Abstract
In this paper, we document and theorise ‘ownership’ practices in young people’s intimate relationships and discuss the parallels with domestic violence. Ten young New Zealand women engaged in focus group discussions about their heterosexual partner’s ‘ownership’ practices or jealous, possessive and controlling behaviours. Using discourse analysis informed by feminist poststructuralism and critical realism, we identified three proprietary ‘ownership’ practices experienced by these young women: ‘ownership’ entitlement, surveillance and identity ‘ownership’. We discuss the parallels between these practices and those experienced by women subjected to men’s domestic violence, the possibility that such practices may be precursors to the development of domestic violence and the implications for prevention.
Introduction
This paper addresses the following question: do young women’s experiences of ‘ownership’ in heterosexual relationships parallel the experiences of victims/survivors of men’s domestic violence towards women? We examine the gendered proprietary practices of control experienced by young women in their heterosexual relationships. We argue that if these proprietary experiences parallel those of women who have been subjected to men’s domestic violence, then intervening with young men’s proprietary practices, and the associated discourses that produce them, may provide an opportunity for the primary prevention of such violence. 1
When considering the prevention of domestic violence some young women suggested that we study ‘ownership’ in heterosexual relationships. Their experiences were that proprietary ‘ownership’ practices – possessiveness, jealousy and control by men in relationships with young women – were associated with problematic heterosexual relationships for young women. Little research has been conducted with young women on their experiences of the gendered practices associated with controlling heterosexual partners (Barter, 2009). Miller and White (2003: 1244) argued that violence and control in young people’s heterosexual relationships should be understood as ‘embedded within the fabric of gendered power and inequality within our society more broadly’.
Indeed, research from the Anglo-west suggests gendered practices are normative. For instance, Jackson et al. (2000) studied high school students in New Zealand and found that most girls expressed distress when talking of the violent actions of their boyfriends whereas boys who had experienced physical assault from girlfriends did not. Romantic discourses led girls to expect fairy tale endings to relationships that were not enacted with boyfriends who abused them (Jackson, 2001). Romantic discourses inhibited talk of sexual coercion, which was a common experience of young women, inhibited talk of rape and encouraged female passivity (Hird and Jackson, 2001). In the US, Tolman et al. (2003) found verbal sexualised harassment of girls was common and accepted by teachers within the school environment, some of whom colluded with it, and heterosexist practices enhanced boys’ masculinity status with peers. They described boyfriends’ aggression and jealous control as excused by young women by the tenet that ‘boys will be boys’ (p. 164) and that a level of social control, violence and sexual possessiveness by boyfriends was expected. In the UK, Holland et al. (1998: 10) identified that ‘becoming a “normal” man implies the exercise of power over women’, and that young men ‘take advantage of social arrangements which systematically privilege the male over the female’.
The term ‘ownership’ is used in this study to describe young women’s experiences of their heterosexual partner’s possessive, jealous and/or controlling practices as it discursively captures the social and cultural values and beliefs and the historical origins that contribute to these practices. Controlling and jealous behaviours by men towards their women partners have been found to be key and important features of those relationships that involve severe domestic violence (Pence and Paymar, 1993) and dangerousness or lethality (Campbell et al., 2003; Johnson, 2006; Martin and Pritchard, 2010). Researchers have found a strong association between controlling behaviours, attitudes towards women by heterosexual partners and domestic violence (Flood and Pease, 2009; Garcia-Moreno et al.,2005; Johnson, 2006; Stark, 2007). The World Health Organization sees addressing men’s attitudes towards women associated with such control as an important part of the prevention of violence (WHO, 2008). However, much more work is needed to theorise such actions as practices of power and to determine the ways such practices are gendered or socially and culturally imbedded.
Alongside the identified material realities of control experienced by women through domestic violence are associated discursive influences, which signal the importance of language and associated values and beliefs. In an in-depth study with New Zealand men who used domestic violence towards women, Adams et al. (1995) reported discourses of male dominance and entitlement in the rhetoric men employed to justify and explain their violence, and controlling practices, and to silence talk of it. Macho values and traditional attitudes towards women have been linked to women’s experiences of violence from male partners and to serious levels of such violence (Boonzaier, 2008; Garcia-Moreno et al., 2005; Leibrich et al., 1995).
In Anglo-western cultures, values of male dominance and entitlement to gendered privilege have emerged from a long history of misogyny and proprietary constructions in gender-based discourses (Pomeroy, 1975; Stark, 2007). Proprietary representations are evident in past legislation such as that in British law, which constructed wives as the property of their husbands thereby limiting their agency (Law Commission, 1999; Stark, 2007: 175). This history of gendered proprietary is not present in all cultures, for example, it was not usually that of Māori (the indigenous culture in Aotearoa New Zealand) prior to colonisation except when a woman was taken in tribal warfare as a slave (Law Commission, 1999).
