Are Mexican Immigrant And Mexican American Female Victims Of Intimate Partner Violence Being Served In Memphis Tennessee

Domestic violence against women is an oppressive condition that extends across race, class, and gender. This work examines intimate partner violence against women in Memphis, Tennessee, focusing on Mexican immigrant and Mexican American female survivors of domestic violence. Author M. Helena Vanderlei Collins interviewed ten Mexican immigrant women and seven Mexican American women to investigate factors that influence helpseeking behavior. Collins focused on the perceptions of Mexican immigrant and Mexican American women regarding the social services available to them and explored how their help-seeking behavior is affected by their degree of acculturation and the incidence of intimate partner violence. Collins employed a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods to answer seven key research questions. The quantitative instruments included ARSMA-II, the Inventory of Abusive Behavior, and a customized demographic questionnaire. The qualitative data was drawn from the semi-structured interviews with the domestic violence survivors. Collins concluded her study by describing the challenges women of Hispanic origin face when seeking help from social service providers and by offering recommendations on how to improve the quality of services these women receive.

Domestic violence against women is an oppressive condition that extends across race, class, and gender. This work examines intimate partner violence against women in Memphis, Tennessee, focusing on Mexican immigrant and Mexican American female survivors of domestic violence. Author M. Helena Vanderlei Collins interviewed ten Mexican immigrant women and seven Mexican American women to investigate factors that influence helpseeking behavior. Collins focused on the perceptions of Mexican immigrant and Mexican American women regarding the social services available to them and explored how their help-seeking behavior is affected by their degree of acculturation and the incidence of intimate partner violence. Collins employed a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods to answer seven key research questions. The quantitative instruments included ARSMA-II, the Inventory of Abusive Behavior, and a customized demographic questionnaire. The qualitative data was drawn from the semi-structured interviews with the domestic violence survivors. Collins concluded her study by describing the challenges women of Hispanic origin face when seeking help from social service providers and by offering recommendations on how to improve the quality of services these women receive.

In the American legal system valid witness-testimony is supposed to be invariable and unchanging, so defense attorneys highlight seeming inconsistencies in victims’ accounts to impeach their credibility. This book offers an examination of how and why victims of domestic violence might seem to be ‘changing their stories,’ in the criminal justice system, which may leave them vulnerable to attack and criticism. Latinas’ Narratives of Domestic Abuse: Discrepant versions of violence investigates the discourse of protective order interviews, where women apply for court injunctions to keep abusers away. In these encounters, two different versions of violence, each influenced by a range of ethnolinguistic, intertextual and cultural factors, are always produced. This ethnography of Latina women narrating violence suggests that before victims even get to trial, their testimony involves much more than merely telling the truth. This book provides a unique look at pre-trial testimony as a collaborative and dynamic social and cultural act.

More than 600 women and girls have been murdered and more than 1,000 have disappeared in the Mexican state of Chihuahua since 1993. Violence against women has increased throughout Mexico and in other countries, including Argentina, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Peru. Law enforcement officials have often failed or refused to undertake investigations and prosecutions, creating a climate of impunity for perpetrators and denying truth and justice to survivors of violence and victims’ relatives. Terrorizing Women is an impassioned yet rigorously analytical response to the escalation in violence against women in Latin America during the past two decades. It is part of a feminist effort to categorize violence rooted in gendered power structures as a violation of human rights. The analytical framework of feminicide is crucial to that effort, as the editors explain in their introduction. They define feminicide as gender-based violence that implicates both the state (directly or indirectly) and individual perpetrators. It is structural violence rooted in social, political, economic, and cultural inequalities. Terrorizing Women brings together essays by feminist and human rights activists, attorneys, and scholars from Latin America and the United States, as well as testimonios by relatives of women who were disappeared or murdered. In addition to investigating egregious violations of women’s human rights, the contributors consider feminicide in relation to neoliberal economic policies, the violent legacies of military regimes, and the sexual fetishization of women’s bodies. They suggest strategies for confronting feminicide; propose legal, political, and social routes for redressing injustices; and track alternative remedies generated by the communities affected by gender-based violence. In a photo essay portraying the justice movement in Chihuahua, relatives of disappeared and murdered women bear witness to feminicide and demand accountability. Contributors: Pascha Bueno-Hansen, Adriana Carmona López, Ana Carcedo Cabañas, Jennifer Casey, Lucha Castro Rodríguez , Angélica Cházaro, Rebecca Coplan, Héctor Domínguez-Ruvalcaba, Marta Fontenla, Alma Gomez Caballero, Christina Iturralde, Marcela Lagarde y de los Ríos, Julia Estela Monárrez Fragoso, Hilda Morales Trujillo, Mercedes Olivera, Patricia Ravelo Blancas, Katherine Ruhl, Montserrat Sagot, Rita Laura Segato, Alicia Schmidt Camacho, William Paul Simmons, Deborah M. Weissman, Melissa W. Wright

This report presents findings from the National Violence Against Women (NVAW) Survey on the extent, nature, and consequences of intimate partner violence in the United States. The National Institute of Justice and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cosponsored the survey through a grant to the Center for Policy Research. The survey consists of telephone interviews with a nationally representative sample of 8,000 U.S. women and 8,000 U.S. men about their experiences as victims of various forms of violence, including intimate partner violence. The survey compares intimate partner victimization rates among women and men, specific racial groups, Hispanics and non-Hispanics, and same-sex and opposite-sex cohabitants. It also examines risk factors associated with intimate partner violence, the rate of injury among rape and physical assault victims, injured victims' use of medical services, and victims' involvement with the justice system. Research on intimate partner violence has increased dramatically over the past 20 years. While greatly enhancing public awareness and understanding of this serious social problem, this research has also created much controversy and confusion. Findings of intimate partner victimization vary widely from study to study. Some studies conclude that women and men are equally likely to be victimized by their partners, but others conclude that women are more likely to be victimized. Some studies conclude that minorities and whites suffer equal rates of intimate partner violence, and others conclude that minorities suffer higher rates. In addition, there are many gaps in the scientific literature on intimate partner violence, such as the level of violence committed against men and women by same-sex intimates. Little empirical data exist on the relationship between different forms of intimate partner violence, such as emotional abuse and physical assault. Finally, little is known of the consequences of intimate partner violence, including rate of injury and victims' use of medical and justice system services. This Research Report addresses these and other issues related to intimate partner violence. The information presented in this report is based on findings from the National Violence Against Women (NVAW) Survey, a national telephone survey jointly sponsored by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The survey, which was conducted from November 1995 to May 1996, consists of telephone interviews with a representative sample of 8,000 U.S. women and 8,000 U.S. men. Survey respondents were queried about their experiences as victims of various forms of violence, including rape, physical assault, and stalking by intimate partners. Victimized respondents were asked detailed questions about the characteristics and consequences of their victimization, including the extent and nature of any injuries they sustained, their use of medical services, and their involvement with the justice system. This Research Report also summarizes the survey's findings on victimization rates among women and men, specific racial groups, Hispanics and non-Hispanics, and opposite-sex and same-sex cohabitants. It examines risk factors associated with intimate partner violence, rates of injury among rape and physical assault victims, injured victims' use of medical services, and victims' involvement with the justice system. Although this report focuses on women's and men's experiences as victims of intimate partner violence, complete details about men's and women's experiences as victims of rape, physical assault, and stalking by all types of assailants are contained in earlier NIJ and CDC reports. Because of the sensitive nature of the survey, state-of-the-art techniques were used to protect the confidentiality of the information being sought and to minimize the potential for retraumatizing victims of violence and jeopardizing the safety of respondents.