Confronting 'Victim' Discourses

The Identity Work of Battered Women

Bibliographic Data

ID2481638
AuthorsAmy Leisenring (San Jose State University, corresponding author)
Year2006
Volume29
Issue3
Pages307-330
Publication date2006-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSymbolic Interaction (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0195-6086 • E-ISSN: 1533-8665
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1525/si.2006.29.3.307
OpenAlexW2017306169
LanguageEN
Citations received73
References cited25

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

Criminology · Domestic violence · Empowerment · Harm · Poison control · Political science · Sociology · Suicide prevention · Sympathy · Gender Studies · Gender, Security, and Conflict · Intimate Partner and Family Violence · Law · Medicine · Psychology · Sex work and related issues · Social Psychology