Power, Gender and Society
An Intersectional Analysis Revealing Abuse and Violence Amongst American Women in Heterosexual Relationships
Cheyane Nicole Reisner 11247150
First Supervisor: Sherria Ayuandini Second Supervisor: Dr. Sarah Bracke
Table of Context
Introduction………..…. 2
I. Context ………..………2
II. Problem Statement and Research Question ………...………..……… 3
III. Response and Methodology ………...………4
IV. Key Research Concepts ……….……….5
V. Roadmap ……….………..8
Literature Review………10
I. History of Domestic Violence ……….10
II. Recent Sociological Research ………11
III. Gender Literature on Violence ………...14
Methodology……….16
I. Assessing Participants ……….16
II. Participant Positionality ………18
III. Interview Process ………..19
IV. Limitations ………22
V. Rethinking Hypermasculinity and Internalized Misogyny ………24
Findings……….27
A. Why Do Women Stay ……….27
I. Support ……….28
II. Confusion Around Abuse ………..33
III. Children ………38
B. How Society Affects Abuse ………46
I. Societal Conceptions of Love ………..48
II. Pressure To Be in a Relationship ……….51
III. Fulfillment of Societal Norms/ Expectations ……….54
IV. Societal Notion that Only Weak Women are Abused ………...58
Conclusion………..………..65
I. Gender Roles ………65
II. Support ………...67
III. Stigma Surrounding Abuse ……….68
IV. Concluding Remarks ………69
Summary………..……….71
Introduction I. Context
There is growing evidence that, in the United States, domestic violence within
same sex relationship is just as prevalent as in heterosexual relationships (Donovan and
Hester, 2015). While these statistics vary based on definitions and methods, recent
research found that lesbian and bisexual women were physically harmed by their partner
far less frequently than heterosexual women (Hayes and Jeffries, 2015). Additionally,
“in the United States, a recent prevalence study reports that 659,000 lesbian women and
35,219,000 heterosexual women” are impacted by domestic violence (Hayes and Jeffries,
p. 24, 2015). While there is a need to examine same sex domestic violence, my research
focuses on heterosexual relationships because of the prevalence and the intensity of
violence against women in heterosexual relationships in the United States.
Sociological research into American heterosexual abuse began by analyzing how
American culture validates violence as a practice of masculinity (Anderson, 1997).
These findings suggest that American socialization impacts how abuse plays out and that
male partners are especially violent due to their cultural upbringing, normalizing their
violent behaviors (Anderson, 1997). Hayes went on to argue that social beliefs regarding
gender and women’s roles towards commitment lead women to remain in relationships
even after several episodes of abuse (Hayes, 2015). Hayes positions her analysis for why
women stay within a sociological and criminological framework that accounted for the
impact of gender socialization on abusive relationships (2015). While sociological
research in the past five years has examined socialization in relation to abuse, there has
experience. As Sokoloff and Dupont note, “The prevalence of domestic violence cannot
adequately be measured without taking into account the fact that different cultures define
this violence differently” (42, 2005). My research provides an intersectional perspective
as I depict my participant’s positionality in relation to their abuse (Sokoloff and Dupont,
2005).
In my participant collection, I focus on the age, class, social status and location of
my participants, all of which all factor into their experience with abusers. Anderson
suggests, “Future research should focus on identifying characteristics that help to explain
higher reported rates of domestic violence among individuals in these groups” (p. 668,
1997). Findings are only intersectional if they include the least represented groups in
past domestic violence research, which is why I obtained a diverse selection of
participants. Additionally, various sections of my thesis examine specific intersections
such as physical ability, motherhood, sex work stigma, and mental health issues. These
assessments ensure a multifaceted conception of each participant in order to avoid
portraying the participant as a single identity. Without an intersectional approach, my
thesis questions would not incorporate the entirety of women’s experiences in abusive
relationships.
II. Problem Statement and Research Question
Originally, I constructed three questions to structure my research around: Why do
women stay in abusive relationships? How does society affect abusive relationships?
What is the relationship between hypermasculinity and internalized misogyny within
abusive relationships? I chose to focus my research on why women stay in abusive
effects of abuse to break down the structural and gendered socializations via media,
television, friend groups, etc. that may affect abuse. It proved impossible to look at why
women stay in abusive relationships without assessing American cultural norms. In turn,
American socialization provided answers for why women stayed in abusive relationships.
Thus, these two questions interwove as the societal effects influenced why women stayed
and women stayed longer because of their socialization.
I examined the relationship between hypermasculinity and internalized misogyny
because it appeared that American socialization affects the way men and women
perceived relationships and abuse such that men become socialized into roles of
dominance and women into roles of submission. The question about hypermasculinity
and internalized misogyny had less direct ties to why women stay; however, this
assessment corresponded with American patriarchal society, where gendered
socialization led to aspects of abuse. Additionally, the normalization of hypermasculinity
and internalized misogyny affected why women would stay in abusive relationships.
Assessing why women stay became the base question of my thesis, and my two other
research questions provided the sub-question context for why this may be the case.
III. Response and Methodology
My data did not have enough evidence for a substantial claim of how
hypermasculinity and internalized misogyny impacted abusive relationships. The
interview questions primarily revolved around answering why women stay in abusive
relationships and how socialization affects abuse. I ultimately chose to eliminate my
third research question because my data was not conclusive enough to make warranted
internalized misogyny were not easily explainable to my participants, nor did their
answers fit the requirements accurately. My data collection consisted of interviewing
twenty American women in heterosexual abusive relationships. The methodology breaks
down subsection summaries of data I collected throughout the interview process
regarding why women stay in abusive relationships and how society affects abuse. The
methodology clearly answered my research questions, utilizing each one-hour qualitative
interview where the women explained in detail the complexities and social implications
of their abusive relationship. Each subsection contains the number of women who
indicated that the subsection applied to their abusive relationship and direct quotes from
their experiences. Thus, my data provides a quantitative overview of the numerical
amount of women that fit into each subsection as well as qualitative analysis of the
reasons why women stay and how American society affects abuse.
IV. Key Research Concepts
Hearn defines domestic violence as:
“Domestic violence concerns violence in relations of past or present, sometimes future, intimacy, albeit usually unequal intimacy…Violence in intimacy is primarily to known women... not strangers…The violence is predominantly in privatized heterosexual ´intimate´ relations. The hierarchy implicit or explicit in heterosexual relations is shown in men´s violence to known women, and contributes to eroticization of dominance” (p. 5-6, 2013).
