Never the same again: Women reflect on the death of a friend through intimate partner homicide

Patricia M McNamara PhDSchool of Social Workand Social Policy,La Trobe University,VIC

Dedication

This paper is dedicated to the memory of my cousin, Tracey McNamara, who was murdered through intimate partner homicide. It also bears witness to the tragic loss of the woman whose friends made this study possible…and to the millions of others killed in similar circumstances.

Background• Personal interest• Kissane article in Melbourne Age newspaper – November 6th, 2004

(UN Media Prize)• My letter – socialisation of boys• The Call• Making a difference• Gestation – entering the circle, ethics etc• The focus group• Special issue – Journal of Family Studies October, 2008

Kissane K (2004) Murder in the suburbs. The Age newspaper. Melbourne, Australia, November 6th Winner of United Nations Peace Prize for Journalism

Kissane K (2006) Silent death: The killing of Julie Ramage. Sydney, Australia

Conceptual framework

Matrix of Ecological Development

• The micro systems level explores the individual women both developmentally and within their partnerships and nuclear families. The implications for male partners and children of women close to a victim of intimate partner homicide are considered.

• The mesosystems level focuses upon the women within their common recreational group, their neighbourhood and community

• Macrosystemically, larger societal systems (such as the mass media and governments) which impact upon the lower order systems are a key focus, especially the impact of such institutions upon individuals and the family; institutionalised beliefs and values in relation to culture/subculture, gender, power, violence, partnerships and parenting are particularly pertinent.

Adapted from Bronfenbrenner (1979)

LiteratureMicrosystem • latency• adolescence• identity formation• partnerships • parenting• socialisation of boys and girls• the “post feminist family” ?• Neo-liberalism and masculinity politics

Mesosystem• Bonding of women• Patriarchal family• Isolation of battered women• Reaching out to friends• Risk-benefit analysis• Geography• Social capital

Macrosystem

• Dearth of social science literature • Media interest (Rule, 2004; Kissane, 2006)• “Breaking the silence” (Mouzos and Rushforth, 2003) • Australian Institute of Criminology (www.aic.org.au ) • Women’s Coalition against Family Violence (1994) • Victims of Crime (www.victimsofcrime.com.au ) • Office for Women (ofw.facs.gov.au)• Australian Institute of Family Studies (www. aifs.org.au)• Education (Violence – Australia Says No!)• VicHealth family violence prevention initiative, 2008 (http://www.vichealth.vic.gov.au) • Pornographication and objectification of women (Reichert and Lambiase, 2006). • Contested concepts - ‘intimate,’ ‘domestic’ or torture? (Cooper, Anaf and Bowden,

2006)• Non-Western or indigenous societies (Noble and Bettman, 2003).

A first?

• May be the first study to explore the impact of the murder of one of their own upon a group of women friends of the victim and upon those close to them (McNamara, 2007; McNamara, 2008).

• Process by which newly bereaved women friends become activists in the field also remains largely unexplored (Fahs, 2007).

Aims

To explore with a small group of female friends of a victim of intimate partner homicide:

• how that woman’s death has impacted upon them and their families?

• how they, along with their partners and children, now view issues of gender, power, violence, partnerships and parenting?

• other issues they consider important to our collective understanding of family violence and its prevention?

Method

• qualitative descriptive case study • exploratory • data collection strategy - “one off” focus group

preceded by individual telephone interviews. • Participant action research (Wadsworth, 2000)

• each woman was interviewed twice over a four month period for about one hour in total (trust building, entry to the sub-culture, mental health screening)

Focus group• women could express thoughts, feelings and emotions in a

supportive milieu (Krueger, 1988; Morgan, 1996). • actualizes narrative-constructivist and feminist elements of

ecological-developmental conceptual framework (Epston and White, 1992; Naples, 2003; Yuen and White, 2007; McNamara, in press);

• presented an opportunity to maximize possibilities for shared experiences and understanding (Black and Smith, 1999).