Gendered controlling practices may be understood as discursive expressions of power. Foucault (1976, 1977, 1980, 1984a,1984b) considered that power was exercised in the commonplace practices that occur between people and that such practices might be further discursively constituted through institutional discourses, ideologies or ‘productions’, which were re-enacted or played out in interactions between people. (Discourses are identified through metaphors, figures of speech or actions that portray messages, which coalesce around a meaning usually considered to be commonsense.) Power practices produce, and are discursively reproduced in, dominant discourses that in turn constitute subjectivities or identities, which limit or promote individual agency through self-regulation (Davies et al., 2006).
In the context of domestic violence, the woman’s self-regulation is produced through the abuser’s use of social or cultural normative discourses and requirements and the associated surveillance or governance practices (such as shaming for transgressions) that maintain them (Towns and Adams, 2009). Experiences of surveillance silence talk that might constitute resistance and limit the actions of the dominated person (Foucault, 1977; Towns and Adams, 1997). ‘Disciplinary power’ is the power practice which is enacted through such self-regulation and the associated surveillance (Foucault, 1977). ‘Disciplinary power’ renders punishment or physical violence unnecessary or required unpredictably and rarely to maintain the woman’s self-regulation (Stark, 2007: 228).
Material practices of power exercised by men towards their heterosexual partners or ex-partners are also discursively constitutive of men’s entitlement to authority and associated control over their partners. Such practices work by speaking of the value the man places on the woman: they give messages that she deserves to be belittled and dominated (Adams, 2012). Some practices experienced by women through men’s domestic violence are micromanagement of their daily life (Stark, 2007), stalking, which involves the unwanted intrusion into their lives by male partners or ex-partners through, for example, monitoring of their actions and sometimes associated punishment (Melton, 2007; Stark, 2007); isolation from friends and family members through, for example, the man’s criticism or ill-treatment of them; using verbal and emotional abuse, which diminishes their self-worth and autonomy (Jacobson and Gottman, 1998); limitation of their decision-making and choices; controlling their access to the necessities of life, for example, money, transport and food, (Stark, 2007), and using the children to control them (Pence and Paymar, 1993).
These power practices raise the question of prevention and the possibility of getting in early with young people. If such practices are paralleled in young people’s relationships, then understanding ‘ownership’ or controlling practices as risk factors for future violence may open up opportunities for prevention through, for example, raising awareness of such practices amongst young women as potential precursors to domestic violence and addressing those practices when exercised by young men.
The research reported here was part of a larger study designed to capture the practices of control experienced by young women from their heterosexual partners and also the social and cultural influences that they considered contributed to these practices, with a view to prevention (Towns and Scott, 2008). This paper only analyses data reporting practices experienced. We first describe the study and the form of discourse analysis used. We then describe the young women’s experiences of three ‘ownership’ practices, and the impact on them of these practices. We end with a discussion of the implications of this study for the prevention of domestic violence.
The Study
Young women were recruited through their contact with women’s non-government community services and centres, tertiary organisations and gyms, through notices placed at these organisations, through word of mouth with the researchers and with community workers made aware of the study and through snowballing. Young women were told that the study was about ‘ownership’ experiences young women had from their boyfriends, with a view to the prevention of domestic violence. Participants were 10 young women aged 18–25 years (average age was 21.9 years). Most were of European New Zealander ethnicity (Pākehā); one was Māori/Pākehā, one was South African and one was Middle Eastern.
Young women were only selected if they had ‘ownership’ experiences from a heterosexual partner or ex-partner and if they were safe from any current domestic violence. We were initially quite nonspecific about the ‘ownership’ experiences required of the young women, allowing them to interpret this term themselves. When discussing their involvement in the study and prior to consent, we gave examples of ‘ownership’ experiences such as controlling, possessive or jealous behaviour. As the research was concerned with ‘ownership’ practices, participants were not required to have experienced physical violence. All but one of the participants had left the relationship and two had required protection orders to leave, suggesting that they had experienced severe levels of control or violence. All participants were provided with a $20.00 petrol voucher to help with their transport costs.
The study received ethical approval from the Northern Regional Ethics Committee. The researchers followed the New Zealand Standards guidelines on Family Violence (NZS, 2006) in determining when and what actions should be taken if a safety issue occurred. Each participant was provided with information about support groups and contact details for after hours support services. The researchers were available at the end of the groups should any participant need support.
