Customer Reviews

Insult to Injury: Rethinking our Responses to Intimate Abuse

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

An honest and courageous look at how despite good intentions, feminist tunnel vision and success at obtaining complete criminalization of intimate abuse and violence has ignored the dynamics of such abuse. The feminist author/social worker/law school professor powerfully condemns the politically correct dogma that only men's violence warrants attention and calls for reflection by everyone on their own contribution. The one-sided view of intimate violence has resulted in frequently making the lives of women (and men) worse and in more rather than less violence, particularly for minorities. She calls for a creative solution along the lines of the restorative justice used by South Africa that would deescalate the war between men and women, result in less violence, and could lead to improved intimate relations for all of us. The question that is unanswered is if "the entrenched and very powerful" feminists (quoting Archbishop Desmond Tutu) will be willing to give up the power that their simple but inaccurate portrayal and widespread legal assumption of only men as violent has given the feminist movement.

I bought it for a college class and found it pretty interesting to read. If you would like to read about the ineffectiveness of the criminal justice system towards domestic violence, this is a great book.

I don't agree with reviewers who say Ms. Mills 'doesn't get' feminism. The problem with people who spend their careers 'getting' feminism (which judging from some of her jargon may include Mills) is that they tend not to 'get' anything else. I think some of the previous reviewers are likely to have this problem. They can quote us 10 types of patriarchy, but have no suggestions for how women can juggle professional and personal satisfaction, or other thing that actually matter.

Unfortunately, most people who laugh at the '10 types of patriarchy; argument leave the conversation right after that, denying women the insight of someone who sees the idiocy of the 'mainstream feminist' approach. Enter Mills, who has clearly spent plenty of time soaking in the petri dish of elite academic feminism but is sharp enough to realize that helping women get what they want starts with listening to them.

In this book, she addresses the unspeakable fact that domestic violence often involves two parties - both are often unhappy, but both are still there. It's earth-shatteringly obvious, but earth-shattering all the same. Mainstream feminists can't bear to face it, but the fact is that often abused women not only stay in abusive relationships and try to keep the cops from being called, but then bail their partners out and refuse to press charges.

You can wonder why, but Mills deals with a bigger question - how can the criminal justice system handle domestic violence in a way that addresses the actual needs of the parties? This doesn't mean sending women back to the wolves, but just realizing that they can speak for themselves and must be listened to.

Contrary to mainstream feminist orthodoxy, the 'violent stranger' approach to domestic violence has not done anything to make women safer, and it needs to be re-examined. I haven't found anyone else talking about this but Mills. If you're at all interested in domestic violence (as a serious problem to be addressed, not a grievance to flagellate the patriarchy over), you have to read this book. Even if you're not particularly interested in domestic violence, but are interested in seeing a discussion about 'women's issues' that deals with issues that actually matter to real women - as opposed to leftist academics married to male versions of themselves - you will find this book enlightening and intellectually exciting.

Mills' analysis of domestic abuse (and, by extension, the criminal justice system's response to such abuse) is fatally flawed...

I got it. By making an effort to skewer Mills' scholarship and to spam the review cited above, the feminists believe they can suppress an ugly truth: women do commit domestic abuse, and the social and legal systems in many developed countries are an impediment to female abusers coming to grips with that fact.

Mills' scholarship is sound enough to back up her thesis. This alone should compel those who are concerned about the larger issue of domestic violence to ask: why aren't the treatment regimes and criminal sanctions developed over the last 30 years making our society safer for everyone? Mills steps beyond the question of violence against women and looks at the larger issue; she provides what I believe is a good framework for addressing the core issue behind domestic violence, which is getting individuals to take personal responsibility for their actions. No man has a right to hit his wife, and no woman has a right to "defend" herself.

Unlike many Mills' critics, I am writing from experience. Regrettably, my family had a pattern of mutual abuse, and eventually it came to a head. I watched the mechanical processes of the social and judicial systems run roughshod over my dignity, my financial well-being, and break apart my family. During this process, the victim's advocates and the prosecutors patronized my wife and insulated her from the ugly truth that she bore responsibility for her actions.

Everyone who cares about the subject of domestic violence should read this book. Period. She smashes stereotypes and takes incredibly personal risks while doing so. I salute her.

I do not recommend this book. I feel it is not intellectually rigorous, and makes dangerous parallels between the author's relationship (as a white, college educated woman with financial resources) and the relationships in which women in poverty may experience physical, sexual and emotional abuse. Also it was insensitive to the fact that race plays a role in these dynamics - perhaps the author didn't feel she could speak to this personally; but then her approach should have been much less grandiose and over-arching.

Instead on intimate partner violence, I recommend:
America's Dream. Esmeralda Santiago.
The Turkish Lover.
Black and Blue. Anna Quindlen
Trash. Dorothy Allison
Bastard Out of Carolina.
Push. Sapphire.
Chain, Chain, Change. Evelyn White.

Mills' analysis of domestic abuse (and, by extension, the criminal justice system's response to such abuse) is fatally flawed by her failure to address the enormous empirical literature challenging the "sexually symmetry" conception of domestic abuse and her unquestioning reliance on widely criticised studies which rely solely on the Conflict Tactics Scale.

For an excellent critique of Mills' approach, see Walter Dekersdy's review of Insult to Injury in the British Journal of Criminology, vol 44, p 621 (arguing that Mills' book reflects "an inadequate understanding of feminist theories, research, policy proposals.")

Mills creates straw men of feminist criminal justice policies by misrepresenting their theoretical and empirical groundings and then knocking down the false constructs she's created. It's too bad that she didn't engage sincerely with feminist criminal justice theories and policies. There are many important conceptual and normative issues that could and should be addressed regarding the feminist criminal justice response to domestic abuse. However, by failing to engage sincerely with feminist theories, research and policy proposals, Mills misses an opportunity to move the discussion forward in a productive manner. Instead, this book simply misrepresents the feminist conception of and response to domestic abuse.

this book is nonsense. it seemed to me that the woman who wrote it is very conservative, privileged, anti-feminist. she also goes out of her way at the end of the book to talk about how she left her abuser to go be with his best friend. why that is relevant, i have no idea. bleh.

anyway, waste of time and money.