• women could explore issues not previously discussed• homogeneity of these women in terms of age, class, culture,

community and experience of sudden common loss• single session group experience• not overly intrusive into the women’s loss experience • not undermining of their established coping strategies • economy of purpose also attractive• Topics: partnerships, parenting, gender, violence, power, social

capital and education…..loss

Kate

• aged 42 at the time of her death

• middle class lifestyle

• with her partner for twenty-five years

• mother of three adolescent children

• murdered just over three years before the focus group took place

Participants• five women formed the focus group for this project – Sarah, Jenny, Tessa, Clare

and Rosemary • friends for a decade • met through a sailing club. • some were close friends • others connected through common interest. • some in paid employment, others not• all had male partners• all seemed relatively comfortable financially• aged in their forties• two women had adolescent children, two had younger children and one had no

children.• these women tended to relate independently with each other rather than in the

context of family but all had met partners and children many times• all lived in close proximity to one another in a semi-rural bayside community• Some publicly activist, some privately so…

Findings

• focus group data analysed thematically

• reported here as an ethno-narrative (Denzin

and Lincoln, 2005).

• discourse analysis

• women’s own voices speak for themselves as far as possible.

• consistent with feminist methods in social research (Reinharz, 1990; Naples, 2003; McNamara, in press)

Partnerships with men

• Protectiveness

• Male shock, shame and grief

• Re-negotiation of roles and expectations

My partner was just devastated; he is more protective now of me definitely….. way more protective. We used to have a lot of respect for Kate. Tim was having nightmares; he felt he had failed her; he went through a lot .

Clare

He likes me to be there at corporate events because I like to talk. Usually I would go along with it and be there. Since Kate died it is just not always ok. Emma (daughter, aged seventeen) had a high temperature and of course I don’t have family down here so I wasn’t going to go. My hair gets blown back ….(with his response) ( I say) No! She’s got a temperature! I’m not going to ring my friend! She needs Mummy!”

He just went silent ….like “she spoke!”

Kate and I used to just get on with it and pray that one day he (both of their husbands) realizes ‘kindness is the way to go’! (Later I said) you didn’t tantrum or slam anything. He doesn’t like being like that! It breaks his heart! He knows what he’s done to the kids! He said “I had to hold on to myself; I just hate it!”

Jenny

Parenting

• adolescent responses to the violent death their mother’s friend – shame, protectiveness, fear, avoidance

• experimenting with intimacy outside the family

• gender identity and ‘image management’

• socialisation of boys and girls

At the time….. “She was looking at relationships, the relationships of her

girlfriends and making judgements now, all of a sudden, on how their boyfriends were treating her girlfriends…… In the past she’d say ‘oh she’s lucky’….She started to make assessments like ‘he’s making her go somewhere she doesn’t want to go!’”

3 years later….. “She’s got herself a boyfriend now. She’s into going to balls

and being beautiful and I didn’t really expect that …trying to be a pretty little thing ….She assures me that it is a strictly platonic relationship ….A thought just crossed my mind now…. I am wondering if I am feeling fearful for my daughter?”

Rosemary

“I’m right on to it like a hawke. ‘You don’t ever say that about a woman. If you are going to come and play with my son you can’t talk like that. You can say this…you cannot say that. I’ll say it loud and clear and you know that type of talk is not acceptable in this household’. I am very much the mother from hell.”

Sarah

Gender

• Role definition

• Fear

• Mass media representation of women (objectification, pornographication)

“If she (Kate) had to go she would panic!

She would be really frightened of being late – Unbelievable!….Big time! Me not getting (understanding) it …I would say ‘let him get his own dinner!’….because I could do that. I wasn’t getting it!”

Clare

“The media needs to change the way it portrays relationships. Why are women presented this way – as upper class bitches ? Not living below the poverty line? Big Brother - the sex – it’s

all shallow. The story’s never told after this

What about getting old, wrinkles, real reality ..………No one talks about this until a friend gets murdered!”

Jenny

Violence

• Verbal aggression

• Male regrets

• Active response to visible injuries

“The voice tone changes…like it goes from the normal speaking voice to this bellowing deep thing. My nerves just go because it really comes from the gut like…”

Clare “It just really crushes you! It hits you right

in here (pointing to pit of stomach)!” Jenny

“That yelling thing…I have a soft young fellow. My husband was so angry. He was a grizzly bear. He was yelling at Sam through the window and I am calling to him ‘Run! Run away!’ and Terry went out to him and he is standing over him and I was trying to get him to run away and I said to him afterwards ‘Why didn’t you run away?’ He said ‘Because I thought it would be worse afterwards.’”