Following informed consent procedures, the young women participated in one of three focus group discussions of two hours duration with up to four other young women. A semi-structured format was used to maintain the focus on the research questions, while also allowing for a free-ranging discussion. The focus group discussions were facilitated by Alison Towns (AT) with assistance provided by Hazel Scott (HS), both working to provide a relaxed and safe environment for discussion. AT is an experienced clinical psychologist with clinical and research expertise in the area of men’s domestic violence towards women; HS is an experienced social worker with particular expertise in domestic violence and related programme provision for women.
Participants were asked to provide a brief account of their ‘ownership’ experiences in their heterosexual relationships: experiences of possessiveness, control or jealousy were suggested as examples but the discussion was not limited to these practices. Participants were asked to suggest ideas for the prevention of such practices. As researchers, we maintained an exploratory stance, seeking to discover new information and understandings, accepting that the participants were likely to hold expertise in this area, which was not that of the researchers (who are older women). The focus group discussions were recorded using digital audio recording and the recordings were transcribed verbatim by an independent transcriber and then checked for accuracy by AT.
Discourse analysis was used in this study to analyse the transcribed texts. We read the transcripts for broad themes or interpretative repertoires (Potter and Wetherell, 1987) associated with practices of control. We used Foucault’s work to focus our reading of control as a power practice. We were interested primarily in the broad aspects of the language used, its relationship to gender and the discursive effects on the young women (Wetherell, 1998) and were mindful of the tension between the realities of coercive control in these young women’s accounts and the socially situated use of language to frame or construct the accounts (Gavey, 2005; Ussher, 1999). In our analysis, we have attempted to tease some of these tensions out. We also paid some closer attention to the specifics of language used, as it informed a deeper analysis. We have read these accounts for the impact of the power practises on the young women’s agency and subjectivities (Davies and Harré, 1990; Davies et al., 2006) and for practices that produced self-regulation. This approach relies on the premise that representations in talk, in the context of a pattern of coercive control or potential punishment, refer to material experiences and/or participants’ discursive constructions of these experiences (Gavey, 2005). We expect that in this approach at times the material reality and the discursive construction of this reality will appear somewhat interlinked, whereas at others times the distinction between the two will be quite apparent.
We first read the texts independently, then met and discussed our readings. Various forms of media, which might have contributed to the language in the texts, were also read, observed and listened to in order to inform the analysis. Notes taken from these discussions were written up by AT and returned to HS for further comments. AT then finalised the analysis. Of interest was any language that suggested that these practices were experienced as surveillance and/or restricted the young women’s agency or produced her subordination.
In reporting the results, names and some minor details have been changed to ensure confidentiality and for fluency of the text. Dots […] are used to signal the removal of material for brevity or (ir)relevance. Events that might explicitly identify the participants have either been modified or have not been included in the analysis. The terms ‘boyfriend’ or ‘partner’ are used throughout to indicate that the practices portrayed occurred while in the relationship; the terms ex-boyfriend or ex-partner are used when the practices continued following termination of the relationship.
Findings
The focus group discussions revealed a number of ways in which women spoke of their boyfriend’s ‘ownership’ practices: (1) ‘ownership’ entitlement, (2) surveillance and (3) control of the young women’s identity. The young women also discussed the impact of these practices on them. Although there were only 10 recruits, their experiences were strongly patterned, suggesting that the findings are likely to be valid representations of other young women’s experiences.
‘Ownership’ entitlement
Many of the young women spoke of their boyfriends acting on decisions made without consultation with them, which affected their agency or autonomy. We use the phrase ‘ownership’ entitlement to describe these practices, which discursively give messages about male authority and entitlement and the lack of necessity to consult with women partners or reach consensus. In the following, Lilly described her experiences of ‘ownership’ practices by her boyfriend: Yes, he just used to come to everything so I just used to go to watch my friends play gigs in town after work and he would just suddenly pop by and go ‘I’ll come with you’ and come along but every time we were there he would make it very clear that I was with him – he used to grope me and try to stick his hands down my pants and that kind of thing while I’m around my friends and try and kiss me in front of my friends and I’d always kind of go ‘no’ because they didn’t like it.
Lilly set the context for her boyfriend’s ‘ownership’ behaviours with her statement ‘he just used to come to everything’ and she captured the impression of his behaviour imposing on a pleasurable activity: an enjoyable respite with her friends after work. Her boyfriend’s presence was not invited and in her account he did not seek her consent to come with her, but rather assumed that his presence was accepted as of right (‘…he would just suddenly pop by and go “I’ll come with you”.’). She portrayed his apparent sense of entitlement to attend her activities through her account of the active language he would use (‘I’ll come with you’). By assuming that he could come he delimited her choice in this matter. Through this use of language, Lilly began to shape up the ways in which ‘ownership’ practices by her boyfriend were enacted.
