NCJ Number
73498
Date Published
1978
Length
0 pages
Annotation
This slide tape show helps to personalize the effects and dynamics of violence towards women and makes specific suggestions to professionals helping battered women.
Abstract
Produced for a general audience, the tape contains a dramatization of one battered woman's story. The focus is on the psychological effects of continued beatings on the woman and on her son, her fear of leaving, the reaction of her family, and her final decision to leave and find a shelter. The helping system is criticized as poorly designed for battered women and as a frequent party to perpetuating the abuse. Professionals are advised to take the assaults on women by their partners seriously and to examine the appropriateness of their own response. Police should explain alternatives available to battered women (shelters, legal and economic aid) when they answer a domestic abuse call and should adopt a nonjudgmental attitude. Courts can find needed treatment programs for abusing husbands and can encourage battered women to make their own decisions. Medical personnel who treat battered women can also adopt a nonjudgmental attitude and can point out to victim-patients some of the alternatives now available to battered women in their community.