Interpersonal Violence In Sociology

In the class, Gender and Violence, I learned a lot about myself and how violence in relation to gender, is very dangerous. I learned more about stalking, interpersonal violence, sexual violence then I every knew before. For instance, I thought I knew all there was about interpersonal violence through studying it in a criminology course, but I only ever saw it from a theory point of view. I thought that all victims wanted to get out, but they just weren’t trying hard enough. I also learned that a lot of factors go into the mentality of someone who is a victim. In Susan Weiztman’s article, Not to People Like Us, it challenged the belief that victims weren’t trying hard enough, but that some victims just didn’t know where to go. Weiztman writes, …show more content…
Here was a woman who had escaped her abusive relationship, but still went back to him. Here was a documentary that showed police unable to do anything to help her (Power and Control). It floored me that so much was working against these women and they had no one to turn to. Also, the fact that the lack of police supports and the overall failure of the legal system was extremely disheartening. Again, throughout all of this class, a general lack of support by the police has been present. In Social Construction of Violence, Muehlenhard and Kimes discovered “if an incident does not fit the definition of any one of these groups, it will drop out of the legal system. Thus cases that result in convictions are likely to reflect the narrowest and most stereotypic definitions of sexual or domestic violence” (Muehlenhard and Kimes, pg. 237). Police are one of the main groups who define what sexual or domestic violence is. They are also frequently one of the first groups of people victims reach out to. I was always under the assumption that police would do everything oin their power to get people help, but they don’t. In the lecture on Neurobiology of Sexual Assault, Rebecca Campbell talks about second victimization. I think this theory was what made me the angriest. In her research for this lecture, Campbell talked to a detective who, when asked how he deals with sexual assaults, replied that “the stuff they say makes no sense. So no, I don’t always believe them and I tell them that” ( Rebecca Campbell). She went on to say that a lot of the time this feels like a second rape to victims. They are being blamed and cast aside because the police don’t believe them, therefore why should they even try to get justice for what happened to