The New Frontier of DV – Economic Abuse
We may as well accept the inevitable. There's a new form of domestic violence - economic abuse - and according to this article, it's "on the rise" (Sacramento Bee, 7/4/09). And guess what - it's only men who do it and only women who are victims.
What is economic abuse? According to the Allstate Foundation's Economics Against Abuse program, a lot of things can qualify. In this executive summary of Allstate's study of public awareness of the phenomenon, there's a 17-item list of things that constitute economic abuse. Being forced to file a false tax return is one, as is being prevented from owning or using a credit card. Being made to feel that you don't have the right to know about or participate in financial decision-making is another as is the other person's refusal to work and earn a living.
Now, there's a lot interesting going on here. First, while the Allstate executive summary is mostly gender-neutral in its language, the Bee piece admits of no victims who aren't women and no perpetrators who aren't men. The same is true of this piece in the Detroit Free Press (Detroit Free Press, 7/9/09). So, however much the study may be about gender equality, the MSM echo chamber shows every sign of being as misandric as it has always been about DV.
Second, as you read the list of things that can constitute economic abuse, notice that several of them assume that assets, earnings and credit should remain scrupulously separate and individual on the part of spouses or partners. Whenever applicable, money is "your" money, not "ours" or "theirs." Accounts are "yours," not "joint." Assets are things that "you own," not that "we" or "they" own. In short, the understanding of "family" finances on the part of the people who compiled the list is that everything remains separate and that if your partner wants or demands that it be otherwise, it's abuse.
That's a particular view of relationships that social science shows to be associated with failure and unhappiness. What the Allstate study assumes to be the only non-abusive way to deal with family finances - keeping everything separate - is the precise thing that psychologists say promotes disharmony and a sense of separateness in couples. And that's nothing but common sense. Money is always an important issue and couples who keep everything dogmatically separate announce to each other and the world that they're not together on that issue.
Third, one of the things listed by the study that constitutes economic abuse is the refusal to work to help support the family. So are all those stay-at-home moms committing economic abuse? Apparently so, but I wonder if it's the intention of the study to include them as abusers.
Fourth, many of the items on the list can indeed be seen as abusive. But they can also be seen as reasonable under certain circumstances. Did he prevent her from "owning or using credit cards or bank cards?" If so, maybe there was a good reason that I think we can all imagine. But irrespective of how profligate she is, taking steps to curb her spending is defined as abuse.
And that, as with so much about DV, is the Achilles heel of the whole concept - the definitions are so broad that they include actions that are in no way abusive. Domestic violence definitions include things like giving your partner angry looks. (That's part of the CDC definition.) Now we have "economic abuse," which certainly can be real, so broadly defined as to include almost anything this side of giving her all the money and not asking any questions.
That, plus the tendency, already manifested in the Bee and Free Press articles, to pretend that only men commit this particular form of abuse and only women are their victims, are ominous signs. With an ever-expandable "definition" of abuse, and men-only perps, can criminalization be far behind?
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