Lilly described the sort of ‘ownership’ practices that troubled her using a general statement of the behaviours (‘he would make it very clear that I was with him’) and more specific behaviours: his ‘groping’ of her and attempts to kiss her in the presence of her friends. The term ‘grope’ suggests unsavoury sexual behaviour as does his attempts to ‘try to stick his hand down her pants’. Having his hands down her pants or kissing her would materially and discursively demonstrate to the observing world that she was his sexual property: that he had license to engage in intimate contact with her, but such sexualised ‘ownership’ behaviours provided a certain message to her friends that she did not want displayed and that she resisted. Through the use of ‘try to’ there is a suggestion of a struggle that she must have with him to stop this behaviour.
Surveillance
‘Surveillance’ practices involved the boyfriends’ monitoring the young women, such that they found themselves regularly or unpredictably under his observation. Lilly’s statement that her boyfriend would ‘suddenly pop by’ along with a more explicit statement that he would watch her while at work points to such surveillance practices.
In the following Jay described her experiences: He always wanted to know where I was and if I didn’t call him he would be like ‘Why didn’t you call me why haven’t you told me where you are?’ It would be like ‘I’m at school where else would I be during the week.’ And he would call me until he found out where I was.
Jay unfolded an impression not only of her boyfriend’s surveillance but also of his insistence on her responding to his contact at all times. The meanings some of the young women gave to their boyfriend’s phone calls were portrayed as changing during the course of the relationship: initially interpreted as an indication of their boyfriend’s love of them, but subsequently depicted as a means to monitor where they were and what they were doing.
Jay stated that when she would resist her boyfriend’s surveillance by not returning his calls she was held to account. She used examples of the language of accountability that might occur following her resistance (‘Why didn’t you call me….’). Her response to such calls ‘I’m at school where else would I be during the week.’ portrayed the lack of any need to be accountable. The use of spoken language here, or the active voice, suggests a factual reporting that provides seeming objectivity to her account, and therefore more authenticity (Abell and Stokoe, 1999). There is an indication in her final statement that even if she did not return his call his monitoring would not stop: ‘And he would call me until he found out where I was’.
Similarly, Nina revealed that internet technology provided a means for her boyfriend to monitor her behaviour in unexpected ways: … and he was really really well off I mean he had a lot of money which I think was a huge problem as well. He would give me his bank card and be like ‘You can have whatever you want’ but then he would track where I went by what I spent and then he would just turn up where I was all the time and that was how he actually controlled me through his money.
Nina’s representation of her boyfriend’s wealth and generosity with money ‘you can have whatever you want’ would appear to suggest that her boyfriend was the dream boyfriend, within certain discursive representations that privilege wealth, but she countered this interpretation with her representation of his use of his internet banking system to ‘track’ where she went and what she spent. She also stated that this system allowed him to ‘just turn up where I was all the time’ so that she is represented as constantly under her boyfriend’s gaze. His initial apparent generosity with his bank card is subsequently found to be his method of surveillance, control and entitled involvement in her activities.
Identity ‘ownership’
Discursive and material practices that undermined the young women’s independence and agency, that questioned her judgement or her self-expression (through, for example, the way she dressed) and that questioned her fidelity or sexualised her actions, we have called ‘identity ownership’. For example, Miranda stated: The same with buying clothes, I feel like he would buy me clothes so I would dress the way he wanted me to dress – it was like he owned me and could dress me and take me out if he wanted to…
There is a sense in this statement that she has lost her autonomy to look and dress how she would prefer: that she has become an item to display (‘take me out’) at her boyfriend’s discretion. Miranda’s comment that her boyfriend would ‘buy me clothes’ might on its own appear to indicate a generous activity by her boyfriend, but in her account there is another motive to his action: ‘so I would dress the way he wanted me to dress’. She described this control of how she looked as an act of ‘ownership’.
Some participants gave accounts of their partner’s attention to their dress sense to demonstrate how ‘ownership’ practices undermined their ability to think clearly and confidently about themselves. For example, Lilly described the ways in which her partner’s scrutiny of her dress influenced her: … he would always say subtle things like – ‘Don’t you think that’s a bit too low, your boobs are falling out.’ – I’d look at him and say ‘I don’t have boobs.’ I don’t get it because I was flatter than this back then. And I – I don’t see why – and then it got to the point where I would start asking people around work ‘Is this slutty?’ (General agreement.) My sister would ask me if I was alright because I was always asking her ‘Is this slutty?’ and she would say ‘You’re wearing baggy pants and a high cut top – No.’ And I started thinking everything I wore was slutty, but it wasn’t.
