NCJ Number
201584
Journal
Violence Against Women Volume: 9 Issue: 8 Dated: August 2003 Pages: 1003-1029
Date Published
August 2003
Length
27 pages
Annotation
Based on narrative interviews with 15 South African women about their experiences of partner violence, this study examined how abused women have interpreted and reacted to their victimization experiences.
Abstract
The ways in which women adopted strategies for avoiding partner violence and its adverse consequences challenge traditional representations of women as passive and helpless victims in abusive relationships. The women in this study endured numerous hardships because of difficult economic circumstances as well as their husbands' abuse. These factors converged to burden women with the sometimes sole responsibility of maintaining the household and family in addition to dealing with their partners' violence. Many women's narratives turned around a recurring theme, i.e., a determination to overcome the abuse. All of the women described how their husbands' abusive behaviors were enacted as a form of control and domination. The abusers attempted to erode women's self-esteem or minimize their confidence. They described emotional changes in which any affection they held for their abusive partner changed to hate and disgust. The focus of their lives became the development of mental and behavioral strategies for avoiding their partner's abuse. Although the women faced a number of social structural constraints, they also exercised agency and made attempts to end the violence in their lives by using personal resources and outside assistance, such as social and legal resources, assistance from family and friends, and attempting to obtain support from religious institutions. 4 notes and 50 references