Psychological abuse and posttraumatic stress disorder in battered women: examining the roles of shame and guilt

Psychological abuse among battered women has been relatively understudied. However, battered women's reports in the existing qualitative and quantitative research suggest that the effects of psychological abuse can be even more damaging than the effects of physical abuse. The current study attempted to clarify the relationship between psychological abuse and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) within a sample of battered women by statistically controlling for the effects of physical abuse. This study also explored the affective experiences of shame and guilt as important variables in the development of PTSD in battered women. This investigation replicated previous work suggesting that battered women are very much at risk for a diagnosis of PTSD and suggests that clinicians and researchers may need to focus on psychological abuse as a predictor of PTSD symptomatology. The current findings encourage attention to shame reactions in battered women and suggest new directions in the study of PTSD for other traumatized populations.     

Motherhood and “Moral Career”: Discourses of Good Motherhood Among Southeast Asian Immigrant Women in Australia

In this paper, I examine the lived experience of motherhood among Cambodian, Lao and Vietnamese immigrant women in Australia. The women in this study felt a profound change through the process of becoming a mother; they experience the “transformation of self.” The results reveal several discourses of good motherhood. Becoming a mother was experienced as a moral transformation of self and women were urged to perform their moral career. The representation of mothers as the “keepers of morality” is prominent. Women's moral career is influenced by an ethic of care and responsibility for others, particularly their children. The paradoxical discourse of motherhood is profound in the women's narratives of their lived experiences of motherhood. It is clear that motherhood is not an easy task. When this is combined with difficulties resulting from migration, motherhood becomes double burdens. Lack of sufficient English, financial difficulties and support network in a homeland make the task of good motherhood difficult to achieve. Social and health care services need to take women's experiences into account if sensitive care for immigrant women is to be achieved.     

Determinants of women's perceptions of risk in battering relationships

Two studies have recently identified battered women's perceptions as a substantial predictor of reassault by their batterers. Only a few exploratory studies examine how women make these useful perceptions. We attempted to identify determinants of battered women's perceptions of reassault and safety using the 15-month follow-up of a multisite evaluation of batterer intervention. The regression analyses indicate that the perceived likelihood of reassault increased with men who were divorced or separated, heavy drinkers, and severely abusive in the past. The strongest determinant for perceptions of safety was the perceived likelihood of reassault. Also, the women's professed reasons for their perceptions corresponded to the actual determinants. The women's perceptions appear, therefore, to be grounded in practical circumstances and correspond to establish predictors of reassault. Further research is needed to identify the additional cues, processes, or intuitions that make women's perceptions such a strong predictor of reassault.     

Social Support: A Mixed Blessing for Women in Substance Abuse Treatment

Using a personal social network framework, this qualitative study sought to understand how women in substance abuse treatment describe their network members' supportive and unsupportive behaviors related to recovery. Eighty-six women were interviewed from residential and outpatient substance abuse treatment programs. Positive and negative aspects of women's social networks were assessed via open-ended questions. Analysis was guided by grounded theory techniques using three coders. The findings extend classic social support concepts such as emotional, tangible, and informational support. Practice implications are presented in light of the potential roles network members may play in substance use and recovery.     

The grace of motherhood: disabled women contending with societal denial of intimacy,pregnancy, and motherhood in Ethiopia

This study aimed to provide better understanding of intimacy and marriage, pregnancy, birth, and motherhood experiences of women with disability in Ethiopia. Qualitative, in-depth, and semi-structured interviews along with personal observations were used to explore the full experiences of participants, as told in their own words. The result of the interviews indicated that relationships and motherhood proved a very rewarding option for women with disabilities. They also expressed their need for intimacy regardless of society’s denial. Challenges identified include negative societal attitudes toward women with disabilities regarding relationship, pregnancy, and child-rearing. Accessibility of health centers in addition to the ignorance and negative attitudes of the physicians are also reported to be major challenges for the interviewees. This study highlights how rewarding the experience of motherhood was for the interviewees and also shows that women with disabilities face challenges at every step of their experiences, because of society’s prejudices toward disability.     

