Domestic Violence and Social Work

Date01 February 2001
Published date01 February 2001
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/14668203200100006
Pages41-42
AuthorEllen Malos
Subject MatterHealth & social care,Sociology
The Journal of Adult Protection Volume 3 Issue 1 • February 2001 © Pavilion Publishing (Brighton) Limited 41
Domestic
Violence and
Social Work
Julie Pryke and
Martin Thomas
Aldershot: Ashgate
Publishing Limited, 1998
ISBN: 1 85742 357 7
Book review
This is a useful book for social and community workers
and other service providers or policy makers in the field
of domestic violence. Its approach is that of a handbook
containing reference to relevant legislation and broken down
by sub-headings, making it easier to consult. There is also a
useful reminder that the development of effective policies to
change the gendered balance of power within organisations is
important in order to extend equal opportunities for service
users and to give proper priority to work on domestic violence
and similar issues. This book can take a place alongside the
work of Audrey Mullender (1996) in social work education
and practitioner training.
The authors take up a broadly feminist position, seeing
‘relational’ violence as grounded in gendered inequalities of
power and directed primarily, though not exclusively, by men
towards women. The initial chapters draw on the growing
body of literature on the subject, exploring a range of explana-
tions for domestic abuse and the history of domestic violence
as embedded in ‘common sense’ conceptions of relationships
between men and women in patriarchal institutions and belief
systems. The authors trace its emergence as a public issue
through the agency of the new women’s movement and the
development of Women’s Aid in the 1970s. A definitional
discussion looks at the way in which the term ‘domestic’
suggests the context and relational aspects of the abuse, while
needing to be expanded and distinguished from other forms
of abuse taking place in a domestic or familial setting.
Similarly they see ‘violence’ as going beyond physical abuse to
denigration, threats, numerous forms of emotional abuse and
the abuse of financial and other gendered forms of power.
The rest of the book develops a critical analysis of policy,
legislation and services for domestic violence survivors and
children living with and witnessing the abuse of their mothers.
It also gives attention to issues arising from work with male
perpetrators, regarding this as both a crucial and difficult area
of preventive services. The information contained on the
legislation and policy developments in recent years, over the
range of social services, housing, police, justice, health and
welfare areas, will be a useful resource for workers and

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