Hearn’s definition reveals how abusive relationships predominantly occur between
women and their partners, instead of a stranger. While not always synonymous, I use the
terms “domestic violence” and “abusive relationship” interchangeably because some
participants preferred one of those terms to another. In this study, both terms refer to
physical, emotional, psychological, and sexual or other self-defined forms of abuse. I
focused on the structures of violence and power within intimate relationships that
constitute cases of domestic violence and abuse.
Franks writes that positionality is defined as “the way in which the individual
identity and affiliations we have are positioned by others… Positionality is therefore a
cultural concept relating to gender, ethnicity, culture and so on” (p. 42-43, 2013). I refer
to positionality throughout my thesis as a term of self-reflection as a white, upper-middle
class researcher looking into abuse cases with people from various backgrounds. I situate
my own positionality to account for the assumptions I may make due to my race and class
privilege (Campbell, Pound, Morgan and Daker-White, 2012). I also use the term
positionality to depict my participant’s “ethnicity, culture and so on” in relations to their
experience of domestic violence. Throughout the thesis, positionality is referenced as a
means of providing a more intersectional assessment of my participant’s identity.
Kathy Davis, sociological scholar, elaborates on Kimberle Crenshaw’s conception
of intersectionality: “‘Intersectionality’ refers to the interaction between gender, race and
other categories of difference in individual lives, social practices, institutional
arrangements and cultural ideologies and the outcomes of these interactions in terms of
power” (p. 68, 2008). Without addressing the pre-existing academic social hierarchies in
which I exist, I will perpetuate past narratives where whiteness equates with womanhood.
My positionality as a white student at a predominantly white university ensures that I am
more likely to fail to include marginalized groups (Campbell, Pound, Morgan and
Daker-White, 2012). Additionally, my positionality can conflate exclusivity of certain
must reevaluate my power over women of color as well as people within lower classes
and my role in silencing their voices even when I include them within my research. An
intersectional approach to analyzing my data allows me to put forth more representative
claims regarding abusive relationships. My thesis provides intersectional analysis as I
disclose each participant’s positionality in relation to domestic violence. Additionally, I
examine specific intersections that have not been researched in the past five years and
provide suggestions for future intersectional domestic violence research.
Psychological abuse and emotional abuse are referred to throughout the thesis.
These terms conflate and overlap greatly within literature as well as my participant’s
narratives. Indeed, emotional abuse generally has psychological effects and vice-versa.
Feurstein defines:
“Emotionally abusive acts by a partner included: being insulted or made to feel bad about oneself; being humiliated in front of others; being
intimidated or scared on purpose; or being threatened directly, or through a threat to someone the respondent cares about” (xii, 2013).
I explained to my participants that, if they chose to define their relationship primarily as
emotional abuse, this would imply that their abuser toyed with their emotions or
emotionally appealed to them in order to get them to stay in the relationship. The abuser
may have also utilized emotional manipulation to get the participant to forgive and forget.
In contrast, psychological abuse primarily constitutes controlling behavior that may
restrict freedom and include threats or degradation (Follingstand and DeHart, 2000). I
explained to my participants that, if they were to define their relationship primarily as
psychological abuse, that would mean their abuser manipulated them consistently,
devalued their sense of worth, limited their freedoms or made them feel as though they
psychological abuse is subtle, I found it worth noting and allowed my participants to
distinguish between the two terms so that they could more accurately define their
experience.
V. Roadmap
My introduction begins with a brief discussion of the pre-existing sociological
literature surrounding abusive relationships. The problem statement follows, where I
defend my reasoning behind the proposed research questions. The response and
methodology show how my data answers both research questions. I conclude with key
terms for the thesis and a roadmap for the rest of the thesis.
The literature review provides an overview of literature that corresponds with my
research questions. I begin by referencing initial sociological authors who assessed
domestic violence and developed the nuances necessary to conduct future sociological
studies. The literature review focuses on current sociological domestic violence authors,
Hayes and Jeffries, and their analysis of domestic violence. Because Hayes and Jeffries
break down the gender and psychological implications of abuse, I frame their arguments
in relationship to Butler, feminist theorist, and Cordero, psychology professor.
Additionally, I account for why it is necessary to include gender theory and psychological
evaluations within a sociological framework on domestic violence literature.
In my methodology chapter, I describe the process of finding participants and
how I first contacted them via Facebook. I relay my participants’ positionality and why it
is important to contextualize their positionality when discussing their individual abusive
relationships. I then depict the interview process, where I obtained consent from each
open-ended questions. The limitations of the study are the means by which I contacted my
participants and the fact that every woman I interviewed is no longer in an abusive
relationship. My data only represents women who had already healed or have started
healing post-abuse. I conclude the methodology by explaining why I eliminated the
hypermasculinity and internalized misogyny research question from my thesis.
The next chapter, results, is the longest chapter. In it, I answer my two research
questions about why women stay and how society affects abuse. Each section is broken
down into subsections that illustrate the various answers I found from my data and the
relevant literature for each question. Under why women stay I list: the need for support,
confusion around abuse, and concerns for children’s wellbeing. In assessing societal
influences of abuse I list: societal conceptions of love, pressure to be in a relationship,
fulfillment of societal norms/expectations, and societal notions that only weak women
experience abuse. Within each subsection, I analyze my transcript and provide
qualitative data to back each claim, focusing on sociological, psychological and gender
scholars from my literature review.
My conclusion assesses the nuances within the data I have collected. I highlight
how my data stands out amongst past research because my findings reveal an
intersectional analysis of both research questions. Additionally, I look at how
heterosexuality relates to power and violence in American society. I back these
Literature Review
I. History of Domestic Violence Research
Early sociological research looks at domestic violence in relation to core
American principles and norms. For instance, Behind Closed Doors: Violence in the
American Family, originally published in 1980, entails a sociological assessment of
domestic violence within the modern American household. Straus, Gelles and Steinmetz
are the first to document the extent of violence within the American family (1980).
These authors revolutionarily propose that a reduction in the level of violence within
American families necessitates that “we must reconsider and alter some of our most
fundamental values and attitudes. It is these long-standing beliefs which contribute to the
high incidence and deadly nature of domestic violence in the United States” (Straus,
Gelles and Steinmetz, p. 237, 1980). Straus, Gelles and Steinmetz suggest an elimination
of “the norms which legitimize and glorify violence in society and family” (p 237, 1980).