Sarah

I have seen other injuries – three before Kate and one since… I later thought back to the conversation (Kate and I) had had. I

thought ‘how rude of me! What business is it of mine?’ When she said ‘I ran into a door’ I thought ‘She doesn’t want us to

know! It’s humiliating having a black eye; it’s not a badge of honour! You do feel rude! If she said the boat hit her, I would believe her.

Rosemary

I don’t feel rude anymore. I think ‘Why the sleeves – even in summer ? The black eye…?

Jenny

“I’ve changed ….at different (corporate) events even if I haven’t known the woman I’m right on to it….. I’m like a Jack Russell. If I have say ‘do you want to talk?’ I do. I will say ‘do you want to go to the loos (toilets)?’ …She probably thinks ‘bit weird!’…but I don’t care. We’ll get in there and I say ‘that way he spoke to you………….are you ok?’ I say ‘There’s numbers you can ring or if you want to speak to me’. I weigh every word now and look at the meaning.”

Jenny

Power These are not all women at home. One woman is a judge. I opened

up and then she started to share with me her life. She’s under incredible pressure!

Jenny

I can’t imagine that all that power in your work …..I know that happens but I just find it interesting that in her role… You can’t think of anyone higher than a judge and yet the power play at home! Whooooo….!!

Clare

He’s high profile and she’s way up there but when she goes back into the home. (But) she really believes in marriage and will stick with it and be there for the kids.

Jenny

Education

In primary school they have sex talks…No one teaches you about relationships do they?

Rosemary

Let’s talk about how treat each other kindly… about living together...you don’t always have to have to your own way We can agree to disagree…We need tools to live by..We need to learn how to talk to people.

Jenny

I’d love to go around and teach this in schools. You can say “No”!

Clare

Social capital Loneliness and isolation is a big problem… We need a sense of

community..We need to learn to live with each other.Clare

How to check if someone is in trouble begins with love and kindness in the community. The reason we all moved out to where we now live is because we all knock on each others doors. We organize the parties. We organize dinner with the neighbours twice a year. We go into every farmhouse, face every scary dog…to invite people.

Jenny

Yes…all my upbringing I was in a (semi-rural) community like we are now. When I bought my house in the inner city I bounced up to shake my neighbour’s hand, but he jumped back and shut the gate!

Clare

“ Kate commented that our Wednesday (sailing) group gave her the strength to leave. At last she had a place that was safe. She started to think ‘shove it up everyone!’ ”

Jenny

Loss

She had a list..I met her when she was starting to come out of herself.

We went sailing on Azure Bay and she said “that’s another thing off my list.”

Jenny I said “What’s this list? Have you got cancer or

something?” She patted my leg and said “I’ll tell you one day”. She had list; there was an end to the list; she knew she

was on borrowed time.

Clare

Implications of the research • Identification with the strength of the group facilitated open sharing

and exploration (Piercy and Cheek, 2004)

• Empowerment by the group facilitated Kate’s leaving• Leaving amplified the level of risk (VicHealth, 2007)

• Group members’ regrets • Desire to make a difference• Activism (giving voice, practical help) Fahs, 2007, Goodkind et al, 2003

Taylor and Mouzos, 2006,• Keeping women safe in the ‘post-feminist’ family• Parenting (Baker,2003)• Education (school and community campaigns)• Pornographication and objectification of women (Reichert and Lambiase,

2006)• Social capital (Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional

Economics August, 2006) • Loss

Further research possibilities

Other voices?

• Men

• Children

• Families

• Social capital

• Education

Selected readings Albeck S and Kaydar D (2001) Divorced mothers: Their network of friends pre- and post-divorce. Journal of

Divorce and Remarriage 36 (3-4): 111Apter T and Josselson R (1998) Best friends: The pleasures and perils of girls’ and womens’ friendships New

York, NY: Three Rivers Press Australian Institute of Criminology (2008) National Homicide Monitoring Program (NHMP)

http://www.aic.gov.au/research/projects/0001.html Accessed 28/4/08Baker J (2003) Don’t believe the hype: Young women’s experience of male violence in the ‘Girl Power’ era.

