Comparison Between Strategies Used on Prisoners of War and Battered Wives

• NCJ Number: 106152
• Journal: Sex Roles Volume: 13 Issue: 9/10 Dated: (1985) Pages: 537-547
• Author(s): M Romero
• Date Published: 1985
• Length: 11 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest Sociological Association April 1983.

Annotation

Based on a literature review, this study compares strategies used on prisoners of war (POW's) and battered wives to determine whether battering tactics are gender specific and thus a result of sexism or are a reflection of societal violence.

Abstract

Similarities between strategies used by Chinese captors in the Korean War and wife batterers are psychological abuse in the context of violence, the use of emotional dependency based on intermittent reinforcement, and isolation from the victim's support system resulting in validation of assailant's beliefs and behavior. Both captors and batterers destroy the victim's self-identity and elicit and control certain behaviors when the victim is isolated from a democratic setting. Differences in the experiences of POW's and battered wives center in the type of hierarchical structure within which the abuse occurs. In the case of battered wives, a patriarchal family legitimates male domination over women. The violence thus occurs within a sexist perspective. 36 references. (Author abstract modified)