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Confronting “Victim” Discourses: The Identity Work of Battered Women
Author(s) -
Leisenring Amy
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
symbolic interaction
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.874
H-Index - 47
eISSN - 1533-8665
pISSN - 0195-6086
DOI - 10.1525/si.2006.29.3.307
Subject(s) - empowerment , harm , identity (music) , agency (philosophy) , sympathy , social psychology , action (physics) , construct (python library) , domestic violence , psychology , sociology , poison control , gender studies , criminology , suicide prevention , political science , medicine , law , social science , physics , environmental health , quantum mechanics , acoustics , computer science , programming language
In this article I explore how battered women both draw from and reject victim discourses in their processes of self‐construction and self‐representation. Data gathered from semistructured interviews with forty women who experienced violence from an intimate partner in a heterosexual relationship demonstrate that available “victim” discourses are both enabling and constraining. Four common representations of a victim emerged as most influential to women's identity work: as someone who suffers a harm she cannot control; as someone who deserves sympathy and/or requires some type of action be taken against the victimizer; as someone who is culpable for her experiences; and as someone who is powerless and weak. “Victim empowerment” and “survivor” discourses also played a role in how women understood and made sense of their experiences. In their attempts to construct identities for themselves, battered women become caught between notions of victimization, agency, and responsibility.