Cultural Norms and Domestic Violence

Paper Summary:

Latinos are brought up to believe that a man lost honor if his wife was unfaithful and he could regain some of this honor through the use of violence. They were also likely to send signals of acceptance of witnessed violence and to have a more favorable impression of a woman who remained in an abusive relationship. The paper shows, that in a series of archival analysis of real-world domestic violence, several themes associated with cultures of honor (emphasis on female purity, gender inequality, and familial collectivism) correlated with the cultural prevalence of domestic violence. The paper shows that there exist widespread gender-orientated misconceptions within the Latino community about the attractiveness or acceptability of violence that lead to a mismatch between people's private attitudes and their public behavior.

From the Paper:

"Most people think that domestic violence is the same, wherever it occurs, that there's no difference. That it's really the same experience regardless of country or language or culture. This is not true, if we take a comparison of a Latino household and a Buddhist household, there will be a huge difference in the two based on the domestic violence parameter. The Latino being on the higher side of the scale: violent. The traditional Latin American socialization of women encourages them to be quiet and submissive, as well as economically and psychologically dependent on men. (Vandello, J. A., & Cohen, D.Shame: Interpersonal behavior, psychopathology, and culture) The education that Latino women have, the way that they are raised and the church and the religious ideas that they grew up with influence the their role in the scepter of domestic violence."

More papers on Cultural Norms and Domestic Violence:

• Article Review # 60662 : "Domestic Violence: Article Analysis"
• Research Paper # 58042 : "Domestic Violence"
• Analytical Essay # 133072 : "Mediation and Domestic Violence"

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