Gendered shame in battered women

• Gendered shame in battered women Women who have experience of living with violent men often report feeling ashamed. They may feel intense shame over the abuse or may have internalized the abusers’ derogative view of them, leading to negative and shame-inducing evaluations of themselves. Further, they often experience or fear shaming by others, not only their perpetrators. Women have reported feeling shame both for staying in, and leaving, the relationship. They may feel shame about staying in the relationship and by that allegedly “allowing” themselves to be abused. But they may also feel shame about not being able to make the relationship work, and by that failing to meet cultural expectations of women to be good relationship builders and family preservers. Shame has been extensively examined in the field of sociology as a self-conscious and moral emotion guiding human interaction. With feminist theory on violence against women and sociological theories of emotion as theoretical points of departure, the author explores battered women’s feelings of shame. The paper presents a phenomenological model in which battered women’s shame is represented as a multifaceted prisma, consisting of five main “facets”: stigma, blame, victim stereotyping, cultural imperatives to stay/leave and subordination. This model is lined out in detail and battered women’s shame is analyzed as a gendered emotion, leading to gendered conformity or subordination, and (thus) as an important micro-macro link.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Sociologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Sociology (hsv//eng)

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

kon (subject category)