anirnation et un pro- gramme d'atelier pour lutter contre la violence ; le premier vise les adultes, le second les enfants. ~ c r i t  par Ina Motoi, le Guide d'animation pour ateliers contre la vio- lence est un outil de travail pour conscientiser les gens B la violence qui nous entoure. L'ouvrage comporte trois volets. Le premier vise B faire prendre conscience de la presence de la violence dans les mentalit& par l'analyse de la pornographie et des programmes de t616vision. Le deuxikme traite de deux manifestations de la violence dans la sociCtb : le harcklement et l'agression sexuelle. Le dernier touche la violence dans la famille, B savoir la violence conjugale et les agressions sexuelles B 1'Cgard des enfants. L'ouvrage serad'une grande utilit6pour animer des ateliers. En effet, il presente un grand nombre de sitcations et de personnages types et comporte des gnlles d'analyse, des feuilles de travail, des exercices et des questions pour des tables rondes. I1 contient en outre une bibliographie ainsi qu'une liste de personnes-ressource et d'organismes. Dhasquant les tabous et les prejuges, le Guide d'animationpour ateliers contre la violence estun document-cl6 pour aider les femmes B trouver leur pleine dimen- siond'Ctre humain, pourprotkger les droits des enfants et pour aider les hommes B prendre leurs responsabilit6s dans la re- cherche de la non-violence. L'autre publication du Rtseau, Con- tamination de la violence, oeuvre de Lucienne Bushnell et d' Ina Motoi, pro- pose un programme de sensi-bilisation B non-violence d'une semaine, destinC aux elkves des niveaux primaire et secondaire. Trois categories d'iige sont visks : 6 B 9 ans, 10 B 13 ans et 14 a 17 ans. Plut6t que de simplement &noncer la violence, le programme propose une dimarche activeoii l'elkveapprend h faire face B la violence en cinq Ctapes d'une journk chacune : identification de la vio- lence, resolution d'un conflit sans passer par la violence, prise de conscience de la presence de la violence h la tklevision et dans les images au moyen d'un visionnement critique, dkveloppement de l'estime de soi pour consmire des rela- tions saines, discussion de plans d'action individuelle et communautaire. La demarche du livre est tkologique en ce qu'elle prend en compte les diffkrents elements qui constituent l'environ-nement humain d'un individu et les possibilites d'action sur cet environ-nement. Le but est d'arriver a faire disparaitre les r6les stereotyp& de victime et d'agresseur. Les deux ouvrages sont disponibles h l'adresse suivante : Centre de recherches et de ressources pour femmes, Bureau 102, pavillon des Serres, Collkge universitaire Glendon, 2275, avenue Bayview, Toronto (Ontario), M4N 3M6; telephone: (4 16) 487-6794. WOMAN ABUSE: Sociological Perspectives Walter S. DeKeseredy and Ronald Hinch. Toronto: Thompson Educational Publishing, 1991. By Patricia Bishop It is unlikely that feminists will applaud the arrival of Woman Abuse: Sociological Perspectives. Academic feminists who teach undergraduate sociology may be pleased to have a text which gives an acceptable if rather dry and lifeless over- view. However, grassroots feminists may be left wondering whether this book gen- erates any positive change for women who have experienced abuse. The book gets off to a rather unfortu- nate start, as the authors laud "advances in the social scientific study of this prob- lem." This is exactly the epistemology which gives sociologists a bad name in the larger realm outside the discipline. The language sets up both the question- able notion of objective truth and a male- model bias which elevates demographic and statistical data over the raw experi- ences, felt life, and intuitive observations of oppressed women. It gives power to the academics who conduct surveys and ex- plain the reality of battering, rape, and other forms of woman abuse from the point of view of the researcher and hisher limited audience. VOLUME 12, NUMBER 1 Compared with the writings of Diana Russell, Andrea Dworkin, and the work of Ottawa-based Linda MacLeocl, for ex- ample, this book conveys little of the experiential world of women who are abused. They arereduced to subjects acted upon. What is crucially missing from this volume is the voice of real women, even in quotations and parenthetical informa- tion. Fire is missing, and outrage. This is truly a topic for which anger, indignation, and outrage are appropriate. The authors' "abuse typology" presents a short but staggering list of offences and victims. The writers argue forcefully that "a research agenda that limits its focus to physical assaults in the marital home of- fers an inadequate understanding of the pain and suffering women endure in West- em countries such as Canada, Britain and the U.S." DeKeseredy and Hinch point out the weaknesses of discussions of woman abuse which ignore a sociological inter- pretation, such as those which place the perpetrator in the category of psychopa- thology, or those which do so with refer- ence to the victim. These tend to be expla- nations which are based in biology or psychology and which look to individual