The authors argue that violence is “tolerated, legitimated and glorified” within American
society; aggression seamlessly trickles into couple’s relationships without question
(Straus, Gelles and Steinmetz, p. 237, 1980). Thus, Behind Closed Doors highlights how
violence is ingrained within American culture and, until violence is deemed socially
unacceptable, domestic violence rates will remain as high as they are (Straus, Gelles and
Steinmetz, 1980).
Early domestic violence sociological studies struggle with competing empirical
studies that yield differing results (Anderson, 1997). For instance:
“Allen and Straus found that the more a wife’s resources exceeded those of her husband, the more likely his perpetuation of domestic violence. However, Kalmuss and Straus (1999) found the opposite pattern in a
national sample of families; men were more likely to engage in wives’ objective dependency” (Anderson, p. 657, 1997).
Sociological research produces varying theories on the patterns within domestic violence
rates due to discrepancies in empirical research conducted in different communities or
sample sizes (Anderson, 1997). There are several theories explaining the prevalence of
domestic violence, not only within the sociological realm but also within other subsets of
social science research. Anderson points out how domestic violence research within
sociology bridges the polarities amongst researchers from different studies:
“Family violence researchers contend that aspects of the structural environment influence individual propensities for domestic assault. Feminist scholars argue that domestic violence is rooted in gender and power and represents men’s active attempts to maintain dominance and control over women. The findings presented here suggest both these explanations are valid. Elements of the structural environment-
particularly age, race, cohabitation, and education and income resources- are associated with domestic violence. These same structural
characteristics, however, do not necessarily influence men’s and women’s violence in a similar fashion. Gender interacts with structures of race, marital status, and socioeconomic status to influence power within relationships and propensities for domestic violence” (Anderson, p. 667, 1997).
Anderson claims that both family violence research and gender theory provide valid
insight into the social structures responsible for domestic violence. Anderson’s research
suggests that future research should assess the interrelationship of gender and power as
well as environmental and sociodemographic factors for domestic violence (Anderson,
1997). Anderson’s research sets the stage for an intersectional analysis that includes the
structural environment and gender basis of domestic violence.
II. Recent Sociological Research
In the past five years, domestic violence sociology scholars have empirically
and intersectional analysis. In their book, Romantic Terrorism: An Ethnography of
Domestic Violence, Victimization and Survival, Hayes and Jeffries provide nuanced
analysis for how domestic violence perpetrators are comparable to terrorists; abusers
“keep their partners compliant and stop them from leaving… a skilled perpetrator will
invade her mind and spirit silencing her inner voice and replacing it with their own” (p. 1,
72, 2015). Their work provides the link between psychological abuse, emotional abuse
and terrorism instilled on victims of domestic violence (Hayes and Jeffries, 2015). Hayes
and Jeffries argue, “victims of intimate partner abuse… live in a state of terror and are
stripped of liberty. The purpose, from the standpoint of the perpetrator, is to dominate
and control the victim” (p. 8, 2015). The authors examine how domestic violence occurs
as a product of social structures, psychological manipulation and restrictive gender roles
(Hayes and Jeffries, 2015).
While their book entails a qualitative sociological and criminological method of
analysis, Hayes and Jeffries utilize an interdisciplinary lens, incorporating assessments of
“psychological tactics used by perpetrators of domestic violence” (p. 1, 2015). Hayes
and Jeffries explicate that domestic violence assessments require psychological analysis
to address the full impacts of abuse. For example, Hayes and Jeffries reference how “the
anxiety produced by victimization often results in memory loss- a natural psychological
protection mechanism” (p. 6, 2015). Since psychological consideration provides more
contexts for the effects of abuse, they acknowledge the psychological effects of abuse and
the psychological trauma surrounding highly abusive incidents. Annel Cordero, author of
Understanding Experiences of Female Survivors of Domestic Violence, illustrates
status (SES) and educational backgrounds, and ages (19-65 years)” (p. iv, 2014).
Cordero also examines gender and sociological implications within a psychological field,
assessing the roles of cultural norms, community values and spirituality or faith within
the abusive relationship (2014). While Cordero’s qualitative research falls under a
psychological publication, her literature and conclusions yield gender and sociological
implications. She depicts the social environment and gendered socialization that her
participants describe (2014). In fact, Cordero points out that her literature presents
information “regarding issues of gender, ethnicity, age and socioeconomic status (SEC)
in relation to DV” (p. 8, 2014). As Hayes and Jeffries suggest, domestic violence
research rarely falls into a single discipline, as there is great overlap within sociological
assessments, psychological implications and gendered behaviors.
Hayes and Jeffries incorporate the rigidity of gender roles into their analysis of
domestic violence. They explain:
“’[S]killed offenders’… also understand the broader context and narratives of romantic love, gender roles, and relationship hegemony characterizing our culture; indeed they revel in it… Encouraging people to emulate fairy tales and real-life celebrities is foolhardy at best, and insidiously
demeaning at its worst. The relatively recent phenomenon of
heteronormative romantic love ideals… can be lethal, as statistic show” (Hayes and Jeffries, p. 91-92, 2015).
Regarding dating and relationships, gendered society rewards heterosexual relationships
where men and women function within their assigned gender roles. Hayes and Jeffries
critique how heteronormativity can become lethal when combined with the rigid gender
roles ascribed within American culture, such as “fairytales or real-life celebrities”
conception of love.
In their analysis, Hayes and Jeffries’ assessment of gender is rooted in the notion
that gender is a constructed performance. This aligns sharply with Judith Butler, feminist
scholar, and her theory on gender performativity. Butler explains:
“Hence, as a strategy for survival, gender is a performance with clear punitive consequences… those who fail to do their gender right are regularly punished… because gender is not a fact, the various acts of gender creates the idea of gender, and without those acts, there would be no gender at all. Gender is, thus, a construction that regularly conceals its genesis (Butler, p. 522, 1988).”
Butler coined the term ‘gender performativity’ to depict how gender is an illusion that
only exists because of social pressures requiring the performance of gender. Gendered
behaviors and gender roles exist only within the societal constructions that demand such
performance. Butler further illustrates “compulsory heterosexuality” as the notion that
heterosexual bodies are portrayed as performing “natural” gender expressions (p. 524,
1988). Because heterosexuality is societally demanded, gender performativity operates
within a heterosexual paradigm. Thus, regarding dating and relationships, gendered
society rewards heterosexual relationships where men and women function within their
assigned gender performativity.
It appears that gender performativity not only affects societal implications of
gendered behavior, gender roles perpetuate how a disproportionate amount of violence
occurs against women (Lindsey, 2016). In fact, gender roles posit that women are below
men and thus, violence that occurs against them is deemed less significant than violence
against men (Connell, 2014). Hayes and Jeffries explain that, in American society,
women are constantly at risk of becoming victim to male abuse and violence (2015).
