Separating From Violent Male Partners: A Resistant Act in the Midst of Power Relations
2003; Bridgewater State University; Volume: 4; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1539-8706
Autores Tópico(s)Gender Politics and Representation
ResumoAbstract This article draws on Foucauldian feminist theory to conceptualize separating from violent male partners by women as an act of resistance. Thus conceptualized, leaving takes on a new meaning as a strategy used by women to disrupt abusive power relations, but not necessarily to end their relationships. It is argued that attempts by women to transform their lives through separation needs to be located within a wider social context and that this context needs to analyzed from the vantage point of power. Such analysis points to post-separation identities and needs as significant sites of struggle between women and members of their social network. The exercise of power within these broader social contexts has important consequences for the effectiveness with which women can use separation to resist abusive male partners; hence, researchers and practitioners in the field need to pay much more attention to these relationships and the meanings given to abuse and leaving within these relationships. Key Words: separation, domestic violence and resistance Introduction Women who seek love and survival for our families and ourselves are treated as if our only choices are to 'stay' or 'leave'. 'Staying' is a socially suspect choice--often perceived as acceptance of violence--though 'leaving' is often unsafe (Mahoney 1994: 60) 'Why doesn't she leave?' has become the almost automatic response in contemporary Western cultures to revelations of male partner abuse. (2) Its recitation invites an explanation of a phenomenon--her failure to leave--that many find inexplicable. Through this question, the issue of leaving is defined as a key problem, perhaps even the central problem, of male partner violence. Yet, not only does this question suggest that women are responsible for ending the abuse, it also implies that leaving is the definitive solution to his violence (For examples of counter-arguments see Mahoney 1991, 1994; Kirkwood 1993). While not wishing to legitimate this reaction, I want to make leaving or, as I prefer, separation my central focus. (3) In so doing, I seek to counter a widespread tendency to explain women's decisions about separation from abusive male partners in terms of their personal inadequacies or pathologies. As such, I argue for a shift in viewpoint away from the realm of the individual to the realm of the social. My interest in relocating women's decisions within a social field emerged during many hours of conversation, both with women who had past experiences of violent relationships and with a variety of people who have worked with these women, over a three year period whilst in the employ of a health promotion organization in New Zealand. (4) These conversations indicated that, although differences in legal protections, policing practices, child custody proceedings, and social welfare and housing policies etcetera establish a need for locally based research, the dominant cultural norms and assumptions through and against which New Zealand women (particularly Pakeha (5) women) must negotiate their relationships with violent male partners are similar to those encountered by women (especially White women) living in other English-speaking western countries. Some writers in the field have sought to make the social dimensions of women's responses to male partner violence apparent through an examination of women's stay/leave decisions (Brown 1997; Choice & Lamke 1997), while others have documented the obstacles women confront once they have separated (Hoff 1990; Kirkwood 1993). Still others have critically engaged with how we understand separation and its aftermath (Kelly et al., 1996; Mahoney, 1991, 1994). With the exception of the latter work, much of it is descriptive or uses explanatory models that, in failing to analyze the many and varied interactions associated with separation from the perspective of power, are unable to consider how such interactions impact on how power is exercised between violent men and their partners. …
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