According to Felson's article, there exist two perspectives to understanding violence against women- the gender perspective and the violence perspective. The first claims that violence is a form of sexism and study violence against women separately from violence against men. They argue that men assault women in order to maintain their dominance and that most women, due to inferiority, do not report the incidents or get blamed in some way for it. The latter sees theories of violence and crime as a better way to interpret violence against women instead of theories of sexism. It says that separate from gender, men who batter their wives typically commit other crimes as well, and are selfish not sexist. Felson uses evidence acquired from surveys that depict husbands are no more controlling than wives and that perhaps women just find other methods to get their way while men typically resort to violence. My view is that violence against women is a combination of the two perspectives and it is not possible to really distinguish the two. While I do agree with the violence perspective a little more, I feel that since gender issues are so ingrained in our society and ideology, sexism does always play a role, even if it is subconsciously.
Jones's answer to the question posed in her title "Why Doesn't She Leave" is that in most cases that is not such a simple solution. In America's judicial system that was organized by men and is mostly run by men, many of the odds work against women who actually try to take legal action against their assaulters. The system, involving hospitals, courts and social services, often does not work quite to systemically, and actually pursuing action in the system to gain justice proves fruitless and worthless. While some may claim that women don't leave abusive situations because of low self-esteem or psychological problems, Jones states that in fact the odds are against women who try to take legal action. I agree with this opinion entirely, for if a women was guaranteed justice in the system, there would be no women still in abusive relationships. The reality is that often times women come out even more vulnerable and marginalized when they try to take action against their assaulter. This definitely relates to the gender perspective cited by Felson, as the sexist ideal that women are inferior is here shown to be evident in the legal system and society in general. Since men know that the system is in their favor, they may be more inclined to think they can get away with abusive behavior and thus see it as more acceptable and not worthy of punishment or blame.
According to Ptacek, their are many denials and justifications that men use to explain their abusive behavior. The main ones include denial of responsibility, denial of wrongness, the socially approved rationalization of violence, and a neutralization of the harm inflicted. Many contradictions lay in the explanations offered by men. These include that alcohol impairment is a legitimate excuse for abuse, that verbal aggressiveness from a women deserves physical aggression in response, that sexual frustration legitimizes violent action, as does a women not knowing when to be silent, and a women cheating. These last three definitely pertain to the gender perspective on violence. Here men are taking a sexist view that they are entitled to sex and submission, and are taking advantage of their greater strength to assert dominance over their female partner. While these men could fall under the violence perspective as being more violent men in general, aside from abuse against women, there is an overarching idea of male superiority in all of the men's accounts.