The excerpt portrays the self-surveillance that these comments on Lilly’s dress sense produced and the undermining of her confidence in her ability to assess her own appearance. Examples from her boyfriend’s speech were used to illustrate the sort of comments he might make. Some were suggestive of her wearing clothes which would be worn by someone who wishes to display herself sexuality: ‘Don’t you think that’s a bit too low, your boobs are falling out.’ Her surprise at these comments is captured by her description of having little to display: ‘I don’t have boobs’, ‘I was flatter than this back then’. The effect of her comments is to provide a stake inoculation (Potter, 1996), or protection of her position, against the interpretation that she actually was a woman who liked to engage in any substantial sexual display.
In Lilly’s account, her partner’s on-going references to the way she dressed and her supposed overt displays of sexuality led her to question her own judgement and to seek reassurance from others: e.g. ‘Is this slutty?’ The general agreement of the other women in the focus group suggests that this statement and her questioning of her own judgement resonated with their own experiences. Her statement that ‘I started thinking everything I wore was slutty’ was employed to illustrate how her boyfriend’s questioning of her clothes sense had begun to take over her own independent thinking on the matter. Holland et al. (1998) argued that the young British women they interviewed operated with ‘the male in the head’ that worked to regulate and govern their practices according to masculine desires or privilege, undermining a clear articulation of their agency and needs as women. Resistance would require deconstructing this ‘male in the head’, as Lilly was able to do retrospectively.
In the following interchange, Lilly and Jay portrayed the changes young women make to their identity in order to please these men and the erosion of their social and sexual identity that results: Lilly: You start moulding yourself into someone who you think they want, but it’s not who you really are or want to be. Jay: I felt like it was my problem because I felt like I shouldn’t have been wearing clothes like that. Because I was the one dressing like a skank when really I was just dressing like a normal and at that time confident young person. And I turned into someone that just wasn’t me and I was so isolated from everyone and I wasn’t socialising with any of my friends. I thought he was being nice when he bought me clothes to wear but he was actually – he was trying to turn me into someone more styley – he just didn’t like who I was and was trying to change me. So – It was horrible.
Lilly’s reference to her attempts to ‘mould’ herself into the person that she thought her boyfriend wanted captures the sense in which some of these young women try to change themselves to fit their boyfriend’s desires. The statement that ‘it’s not who you really are or want to be’ references the distinction between the desired identity of the young woman and that of her boyfriend, and the seductiveness of being wanted in a relationship or of wanting to be a ‘good’ girlfriend.
In Jay’s account, the questioning of her identity is represented through intentional acts by her partner to change who she was. By using a sort of before and after juxtaposition of statements, she contrasted her retrospective perspective on her partner’s intentions of buying her clothes with that when in the relationship. Retrospectively, ‘he just didn’t like who I was and was trying to change me’, whereas when in the relationship her interpretation of his buying clothes for her was that ‘I thought he was being nice.’ She employed a contradictory statement ‘I turned into someone that just wasn’t me’ to represent the erosion of her desired identity.
Izzie described more elaborate ‘ownership’ practices, which are evocative of the sort of colonising experiences of women who have been subjected to emotional violence from their heterosexual partners (Stark, 2007): Izzie: … and it was just to do with like mind games and making me think that when he did something really awful that it was me being crazy rather than me actually knowing what was going on. Really undermining my confidence and undermining my ability to know myself and what my world is. … AT: How do you make sense of ownership in that? What is your understanding- Izzie: Well it was a relationship where definitely I was kind of his. … he was allowed to do whatever he wanted feel whatever he wanted say whatever he wanted whereas I wasn’t so sort of – yeah you know ownership of emotions and stuff like – yeah.
Izzie’s statement that her boyfriend was ‘Really undermining my confidence and undermining my ability to know myself and what my world is’ extends the ‘ownership’ practices to control over her emotions beliefs and values. Reference to her boyfriend playing ‘mind-games’ and attempts to portray her as crazy are common in accounts of women who have experienced domestic violence from their partners (Jacobson and Gottman, 1998).
Focus on the young woman’s sexuality to control her has been mentioned in previous excerpts and is now developed more fully here as a form of identity ‘ownership’ practice: AT: Why do you think there is a need to control how you dress? Where’s- Nina: I think it’s controlling your sexuality isn’t it really? Like controlling how you dress is a means of controlling your sexuality – it’s like – I don’t know, I don’t know if I’m reading too much into it but to control a woman’s sexuality is a big deal and it’s like they want you to be this virgin but they want you to be a whore at the same time you know? (General laughter) AT: Can you tell me about that? Nina: … because I’ve had boyfriends and they want you to be this pristine lovely girl, and then they want you to be like a whore in the bedroom. But outside the bedroom you’re not allowed to … (Unidentified participant: Yeah.) – and I’ve talked to friends that are like ‘yeah that’s what they want pretty much’ not all of them, not all guys, I just want to say that, some guys are lovely and I have some amazing male friends that would never treat women like that.
