Family Violence in Australia: An Analysis of its Impacts and Practical Responses

INDIVIDUAL REFLECTIVE ESSAY

Introduction

The following assignment calls for the formulation of a report reflecting the concept, attributes, conceptual framework and impacts of family violence concerning Australia’s current scenario in this aspect. Furthermore, the organisation of different practical responses for tackling such family violence would be executed.

As a triggering not-so domestic issue, family violence undergoes in every national setup and is not exclusively limited to Australia alone. The primary factor triggering this socio-personal disruption in patriarchy and its breakdown across generations, is, unfortunately, not getting a warm reception to date. Old generation folks love stability in their domains and any alteration in this same triggers major conflicts.

Essay Report

Violence refers to the creation and sustenance of chaos and threat in the social atmosphere, which is churned out of one’s adverse behaviour driven by hatred and crime (the mental aspect) which gets reflected through their intention of physically hurting, scarring, damaging and/ or even killing their respective enemy. This is a pretty pan-social issue being driven by either rage or diplomacy, but with the common motive of asserting their sole dominance over others. Traditionally, mass violence across all global parameters was exclusively driven by men while the scenario is currently attaining a balance owing to the increase in women empowerment. No form of violence, irrespective of its intention or orientation, is justifiable (DeValve, 2020).

Violence can occur at any and every setup, between knowns kins and unknown strangers, between over and underprivileged, educated and uneducated and many more. Similarly, the initiation of violence can be staged in personal, professional as well as in deserted setups. Violence can initiate in both professional and personal setups, with the latter encompassing the occurrence of family violence (Hoffman et al., 2020).

Highlighting family violence, this refers to the life/ peace-threatening atrocities arousing between family members within a familial setup, especially when the convict tries to assert their dominance therein, concerning other members abiding by their formulated indoor rules and regulations, failing which the junior members are compelled to face their allotted penalties. The family’s most influential breadwinner is mostly seen resorting to these atrocities for asserting their local dominance. This violence often turns into sexual offences when the perpetrator asserts their physical force upon their married spouse/ any other family member in the heat of the moment, that too unethically and without consent (Harman et al., 2018).

Despite belonging to the list of first-world countries being driven primarily by white men, Australian citizens are still subjected to social violence in their professional, public and personal setups. With the lingering extreme ethno-cultural racism, homophobia as well as sexism to date, atleast two out of five Australian citizens are subjected to violence right from their teen phase (at the tender age of 15 y/o). The prevalence of patriarchal violence and abuse in Australia leads to the physical assault of atleast one in a group of six women, while the assertion of one’s (patriarchal) autonomy results in the assaulting of one out of seventeen Australian men and some out of these get mentally/ physically assaulted by their wives/ girlfriends/ affairs or live-in partners. Out of these agglomerated victims, one out of two women and one out of four men experience sexual violence and harassment; while one out of six women and one out of ten men undergo physical abuse even before turning 15 years old (Voce & Boxall, 2018).

Highlighting Australia’s family violence scenario, it's pretty deep and prevalent throughout history to the present day. Australia mostly reflects nuclear family setups which primarily include the main couple and their kids. The existence of social patriarchy inflicts violence upon men by total strangers (by mostly men and minimally women) in strange and unknown setups, (which can also be in a public place); while women are the prime targets of domestic/ family violence which is inflicted upon them primarily by their former/ current partners, spouses and/ or boyfriends. In the household setups, violence usually arises out of disagreements over various personal and intimate issues as well as patriarchal intimidations (Usher et al., 2020).

Such family and domestic violence and abuses (be it physical, mental or sexual) are pretty recurrent throughout Australian households on daily bases, such that more than 50% of Australian women are still subjected to indoor violence from none other than their current partners (be it husband, boyfriend, live-in affair) almost repeatedly or atleast more than twice in their entire life. However, the considerable gradual decrease in its daily intensity has been recorded only since the last decade, which implies that the gender-based imbalanced household sanity situation could stabilise soon. Despite this gradual improvement, on average, around 2 men and 8 women get admitted to a hospitalised post-suffering daily assault from their spouses or even strangers like goons and looters almost on daily bases. Currently, around a woman per week and a man per month get killed in the aftermath of some sort of violence (be it in public or familial setups), mostly for facing the wrath of their former/ current partners (Kuskoff & Parsell, 2020).

Owing to this disturbing familial setup in Australian households, their children get constantly exposed to regular violence with the small boys’ easily intercepting the toxic traits of the male members who primarily initiate the assault. For girls, violence is mostly their aid to vengeance for failing to combat the atrocities they were forced to experience by either an adult male or female family member (for Australia, the former is responsible in most cases).

