Research, Policy & Practice in Family Court What’s Gender Got to Do With It?

Assessing IPV in Determinations of Children’s Best InterestsPrioritizing Social Science Data to GenderParadigm Beliefs in Family Court ProcessesJon Aaronson, PhD, LPCDivorce Conflict & Partner Abuse Solutions, LLCMadison, Wisconsin Research, Policy & Practice in Family Court What’s Gender Got to Do With It? AFCC 48th Annual Conference, Orlando, Florida June 1-4, 2011

Problem • Generic anecdotes abound about harm resulting from Family Courts’ misapplying law, such as Wisc. Stat. 767.41(5)(am)13 (“evidence of inter-spousal battery … or domestic abuse” …): • father-child restricted contact for weeks or even months and “alienation” – after purportedly limited Court scrutiny of women’s IPV allegations; • mothers and children’s “re-victimization” – by Family Court Officers’ ignorance of men’s insidious, abusive uses of power and control behind closed doors. Assessing IPV-affected Best Interests

Problem • Despite contradictory anecdotes of misguided system response to IPV, few social science data are available of IPV allegations, actual incidence, and disposition in Family Court cases. • Like the lay public, professionals’ experience/perceptions and beliefs often echo empirically unfounded, governmentally endorsed allusionsto the distribution and nature of IPV in the community at large. Assessing IPV-affected Best Interests

Problem • This is a pervasive problem of gender paradigm mind-set, which cuts across disciplines and professions: that, for all practical purposes, IPV is equivalent to Violence Against Women. For example: • Dutton, D.G., Corvo, K.N. & Hamel, J. (2009). The gender paradigm in domestic violence research and practice. Part 2: The information website of the American Bar Association, Aggression and Violent Behavior, 14, 30–38. • Perhaps “less forgivably,” the web site of the APA. Assessing IPV-affected Best Interests

Follingstad et al. (2004) showed clinical psychologists vignettes of verbal and non verbal behaviors, e.g., “asking someone for their whereabouts.” Ss more often judged scenes “abusive” when enacted by males than by females. This suggests that “professionals…asked to 'substantiate’ [abuse] may not substantiate actions equally by gender and may be primed to see [only male-perpetrated] abuse when hard evidence is lacking.” (Dutton, et al., 2008)‏ Assessing IPV-affected Best Interests

Problem • Less than one-third of 292 Mediation Satisfaction Questionnaires were returned in an Australian study comparing DV-affected and non affected, voluntary, court-based divorce mediation clients. (Davies, Hawton & Craig,1995; Davies & Ralph,1998)‏ • DV-affected clients’ relationships most closely resembled Johnston & Campbell’s (1993) separation-related DV type, i.e., “... to have been physical violence-free until the period of separation and divorce.” (Johnston and Campbell,1989). Assessing IPV-affected Best Interests

Problem • Found:“ ... males who reported abuse as a significant issue generally felt that the [mediator] did not acknowledge their concerns regarding the abuse.” • Speculated: this inattention might derive from “the mind-set adopted by the [mediators] in focusing on the females as the [only likely] victims….” Davies, et al. (1995) Assessing IPV-affected Best Interests

Problem • Davies, et al. further report and conjecture: … 78% of men who report domestic violence as a significant issue perceive both themselves and their partners as victims of physical and emotional abuse. [This] study does not allow us to know what specific acts men are referring to. ... attribution of joint responsibility is possibly a reflection of men’s denial of their responsibility for abuse. However, 42% of women also describe both themselves and their partners as victims…. This high level of joint attribution is possibly a result of self-blaming by abused women.” (Italics added)‏ (Admittedly, the researchers had no empirical support for these inferences.) Assessing IPV-affected Best Interests

What Makes Science Science ? • Scientific theory is empiricallytestable: • Results may beindependently replicated. • No necessaryagreement about the results’ meaning, implications, etc. • Assertions (hypotheses) can be falsified– refuted / proved wrong – as well as confirmed(at a given level of probability, within the limitations of the research design and data). Assessing IPV-affected Best Interests

