NCJ Number
178422
Journal
Violence Against Women Volume: 5 Issue: 8 Dated: August 1999 Pages: 845-868
Date Published
August 1999
Length
24 pages
Annotation
Detailed interviews with 25 battered women selected purposefully from a larger study conducted in Israel were used to examine abused women's perceptions of violent events and their development, as indicated by the verbal metaphors they used.
Abstract
The study was conceptualized in the phenomenological-constructivist tradition and used feminist theory to interpret the findings. The qualitative data were analyzed inductively using cross-case analysis of themes that emerged across cases. Results revealed that the theme of control was central to battered women's metaphoric descriptions of violent events and their development. This theme was divided into two major grounded categories. One category involved women's metaphors of male self-control and included gaining and losing self-control, containing the partner's lack of control, and bridging between the man's violent self and good self. The second category involved women's self-control and included control of the violence through self-control, gender-related control, and women's loss of control. 67 references