Type:	Journal Article
Title:	Commentary on Johnson's "conflict and control: gender symmetry and asymmetry in domestic violence"
Other Titles:	Violence against women
Authors:	Stark, Evan
Keywords:	Men as victims;Perpetrators;Measurement
Year:	2006
Publisher:	Sage Publications
Citation:	12 (11), November
Notes:	General overview: This US article gives a commentary on Johnson’s article on conflict and control and gender symmetry in domestic violence. Discussion:The article examines Johnson’s reframing of the debate about whether men and women are equally abusive to one of identifying ‘control’ and the ‘intimate terrorism’ that affects women as being qualitatively different (along with different harms) from the ‘common couple’ or ‘situational’ violence in which surveys show sexual parity or symmetry. It questions the definition from criminology that equates abuse with discrete episodes of force or the incident-specific violence. That is, discrete acts of violence contrasts with the experience-based accounts of battered women who report abuse as ‘ongoing’, as a pattern of intimidation, isolation, control and assault. The article discusses how Johnson provides an explanation that measures a different phenomenon. Johnson argues that population surveys measure the use of force in conflicts and so record ‘common couple’ or ‘situational’ violence. However, ‘intimate terrorism’ is committed mainly by men. ‘Intimate terrorism’ is discussed as being identical to coercive control where the control tactics are the main means of subordinating female partners. In its description and discussion of coercive control, it criticises Johnson’s resort to behaviourism in the political differences between a feminist and mainstream paradigm. Instead of seeing control as a political structure with social power and meaning, Johnson is criticised for conceptualising it as an ‘act’ that can be categorised with violence. It suggests that behaviourism leads Johnson to miss the distinction between ‘fights’ and ‘assaults’. With ‘fights’, the force is situationally placed and happens in a normative context where both parties accept the ‘physical’ as a way to advance their purposes. However, partner ‘assault’ is distinguished from ‘fights’ because of its motives, dynamics and consequences. Domestic assaults are used to suppress rather than to resolve conflicts. Conclusion: The article suggests that Johnson addresses the gap between what battered women experience and how this experience is understood. It further argues that the entrapment of women in life is not just ‘domestic’ or mainly about violence but that coercive control violates fundamental rights basic to everyday life.
URI:	https://anrows.intersearch.com.au/anrowsjspui/handle/1/13926
ISSN:	1077-8012
Appears in Collections:	Journal Articles

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