What Makes Science Science ? • Scientific theory is changeable: • it values and accepts negative results (corrective “feedback,” more questions); • evidence can change beliefs and ways of thinking; • all the data is never in—there’s no “final analysis.” • Scientific belief systems are: • open and flexible,with • permeable boundaries between – what’s “true” today and what might be thought true tomorrow. Assessing IPV-affected Best Interests

When Did You Stop Beating Your Wife?How Gender Paradigm Ideology and Lore are Not Science • Like science, ideology is amethod … a belief system … a way of thinking. • Negative findings are devalued, denied, dismissed, rationalized, etc. • Ideology is closed, rigidly bounded, and certain. • What is true today will certainlybe true tomorrow. Assessing IPV-affected Best Interests

When Did You Stop Beating Your Wife? How Gender Paradigm Ideology and Lore are Not Science • Ideological propositions are not … • open to alternative hypotheses, or • changedbycontrary facts. • When methodology and factscontradict theory, i.e., “when prophecy fails” cognitive dissonance: • accommodate facts (revise theory), or even • change mind  abandon belief system • assimilate (revise/interpret) facts  to fit the theory Assessing IPV-affected Best Interests

Power & Control Science or Ideology? Co-habiting Adults Non Co-habiting Intimate (?) Partners Teen Dating Young Adult Dating Couples Gender neutral / inclusive references to perpetrators and victims • Heterosexual Patriarchy “Male Privilege” Self-blame/False Consciousness • Lesbian/Gay External homophobia Using “Privilege” Internalized Heterosexism Assessing IPV-affected Best Interests

Power & ControlScience or Ideology? • Are Power & Control Wheel markers – ascribed only to males – equally applicable to female intimate partners ? • Physical, sexual, and emotional abuse • Threats • Intimidation and domination • Minimization, denial, and blame • Humiliation • Jealousy, possessiveness, isolation from family and friends, stalking, relational intrusion • Using children • Male (female) “privilege” Assessing IPV-affected Best Interests

Power & ControlScience or Ideology? • Is “power and control” the single, universal motivation in all incidents and patterns of IPV… • … for any other human or social phenomenon? • What else in human behavior or experience is explainable by a single factor? • Is IPV a unique phenomenon, warranting a special (non normal social science) explanation? Assessing IPV-affected Best Interests

Few research data support a patriarchical formulation of IPV. The construct validity of core concepts, such as “power and control” is yet to be established. “When rare efforts to examine construct validity are undertaken, expected correlations among the dimensions are not found, indicating that empirically, power has yet to be validated as a construct.” (Malik and Lindahl, 1998, cited by Murphy & Eckhardt, 2005, emphasis added)‏ Assessing IPV-affected Best Interests

“…there is no conclusive research evidence to suggest that males with more sexist attitudes are more likely to be violent.... personality factors account for more of the variance in domestic violence than do beliefs about male dominance….”(Babcock, et al., 2007; italics added)‏ • "... men in [BIPs] are not more likely than non-abusive men to endorse sexist beliefs in male privilege or regarding women's roles and rights, as indicated by over a dozen…controlled studies…” (Murphy & Eckhardt, 2005)‏ Assessing IPV-affected Best Interests

Within the Duluth model, a chief cause of battering is the violent man’s socially induced misogyny and sexism. • However, “only 2% of North America males agree that it is permissible to ‘hit your wife to keep her in line,’ [and <] 10% of North American marriages are male dominant….”(Dutton, et al., 2008)‏ Assessing IPV-affected Best Interests

VAWA – Science or Ideology? • Does all heterosexual IPV consist ofViolenceAgainstWomenand(female-nurtured and protected)children? • Does all (severe) heterosexual IPV have the same: PerpetratorsVictims CausesConsequences DynamicsPatterns Remedies … always … everywhere … forever …? Assessing IPV-affected Best Interests

Normal TheoryNested Ecology (Russian Dolls) Model of Child Alienation Johnston & Kelly (2001) Assessing IPV-affected Best Interests

