Beyond Chris Brown and Rihanna: An interview with Elizabeth Mendez Berry
Jay Smooth of Ill Doctrine has a great interview up with Elizabeth Mendez Berry, who wrote a 2005 Vibe magazine article about domestic violence and the hip hop community, Love Hurts. Watch it. Seriously.
Posted by Jessica - February 14, 2009, at 07:54PM
| in
Media
,
Music
,
Popular Culture
,
Video
,
Violence Against Women
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Beyond Chris Brown and Rihanna: An interview with Elizabeth Mendez Berry.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.feministing.com/cgi-bin/movabletype/mt-tb.fcgi/11972
all the misogynistic lyrics really do feed into violence .
Really? Are we going to get as simplistic as, "oh, the rap music made the beat them"?
That perspective is not only narrow-minded, it's really holier-than-thou. Lots of music has had misogynist overtones, frankly it's probably a majority of music, and from every type of genre. Music is only part of a larger culture, it's not a drug that can brainwash people into doing something.
What if the lyrics just reflect a sub-view of masculinity? And how does this relate to Chris Brown, a rapper known for his SQUEAKY CLEAN IMAGE prior to this?
ditto
Riiight.
That's up there with "Marilyn Manson caused Columbine."
Well, Ms Mendez Berry touches on an interesting dynamic with all celebrities, which is the notion that once you've achieved something great, you have the right to do anything you want because of the greatness of your work. Fans don't want to feel that their hero (or heroine) makes mistakes. On the other hand, some people won't listen to certain music because they don't like what the artist did in other areas of his or her life.
We need to draw the line at domestic violence and all other forms of violence though. No matter how many records you have sold or how many people enjoy your work, it doesn't give you the right to physically assault someone else.
i completely agree. just because someone's famous, doesn't make them infallible. i'm glad that this story got so much attention, as opposed to the media just trying to sweep it under the rug as usual. these kinds of issues need to be fixed, and men need to know that this kind of treatment of women is NOT okay.
Good interview. But does anyone know where she's getting the statistic that the primary cause of death in African American women 18-45 is intimate partner violence? Is that legit, or am I missing something?
It is difficult to find a source with that age breakdown, 18-45, vs. 18-25, 25-34, 35-44, etc., but my attempts at online searches suggest HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of death for younger African American women. For African American women (and all women) overall, it is probably heart disease.
Your best source would be the CDC. Try a search on "cause of death" or "leading cause of death" and "african american" or "african american women".
http://www.cdc.gov/
just posted details on the stat below, FYI.
Yeah, I just looked it up on CDC because it looked a little fishy. The majority of death caused to young black women and all women is recorded as unintentional injuries which I assume would be like car wreaks and the like which make sense. HIV is #1 for around 25-34 age in BW which is scary and homicide (doesn't specify from who but I can guess allot of them are probably form intimate partners) is pretty high up there for young women, especially black women until 30 or so.
http://www.cdc.gov/Women/lcod.htm
just posted info on the stat below, FYI.
Here is what I found via google.
Femicide,(1–3) the murder of women, is one of the leading causes of premature death for women in the United States,(4) and the leading cause of death for African-American women aged 15–34 years.(5) Whereas only 3% to 6% of male homicide victims are killed by an intimate partner,(6,7) 30% to 55% of femicide victims are killed by an intimate partner.(6,8–11) Despite widespread efforts to decrease intimate partner violence (IPV), and a steady decrease in the rate of murders by intimate partners where the victim is male, there has been little improvement in intimate partner murder rates where the victim is female.(6,8,11,12)
"Whereas only 3% to 6% of male homicide victims are killed by an intimate partner,(6,7) 30% to 55% of femicide victims are killed by an intimate partner."
I get frustrated when people cite this sort of ambiguous statistic. Sure it looks impressive and shocking, but it could mean that the exact same number of men are killed by intimate partners as women, but that a much greater number of men are murdered in other circumstances.
It is so much more meaningful to say that X percentage of intimate partner homicide victims are female (and I'm sure that statistic would still be cause for dismay).
Both percentages can give meaningful information, depending on what question you are asking. Neither need by vague.
Simply comparing the percentage (or raw even numbers) of intimate homicide victims, male vs female, as you suggested, misses vital info, especially since female murder rates overall are lower.
