NCJ Number
189773
Journal
Journal of Family Violence Volume: 16 Issue: 3 Dated: September 2001 Pages: 237-253
Date Published
September 2001
Length
17 pages
Annotation
This article describes how abused women understand the problem, and their beliefs about how it should be addressed.
Abstract
The study is working from the conceptualization of abused women as both victims of and experts on spousal abuse. It compares abused women with nonabused women and men in their understanding and beliefs about this problem. A telephone survey of 1,850 Philadelphia residents was conducted between August and September 1996 and between January and November 1997 to obtain this knowledge. Results indicated that in many ways abused women’s opinions regarding domestic violence did not differ from those of nonabused women. However, abused women were more likely to believe that society gives consent to abusive behavior through its silence. They also believed that talking openly about the problem would make it easier to solve. Specifically, abused women were more likely than nonabused women to believe that domestic violence was an important issue, and that viewing abuse was likely to lead to psychological problems in children. Also, that a man’s desire to control women, people accepting violence toward women as normal, and to a lesser extent, people not offering to help abused women were major contributors to domestic violence. These findings suggested that initiatives aimed at changing the social norm around spousal abuse, talking about the problem, talking with women, offering to help, and not tacitly accepting abusive behavior may help to reduce the future incidence of spousal abuse. 5 tables and 26 references.