Stopping Wife Abuse - A Feminist Approach (From Identification and Treatment of Spouse Abuse, P 41-48, 1980, Abraham Lurie and Elizabeth B Quitkin, eds. - See NCJ-101239)

• NCJ Number: 101242
• Author(s): J Baker-Fleming
• Date Published: 1986
• Length: 8 pages
• Sale Source: National Institute of Justice/; NCJRS Photocopy Services
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: For microfiche, see NCJ-101239.

Annotation

Feminism attributes the basic cause and perpetuation of wife abuse to an unhealthy societal conditioning of male and female roles, a conditioning which must be counteracted if wife abuse is to be remedied and prevented.

Abstract

The legal system, religion, and Freudian psychiatry have conditioned women to be submissive to and dependent upon men, and men have been conditioned to dominate women. Wife abuse stems from this dominant-submissive model for male-female relationships. Wife abuse becomes cyclical because women are not conditioned to deal constructively with abuse by their husbands, and neither are criminal justice and social service professionals. Without a behavioral option for dealing constructively with the abuse, women tend to deny that it is happening even as the abuse and their fear escalate. Alcohol and drugs often are used to deaden the emotional and physical pain. The feminist goal in working with abused women is to help them develop emotional independence, leaving the decision about whether to stay with or leave the husband up to her. Men, on the other hand, must be taught to treat women as equals and express tenderness as well as sensitivity to women's needs. Shelters must be particularly sensitive to the special needs of low-income battered women of racial minorities.