Women, Violence & Poverty: A Family-in-Environment Perspective

By Diana Frank, MSW Intern

The Family-In-Environment Perspective

Families are the building blocks of our society. They are not limited by geography or culture. Families, in some form exist everywhere (Briar-Lawson, Lawson, Hennon, & Jones, 2001). Families are our first experience with socialization on an individual basis and as a family group. They share a past, present and future together. Although roles and boundaries within the family change over time, the family as a unit is unique because relationships between the members are valuable. A family can expand through marriage or a commitment to a partner, through birth or adoption. The death of a family member is the only way out of the family system. (McGoldrick, Carter, & Preto, 2011).

F.I.E. is Strengths based

The Family-in-Environment perspective helps social workers to understand how the family interacts with other systems that surround them. Interactions with work, political and religious organizations, friends, the educational system and other social systems affect the individual and the family. (Kirst-Ashman & Hull, 2009). It is strengths based because it emphasizes that the family can have a positive impact in both resolving larger social issues and meeting the needs of individuals within the family. (BriarLawson et al., 2001).

What do families do?

Families are not limited in their roles. They provide food, shelter, clothing, health care, counseling, education sometimes simultaneously and are like miniature social welfare states. (BriarLawson et al., 2001, p. 3). Practicing social work from a Family in Environment perspective can help to break down barriers between expert and client. It can also help to facilitate the communication of the real needs of families to policy makers.

Guiding Principles of the F.I.E Perspective

To recognize the family as an essential social institution that magnifies the individual experiences of each family member and the society we live in. To encourage the family to define itself based on its relationships, including friends and other supportive people who are resources for the family. To emphasis the strengths perspective by listening to the family and identifying resources within and without. To cooperate with families to enable them to become advocates for social justice by identifying community needs and working with policy makers to meet the needs. (Gasker & Vafeas, 2010).

Women & F.I.E.

Womens participation in the labor force has grown in the past twenty-five years. Workforce participation for women with children aged six and under grew from 52% to 68%. Workforce participation for women with children between the ages of six and seventeen grew from 68% to 78% between 1984 and 2008. One third of women in the labor force are the sole financial support of their families. The recession of 2009 has particularly affected Black and Hispanic women who are unemployed at rates of 13.3% and 11.0% respectively. Nearly one million female heads of households are without jobs. (Joint Economic Committee, 2010).

Women and the Current Recession In 2009:

The Median income for single mothers was down $2000 to $25,172. The majority of adults with children in emergency shelters (79.6%) were women. Over 1/3 (38.5%) of families headed by single mothers live below the poverty threshold. Only 10% of single mothers were receiving TANF in 2009. (Baer, 2011).

Low wages & high child care costs

The average cost of child care for one child averaged 26% of a single mothers income. With two children in childcare it was 50%. In 18 states and the District of Columbia it was 70%. 60% of the lowest paid workers in the US are women (WLDEF, n.d.). More than twice as many women, 5.52 million, as menwork in occupations (cashiers, waitresses & maids) paying poverty wages for a family of four. (Reuters, 2012).

Facts of Womens Lives

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that in 2011 the median weekly pay for women working full-time was $684 as opposed to $832 for men (Reuters, 2012). Women who have children are 50% less likely to be called back by a potential employer after they have had an interview than those who are childless (Stone, 2008). Between 2005 and 2010 there was a 23% rise in complaints filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) for pregnancy discrimination (Elmer, 2012) from women who were fired because of their pregnancies.
In 2004, a study by the National Institute of Justice found that family violence increases during economic downturns (Katz, 2009).

A Very Short History of Progress.

The history of violence against women is as long as recorded history and is almost always sanctioned by law. In Rome in 753 B.C. the Laws of Chastisement designed to protect a husband from the potential actions of his wife allowed him to beat her as long as the object he used was no wider than his thumb. The Equal Pay Act was passed in 1963. The Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape was founded in 1975.

The first state Coalition Against Domestic Violence was formed in 1976.
The Pregnancy Discrimination Act was passed in 1978. The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was passed in 1994

The Lily Ledbetter Act was passed in 2009.

Is income a factor in family violence?

Although abuse occurs across all socioeconomic groups: Family violence is more likely to occur and to be recognized among low income groups. Economic stress can be a factor in abuse .

If we can alleviate economic stress, can we alleviate

Family systems model of treatment recognizes that:

The most common form of spousal violence is not severe and involves both parties participating to some degree. Men initiate the violence, women act in self defense. With no early intervention, violence will escalate. The family structure must change from non-functioning to functioning. The relationship between current parenting skills or lack of skills and those learned from parents either by example or non-example. (Gelles & Maynard,
1987).

Feminist view vs. Psychological view

Patriarchy Social problem

Personality disorder Individual problem

Whats missing?
Bio/psycho/social history of the individual perpetrators. History of state and societal sanctioned violence against women and children. The effects of a physical and psychic vulnerability that begins with birth and follows you throughout your life from childhood to old age.

The effects of a lifetime of unequal pay, lack of affordable child care options, sexual objectification, having responsibility for more than one generation of family members, being a cook, a maid, a laundress in addition to working outside the home.

Individual

Societal
Homicide is the number one cause of death for women in the workplace. Picketing and bombing abortion clinics

Spokes on the Power and Control Wheel

Coercion & threats Economic abuse Male privilege Intimidation Using children Using emotional abuse Isolation Blaming, minimizing & denying.