Nina represented these boyfriends’ control of their girlfriends’ dress as control of their sexuality. She hedged her position through a statement about her uncertainty on this position: ‘I don’t know if I’m reading too much into it’, then went on to state the importance of such control: ‘to control a woman’s sexuality is a big deal’. The lack of a reference pronoun creates some ambiguity about to whom this control might be a ‘big deal’. Nina may be referring to heterosexual partners or to men generally or to the wider history of misogyny. Certainly history would support her statement. Control of women’s dress has, over the years, been a major source of control of women generally (Holland, 2006), perhaps the most obvious example in Anglo-western history being the argument that women are raped because they dress in too revealing clothing (Gavey, 2005). Such statements place the responsibility for rape on the woman victim/survivor rather than on the male perpetrator. Rape becomes an outcome of some men’s inability to control their sexual drives and women’s dress an invitation to sexual contact.
Nina pointed to the contradictions of sexuality control with her use of the terms virgin and whore, which evokes historically influential socially constituted binaries of women’s sexuality (Pomeroy, 1975). She portrayed these impossible positions for young women as contradictory through her representation of one of the ‘virgin’ or ‘pristine lovely girl’, who is to be the ‘public’ persona, and the ‘whore’ who is to be the private persona ‘in the bedroom’. Her phrase: ‘But outside the bedroom you’re not allowed to’ points to the authority of the boyfriend/men in controlling the young women’s sexuality in public – in particularly the phrase ‘not allowed to’ indicating a position of dominance and control over the way the young woman is to be.
There is an indication that Nina was aware that by representing this point of view she had made herself vulnerable to accusations of being anti-men – a common backlash strategy employed to discredit the concerns that women have raised about the behaviour of some men (e.g. Ralston, 2007). In the final statements, Nina countered this possible construction of her as simply a man-hater: she strengthened her argument through her portrayal of her validation of her theory with her male friends, while emphasising through a repeated statement that this representation does not apply to all men. She ended this account by distinguishing between the sort of man who engages in such behaviour and the sort of man who does not: ‘some guys are lovely and I have some amazing male friends that would never treat women like that’.
Control of young women’s sexuality and associated attraction to other men may be understood as an end in itself, but some of these young women’s experiences suggest that it may be employed to control contact with others. For example, Rena portrayed the subtle forms of questioning that were employed to control her sexuality, which worked to control her socialising: If I was going somewhere and I’d dress up really nice and feel really good and he’d kind of say things like ‘Oh why do you need to dress up like that, you already have a boyfriend’ and it sort of made me think ‘Oh shit, that’s right I do, why do I need to dress like this, maybe I should dress down or maybe I just shouldn’t go out because I do have a boyfriend’ and it was his little ways of trying to control where I went and who I saw and what I did cos’ I’m kind of like a social person as well and I have a lot of guy friends as well and I think that’s kind of what made him snap is that he couldn’t handle not having control of someone.
There is a clear contrast in Rena’s construction of her dressing up and the construction which she employed to illustrate her partner’s position. Her statement that ‘I’d dress up really nice and feel really good’ portrays the importance of dressing well to her self-esteem and sense of identity (as with other participants), whereas, in her account, dressing up was constructed by her partner as a means to make herself attractive to other men. Yarnal et al. (2011: 52) have argued that the way that dress is socially and culturally regulated and ‘shapes the self’ is understudied. In reviewing the literature, they argued that dress can produce a tension between being a ‘docile body’ or an ‘active body’ (p. 53) and that dress ‘embodies discipline and control, particularly in public settings’ (p. 53; see also Willett, 2008; Jackson et al., 2012).
There is reference in this extract to the almost ‘reasoned’ sexualised criticisms employed to limit Rena. This ‘reasonableness’, or ‘logic’ – that she has a boyfriend and therefore does not need to dress up when going out – is perhaps what caused her to question her actions as potentially sexualised rather than to ask ‘Why not dress up if it makes me feel good?’ She was led to accept his reasoning and change her behaviour to avoid being constructed as inviting sexual contact. She described the impact of such statements on her, which was to create uncertainty about the need to dress well, and the need to go out at all. With the statement: ‘maybe I just shouldn’t go out because I do have a boyfriend’ she captures a sense of self-surveillance in which the construction of seeking another sexual relationship shifts beyond dressing up to being in the community, and in which she contemplated limiting her contact with others to avoid being constructed as seeking another man. Retrospectively, she positioned her boyfriend’s statements as a tactic of control – a way to restrict her contacts with her male friends. By her compliance she avoided being accused of causing him to ‘snap’. Men who use violence towards women commonly use terms such as snap, explode and erupt to imply that their violent acts are uncontrollable (Adams et al., 1995: 395).