Normal Theory Nested Ecology (Russian Dolls) Model of Child Alienation Assessing IPV-affected Best Interests

Question and ReflectGender Paradigm Advocacy • According to gender paradigm proponents, only men can be and are truly abusive (controlling, coercive) in violent families. Thus, when it comes to IPV, feminist sociologist Michael Johnson (2005) counsels –always better to be safe than sorry: “…we need to err on the side of safety [by assuming] … all [domestic] violence [is male-on-female] intimate terrorism until proven otherwise.” (Johnson, 2005) Assessing IPV-affected Best Interests

Question and Reflect Gender Paradigm Advocacy Johnson’s (2005) support for this proposition? • … the [empirical] evidence … confirms [this “suggestion”]. • [Therefore,] we need to err on the side of safety… • ... [by assuming]…all [sic] violence [is male-on-female] • intimate terrorism • until proven otherwise. (Italics added.) (In fact – apart from shelter studies that ask severely abused women only about their male partner’s perpetration, the facts claimed in [1], [3], and [4] are false.) Assessing IPV-affected Best Interests

SolutionTo Question and Reflect • An intent of this presentation is to ask … • Family Law Attorneys, including Guardians ad Litem • Family Court Judges, Commissioners, and Professionals • Mediators • Parent Coordinators … whether their frame of reference for IPV-affected C/A litigation is research-informed and evidence-based or reflects an ideological, gender paradigm “mind-set.” Assessing IPV-affected Best Interests

Question and Reflect • To “question ‘authority’” – what “everyone knows” – about IPV-affected custody/access(C/A) disputes. • Contrast mainstream social science to ideological(“gender paradigm”) method and theory, as open and closed ways of thinkingabout IPV-affected C/A litigation. • Seriously consider long-established research data that contradicts IPV’s conventional wisdom. • Prophecies fail for good reasons. • Resist reducing and resolving cognitive dissonance with denial, rationalization, and ad hominem evasion of the issues.. Assessing IPV-affected Best Interests

Question and Reflect • Should political ideology and cultural “givens” or social science and case-specific facts inform … • Assessmentadjudicationdisposition of IPVallegations, defenses, and counter-claims in recommendations and determinations of children’s best interests? • Gender paradigm-based presumptions or research-informed and evidence-based “blind” justice? Assessing IPV-affected Best Interests

Question and Reflect • Compared to other allegations, defenses, and counter-claims arising in C/P disputes … (e.g., regarding AODA, child abuse or neglect) … does the “behind closed doors” nature of IPV warrantdifferent procedures and standards of investigation, assessment, and judicial determination? Assessing IPV-affected Best Interests

Question and Reflect Or should we insist on the same procedures and standards of thorough, evidence-based investigation, assessment, and adjudication of IPV, i.e., “… whether [or not] there is evidence of interspousal battery … or domestic abuse …” [Wisc. Stat. 767.41(5) (13)] as should occur regarding any other Children’s Code best interests factors. Assessing IPV-affected Best Interests

Question and Reflect • Is IPV ever justified/justifiable? • Is partial “responsibility” for IPV everproperly attributable to a purported victim? • Should an alleged perpetrator’s claim of reactive or responsive violence always be dismissed as only minimization or denial of all responsibility for the abuse? (Should answers differ by victim and perpetrator gender?) Assessing IPV-affected Best Interests

Question and Reflect • Should any act, incident, or result of IPV be judged equally severe to every other perpetration? • Is all IPV “battering,” aka Intimate Terrorism, aka Coercive Controlling Violence? • When and how should IPV Psand Vs be distinguishable (legally and otherwise) not only by the physical consequences of the violence? Assessing IPV-affected Best Interests

Question and Reflect • Is most IPV a zero-sum – P-or-V– phenomenon? • When and how should the “primary physical aggressor” be identified? • When might sanctioning and/or treating only the “primary physical aggressor”not be a useful recidivism-prevention strategy? Assessing IPV-affected Best Interests