Put another way: if you happen across a murdered woman, the probability (I hope that's the right term here) that she has been murdered by an intimate is quite high. And if you are in the business of trying to prevent deaths , as are people in public health and law enforcement, that is very important information.
That doesn't mean that men aren't murdered in significant numbers by intimates or that it doesn't warrant our attention. So I checked out the stats presented by the Department of Justice. The raw numbers are there too (click on the chart) for years 1975-2005. It's true that for males, intimate partner homicide victims have plummeted since 1975. For women the number has gone down only slightly.
Simply put, if you want to reduce homicide rate for females, preventing intimate partner murders will make huge inroads. On the other hand, even if we got male intimate homicides down to 0, men would still be murdered in droves, I'm sorry to say.
Incidentally something remotely similar came up in the OJ trial. His defense argued that X% (a pretty small number) of battered women went on to be murdered by their intimate batterers. Using this stat, they argued that it was unlikely that OJ did it (I don't have the stat, but apparently it's relatively small)
But what they should have asked was this: of women who are murdered, what percentage were murdered by an intimate batterer. Since Nicole was already dead (murdered), that was actually the more important stat. And the percentage is much higher.
sorry for the typos. It's late.
Both percentages can give meaningful information, depending on what question you are asking. Neither need by vague.
I agree with everything you said here. I guess I should have clarified that my frustration is when people use a statistic to answer a question that it doesn't actually answer. Eg. using that men vs. women homicide rate stat in a context where the intent is to illustrate the severity of IPV against women. But yes, its still a very useful statistic to show how different actions need to be taken to effectively reduce homicide rates for the two sexes.
Regarding the decrease in IP homicides against men, I came across one source that connected the decrease to women having increased access to shelters. Shelters enabled women to escape abusive relationships rather than staying trapped and eventually killing their abuser as a last resort. (I thought that was kindof interesting. Sorry I can't remember the source.)
While the comments on his site are not normally offensive, I really bristled at some of them when I saw this yesterday.
You can discuss serious issues without making up the fake statistics(Domestuc violence spike of Super Bowl sunday) cuz I knew that was wrong as soon as she said it. As to Brzzy and Rhi Rhi...I don't know what happened and I'm not demonizing anybody.
Hello all, thanks for the link :) Apologies for the lack of clarity on the statistics, I should have done due diligence on that beforehand. Elizabeth did send me a follow up on the stats she mentioned, which I just posted in the blog entry: http://www.illdoctrine.com/2009/02/beyond_chris_brown_and_rihanna.html (and yes be warned there are some weird stances being taken in the comments there, not surprisingly I guess)
She is still saying about African American women 15-45:
"That's a cumulative stat-- for some age groups deaths from HIV or cancer may have been higher, but in total, intimate partner homicide adds up to the number one killer for African-American women ages 15-45. Annual breakdown (doesn't specify the type of homicide): Centers for Disease Control,
http://www.cdc.gov/Women/lcod/04black.pdf
Go to the CDC URL (clicking her link will take you to DOJ for some reason) and see for yourself. Homicide is not the leading cause of death for ANY age group of African American women, so how can it be the leading cause of death across FOUR age groups?
I am not minimizing the seriousness of violence against women or the fact that it most often comes at the hands of household members or intimates - it's just that an attention grabbing "factoid" that will likely be repeated without looking into the source, is not true.
A male, you're citing CDC statistics from 2004. From what I can see the quote references data that is at least 10 years old. So while it does appear to be out of date, it may well have been true at the time of publication.
Elizabeth got the "leading cause of death for African-American women aged 15 to 45 and the seventh leading cause of premature death for U.S. women overall" quote from this document: Assessing Risk Factors for Intimate Partner Homicide (2003) It in turn cites the information as coming from this document: Violence by Intimates - Analysis of Data on Crimes by Current or Former Spouses, Boyfriends, and Girlfriends (1998).
I haven't dug through that last document to find the original data (it's 50 pages long and I have a homework assignment due *procrastinate*) but maybe someone else will?
The CDC document with stats was HER source, but she makes that claim.
I've been through every page of the 49 page DOJ report, from which the NIJ Journal article makes its claim. Thank you for finding those.
I still don't see the actual data among those 49 pages, to make the leading cause of death claim, unless one e.g., takes those raw figures and cross references them with the appropriate period's CDC cause of death table to make the leading cause of death for race for age claim.