If violence is done against those who are unreal, then, from the
perspective of violence, it fails to injure or negate those lives since those lives are already negated… their dehumanization occurs first, at this level, and that this level gives rise to physical violence that in some sense delivers the message of dehumanization that is already at work in the culture (33-34, 2006).
Butler highlights how, because gender roles position women below men (Connell,
2014), the frequency of violence against women reflects the cultural dehumanization of
women. As Butler argues, the presupposition that dehumanized people do not deserve
protection against violence leads to an increase in violence against them. In the case of
my thesis, domestic violence and societal notions of gender roles cannot be separated
because violence is more likely to occur in instances where people are societally
dehumanized. Gender roles and socialization construct a society where women are not
equal to men and thus, their violent experiences are not as important. We must assess
the dehumanization of women “already at work in the culture” when assessing violence,
Methodology
I. Accessing Participants
I decided to conduct my interviews with American women. Since I do not speak
Dutch, I found it important that my participants spoke in their native language so that the
narratives did not get lost in translation. Additionally, because I am an American citizen,
I have more access to American women who trust me enough to discuss abuse. However,
my American socialization posed a drawback as I inherently had more biases. I had to
consistently check-in with my internal dialogue about American society and what it
means to be an American woman. While conducting my research, I tried not to assume
the positionality or background of my participants. Because the United States is a very
heterogeneous culture, I acquired a highly diverse selection of women to fulfill an
intersectional data collection. The heterogeneity hindered my capacity to stereotype
American culture into a singular stereotype.
Because I live in Amsterdam, I conducted the interview process via cyber
relations. I am part of a private, trans-inclusive, women-only Facebook group that
intends to create space for women to discuss various problems they may face with
women they might not know personally. In the past, women from this group have posted
about their experiences with rape, domestic violence, assault or abuse and have reached
out for help or advice. Thus, I knew I would not trigger anyone by asking if women
wanted to participant in my study and that some of these women openly discussed their
trauma with a large group of strangers. The group has a series of rules about
confidentiality and the women-only membership. I posted to this group, describing my
participants who would be open to an hour-long interview regarding their abusive
relationship. I noted that women who may find questions about their relationship
triggering should not respond, as my primary prioritization was the emotional safety of
the participants. I heard back from around twenty-five women in the group who were
open to an interview. I began by collecting primary information and asking the women
about their race/ethnicity, how long the relationship was, their location during the
relationship, the type of abuse they would categorize as most present during the
relationship, and their socio-economic status during the relationship. This information
aided my capacity to understand the positionality of my participants as well as the
intersectionality of my group as a whole. I ensured that my participants embodied a
varied group in their perspectives, cultures, and upbringings. Fifteen women responded
with their information and were open to setting up a time for an interview.
I filled the final five spaces by posting a status on my own Facebook page, explaining
the work I was doing. I clarified that even if we were close in-person, I would act as
though I never had this information disclosed to me within our friendship. I had eight
people respond, some of whom were close friends. Because I wanted to keep the data as
intersectional as possible, I chose five women out of the eight who responded that
represented an intersectional group; these women aided the intersectionality of my data
either through their non-white race/ethnicity or their low-class socio-economic status. I
chose these women because I lacked a representative group of women of color and
women from a lower-class background.
I interviewed twenty women in abusive relationships, each from various parts of
the United States, in various types of abusive relationships and from different classes,
races, and age groups. Ultimately, eight out twenty participants self-identified as mixed
race, black, Native American, Indian, Asian or Hispanic. Since forty percent of my
participants self-identified as white, my data exceeded the national averages of
non-white women in relation to the population (Shrestha, 2011); however, these statistics
upheld past national research that non-white women are more susceptible to domestic
violence and are under-researched in domestic violence cases (Straus, Gelles and
Steinmetz, 1980; Anderson, 1997). Additionally, ten out of twenty participants
self-identified within a low/lower class; five out of those ten self-self-identified as working class
or below the poverty line. Thus, 50% of my participants came from the lower class
within the United States’ socioeconomic strata, and 25% of my participants informed me
that they were on welfare, food stamps or receiving other forms of governmental aid
during their relationship. This data is significant because it exceeds the national average
of women living in poverty (Shrestha, 2011; Krieger, Williams and Moss, 1997), yet
aligns with the data that the majority of women who are in abusive relationships are of
lower class status (Straus, Gelles and Steinmetz, 1980; Anderson, 1997; Lynch, 2016).
Ultimately, my participants embodied the race and class diversity that past domestic
violence research overlooked.
Ten participants were under the age of twenty when the abusive relationship began,
and seven were between the ages of twenty-one and twenty-five when the relationship
began. While these numbers do not contribute to an intersectional feminist framework in
that younger women are more susceptible to abuse (Lynch, 2016). Only one relationship
lasted for under a year, and the median length of the relationships was 3.72 years, with
thirteen out of twenty lasting three years or more. This data is significant because it
shows that the abuse lasted long enough for patterns to repeat and women to have
experienced a variety of abusive behaviors. Additionally, every participant identified at
least two forms of abuse occurring simultaneously within the relationships; this data
further represents past research indicating that emotional and mental or psychological and
financial abuse is often interrelated and inseparable (Hayes and Jeffries, 2015). As a
group, participants experienced combinations of physical, sexual, psychological, financial
or emotional abuse. My findings depicted an intersectional framework as I provide each
participant’s race, socioeconomic status and age when framing their introduction.
Seven out of the twenty participants stated that they lived on the East Coast of the
United States during their relationship; another seven out of twenty stated that they lived
on the West Coast; four participants stated they lived in the Midwest and the final two
stated that they lived in various parts of the United States throughout the relationship.
Furthermore, while the majority of participants lived in or around major U.S. cities, there
were six participants who lived in rural subsets of the United States, which makes the
findings representative of geographic diversity.
III. Interview Process
All of the interviews occurred through Skype, Facetime, phone call or Facebook
video call. When I began discussing our interview setup, I made sure each woman
understood that her information and narratives would be recorded, transcribed and
that each woman understood that I would be recording her voice onto my phone so that I
could accurately transcribe and potentially utilize her narrative as a direct quote within
my thesis.