Hester’s account of her over-riding ‘ownership’ experiences is representative of other women’s experiences when domestic violence is severe (Towns and Adams, 2000): Well I was controlled in every shape I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere, say anything, see anyone, think anything, do anything. Wasn’t allowed to do anything that wasn’t in his little rule book which changed all the time.
In this account, Hester portrayed the level of control she experienced and also the unpredictable nature of her partner’s rules. Having ever-changing rules with which she must comply kept the young woman in a constant state of uncertainty, which allowed greater control over her actions. Hester went on to hint at the violence she experienced if she did not comply stating that there were consequences for her. The use of the term consequences is suggestive of a number of unpleasant possibilities including physical violence.
The impact on young women
The young women described the ways in which their boyfriends enacted these ‘ownership’ behaviours as not, at least initially, overt and obvious, but the eventual impact on most of the women was portrayed as a profound loss of self or identity. For example, Nina stated: … it was like you know just the little tiny put-downs that don’t really seem like a big deal at the time but they just kind of you know, snowball and like one after another they just become bigger and bigger because the more they put you down the worse you feel about yourself. And I just – I didn’t even know that much was wrong until I left him and I realised there was nothing left. And I spent like a year rebuilding who I was basically because he – I don’t even know how he did it because even to this day I don’t know how he managed to make me feel that shit without me even realising (laughs).
She represented the effects of the put downs as the removal of her sense of identity altogether, and her recovery only after she had left him.
Nina captured the unconscious effects of her boyfriend’s behaviour on her through use of the phrases ‘I don’t even know how he did it’ and ‘without me even realising’. Her statements suggest that knowing how (these) men employ ‘ownership’ practices to control young women would allow young women some points of resistance. In the following group interchange, the young women described the impact of the ‘ownership’ practices on them while uncovering more of the power practices to which they were subjected: Jay: I found that I just started agreeing with him after awhile, so I just didn’t want to fight anymore I was just like ‘Sure okay I won’t go to that party tomorrow, I’ll hang out with you at home.’ – and it would be like that every weekend. He’s like – ‘You must not love me because you are going to spend time with other people.’ Miranda: That manipulative language – ‘You must not love me, you don’t care about me.’ because you’re not prepared to stay at home alone and do nothing with me. Kristy: I used to be told that and then I’d be at home and he’d decide to go out himself. Miranda: There’s a different set of rules, he can do whatever he wants, he can go and get wasted in town and talk to whoever he wants but you have no say, you can’t get angry at that. Lilly: You stay at home in your bed and not move. Miranda: There’s no point in getting angry because you know you’re not going to win the fight. AT: So do you end up being – do these young women end up being – just sitting waiting back home for instructions in a sense – is that how it is? Lilly: Kind of yeah. Until he says he’ll come over. Miranda: Or until you get sick of it and just- Kristy: -say ‘stuff this’.
The young women spoke of their loss of contact with others as a representation of the loss of pleasure in their lives. Jay’s statement that she would stay at home and avoid contact with others positions the control she experienced – as right at the heart of such pleasurable activities. She drew from normalised constructions of weekends as the site of pleasure and fun for young people. Lilly’s account of the impact of such experiences on young women – ‘You stay at home in your bed and not move’ – captures the social isolation and the extent they were silenced (Theismeyer, 2003).
Commonly in relationships where the man exercises control or violence over the woman, rules or micromanagement of the woman are employed by the man to cement his control (Stark, 2007: 207). Miranda’s comment illustrates the distinction in expectations applied by the men and those applied to the young women: ‘There’s a different set of rules, he can do whatever he wants, he can go and get wasted in town and talk to whoever he wants but you have no say.’ There is an indication of the contradictory gendered restrictions on the young women’s activities and contact with others in Kristy’s statement: ‘I used to be told that and then I’d be at home and he’d decide to go out himself.’ These statements capture the male privilege exercised around some of these young women, and position these ‘ownership’ practices as gendered. There was a point of resistance, however, for these young women. In a response to a further prompt from the interviewer, the young women gave some indication of the limits to their acceptance of this behaviour. His practices would only be tolerated until they ‘get sick of it’ or ‘say “stuff this”’. In this co-construction, Miranda and Kristy indicated that there is a way out for young women, that if living this way becomes intolerable they could and would take action to get out. Leaving, however, was not always unproblematic for these young women, two of whom required protection orders to separate safely. Potentially, prevention work would allow or assist young women to recognise the signs of ‘ownership’ practices, to regain their agency sooner and to act earlier and safely.
