Double-edged intimate relationships. When violence has a complicity between victim and executioner

• Author: Giuseppina Cersosimo
• Position: University of Salerno
• Pages: 111-126

Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braşo v

Series VII: Social Sciences • Law • Vol. 12(61) No. 1

https://doi.org/10.31926/but.ssl.2019.12.61.1.11

DOUBLE-EDGED INTIMATE RELATIONSHIPS.

WHEN VIOLENCE HAS A COMPLICITY

BETWEEN VICTIM AND EXECUTIONER

Giuseppina CERSOSIMO1

Abstract: Violence is nowadays more and more present not only in wars

and conflicts, but also in society; omnipresent across gender and generations

in everyday people’s lives, violence seems to acquire new features and

expressions and, moreover, from a structural dimension, becomes part of

about common-sense daily character life of most ordinary people. The

present study shows the results of an enquiry carried out with semi-

structured interviews. The answers point at normalization and ambivalence

of the phenomenon in which the power of both partners and from one to the

other is pivotal.

Keywords: violence, addiction, resistance, force, power.

1. Introduction

As remembered in the Spirit of Report of the Special Rapporteur on violence against

women, its causes and consequences, compiled on September 2016 (Šimonović, 2016)

there is a connection between discrimination and violence against women, as if the

former may be a fertile ground and prerequisite for the growing of the latter.

The analysis of violence against women has developed a long debate, often, for the

most part, psychological, finds its summary references, in addition to other literature

quoted elsewhere in our text, also at least in Browne, 1993; Bachman, 1994; Heise,

1998; Garcia-Moreno et al. 2005; Mibenge, 2014. Violence against women has been

historically defined as any act of “gender-based violence that results in or is likely to

result in physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats

of acts such as coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or

in private life”(United Nations General Assembly, 1993).

Over time women have started a process of reflexion and transformation with a view

to increase their empowerment, fulfil market logics and further develop their identity in

a context of mutual understanding. Unfortunately, this process has been slowed down

by men’s hesitation to look for new ways of communicating with the other sex. The

1 University of Salerno, gcersosi@unisa.it.

Bulletin of the Transilvania University o f Braşov • Series VII • Vol. 12(61) No. 1 - 2019

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relations proved to be asymmetric once again in the light of partners’ conviction that

relations are static and cannot be modified, assuming sometimes the traits of

possession. The autonomy and revocability of friendships and love relations risks

sometimes acquiring addiction traits – perceived or induced – with a subsequent

incapacity to control personal behaviour even in case of possible violence.

Over time violence has been the object of numerous analyses and debates, about its

genesis, inside or/and outside the family, distinguishing domestic violence along several

main types as physical, sexual, emotional, financial, spiritual, social abuse, and stalking

(Woodyatt, & Stephenson, 2016)2, but also with a new perspectives e.g. showing the

social reactions to intimate partner violence disclosure and associations as normal life

between woman and man (Woerner, Wyatt, & Sullivan, 2018). In front of these

behaviours women have started a process of reflection and transformation of their own

attitudes, with a view to increase their empowerment, fulfil market logics and further

develop their identity in a context of mutual understanding. Unfortunately, this process

has been slowed down by men’s hesitation to look for new ways of communicating with

the other sex. The relations proved to be asymmetric once again in the light of partners’

conviction that relations are static and cannot be modified, assuming sometimes the

traits of possession. The autonomy and revocability of friendships and love relations

risks sometimes acquiring addiction traits- perceived or induced – with a subsequent

incapacity to control personal behaviour even in case of a possible violence. In the last

years these remarks have been confirmed by a constant availability of new data on

violence against women, mainly from research conducted by women, almost always

without a reaction. And this behaviour surprises as it is displayed by from persons who

have acquired, and in many matters strengthened, a public role. During the period 1995-

2014, 102 countries conducted at least one survey addressing violence against women

that produced representative results at the national level, - either as a dedicated survey

(51 countries) or as a module attached to a wider survey (64 countries). Some countries

implemented both types of surveys. Forty-four countries undertook a survey in the

period 1995-2004 and 89 countries did so in the period 2005-2014, suggesting growing

interest in this issue. More than 40 countries conducted at least two surveys in the

period 1995-2014 (United Nations Statistics Division, 2015, p. 40).

2. The Debate on Violence

More than forty years ago Randall Collins drew attention to some elements which

were bringing a change in the dictionary of violence: In our contemporary society,

ferocious cruelty increase “(…) ascetic cruelty has had its ups and downs, cresting during

periods of mobilized (…) it is no longer part of the dominant ceremonial order, (…) but at

the same time, the dangers of callousness increase” (Collins, 1974, p. 440). it was a

warning of a progressive normalcy of the violence whose general and particular debate

moved from previously basic historical, social and political observations (Arendt, 1964;

1970; Benjamin, 1920; Sorel, 1906; Weil, 1965), to partial ones (Bell, 1960), being then

2 For interesting approach whic h connects violence against women to various ages of t heir life, from infancy

to elderly, just in 1999 the Monee project presen ted an along ages organized analysis (Monee, 1999).