The DOJ report is interesting reading, for a number of reasons. There are so many issues involved, yet so much left unsaid. Interested people should see it for themselves and comment if they wish. I'd like to see what people bring away from it.
I liked the point they made about women who hit their male significant others. It would be impossible to pinpoint where most domestic violence stems from (woman or man), every case is different. But for men who say that they hit their female significant others is it insensitive to tell the women that they shouldn't hit him in the first place?
This makes me wonder about domestic violence in same-sex relationships. Is it un-proportionally less because both members of the couple are male or both members of the couple are female? Or do we just not hear about it as much because there are less same-sex couples?
Claire Renzetti did a study that found that men and women equally "started" fights through physical abuse that would escalate into the woman receiving substantial injury.
While I don't think it's completely insensitive to advocate for both men and women to not become violent toward their partners, I think it misses the point.
Renzetti found that when most women "started" fights that would lead to their own injury, it was because they knew their partners were in that zone where anything would set them off. Therefore, in order to have at least a little control over the fight, they control when it starts by starting it themselves. With the cycle of abuse in DV and IPV relationships, the abused partner becomes attuned to when the violence is going to happen. They can then take some control back by making it happen sooner rather than later.
And I say that advocating for non-violence to women in DV and IPV relationships misses the point, it's because both know the nature of their relationship. Both know that violence is wrong. However, their backgrounds and feelings of self-worth are so entangled in their feelings toward their partners, that understanding that violence can be avoided gets lost.
The research that has come out in recent years that states that women are just as violent as men doesn't differentiate between what's termed "situational couple violence" and violence used in conjunction with coercive controlling behavior.
Basically, women who hit/throw things at men in their relationships tend to do so in the midst of a mutual argument. Men who hit/throw things at women tend to do so as part of an escalating pattern of behavior designed to instill fear in their partner.
And of course I advocate for non-violent behavior in relationships. But there is a difference between coercive control and unhealthy behavior. Unhealthy behavior doesn't usually land people in the hospital.
As for same-sex couples, most research shows that about 20-25% are abusive, which is consistent with stats on hetero couples.
I'll find the citations when I have time... Sorry I don't have them handy!
Thanks so much for posting the interview, great comments, as always.
THE LEADING CAUSE OF DEATH STAT:
Thank you all for looking into this. I spoke with Jackie Campbell, the lead researcher who wrote the 2003 DOJ Journal article I cited for the quote about intimate partner violence being the #1 cause of death of African American women. Campbell (who's at Johns Hopkins) got the stats I quoted by combining the 1998 DOJ report she footnoted with the CDC report on US Causes of Death. So that's where it comes from. But it is out of date. So:
I went through the most recent numbers (2005) with her to get an update. For black women ages 15-29, homicide is the second leading cause of death, very close behind accidents. Ex or current romantic partners commit the largest share of homicides against women, according to Campbell (note for the statisticians out there: the govt numbers don't include exes in their intimate partner homicide counts).
According to the latest bureau of justice stats, 29 percent of homicides against girls 18-24 are committed by an intimate parter (for men the same age, it's 2 percent). For women 25-29, the stat is 37% (men 4%) and for women in their 30s it hovers around 42 percent (men 6%).
I hope this gives some clarity. To me, the bottom line is that there are still too many intimate partner homicides. If you're interested, there's more info here: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs//homicide/intimates.htm#intimates. (the number of intimate partner homicides has declined since the 1970s, much more for men than for women).
So there are the numbers, hope they're helpful. I'm so glad there's a conversation happening about this. If you check out the comments about the video on Youtube, you can see emotions run high. On the one hand, there’s legitimate frustration among both sexes that women’s violence goes ignored (some people took my statement that my husband shouldn't retaliate if I hit him as a tacit endorsement of women's violence-- no! I'm arguing that responding violently isn't the only way to hold someone accountable. Other than self-defence, I don't think violence is the best response to violence, whoever's committing it).
And then there’s legitimate frustration that men’s violence against women— much more devastating in terms of hospital trips and homicides—gets minimized. Unfortunately, these concerns are often expressed at high volumes (or in block caps), so we don't really wind up hearing each other, or healing. I'm hoping that we can move past that and start learning how to deal with conflict constructively-- in relationships, and in debates. Elizabeth