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Ain't got no class: Universal risk theories of battering

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Notes and references

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  2. One problem with the academic footnoting conventions is that one cannot footnote silence, or ‘common knowledge’. This is similar to the problem faced several years ago of attacking justifications for the marital rape exemption, where there was little in print supporting the exemption but it was nevertheless the law virtually everywhere. See, M.D. Schwartz and G.T. Slatin (1984), ‘The Law on Marital Rape: How do Marxism and Feminism Explain its Persistence?’ALSA Forum 8: 244–264.

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  22. See, e.g. W. Breines and L. Gordon (1983), ‘The New Scholarship on Family Violence’,Signs, Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 8: 490–531; M. Schwartz, (1987), ‘Gender and Injury in Spousal Assault’,Sociological Focus, 20(1): 61–75.

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  39. J.W. Messerschmidt (1986), op. cit., p. 9.

  40. A. Jaggar (1983), op. cit., p. 222. Evidently many Marxists feel that it is classist or racist to discuss the battering of lower class women or men unless the cause can be explained within traditional categories.

  41. It is commonplace to hear such objections in sociological forums and panels. Unfortunately, explainingaway battering as less important than capitalist violence does not make it more understandable or relevant to the real problems of oppressed women, and certainly denies both a feminist praxis and a humanist one. See, e.g., D.O. Friedrichs (1982), ‘Crime, Deviance and Criminal Justice: In Search of a Radical Humanistic Perspective’,Humanity & Society 6: 200–226.

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  49. See, for example, ibid.; C. McGrath (1979) op. cit.Heroes of their Own Lives, R. E. Dobash & R.B. Dobash (1979), op. cit.; E. Stark, A. Flitcraft and W. Frazier (1979), op. cit.; J. Schwendinger and H. Schwendinger (1983), op. cit.

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  62. Ibid., pp. 95–99.

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  67. See, for example, E. Stark, A. Flitcraft and W. Frazier (1979), op. cit.

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  69. For example, the reaction of Colonial women to battering may have changed as the economy changed. See, C.D. Hemphill (1982), ‘Women in Court: Sex Role Differentiation in Salem, Massachusetts, 1636–1683’,The William and Mary Quarterly 39(1): 164–175.

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  1. Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Ohio University, 45701, Athens, OH, U.S.A.

    Martin D. Schwartz

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Schwartz, M.D. Ain't got no class: Universal risk theories of battering. Contemporary Crises 12, 373–392 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00808168

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