Blame it on alcohol: ‘passing the buck’ on domestic violence and addiction

Abstract

<p>Domestic violence against women is a serious health and safety problem facing women around the world. Scholars of domestic violence have identified demographic factors such as age, number of children, family structure, unemployment, substance abuse, stress factors within the family, male partner’s educational attainment and poverty, as closely associated with domestic violence. While these factors have gained scholarly recognition, there is a dominant narrative among victims of domestic violence that “alcohol is responsible” for abusive relationships in Mamelodi, a black township near Pretoria, South Africa. Using the empirical data from Mamelodi, this article probes the narratives of female victims of domestic violence. The paper uses qualitative data in its analysis.</p>

A global review of the impact on women from men’s alcohol drinking: the need for responding with a gendered lens

“…Four studies were conducted in low-income settings (Uganda [ 40–42 ], the Democratic Republic of Congo [ 43 ]); nine from lower-middle-income countries (India [ 30 , 36 , 44 , 45 ], Nepal [ 46 , 47 ], the Middle East (Lebanon and Egypt) [ 48 ], Ghana [ 49 ], Sri Lanka [ 50 ]); seven from upper-middle-income countries (South Africa [ 29 , 34 , 51 , 52 ], Colombia [ 53 ], Brazil [ 35 ], Thailand [ 31 ]); and ten from high-income countries (Australia [ 21 , 22 , 38 , 39 , 54 ], Denmark [ 33 ], Germany [ 55 ], Lithuania [ 37 ], the United Kingdom [ 32 ], USA [ 56 ]).…”

“…Notably, many samples in the reviewed papers featured marginalised or disadvantaged populations, including women in Thailand living in refugee camps [ 31 ], populations in conflict-ridden DRC [ 43 ], and those in largely black townships in South Africa [ 29 , 34 ], rural communities in India [ 30 , 44 , 45 ], Aboriginal Australian women [ 54 ], Mexican immigrant survivors of abuse living in New York [ 56 ], young pregnant women living in urban slums in Kathmandu [ 47 ]; returned abductees from the civil war in Northern Uganda [ 40 ]; and low-income Middle Eastern families [ 48 ].…”

“…Women’s descriptions revealed that they were subject to severe forms of alcohol-related physical violence, including hitting, beating with fists and/or other objects, shoving, pushing downstairs, pulling hair, threats with weapons, burning, and throwing a woman off a balcony [ 21 , 34 , 36 , 40 , 46–48 ], with ‘beating’ the most common term used. Women also described being punched or kicked in the abdomen while pregnant [ 37 , 47 ].…”

The Public Accounts of a ‘Private’ Act: Domestic Violence in the Eyes of Mamelodi, a South African Township

“…It must be acknowledged that South Africa has a very high crime rate, domestic violence being one of the major flanks of the statistics (Machisa, 2011). This comes at a great cost to the health and lives of women (Thorpe, 2013;Mazibuko & Umejesi, 2015). Although South Africa has some of the best legal and institutional frameworks on gender rights in Africa, such as the Domestic Violence Act 116 of 1998, issues such as police inefficiency, protracted court cases and cultural impediments stand in the way of prompt punishment for offenders.…”

“…Violence as a social phenomenon is a consequence of societal failures to rein in factors inherent in society that are capable of impacting acceptable behavioural patterns. While not being structuralist, we recognise that in a society that has witnessed generations of socioeconomic alienation, high rates of alcoholism and joblessness, extraneous social stresses are bound to affect patterns of behaviour in which frustrations create tensions capable of altering intimate relationships (Mazibuko & Umejesi, 2015).…”