One of the most challenging parts of the interview was the logistics of working
within a schedule that suited the women while being mindful of the time zone difference
between Amsterdam and the United States. Many women would suggest that we chat in
the evening their time, which was the middle of the night my time. I would sometimes
struggle for a full week to find a time that would be reasonable for both of us. The
interviews ranged from thirty minutes to an hour and a half, depending on the amount of
information the woman was willing to provide.
The interviews required the participants to tell their stories and, at times, relive
their experiences, which became emotionally draining for some. Two women cried
during the interview and in one instance we took a break in between a question so my
respondent could calm her nerves. Many women were nervous before and throughout the
interview. A few of them expressed beforehand that they might struggle to relay all of
the details of a relationship they had tried to put behind them. A few women needed to
take some time to think before answering certain questions so as to gather their thoughts.
Additionally, the first woman I interviewed asked if she could answer the questions in the
third person instead of using “I.”
Initially, I had the following interview questions prepared:
1. How did you meet this partner?
2. What did you find attractive about him? 3. When (if) did you fall in love with him?
4. Did he act in a stereotypically masculine way of paying for meals, holding open doors, etc.?
5. Would you say he embodied “stereotypically masculine” traits i.e. not showing much emotion, acting out of anger, losing his temper easily, etc.?
6. When would you say the first form of abuse occurred? 7. How did you feel after this first time?
8. How did you respond to this first time (confront him, ignore it, end things, etc.)? 9. Would you say you recognized the relationship was abusive from the first time it
happened?
10. Did you discuss this experience with anyone and how did they respond? 11. How long did the abuse occur until you left?
12. Looking back, would you say there were any societal influences that affected the abusive relationship (i.e. notions of romance, pressure to be in a relationship, etc.) 13. Would you say that internalized misogyny factored into your decision to stay (i.e.
notion that no one else would love you, any love is better than no love, etc.)? 14. Do you think our society factors into why abuse occurs so frequently within
relationships?
I constructed my interview questions to answer certain aspects of my original three
research questions. Question 1 existed for context and to ease the participant into
discussing her relationship prior to abuse. Questions 2, 4, 5 and 13 referenced
hypermasculinity and internalized misogyny; questions 9, 10 12, and 14 addressed how
society affected abuse; questions 3, 6, 7, 8, and 11 answered why women stay.
Over the course of the interview, I changed and reworded many questions. For
example, I combined numbers four and five and asked, “Did you consider your abuser
masculine and what was masculine about him?” I combined numbers seven and eight
according to the flow of the conversation, asked: “How did you feel after this first time?”
or “How did you respond to this first time (confront him, ignore it, end things, etc.)?” I
then followed by asking: “Did you discuss this experience with anyone and how did they
respond?” or “What was the perception of those around you to the relationship?” Instead
of following with number nine, I asked a reworded form of number thirteen: “What
motivations did you have for staying in the relationship?” as it appeared less leading than
relationship. I found the conversation flowed better when the participants reflected on
the abuse followed by discussing external people who influenced the participant’s
relationship; I then ended this series of questions by discussing the motivations for the
relationship. These were all the questions I asked where the women had to reflect on the
intensity of the abuse, and they were the only ones that triggered emotional responses. I
then asked a reworded version of number twelve to find out what kind of roles the
participants played in their relationships and to see whether they would consider any of
these roles ‘feminine’ based on their understanding of femininity. All the women I
interviewed were no longer in their abusive relationships, and so I asked them to explain,
after reflecting on their (potentially) feminine role within the relationship, what they
thought made the relationship ultimately end. I found that this helped the women
examine the end of their relationship within a gendered lens, which aided my data. I then
asked number twelve and ended with question fourteen from the original questions.
These edits evolved throughout the interview process as I became aware of the ways
women misinterpreted or felt unsafe by the certain phrasing of questions.
IV. Limitations
A major limitation of the study was the Facebook group I used to acquire my
participants because I knew all of these participants to a certain degree. This amicability
altered my capacity to remain professionally distanced throughout the interview. While
only a few of the people that I interviewed were close friends, each participant had access
to my Facebook, had commented or liked my posts before and knew my personality
better than a stranger on the street. While this encouraged rapport, it also affected the
interview as seriously or answered in a way that portrayed the seriousness of the topic.
One participant felt comfortable enough to ask me to rephrase every question from the
first person to the third person so that she could feel less attached to the narrative she was
sharing. Another participant asked me about my personal ties to this topic and if I had
ever experienced abuse myself. While it was hard to determine whether or not these
participants would have acted casually if we had not been Facebook friends, I noted a
general sense of casual friendliness throughout the contact process and interview. Two
participants wanted to remain in contact after the interview to continue discussing their
trauma, which I politely declined. I mitigated this casualness by reminding my
participants that the conversation was a data collection process and that I did not have the
training to aid or counsel anyone after the interview.
Another limitation of the study was that fifteen out of twenty participants were
members of a group that revolved around healing, femininity, and spirituality. This
commonality highlighted that these women were at a certain point of their healing
process because they joined a group in which women posted traumatic experiences,
searching for advice or solidarity. Indeed, not everyone can handle a group with constant
exposure to stories regarding abuse or trauma. While the group did not exist solely for
this cause, trauma discussion is a major element of the group’s content. This membership
meant these women might be more open to discussing abuse than the average woman
who had exited an abusive relationship. While these limitations factor into the data, they
should not detract from the fact that these women represent an intersectional group of
Another contingency of this study is that every woman I interviewed had left her
abusive relationship. Each woman has had time to process her experience post abuse.
While this reflected data that the majority of women in abusive relationships do
eventually leave (Copp, Giordano, Longmoreand Manning, 2015), it does not reflect the
experiences of women who may want to leave, but who are simultaneously trapped and
cannot escape. Thus, this data is not reflective of women who are still in the abusive
relationship or the perspective from that lens.
V. Rethinking Hypermasculinity and Internalized Misogyny
My interviews provided insightful data that I had not expected or even considered
before the interviews. However, I found that results regarding hypermasculinity and
internalized misogyny were varied and based on the participant’s individual
understanding of abstract terms. I originally decided to utilize different criteria for
hypermasculinity and internalized misogyny, which would enable the abstract terms to
have more validity and tangibility. I planned on using the Hypermasculinity -Index
Revised (HMI-R), which included:
“In particular, four items, which on their face appeared related to
calloused sexuality (‘prick teasers deserved to be raped,’ ‘men need sex,’ ‘pick ups should expect to put out,’ and ‘all is fair in love and war,) loaded separately from other calloused sexuality items” (Peters, Nason and
Turner, p. 177, 2007).