Gender pay gap

Cutbacks to human services that help women Pregnancy discrimination Maternal profiling Legal reinforcement for economic discrimination Sexual objectification

On September 15, 2011, the National Network to End Domestic

Violence conducted their annual one day survey of programs across the country

In Pennsylvania with 60 programs responding, the shelters:

Provided housing for 1,213 individuals or families. Provided counseling or legal help for victims and their children. Answered 807 hotline calls.

They could have done more, but like all social service providers in these economic times, they did not have the funding.

The primary need at the shelters in addition to more staff was for emergency and transitional housing. Of the 712 requests for services that went unmet on this census day, 85% were for housing.

Housing Issues Affect Us All

The share of renters who spend more than half their income on

housing is at its highest level in half a century. (ElBoghdady, 2001). Only 25% of eligible families receive any housing assistance due to lack of funding (National Housing Trust Fund, 2001). According to the National Consumer Law Center it is more profitable for banks to foreclose on a home than modify the homeowners loan. Mortgage servicers who collect payments and manage the mortgages recoup their costs when a home is foreclosed but lose money when a loan is renegotiated. The servicers first loyalty is to investors in the mortgage
market, not to the homeowner who is paying the mortgage. Mortgages are securitized which means they become commodities to be bought and sold, so investors can own many mortgages. (Thompson, 2009).

The Corbett Budget

Those affected are the least powerful members of our society: neglected and abused children, the mentally disabled, the homeless and the physically disabled (The United Way of the Greater Lehigh Valley, 2012). These people include, women and the elderly.

The United Way 2011 Non-Profit Budget Survey found that although 69% of agencies had their funding cut, 80% of agencies saw an increased demand for services.

Funding from donations and foundations have either remained flat for 36% of agencies or decreased for 38%.
Twenty percent of agencies saw their state funding cut by 77%. Twenty one to thirty percent saw their funding cut by 9% and thirty one or more percent saw their funding cut by 14%. The cuts resulted in 52% of agencies laying off staff; 32% cutting programs; 46% cutting program hours and 45% expanding their waiting lists for services (UWGLV,2012).

NASW Definition of Social Work

Social work is the professional activity of helping individuals, families, groups or communities to enhance or restore their capacity for social functioning, and for creating societal conditions -local and global -- favorable to this goal.
(NASW)

The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any.
Alice Walker

Make Your Voice Heard

Initiate a dialogue with your neighbors, relatives and friends. Contact your PA legislators at http://www.capwiz.com/unitedway/d bq/officials/ Write a letter to the editor of the: Morning Call: letters@mcall.com Express Times: letters@express-times.com (UWGLV, 2012)

References

Anderson, K. (1997, August). Gender, status and domestic violence: An integration of feminist and family violence approaches. National Council on Family Relations, 59(3), 655-669. Baer, K., 2011 Poverty and policy. Retrieved fromhttp://povertyandpolicy.wordpress.com/2011/01/29/harder-timesfor-single-mothers-and-their children/ Briar-Lawson, K., Lawson, H. A., Hennon, C. B., & Jones, A. R. (2001). Family-centered policies and practices: International implications. New York, New York: Columbia University Press. ElBoghdaddy, D. (2011, April 25). Affordable rental housing scarce in the U.S., study finds. The Washington Post, retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/affordable-rental-housingscarce-inus-study-finds/2011/04/25/AFcBjilE_story.html Katz, M. (2009). No recession for domestic violence. The Washington Post. Retreived from: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/local-opinions/2009/05/no_recession_for_domestic_viol.html

References

Elmer, V. (2012). Workplace pregnancy discrimination cases on the rise. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/capitalbusiness/workplace-pregnancy-discrimination-cases-onthe-rise/2012/04/06/gIQALWId4S_story.html Gasker, J., & Vafeas, J. (2010). The family in environment: A new perspective on generalist social work practice. The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences, 5 Gelles, R., & Maynard, P. (1987, July). A structural family systems approach to intervention in cases of family violence. National Council on Family Relations, 36(3), 270-275. Kirst-Ashman, K. K., & Hull, Jr, G. H. (2009). Understanding generalist practice (5th ed.). Belmont, California: Brooks/Cole Majority Staff of the Joint Economic Committee. (2010, December). Invest in women, invest in America:A comprehensive review of women in the U.S. economy. , 4. doi:http://jec.senate.gov/public/?a=Files.Serve&File_id=57cfaf04-f297-4c61-964b-6321af47db03 McGoldrick, M., Carter, B., & Preto, N. G. (2011). The expanded family life cycle (4th ed.) New York, New York: Allyn & Bacon

References

National Housing Trust Fund. (2011, July 28). Memo to Mr. Royce: The truth about the National Housing Trust Fund. Retrieved from http://www.nhtf.org/doc/Truth_About_NHTF-Memo_to_Royce.pdf NASW [Definition adapted from: Standards for Social Service Manpower, 1973, Washington, DC: National Association of Social Workers, pp.4-5; as cited in Barker, R.L., 2003, The Social Work Dictionary, Washington DC: NASW Press.] Reuters, 2012. Women still confronting yawning gender gap-study. Retrieved from http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/17/wages-gender-gap-idUSL2E8FH9IC20120417 Stone, G. (2008). Are you a victim of maternal profiling. Retrieved from http://abcnews.go.com/Business/CareerManagement/story?id=4725660&page=1#.T4dXi_knKSo Thompson, D. (2009). Why servicers foreclose when they should modify and other puzzling behavior. Servicer compensation and its consequences. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/21/perverse-incentives-lead_n_328378.html The Womens Legal Defense and Education Fund (WLEDF), 2009, Women and poverty in America: Issues. Retrieved from http://www.legalmomentum.org/our-work/women-and-poverty/women-and-povertyin-america-issues.html