A Web in the Patriarchal Clan System

Only recently has Japanese society come to realize the magnitude of domestic violence as a serious social problem. Using focus group methodology, this study investigated the function and the sociocultural reinforcements of male partner violence. The analysis of the participants’ accounts of various types of violence their partners perpetrated, which were accompanied by an elaborate collection of tactics to reinforce the effects of the violence, has led to the conceptualization of partners’ violence as a spider web. The Japanese patriarchal clan system and underlying ideology of male superiority fosters the maintenance of this web.

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