These four elements are set up so that the more someone embodies factors of the HMI-R
scale, the more hypermasculine they are. This scale has been used within sociological
context to determine tangible levels of hypermasculinity within participant’s abusers
(Peters, Nason and Turner, 2007). While there were several interview questions about
these questions nor did the answers I received align with these four items in particular. I
felt that, without interviewing the abusers themselves, it became nearly impossible to
know how they truly embodied these four criteria. While some participants provided
insight into trends of masculine traits within their abuser, I concluded that the only way to
examine these four elements would be to put words into the mouths of my participants.
To examine internalized misogyny, I planned to used Piggott’s Internalized
Misogyny Scale (IMS), which assessed women’s rates of “devaluing women, distrusting
women and valuing men” (p. 52, 2004). The scale factors that the more women fall into
these realms, the more they have internalized misogyny. While the scale itself is not
sociologically based, sociologists have used the IMS to depict participant’s internalized
misogyny (J.M. Hines, 2014). Throughout my interviews, these three criteria rarely came
up and it became impossible to examine these items in relationship to abuse versus
socialization. I did not want to ask women if they embodied these elements more pre or
post abuse, because it felt hyper specific and irrelevant to my other questions. The IMS
and HMI-R failed to provide a valid measurement for internalized misogyny or hyper
masculinity and my questions did not suffice to answer these criteria succinctly.
Additionally, my participants often did not understand the terms hypermasculinity or
internalized misogyny in the way that the HMI-R or IMS scale presented; it felt as though
I forced the participants to rephrase their responses to fit into a specific definition. The
variation amongst the answers proved that I could not elaborate on hypermasculinity or
internalized misogyny with the consistency necessary to highlight clear trends or
In addition, the women came from various age ranges and cultural backgrounds,
which impacted how they perceived gendered relations and masculine/feminine
behaviors. It became overwhelming to define these terms, and I felt like many of my
questions surrounding these notions were leading; I had a conception of the answers that I
was looking for and defined these terms for the women when they asked clarification
questions regarding femininity or masculinity. It became impossible to assess
hypermasculinity or internalized misogyny without forcing each narrative to fit into my
definitions. As I read through the transcriptions of the participants, it became clear that
the third research question about hypermasculinity and internalized misogyny was too
complicated and formed a separate thesis. I realized that I would have had to construct
an entire interview based solely around the relationship of hypermasculinity and
internalized misogyny in order to accurately answer this research question. Since my
thesis included two other research questions that were better answered during the
interviews, I did not include this exploration in my thesis.
Many women answered my final questions about socialization and society
through a gendered lens, discussing their perception of masculinity and femininity. Upon
reflecting over the transcription, I found a way to productively utilize the data from my
questions about masculinity and femininity to enhance my other questions. The terms
masculinity and femininity became more accessible for my participants, and they were
able to answer reflectively about these traits without the answer necessarily connecting to
hypermasculinity or internalized misogyny. Thus, the data I obtained regarding this
question enhanced my other questions rather than addressing the relation between
Findings
A. Why Do Women Stay?
When assessing why women stay in abusive relationships, every participant explained
that they did not recognize the relationship as abusive, even if it had been going on for
years. Even in instances where physical abuse occurred, every research participant
depicted how the relationships began with psychological or emotional abuse. It became
apparent that the emotional and psychological abuse, perceived as more ‘mild’ and
‘gradual’ abuse, built up over time and led the women to question if their relationship
ever qualified as abusive. Even as the abuse became more and more intense, the women
felt they could not categorize the relationship as abusive because the calm, romantic sides
of the relationship felt loving and healthy. As Hayes explicated, there are no sociological
studies focused on depicting the nature of emotional abuse, where the victim is:
“[O]ften subjected to random attacks that seemingly spring out of
nowhere, surprising her and over time, causing her to live in constant fear. Tactics of intermittent calm and even romance may create a false sense of security, only to be shattered by an inevitable attack, which reinforces the fear levels.” (Hayes, p. 4, 2015).
Indeed, many women stayed because they felt confused about whether the abuse was
“bad enough.” Women felt that, because their partner had not yet physically harmed
them, they should stay and try to resolve the issues.
The following sections reveal why women stayed in abusive relationships. Each
woman’s name has been changed and pseudonyms are used to protect the identities of the
participants.
Claire, a middle-class, Caucasian adult industry worker, who was twenty-two
when her relationship began, reported psychological abuse with a man double her age.
She explained:
“I considered him to be very masculine and I was very attracted to that. He would constantly put me into situations where he would try to get me to escort or whatever and that was something I was comfortable to do on my own terms but because he was a person I loved I felt like this is kinda twisted and why do you wanna sell me to this other person? Like so I think that was like the most sort of psychologically abusive relationship that I was in.”
She further stated that she felt motivated to be in the relationship because of his capacity
to provide financial stability, even when he pushed her to engage in sex for money with
other men when she was not comfortable. Anderson described how “the cultural
depiction of the husband as breadwinner has … legitimized male power… [and] provided
men with a resource for demonstrating their masculinity” (p. 658, 1997). Claire spoke of
how her abuser would serve as the “breadwinner” and help her monetarily: “he was very
generous in a way where he would pay for everything. And if he saw something I really
liked in a store, he’d be like ‘oh I’ll buy you that or whatever.’” The psychological
manipulation, as well as the age and maturity difference, highlighted the terroristic nature
of an abuser who engages in calm and romantic actions followed by attacks or
manipulations (Hayes and Jeffries, 2015). It appeared that many of the women stayed in
the relationship because they felt conflicted by the way that their partner gave them
comfort. Many women, like Claire, felt provided for by their partner in some way and
Maria, a low-income Hispanic woman, who was twenty when her abusive
relationship began, expressed a similar sentiment, where she struggled to realize the
relationship was abusive because her abuser financially supported her:
“I remember my mom telling me that you know I wasn’t the same person anymore… and that, you know, she didn’t really like him. But I mean he also helped me a lot financially as well. Like I remember he was like always buying me food and I remember I was at a point in um college where I would work on weekends… like the security of him being able to buy me food so that I could save my money, and then him also kind of like spending lavishly on me. It was like I heard what my mom was saying, but I didn’t want to do anything.”
Maria and Claire expressed how the financial support aided them but also made them
both feel as though their abuser supported them; the support obstructed each woman from
admitting the relationship truly was abusive. Anderson illustrated this phenomenon:
“Men maintain power and control in their households through their control of economic resources… Thus, the way that gender matters in the case of domestic violence may be linked to racial or socioeconomic inequality… women remain in abusive relationships because of their limited economic and social resources (p. 656, 1997).