The Exchange Theory relating to family violence is based on certain derived assumptions from both the greater ‘Social Exchange Theory’ as well as the ‘Control Theory’. These Exchange Theory centric concepts, propositions and assumptions are specifically formulated to cover the explanation of every existing sort of violence and abuses prevalent in familial/ indoor/ personal setups like rape, corporal punishment, homicide, the impartation of physical scars and bruises along with the simultaneous hurling of verbal abuses against concerned individuals which exerts mental trauma upon the internally linked victims (Chaudhry & Loewenstein, 2019).

As for the basic concept of the exchange approach, as per the disciplines of sociology and anthropology, human behaviour and responses have been prolongedly stimulated through the senses of gratitude, fear and favour.

The key concerns driving the exchange approach are (Benitez et al, 2020):

• Social behaviour is driven by chronological exchanges.

• During its exchange course, individuals try their best to minimize their costs while maximizing their desirable rewards.

• Certain instances invite the acceptance of special costs for the exchange of some other beneficiaries.

• While receiving a reward from a delegate, the receiver is compelled to return them the favour later in some way or the other.

Theorists conducting in-depth research on the Exchange Model have identified its key driving factors/stimuli to be ‘costs’, ‘reciprocity’ and ‘rewards’. While rewards refer to one’s materialistic/ promotional/ reputational achievements which impart a strong sense of satisfaction, gratifications and pleasure along with boosting their promotional statuses in their respective job, relationship and social interactional lives; costs refer to their losses incurred in these same aforementioned domains related to their respective personal, corporate and public lives; which leaves them dissatisfied and disliked by others (be it by a group or an individual).

The two types of costs are (Raihani & Bshary, 2019):

• Punishments

• Being unrewarded/ unnoticed owing to the existence of more productive alternative personnels within the same personal/ public/ corporate domains.

Meanwhile, reciprocity forms the core of the social exchange approach. Briefly, individuals are trapped in the constant obligation of returning the favour they once received from anybody known/ unknown, which is the mutually core feeling that drives the communication aspect of any civilisation and does not anyway intend to impart physical/ mental harm to anybody involved at the end of financial/ communicative transaction located within the same social setup.

The Exchange Theory’s key assumption regarding family violence refers to the nature of human interaction, which is effectively driven by the motive of procuring rewards by evading every scope of penalty/ punishment’s procuration. Simplifying the same, today’s individuals often feel that they deserve a reward for conducting a good task and failing their expectations yield dire and harmful consequences for those capable of rewarding them or their good deed’s end recipients. They love to exert violence upon them to assert their intimidation quotient, owing to which the victims are compelled to behave as per their desires and the conduction of their good deeds imparts a strong sense of authority in them. Often, the demonstration of violence and intimidation against the potential rewarders is a sign of the assaulter’s attempt in evading their scope of penalty procuration as fear against social violence is often overwhelming for most unharmful individuals.

For the second key assumption driving this approach, it’s believed individual rewarding special services and treatments to the eligible candidate obligates the latter’s fulfilment of a vital task in the near/ far future in reciprocation; owing to which the latter feels compelled to fulfill the same at the earliest on being informed about the same. According to Blau, the execution of reciprocal exchange ensures the recurrence of the concerned interaction; failing which the interaction halts and discontinues abruptly. However, this situation is exceptional for extremely close-knit connections of kins, family ties, friends and those related as they tend to continue (sooner or later) even after discontinuing all of a sudden. These obligations exist for these relationships’ complexity as ‘non-conditional’ or ‘non-obligatory’ ones. This makes these relationships and bonds pretty unique, intimate and integrated to an extent when personal differences easily fade off. The mesh of these relationships relies upon their persistence, which ultimately solidifies till the end to form the individual’s niche social structure. As per the nature of family ties (including legal, blood and kin types), it’s impossible to rip apart the conductorly ritual of annual/ monthly/ weekly/ daily/ momentarily communications as here, reciprocity is inevitable. It’s rather easier for an individual to break all their ties with a friend, colleague or a well-known Samaritan; owing to the sudden patternal shifts in their interactional nature, range and/ or longevity. However, a breakup in a relationship/ marriage bears a certain proportion of emotional and mental trauma from both ends despite being a mutual call. As two individuals willingly and legally participate in the institute of marriage, their separation also calls for their mutual legal abidement with the separation procedures, failing which the absentees/ rule breakers incur a heavy penalty. The most inseparably dreadful phenomena have to be the sudden halting of parents-children interaction unless the child is fully grown-up or a call has been taken either individually or mutually from both sides or either of them. Yet, it’s extremely difficult to bear this separation. It’s extremely difficult to become an ex-parent over an ex-spouse.

