Evan Stark, Coercive Control—Revitalizing a Movement

Abstract

IntroductionIn Coercive Control, a book of tremendous import toanyone working with the issue of domestic violence, EvanStark does not introduce entirely new ideas. Instead, heamplifies and expands what has long been understood ascentral to the experience of abuse in personal relationships,but over time has been marginalized in our work and in ourthinking. The domestic violence revolution transformedsociety’s standards for acceptable behavior in relationships.But its focus on physical violence, born of its effectivenessin drawing attention and resources, has taken us away fromwomen’s true experience of which bodily injury is only onepiece. The evolution of research, theory, intervention andadvocacy has been tied to this focus on physical violence,and has led to the current state of affairs: the revolution is“stalled,” and efforts in all spheres that are meant to stopviolence against women do not fit the majority of victims,and do not address the true scope of the social problem.Stark argues that we need to focus law, policy, research,and intervention on coercive control instead of physicalviolence, with a renewed understanding of how the abuseof women is tied into social context. This focus utterlyrecasts the landscape of our field. Coercive Control is asweeping, compelling, meticulously detailed argument thatsuch a sea change is warranted. If, as Stark suggests, thedomestic violence field is on the verge of a Kuhnianrevolution, this book is the bugle blast.How Did We Get Here?Stark begins by detailing the evolution of the domesticviolence revolution, from the establishment of the firstshelters in private homes often through the efforts anddonations of battered women themselves, to the creation ofwhat he calls “Domestic Violence Inc.”- dramatic changes tothe professional response to domestic violence in multiplesystems including the courts, health care, child welfare, andacademia. Stark notes that the cultural shift accompanyingthis revolution is of major consequence: “Have we been herebefore? Absolutely not. Unlike my grandmother, mother, andeven my sister, our children understand that if a partner usesviolence to hurt or control them, our community will treatthis as a criminal act rather than as their prerogative” (p. 49).While tipping his hat to the domestic violence revolu-tion, Stark reviews epidemiological data and researchacross fields to argue that it has gone as far as it can goin the current paradigm, and that women as a group are notsafer—neither from physical violence nor from coercivecontrol. He traces the origins of our current failings to acentral issue: “The equation of abuse with physical force inrelationships has helped the domestic violence revolutionaccess a range of professional and political agendas. But ithas failed victimized women in critical ways” (p.85).Stark is certainly not the first to recognize the significantproblems the field has had in defining the phenomenon ofinterest. In fact, to address this issue the Centers for DiseaseControl assembled a task force and disseminated a definitionof abuse that essentially encompassed all of the competingdefinitions: both severe and minor, actual and threatened,physical, psychological, sexual abuse and stalking (Saltzmanet al. 1999). The problem with such breadth is that ithopelessly muddies the waters, and has not allowed us toestablish with any degree of certainty the most basic