Heroes Of Their Own Lives - Softcover

Gordon, Linda

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1853810398 ISBN 13: 9781853810398

Publisher: Virago Press Limited, 1989

Synopsis

This is a history of family violence from the point of view of its victims. Covering child abuse, child neglect, wife-beating and incest throughout the period 1880-1960, it is based on a new source for historians - the case records of social work agencies. From these, Linda Gordon has constructed a narrative of family violence itself - how it occurred, how family members reacted to it and how the agencies responded. She argues that, family violence is a problem inseparable from the family norms of a whole society or from the overall political conflicts in that society. It is a changing historical and cultural issue, not a biological or sociobiological universal. Her conclusions shatter many long-held assumptions about American social history, class and family structure and have implications for us all. She puts contemporary family violence into a new perspective, drawing out the ways in which wife-beating and child abuse must be seen as issues of power and domination, and holding up a mirror to present social policy.

About this title

About the Author

Linda Gordon is the Florence Kelley Professor of History at New York University. She is the author of numerous books including Dorothea Lange and Impounded, and won the Bancroft Prize for The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction. She lives in New York.

From Publishers Weekly

In reviewing the history of family violence since the 1870s, Gordon, professor of history at the University of Wisconsin and author of Woman's Body, Woman's Right, studies clients of three Boston child-welfare agencies through the rich detail of case records. Historically, domestic violence has stemmed not only from sexual inequality, the author finds, but also from individual aspirations and a familial power struggle that reflects changing social values, economic pressures and relations between classes, sexes and generations. Gordon notes that caseworkers handle many kinds of child abuse and neglect by both men and women as well as incest and wife beating. Their response is influenced by varying psychological and social interpretations and by dominant political moods. Several reform movements, notably feminism, have increased public awareness of family violence, especially as concerns battered wives. The book concludes, however, that all forms of abuse are still common, particularly the victimizing of children who cannot seek aid on their own.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Virago Press Limited
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 1853810398
• ISBN 13: 9781853810398
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 416