As identified before, the cases of family violence throughout Australian households were gradually decreasing in the last decade; which unfortunately shot up to newer heights with the country’s lockdown back in 2020 as a safety response against curbing the massive outspread of the COVID-19 pandemic. It can be concluded that balanced education of both genders has prompted them to pursue their dreams and desirable careers, owing to which Australian couples don’t get to spend quality time together in their respective homes. The prolonged negligence of the piling issues led to drastic outbursts as couples were compelled to stay together over good months in the same residence, leading to either of them not being able to cope with the other’s lifestyles, tantrums and more.

Let’s take a note of its deadly impacts on a nuclear family setup:

• The household never gets to witness familial peace.

• One’s privacy is always at stake in constant disturbances.

• Individual members’ sanity gets extremely threatened to owe to their ongoing personal warzones, as a result of which they can’t control their socio-environmental behaviour.

• Children learn to verbally use foul words in any and every social setup (including their schools). This also leads to their rebellious in these setups, which further leads to their educational termination

• Partners undergo mental, physical and emotional trauma.

Let’s take a note of its deadly impacts on a joint family setup:

• The aged people lose their sanity fast and quickly fall sick for fluctuating pressure issues.

• Often, the two adult generations execute property division to resolve conflicts, which jeopardises family integrity, stable functioning and privacy.

• Children learn to verbally use foul words at any and every social setup (including their schools) and turn rebellious against their adults (against both guardians and grandparents).

• Partners undergo mental, physical and emotional trauma, which deeply impacts the entire family as well as the neighbourhood’s sanities.

• Aged people ignore taking their medicines on time out of regular disgust and no will to live.

For organising different practical responses in dealing with family violence:

• Firstly, in the case of the regular fights between two family adults, the other matured members must closely identify their existing differences in ideas, preferences, interests and overall well-being to understand what drives their regular clashes.

• They need to ensure individual members’ environmental stability (both internal and external) to identify the existence of unwanted stimuli jeopardising both the troublemakers’ and the entire family’s harmony for ensuring their earliest eviction.

• No harmful/ sharp object should be around the room/ space where things usually get heated. Harmful edibles must be replaced for combatting impulsive actions.

• Children and the aged must be kept away from these atrocities and under empathetic guidance.

• The individuals involved in the heat must be kept separately in their respective rooms for enabling their rationality to stop the prolonged heat and understand both its cause and consequences to terminate the entire issue, following which they can be allowed to interact peacefully for clearing things out. In this case, the application of both sympathy and empathy can ventilate the heat.

Conclusion

The following assignment formulated a report which reflected the concept, attributes, conceptual framework and impacts of family violence concerning Australia’s current scenario in this aspect. Furthermore, the organisation of different practical responses for tackling such family violence has been executed to ensure its effective combat.

References

Benitez, G. B., Ayala, N. F., & Frank, A. G. (2020). Industry 4.0 innovation ecosystems: An evolutionary perspective on value cocreation. International Journal of Production Economics, 228, 107735.

Chaudhry, S. J., & Loewenstein, G. (2019). Thanking, apologizing, bragging, and blaming: Responsibility exchange theory and the currency of communication. Psychological review, 126(3), 313.

DeValve, M. (2020). Reconsidering the Response to Mass Violence: Meaning, choice and human truth 1. Journal of Theoretical & Philosophical Criminology, 12(2), 80-97.

Harman, J. J., Kruk, E., & Hines, D. A. (2018). Parental alienating behaviors: An unacknowledged form of family violence. Psychological bulletin, 144(12), 1275.

Hoffman, B., Ware, J., & Shapiro, E. (2020). Assessing the threat of incel violence. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 43(7), 565-587.

Kuskoff, E., & Parsell, C. (2020). Preventing domestic violence by changing Australian gender relations: Issues and considerations. Australian Social Work, 73(2), 227-235.

Raihani, N. J., & Bshary, R. (2019). Punishment: one tool, many uses. Evolutionary Human Sciences, 1.

Usher, K., Bhullar, N., Durkin, J., Gyamfi, N., & Jackson, D. (2020). Family violence and COVID?19: Increased vulnerability and reduced options for support. International journal of mental health nursing.

Voce, I., & Boxall, H. (2018). Who reports domestic violence to police? A review of the evidence. Trends and Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice, (559), 1-16.