problems or inherent biological tenden- cies, e.g., female dependence, male ag- gression and territoriality. A panoply of jargon permeates this book. The authors state that woman abuse "is a specific result of capitalist economic conditions interacting with patriarchal social relations." That would seem to beg the question of woman abuse in preindustrial societies, but the authors do not even countenance debate. They like categories, and they divide feminist soci- ologists into "left idealists" and "left real- ists," the latter so named because they believe that positive change can be inm- duced before the advent of a socialist feminist utopia. Short-term solutions are problematic because they legitimate the state which daily upholds patriarchal domination. They note that "[S] hort-term initiatives are repudiated by left idealists because they believe that social and criminal jus- tice reforms.. .do not eliminate the in- equalities of capitalism and patriarchy which are major sources of female vic- timization." In rejecting gender neutral definitions of violence, the study points out that men seriously hurt women vastly more than women hurt men. Quantitative self-re- porting surveys like the Conflict Tactics Scale Survey (CTS) do not usually record psychological abuse and the abuse of eco- nomic control, two of the most detrimen- tal and destructive forms of male social control. Most important of all, the CTS ignores sexual violence. The authors co- gently describe the liabilities of such re- search tools. The most interesting aspect of the book. was the few pages devoted to the ideology of familial patriarchy, in which traditional husbands who value wifely obedience and economic dependency are shown to be statistically more likely to be perpetra- tors of male violence. Battering is clearly supported by the ideology of the nuclear family with its diseased concept of the exalted economic role and decision-mak- ing capacity of the husband. One glaring weakness of this study is the absence of a discussion of the sexual abuse of power relationships, including sexual abuse by therapists, teachers and religious counsellors. In addition, the sec- tion on sexual harassment contributes very little to advance the topic. The chapter on corporate violence and workplace abuses promises more than it delivers and is disappointingly cursory. In settling for a "middle range" of pro- posed policy solutions, the authors evade hard questions about how Canadian soci- ety can be transformed into a realm of. equality for women. One would have to agree with Andrea Dworkin that polite and timid solutions have had predictably empty results. Levy immediately scores points for in- volving the experts - and for ascribing to the notion of writer's authority: the female survivors speaktheir proper truths, write their own stories. Dating violence needs to be explained in human terms; the personal-anecdotal orients the reader and is a necessary precursor to the empirical number-crunching of incredibly high in- cidence rates. That approximately one- third of young women are being beaten up physically, emotionally and sexually by their boyfriends has yet to be grounded in general consciousness. Levy's choice of structure is a serious attempt at enlighten- ment: the testimonies provide readers with real insight into the dynamics of dating violence. Following the personal (but always in case reference) is a selection of essays contextualizing dating violence. Judith MacFarlane writes of the exacerbated in- cidence of battering of pregnant unrnar- ried women. Foci for other essays in this section include young black women (as doubly discriminated against in power structures) and incarcerated teens (whose past sexual abuse histories shed light on their present jailed state). Only one essay in the collection is devoted entirely to date rape, and while this section is worthwhile, its minimalization in the broader scheme of dating violence counterbalances the tendency of many women's programs to over-emphasize acquaintance rape and underplay or ignore other forms of dating violence. The extreme nature and the hu- miliating effects of this violence are some- how still acceptable or excusable to many DATING VIOLENCE: Young Women in Danger Barrie Levy, ed. Seattle: The Seal Press, 1991. By Sue Carter Having established that the personal is political, we can now engage in a giant sidestep to the personal as necessary. In Dating Violence: Young Women in Dan- ger, editor Barrie Levy devotes the first quarter of her book to intimate testimo- nies written by adolescent victims of dat- ing violence (including one contribution by a mother whose daughter was stabbed to death by an over-zealous ex-boyfriend. CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME 

Woman Abuse: Sociological Perspectives, Walter S. DeKeseredy and Ronald Hinch

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Woman Abuse: Sociological Perspectives, Walter S. DeKeseredy and Ronald Hinch

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Canadian Woman Studies / les cahiers de la femme (E-Journal, York University)