Discussion
New Zealand is part of the Anglo-west and these young women’s talk of their partners’ controlling practices has parallels with the experiences of women in the Anglo-west who have been subjected to men’s domestic violence. Controlling practices identified in the young women’s talk involved claiming entitlement to be part of the young women’s activities, or signalling his entitlement to ‘ownership’ of her by unwanted possessive practices. Men who use violence towards women use the language of dominance and entitlement to explain their violence. Practices of male entitlement and dominance of women are productive of, and draw from, traditional masculine values that privilege men’s authority over women (Stark, 2007).
Young women participants spoke of their boyfriends’ monitoring or surveillance of them by checking up on them through text messaging and phone calls or through other means. These practices parallel the experiences of women victims/survivors of domestic violence who commonly experience stalking from their male partners or ex-partners (Melton, 2007). Surveillance and monitoring of another and associated punishment for perceived transgressions were identified by Foucault (1977) as a power practice that works to diminish resistance and to promote compliance.
The loss of their sense of their own identity was a consistent experience for the participants. The young women spoke of control of their dress by boyfriends, his jealous criticisms and his put downs, which at first appeared minor but that snowballed over time. Young women described the impact of these practices as a loss of their contact with others, a loss of their identities and a loss of pleasure in their lives. These discursive practices again parallel the experiences of women who have been subjected to men’s domestic violence. Controlling practices begin with the man’s creation of ambiguity and uncertainty about the woman’s judgement following his criticism or punishment of her and the endpoint is the full colonisation of her beliefs (Towns and Adams, forthcoming). Some women who have experienced domestic violence have described feeling like a ‘puppet’ or a ‘nonperson’ (Towns and Adams, 1997).
Sexually jealous practices were evident in the young women’s accounts of identity control and are consistent with those experienced by many subjected to domestic violence. Some young women spoke of being called ‘a slut’ for the way they dressed and of realising retrospectively and through their contact with family members and friends that they were not dressing any differently from other young women. In some participants’ accounts, these practices were employed by their partners to isolate them further from contact with family members or friends. Jealousy has been described by women who experience violence from their heterosexual partners as an explanation of his violence towards them, and as an explanation for his isolation of her from others (Towns and Adams, 2000).
As young women’s experiences of ‘ownership’ practices parallel those when domestic violence is present and are potentially precursors to physical violence and to domestic violence, intervention with such practices would be useful for prevention. Surveillance, control of her identity through criticism of her dress or through sexualised representation of her actions, and practices of entitlement that do not allow the woman choice over decisions that affect her life are all part of the pattern of power and control practices that make up domestic violence (Stark, 2007). Indeed, some young women experienced physical violence as the eventual outcome of the man’s controlling practices. The practices evident in the young women’s accounts indicate the development of power relations between the young woman and her partner that resulted in restrictions in her choices and her ability to act with autonomy. Similar to domestic violence, her usual practices were discursively reconstituted as gendered transgressions and requiring her boyfriend’s control and authoritative intervention.
These findings suggest that prevention interventions would usefully be targeted at the 16- to 25-year-old age group as they are starting to have intimate relationships. Prevention could (1) address the potential development of gendered practices of control; (2) pre-empt controlling practices as the possible precursors to more severe levels of violence or domestic violence; and (3) use population-based interventions to work at undermining the normative social and cultural constructions that privilege male proprietary practices and that encourage young men and young women to engage in them. There is the potential for work with young people, first to raise awareness of such practices and how to resist them and, second, to focus on those young people who exercise such practices to pre-empt their potential for future development into domestic violence. Such an approach would be consistent with that promoted by Flood et al. (2009: 37), who stated that violence prevention programmes with young people should: ‘address the intersections of gender and power’; undermine those social constructions that sustain domestic and sexual violence; promote egalitarian relationships between young men and women; and promote norms based on social justice, non-violence and gender equity.
Many of the interventions with the younger age group in Aotearoa New Zealand are aimed at preventing sexual violence (Carmody, 2009), but our research suggests that there is much work required to address the controlling practices uniquely expressed in intimate relationships alongside or prior to sexual violence prevention work. Such practices might be difficult to identify and resist at first, as they are normalised as, or blur the boundaries with, romantic or love practices. These gendered practices and their historical proprietary underpinnings might be useful targets for critical appraisal, education and prevention activities (alongside core curriculum requirements) within prevention programmes such as Safe Dates, Love Bites, and Sex and Ethics (see Flood et al., 2009). More research on the social and cultural influences that produce proprietary ‘ownership’ practices would assist in the development of appropriate prevention interventions with this age group.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to the participants for their courage and commitment to the prevention of domestic violence. We would also like to thank Sue Osborne, Vi Wolfe, Tania Cargo, Jaine Wikitera-Reid, Sophie Scott-Elvidge, Luana Crompton and Lou Renner the community organisations that supported the project and the two anonymous reviewers.
Funding
The original study was funded and supported by the Accident Compensation Corporation (