In Felson's article the gender pespective is the idea that violence against women occurs because of the male's feeling of dominance when abusing the female. He also mentions how within this gender perspective, or within our society in general, it is common for this female abuse to continue because the women are too scared to report the abuse, or they are blamed for the abuse. Basically the gender perspective is based on sexism. In the violent pespective, 7men do not specifically target women, they are violent men with criminal tendencies to begin with. Women are only another of their victims, and even further they only assault women behind closed doors because to hit a women is not acceptable in society. In support of the gender perspetive, Felson statest that though instances of wo7men and 7male patners hitting each other see7ms to 5be equal8, the ti7mes that wo7men hit their hus5bands is ussually in self defense. %But in the sa7me respect8, he also states that this statistic of wo7men using violence in self defense only shows that 7men are 7more violent than wo7men8, supporting the violence perspective. Again to support the gender perspective8, Felson statest that rape and the use of force is recorded to occur 7mostly 5because the 7male is looking for so7me type of do7minance over the victim. More evidence for the violence perspective is that 7men who co7m7mit violence against women do not do it because they have ill feelings towards women, but instead they have the same feelings towards the men that they would also commit crimes against. I pesonally am more inclined to believe in the gender pespective because I do believe that many cases of violence against women are not reported, either out of fear of a subsequent attack or even because the woman herself believes she deserves it. In our society it is still largely believed, both by male and females that women are to serve the man in some way, whether it be sexually or simply being a good wife, whatever that may entail.
Jone's article basically states that the poblem is not why she doesn't leave, but the fact that people ask this question. Even in cases that the victim has left, people continue to ask the same question, as if they didn't even realize that she had left. The problem is that in dealing with domestic violence, the victim is the one who is scrutinized, the female, not the male who has committed the crime. This is the problem. Towards the end of the article Jones states that the victim is seen as the one who has caused the problem8, she is not doing anything to solve the pro5ble7m 5because she is not si7mply leave8, and therefore she is responsi5ble for the pro5ble7m. This is in direct correlation to Felson's gender perspective 5becasue the perspective states that the society is sexist and violence against wo7men is overlooked or tolerated. The 5bla7me always falls on the wo7men. She 7must have done so7mething to provoke the 7male8, and she is not resolving th pro5ble7m on her own so it is all her fault. And nothing is done to analy`ze why the 7men 7might 5be actiing in this way. They are not analy`zing or looking for a way to change the actions of 7men8, instead they 5blindly 5bla7me the wo7man.
Ptacek begins by saying that the main excuse men igve is that they lost control, from alcohol, drugs or frustration. This is incongruent with findings because Ptacek says that alcohol does not lead to a loss of control, rather people act on learned behavior when intoxicated. This means that they think they are losing control because that is what most peole think, but in fact they are just using it as an excuse to do things that you shouldn't do. Inregards to frustration, Ptacek says there are many of other ways to relieve frustration, many even positive. Also the men who said that they chose violence to deal with frustration must have had other ways of dealing with it because their violence was "selective". The men also blamed the women for initiating the confrontation. As justification, these men deny their actions simply by stating that they did not "hurt" their wives, or saying that her injuries were not as bad as they had said they were. This according to Ptacek is a complete denial of their actions. This is obviously all contradicted by the real situation of the woman. Then men also have a mixture of excuses and justifications. Where some men said that they had completely lost control, they also said that they had to do something because their wife was doing something wrong. This is a blatant contradiction. He first says he doesn't know what he's doing and then he says he made a decision to do somehting. It is contradictory then and it is contradictory when men have a clear objective and goal in sight, what Ptacek says is to silence their partners, and yet they still claimed in interviews that they didn'tknow what they were doing. This article and accounts seems to point more towards the gender perspective. Though there were some ccaases where Ptacek mentions that the men were also violent with other men, which parallels the violent perspective, we are talking about women batterers. Also the main justification for these men is that their women were out of line, and thus it is their job to put them back in their place. Also there is this notion that the wife has to be a certain way and fulfill the needs of the husband, and if she does not, whether it be not cooking well or in sexual satisfaction, the husband feels he needs to punish her to correct it. THis is clearly in line with Felson's gender perspective.