While Maria was economically and racially unequal to her abuser, Claire was
economically unequal as well as vulnerable because her economic options were limited.
In addition to the women’s limited socioeconomic resources, the men gained power over
these women’s lack of social resources, which manifested for Claire because of her career
in sex work and Maria because of her racial identity as non-white. Many participants
reported a disproportionate relationship in terms of economic or social resources. In fact,
nine out of twenty participants reported feeling financially supported by their abusers. Of
these nine, eight participants reported that the main reason they stayed in the relationship
Another form of support that Lilith, a low-income, Caucasian woman, who
entered her abusive relationship at age eighteen, mentioned was validity based on
insecurities her abuser had instilled in her. She expressed, “I had physical, some serious
physical handicaps and he told me that because of those physical handicaps that nobody
else would love me, so it was a real head fuck- excuse my language.” Because of the
psychological abuse, Lilith felt that her abuser was the only person who would accept her
as she was and support her despite her physical handicaps. A gender-based medical
study found that women with physical disabilities were more likely to experience abuse
and “women with physical disabilities had experienced abuse for a significantly longer
period of time than women without physical disability” (McFarlane, Hughes, Nosek,
Groff and Swedlend, p. 862, 2001). While Lilith was the only interviewee who disclosed
a physical disability, her experience highlighted a need for future research into the
correlation between physical disabilities and abuse.
While no other participants had physical handicaps, another participant, Jennifer,
a poor-class Asian woman who was thirty-one at the start of the relationship, described
developing PTSD during her abuse:
“And I had PTSD so bad I couldn’t do things. I couldn’t function. Like he took me to the psychiatrist because he was trying to get me diagnosed with schizophrenia… so that if I did end up getting a court case, they could just say I was delusional. ”
Jennifer’s mental handicap was a direct product of her abuser. Cordero referenced how
abuse can lead to many risk factors such as PTSD “and many other mental health issues,
homelessness, physical injury, death and many other negative outcomes” (p. 1, 2014).
Not only was Jennifer’s PTSD a direct product of her abuse, the PTSD also led her to her
to the point where it had severe mental health impacts, he also knew that he could get her
to be legally perceived as “delusional” and incapable of functioning on her own.
Jennifer’s experience aligned with past research where abusers utilized their victim’s
psychological or mental health issues to gain power and control over them (Cordero,
2014).
In addition to physical and mental health issues, ten participants reported how
their abusers supported them through various insecurities. My participant’s narratives
revealed that many abusers perpetuated the need for emotional support, which, over time,
they alone became able to provide. Many of the women felt that they were being
supported for the first time, which created a level of dependency upon the relationship,
even though the women were surviving with their insecurities before their abuser
validated them. In her study, Cordero found that along with PTSD, “women in abusive
relationships demonstrate lower self-esteem, negative self-concept, and misrepresentation
about themselves, others and the world” (p 5, 2014). Even if the abuse lowered the
women’s self-esteem, the social isolation and effects of abuse led the women to feel
supported by their abuser (Cordero, 2014).
Six participants reported that this emotional support and validation became a main
component for why they remained in the relationship. For example, Cathy, a Caucasian,
low-income woman who was twenty-three at the start of her relationship, explained that
her abuser aided her confidence and that she had a trend of dating men who would
support her insecurities. She described, “It’s like this feeling that I’m not good enough
like whenever someone loves me or is interested in me, I just go with it because I’m like
she felt “on top of the world” when her relationship began as her abuser supported her
and they built a dream together. Cathy clarified that, with her current boyfriend, she is
attracted to a similar comfort as he makes her feel loved and supported. Rena, a
upper-middle class, Caucasian woman who was twenty-two at the start of her relationship,
further explained, “the common like self-worth issues that girls have I think um
perpetuates it because we don’t believe we’re worthy of more sometimes.” Indeed, these
findings aligned with Cordero’s qualitative study, which showed how many abusers
played into women’s insecurities and self-doubt (2014). Indeed, insecurity became a
reoccurring theme and almost every participant described holding onto the initial notion
that their abuser would heal them or positively impact their life in some way.
Interestingly, in the several interviews discussing support, the abusive men led the
women to depend on them for emotional or financial support; however, these men
simultaneously depended on the women. For instance, in Claire’s case, her abuser used
her job as a sex worker to obtain access to other sex workers, in an attempt to start an
escorting company. In the case of Rena, her abuser, who had a heroin addiction,
depended on her emotional support. She explained, “He needs me and things like that.
And it’s like a combination of me needing him and me feeling like he needs me. And like
not wanting to abandon him.” While Rena’s abuser validated her insecurities, she also
validated his and ensured him that she would not abandon him throughout his addiction,
despite the abuse she experienced. In a recent study measuring intimate partner violence
(IPV) and dependency, Kane and Bornstein explained:
“The most noteworthy conclusion that emerges from these results is that male dependency does play a factor in perpetuation of IPV… Particularly with domestic violence, if men are not so dependent on their partner for their sense of self-worth, they may be able to react more adaptively if it
appears the relationship is at risk (e.g. initiate a dialogue about difficulties in the relationship, develop more adaptive strategies for coping with fear of rejection and abandonment)” (p. 18-19, 2016).
These authors highlight how male abusers seek support from their victims, while
simultaneously producing an illusion of support for their victims throughout the abuse.
Irvine explained that, “codependency … can accommodate a wide range of problems and
circumstances that bring people with them, and it can also recast those problems and
circumstances to fit within its confines” (p. 16, 2000). In the case of my interviews, the
abuser’s codependency became recast as participant’s insecurities and problems. The
co-dependency coupled with the abusive behaviors indicates a need to examine the support
abusers seek, instead of just the abused women’s support. In sum, financial and
emotional support provided the abusers with power over the women they were abusing.
For the most part, women did not have as much access to these forms of power.
However, the support they provided to their abusers is a noteworthy exception to the
power they lost within the abusive relationship and worthy of future sociological
research.
II. Confusion Around Abuse
An additional reason why women who have been psychologically abused stay in their
relationships was because they begin to question their morals and values.
Hayes elaborated, “gaslighting is another tactic of psychological and emotional abuse
where the abuser ‘changes the truth’ and pushes the individual to question her own
sanity” (p. 4, 2015). Hayes and Jeffries clarified:
“The term ‘gaslighting’ comes from the 1944 movie Gaslight starring Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman. Charles Boyer’s character
manipulates the gaslight in the couples’ house, randomly turning it on. When the wife, played by Ingrid Bergman, asks him about this he denies
knowing anything about it and in doing so challenges her perception of reality. Her love for her husband couples with his confident claim that he knows nothing about the gaslight being turned on results in Bergman doubting what she sees and, eventually, her own sanity” (p. 39-40, 2015).