Question and Reflect • To avoid “victim blaming” or for any other reason, should court professionals and hearing officers not ask such questions? • Is investigation and judicial procedure competent when it does not ask if an alleged victim may • be subjectively (normally) distorting? • be incompletely or selectively recalling? • have contributed to an incident or pattern of IPV? Assessing IPV-affected Best Interests

Question and ReflectCan IPV Have Dyadic Dynamics?If So, Should They be Treated? • Because of the insidious and persistent influence and always imminent danger to victims, posed by perpetrators’ power & control, couples counseling is statutorily prohibited as a “primary treatment” option to BIP re-education of male IPV perpetrators. • Nonetheless, wishing the abuse and violence to stop, but not necessarily wanting the relationship to end, 20%-80% of “battered” women stay, or return to their abusive partner. (Babcock, et al. 2007)‏ Assessing IPV-affected Best Interests

Question and ReflectDyadic Dynamics and What to Do About Them? • “…one stereotyped portrait of a battered woman is someone who shrinks from conflict in fear of a violent reprisal ... quick to back down from an argument, and ... overly accommodating of the abusive man's need for dominance. However, [in laboratory] studies … [among] couples that have experienced husband-to-wife violence, both partnersengage in more critical, aversive, defensive, and hostile communication ... compared to partners in distressed, but nonviolent relationships…” (Murphy & Eckhardt, 2005)‏ Assessing IPV-affected Best Interests

Question and ReflectDyadic Dynamics and What to Do About Them? • McDonald, Jouriles, Tart, and Minze (2009) studied “children's adjustment in families with severe[male perpetrated] violence toward the mother.…” asked shelter residents about their own IPV perpetration: • These female victims in shelter reported 96% of their heterosexual partners and67% of themselves ashaving engaged in “severe violence” toward the intimate partner. Assessing IPV-affected Best Interests

Question and ReflectDyadic Dynamics and What to Do About Them? • There is... considerable evidence [for] a mutual escalation theory of partner violence. ... Most notably, the correlation between the levels of aggression reported for two members of a couple are very high, often in the .6 to .7 range…. if one partner is frequently aggressive, the other partner also tends to be frequently aggressive.” (Murphy & Eckhardt, 2005) Assessing IPV-affected Best Interests

Question and ReflectDyadic Dynamics and What to Do About Them? • Studies summarized by Tolan et al. (2006): “... couples with unilateral violence reported fewerforms and acts of violencethan do bidirectional violent couples …, [and] acts … less likely to lead to injuries and further violence.” Assessing IPV-affected Best Interests

Question and ReflectDyadic Dynamics and What to Do About Them? • Capaldi & Kim (2007) compared partner violent men who remained in the in the abusive relationship to men who left and re-coupled: .... prevalence of any physical aggression toward … new partners was 32% .... for the couples who stay together, [male partner] violence ... at age 20-23 ... was just as well predicted by his partner’s prior physical aggression as by his own …. change ... in violence for each partner over time was strongly associated, indicating ... [intact] partners [tend] to [reciprocally].... increase or decrease in violence … factors related to the partner – and dyad – are critical…to the continuance of intimate partner aggression and violence. Assessing IPV-affected Best Interests

Question and ReflectDyadic Dynamics and What to Do About Them? • When SCV men are involved in gender-specific group counselling (as in BIPs), the contributions of their mates and of their IP interaction are less likely to be attended or modified. (Stith, et al., 2005)‏ • Thus, not involving both SCV partners in counselling can be less efficacious, and riskier to abused individual/s who remain coupled with situationally violent partner/s. Assessing IPV-affected Best Interests

Question and ReflectDyadic Dynamics and What to Do About Them? • In some couples, one partner’s learning nonviolence is “highly dependent on whether the other partner also stops hitting.” (Feld & Straus, 1989; Gelles & Straus, 1988)‏ Assessing IPV-affected Best Interests

Research, Policy & Practice in Family Court What’s Gender Got to Do With It?