Women against violence: An Australian Feminist Journal 14 (1): 27-34Black E and Smith P (1999) Princess Diana’s meanings for women: Results of a focus group study Journal of

Sociology 35 (3): 263-278Bronfenbrenner U (1979) The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design Cambridge,

Mass. USA: Harvard University PressBureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (August, 2006) About Australia’s regions.

http://www.bitre.gov.au/publications/14/Files/Australias_Regions_06.pdf Accessed 28/4/08Cleary P (2005) Getting away with murder. Melbourne: Allen and UnwinCooper L, Anaf J and Bowden M (2006) Contested concepts in violence against women: ‘Intimate’, ‘Domestic’ or

‘Torture”? Australian Social Work 59 (30): 314-327Fabiano P, Perkins H, Berkowitz A, Linkenbach J and Stark C (2004) Engaging men as social justice allies in

ending violence against women: Evidence for a social norms approach. Journal of American College Health  52 (3):105-112

Fahs B (2007) Second shifts and political awakenings: Divorce and the political socialization of middle aged women. Journal of Divorce and Remarriage 47 (3-4): 43-66

Galvin, K, (2003-2004) Linking women with safety across the communities. Women against Violence: An Australian Feminist Journal 15:59-50

Goodkind, J, Gillum, T, Bybee D, Sullivan, C (2003) The impact of family and friends’ reactions on the well being of women with abusive partners. Violence against Women 9 (3): 347-374

Kissane K (2004) Murder in the suburbs. The Age newspaper. Melbourne, Australia, November 6th Winner of United Nations Peace Prize for Journalism

Kissane K (2006) Silent death: The killing of Julie Ramage. Sydney, Australia

Selected readings (cont)Johnson, M. P., & Leone, J. M. (2005). The differential effects of intimate terrorism and situational couple violence:

Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey. Journal of Family Issues, 26(3), 322-349Kissane K (2004) Murder in the suburbs. The Age newspaper. Melbourne, Australia, November 6th Winner of

United Nations Peace Prize for Journalism Kissane K (2006) Silent death: The killing of Julie Ramage. Sydney, AustraliaKreuger R (1988) Focus groups: A practical guide for applied research. Newbury Park; SageMorgan D (1996) Focus Groups. Annual review of Sociology 22: 129-52Mouzos J and Rushforth C (2003) Family homicide in Australia (paper presented at Australian Institute of

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networks of women experiencing domestic violence. American Journal of Community Psychology 34:95-109

McNamara P (2007) Keeping families safe from violence. Eureka Street 17(20): 45-47, Online.McNamara P (2008) Comment: Sorrowing in the sisterhood. Australian and New Zealand Journal

of Family Therapy 29 (1): 48-50McNamara P (forthcoming) Feminist ethnography: Storytelling that makes a difference. Qualitative

Social Work Noble, C and Bettman C (2003) Culture, social discourse and domestic violence: What is the

connection? Women against Violence 14: 42-52Piercy K and Cheek C (2004) Tending and befriending: The intertwined relationships of quilters.

Journal of Women and Aging 16(1-2) 17Reichert T and Lambiase, J (2006) Sex in consumer culture: The erotic content of media and

marketing . New Jersey, USA: Lawrence Erlbaum and Associates

Selected readings (cont)Riverland Domestic Violence Unit Inc. (2003-2004) Women against Domestic Violence :

An Australian Feminist Journal 15: 57-58Rule A (2005) Dead end: mysteries Sydney Morning Herald Good Weekend 25th June :

26-27,29-32Tan C, Basta J, Sullivan C and Davidson W (1995) The role of social support in the lives of

women exiting domestic violence shelters: An experimental study. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 10:437-451

Taylor, N & Mouzos, J (2006) Paper 1 of the Violence Against Women Community Attitudes Project. Community Attitudes to Violence Against Women Survey: A Full Technical Report. Canberra, Australia: Australian Institute of Criminology.

VicHealth (2004) The health costs of violence: Measuring the burden of disease caused by intimate partner violence. A summary of findings. June, 2004.

VicHealth (2007) Preventing violence before it occurs: A framework and background paper to guide the primary prevention of violence against women in Victoria. December.

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Weissman D (2007) The personal is political and economic: Rethinking domestic violence. Brigham Young University Law School Review Provo (2): 387-443

Yuen, A. and White, C. eds. (2007) Conversations about gender, culture, violence & narrative practice Adelaide, South Australia: The Dulwich Centre