Marina, an interracial, lower-middle-class woman who was sixteen at the start of the
relationship, explained her experience with gaslighting, stating:
“And then more recently like within the past month I was opening up about... examples of like severe weird gaslighting… Like when we were like best friends - quote unquote – and, like, my dad died and he acted really surprised when I was upset at all and was like ‘I just didn’t think that you would be upset,’ about like the most severe trauma that had ever happened to me. And he was like ‘I thought you just understood death.’ Like he was claiming spiritual superiority or spiritual gaslighting by being like ‘I don’t know you’re not like Zen or something.’ Um so that was really traumatic and added to the trauma. Because before that he was like ‘I’m your best friend and we’re each other closest person.’ And after that I don’t think he wanted to be around for that. And you know people have their reasons but he was like ‘there’s something wrong with the fact that you’re sad.’”
Marina’s response highlighted how gaslighting can cause abused women to wonder if
they are, in fact, wrong in their response of feeling abused or violated. Indeed, Marina
stated that it took her almost six years to recognize the abuse as valid and legitimate.
Marina’s narrative depicted the effects of gaslighting and how it can, in fact, cause
women to question their sanity - or, more specifically in Marina’s case, sadness towards
the loss of a family member. Marina’s anecdote illustrated why women who are in
psychologically abusive relationships, especially with large amounts of gaslighting, may
stay in the relationship; these women have been led to believe that they are the ones at
fault. Six participants claimed to have abusers who would gaslight them or
psychologically manipulate them to the point where they would question themselves.
Hayes clarified that “many women don’t understand that they are being abused
accepted abusive behaviors, such as extreme jealousy or manipulation, are deemed as
love rather than “red flags” for abuse (p. 2, 2015). Rena explicated a similar confusion
about her relationship, stating:
“It was more like a manipulative thing… um, which specifically was an addiction, that I feel like was the focus of most of the abuse. Like was around his using heroin. Um, and like lashing out at me and making me feel bad, and victimizing himself, so it wasn’t like direct, which is why I didn’t notice.”
Rena’s story reflected most people who suffered psychological abuse, in that they did not
initially recognize the relationship as abusive. In fact, only one participant reported
awareness of abuse after the first instance of abusive behavior. Thus, a large reason why
women stay appeared to be a lack of certainty that they were being abused or that the
behaviors of their abuser were in fact abusive.
Indeed, many women struggled to identify the relationship as abusive for months
or even years. Hayes and Jeffries explicated:
“[V]ictims know something isn’t right; they feel confused, unsure of themselves, exhausted, anxious and fearful, but find it difficult to “put their finger” on exactly what the problem is… all of these tactics are premised on deception and dishonesty” (p. 37, 2015).
Lorie, a middle-class, Asian woman, who was eighteen at the start of the relationship,
described her confusion around the abuse: “Maybe it was abuse, maybe it’s not abuse. I
still don’t even know to this day.” In fact, four women warned me before the interview
that their abuse might not count as abusive enough to be part of this study. During the
interview, three of the four women reminded me that they did not feel that the
relationship constituted abuse. While each narrative depicted clearly abusive behavior, it
appeared that, even after the women had exited the relationship and had time to reflect on
Jennifer explained how she did not know her relationship was abusive because it
began without physical abuse and so she did not recognize the initial psychological
abuse. She expressed:
“Because um any physical violence is obviously not okay. But there was a lot of psychological violence before that that was not okay. It was a slow drift like with comments that would set me back. He tried to make me feel insecure and bad about myself and I didn’t really understand what was going on.”
Jennifer’s abuser, like many, did not begin with physical abuse and so Jennifer did not
recognize the abusive behaviors because she was not aware of the psychological abuse
occurring. Hayes and Jeffries wrote, “People mistakenly believe that where there has
been no evidence of physical abuse, there is little risk of death for the victim. The
research demonstrates that this is patently untrue” (p. 16, 2016). Hayes and Jeffries
depicted the commonality and danger within the stereotype that non-physical abuse is
better than physical abuse. While past research demonstrated that non-physical abuse
could still be deadly, many participants expressed that they did not fear their abuser until
physical abuse occurred.
Lorie explained a similar notion, where she had a “hard line” for physical
violence having witnessed it as a child in her parent’s relationship; she expressed that she
only left the relationship after the first physical altercation occurred because, before that,
she was not sure if the relationship counted as abusive. There were many instances
similar to Marina, Lorie, and Jennifer’s experiences, where the abuse appeared to be “too
subtle to tell” and women struggled to label the behavior as abusive. These findings
aligned with several past qualitative studies of women in non-physical abusive
research, that her abused participants had a difficult time realizing the abuse occurred
when there was “a lack of physical abuse (e.g., beatings)” (p. 48, 2014). Hayes and
Jeffries added:
“The physical injuries inflicted upon women’s bodies by violent intimates are visible. Less obvious are the emotional and psychological bruises that result from living day in and day out under the oppressive darkness of coercive control… In reality many perpetrators never use physical violence” (p. 17, 2015).
None of my participants reported that the abusive behavior began with physical violence.
However, almost every woman reported that she stayed because she was unsure whether
or not the abuse was valid until it became extreme enough to count.
It appeared as though, if people had more knowledge about abusive behavior and
what it may look like, it would affect the frequency of abusive relationships. My
participant’s knowledge of abuse often ended with knowing that physical abuse should
not be tolerated. My findings aligned with past studies where non-physical abuse is not
taken as seriously (Hayes and Jeffries, 2015; Cordero, 2014). Thus, there arose a clear
need for more education surrounding the variety of non-physically abusive relationships.
Cassandra, a low-income, mixed race woman, who was twenty when her abusive
relationship began, spoke of her experience now as a domestic violence advocate: “I was
amazed to find out that as, especially in our teens, our early teens into early twenties, we
idealize most of what domestic violence in it’s early stages looks like.” She went on to
discuss the way gender norms romanticize co-dependency, jealous or possessive behavior
and even submission to men. Cassandra discussed her work with survivors of abuse:
“They start filling out the questionnaires and by the time they’re done they have 80-90% of the questions is yes. And we explain each one of the yes’s are domestic violence, and the looks on their faces like, ‘oh my gosh I didn’t realize how extreme this was.’”
