It`s also a message that is showing up in subtle and not-so-subtle ways every day. As women have sought power in the workplace, in relationships and in society at large, they also have sought to claim physical power through fitness and sports. Fitness marketers seem to have noticed; they`re appealing to women with a much more hard-edged approach. In an ad for Nike shoes, triathlete Joanne Ernst talks as tough as the guys: ”Just do it,” she snaps, staring down her audience.
Enrollment in martial-arts classes is way up among women all across the country, as are the numbers of women taking boxing classes at once all-male bastions like Gleason`s Gym in New York City. While self-defense is a motive for some, many more are there for the physical challenge. In 1983, when dancer/choreographer Twyla Tharp took lessons at Gleason`s in preparation for the ballet ”Fait Accompli,” she was an anomaly; today Gleason`s has nearly 200 women regularly jabbing and feinting and ”working out on the bags”-up from two women regulars just five years age.
Few people would argue that gaining a sense of power in oneself-physically as well as emotionally-isn`t a good thing, or that women`s testing themselves against male standards hasn`t led to very real benefits for society as a whole. But there may be a fine line between relishing physical power and using it for not-so-positive ends-and it`s a line that, the latest studies suggest, many women in America may be dangerously close to crossing.
Recent statistics, for example, suggest that 12 million women in the U.S. own guns-a number that increased 50 percent in the last decade. Even more disturbingly, at a time when the study of family violence is shattering many of our illusions about the sanctity of our homes, research is revealing that on the home front women`s physical aggressiveness may not be the rarity it`s assumed to be.
Love and violence
The popular notion of violence is something that happens ”out there”-a random shooting in the street, an explosion from afar-but the reality is that ”all intimate relationships have a higher propensity to violence than do encounters among strangers or even acquaintances. The sad fact is that the family is the most violent social institution, with the single exception of the army in times of war,” says Murray A. Straus, professor of sociology and director of the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire. Perhaps the most controversial finding of all, says Straus, is that when it comes to violence against one`s spouse, women participate in equal numbers to men. And while 75 percent of the violence committed by women against their husbands is in acts of self-defense, 25 percent is not. And it is that 25 percent that Straus finds especially worrisome: ”It`s important to understand that men`s greater size and strength means that a man`s punch will usually produce more injury and pain than a woman`s. But that doesn`t mean that violence by women should be hidden or overlooked. It is part of the hidden violence of American family life.”
Growing numbers of studies have come to the same conclusion: An average of one-third of unmarried men and women-whether dating, engaged or living together-have been involved in physical aggression with the opposite sex. In studies of couples living together before marriage, Patricia A. Gwartney-Gibbs, associate professor of sociology at the University of Oregon, found that women were even slightly more likely than men to have thrown something, pushed, grabbed, shoved, slapped, kicked, beaten or punched their living-together partners. ”Only in the truly severe areas of assault-beating up, threatening with a knife or gun-were the men more likely to have inflicted these acts on women,” says Gwartney-Gibbs.
These conclusions are echoed by other researchers. When psychologist K. Daniel O`Leary of the State University of New York at Stony Brook and his colleagues studied more than 250 couples during their engagement periods and the first two years of marriage, they found that 44 percent of the women and 31 percent of the men reported pushing, slapping or shoving their partners at least once during the year before marriage-and that, 18 months later, the number who pushed, slapped or shoved their spouses was still ”at a rate that warrants very serious concern.
”In contrast to cases of serious physical abuse, in which the aim is to truly inflict hurt,” says O`Leary, ”much of this violence is seen almost as a means for communication. These couples seem to view physical aggression as a permissible means of expression-a fact our society needs to be very concerned about.”
It is the observation of violence as a child-along with social class, educational background and being a victim of violence oneself-that is the strongest predictor of becoming a violent adult, claim Straus and his co-author, Richard J. Gelles, professor of anthropology and sociology at the University of Rhode Island, in their new book, ”Intimate Violence” (Simon and Schuster, $19.95).
The learning experience of being physically punished is most significant, they say, but seeing your mother and father strike each other also teaches a child three lessons: That those we love are those who hit us or are people we can hit; that it is morally right to hit those we love; and if other means of getting one`s way, dealing with stress or expressing oneself don`t work, violence is permissible.
Thresholds of aggression
This sanctioning of violence can go on not only within the family but in society as well. And for women especially, there seems to have been an explosion of hyperaggressive role models in the `70s and `80s.
”On television and in the movies, women certainly seem to be hitting out more,” says New York City psychologist Loretta Walder. ”In `50s shows like
`The Honeymooners,` when Ralph got angry, he yelled, `Bam! Zoom!` but what did Alice do? She just stood there with her hands on her hips and said,
`Ralph.` In the `70s, we started seeing women in gun-toting cop roles, as in `Police Woman` or `Charlie`s Angels,` but the level of violence and danger was nothing like the `80s` `Cagney & Lacey.`
”There are also other messages now, as in `Moonlighting.` Maddie slams her door, David slams his-the door-slamming is one of the show`s trademarks, and Maddie`s and David`s means of communication. In the movie `Fatal Attraction,` a clearly psychotic woman tries to kill her lover, and the entire American population seemingly can`t get enough of the story.”
While most experts emphasize that there is no proof that the portrayal or even glorification of violence in the media actually can incite similiar actions in the public, many experts do worry that, as with the observation of violence in the family, it can raise a person`s ”comfort zone” of physical aggression.
Seeing Sigourney Weaver wield a flamethrower in ”Aliens” can`t make a woman run out of the movie theater and do something violent. ”Human beings are clearly more intelligent than that,” says Jan Stets, assistant professor of sociology at Washington State University. ”But it does add to society`s message that violence is appropriate.
”There is an attitude toward violence that`s built up over time, out of observation and experience, that can increase a person`s chances of using violent behavior in a moment of heightened emotion. Just as social learning goes on from one generation to the next within a family, there are messages that are passed on within a culture as well.”
If women are being given the message by society that they need to be more and more assertive, to seize control, to be in charge, our society needs to examine where that will take us.
Research into violence by men reinforces the notion of physical aggression as a means of control, of getting the other person to do what they wouldn`t otherwise do. It also confirms that the most egalitarian of relationships-in society and within a family-are also the least violent.
It shouldn`t come as a total surprise, then, that women struggling with unresolved issues of intimate relationships and control may be most vulnerable to the powerful and often irrational emotions that can so quickly make verbal violence turn physical.