THE CONSEQUENCES OF CARING:

Sociologists of emotion have examined the ways that workers are required to manage their emotions on the job, while studies of family emotion work reveal the effort involved in providing emotional support at home. Analyzing data collected from married or cohabiting women hospital workers, we examine the relations between women's job and family emotion work and the effects of both on women's job-related well-being. Consistent with "scarcity" views of women's emotional energy, we find that performance of family emotion work has negative consequences for women's job-related well-being. Consistent with "expansion" perspectives, however, women who perform some emotional labor on the job are more likely than other women to perform family emotion work. Our findings support a view that incorporates elements of both scarcity and expansion perspectives. We conclude that the job-related well-being of women hospital workers is less influenced by performance of emotional labor at work than it is by women's and their partners' involvement in family emotion work.     

Motherhood Penalties and Living Arrangements in China

Past research on the “motherhood wage penalty” has been based on data from nuclear families, leaving open the possibility that the motherhood wage penalty may be lower or even absent in multigenerational families. In this article, the wage gap between mothers and nonmothers is examined in nuclear and multigenerational families in the context of contemporary China, which has a long tradition of patriarchal families. Using 1993 to 2006 China Health and Nutrition Survey data, the magnitude and variation of motherhood penalty is explored with fixed effects models among 1,058 women. The results show that each additional child lowers hourly wages by about 12%. In addition, the motherhood penalty is largest for women living with their husbands' parents, smaller for women not living with parents, and nil for women living with their own parents.     

“I Help the Ones that Want Help”: Emotion Work and the Victim Advocate Role

Using data gathered from participant observation and 32 individual in-depth interviews, this study examines how victim advocates achieve emotion management in their work with battered women. This research reveals that victim advocates often experience difficulty coping with occupational stress via daily “deep acting” strategies as they work to change their understandings of battered women and the advocate role from the “inside out.” The data reveal that the core of their ability to cope requires victim advocates to redefine their perceived role from “savior” to “options giver” to more accurately define their role interactions with battered women.     

The impact of severe stalking experienced by acutely battered women: an examination of violence, psychological symptoms and strategic responding

Stalking has been relatively understudied compared to other dimensions of intimate partner violence. The purpose of this article was to examine concurrent and subsequent intimate partner abuse, strategic responses and symptomatic consequences of severe stalking experienced by battered women. Thirty-five battered women classified as "relentlessly stalked" and 31 infrequently stalked battered women were compared. Compared to infrequently stalked battered women, relentlessly stalked battered women reported: (a) more severe concurrent physical violence, sexual assault and emotional abuse: (b) increased post-separation assault and stalking; (c) increased rates of depression and PTSD; and (d) more extensive use of strategic responses to abuse. Results underscore the scope and magnitude of stalking faced by battered women and have implications for assessment and intervention strategies.     

Establishing shelters for battered women: Local manifestations of a social movement

This paper analyzes how decentralized social movements manifest themselves on the local level, by studying twenty-five social movement organizations within the battered women's movement. Data consist of in-depth interviews with group members, the study focuses on six issues faced by the groups: how they recognized the need in their communities for alternative services for battered women; how they enlisted community support; how they defined themselves in terms of feminism and the participation of men, how they developed a working relationship with the battered women whom they wanted to help; how they structured their organizations; and how they established goals and strategies. Since the groups were at different stages of development, a dynamic analysis is made of each issue. Groups dealt with the issues on the basis of local resources, values, and other conditions. The movement's structure allowed this independence, which strengthened each group's ability to mobilize resources and accomplish goals. However, it also resulted in local decisions that were often inconsistent with movement goals and weakened the ability of movement leaders to control strategy.The author is grateful to Barrie Thorne, Kathleen Ferraro, the editors and two anonymous reviewers of QUALITATIVE SOCIOLOGY for their extensive reviews of earlier drafts of this paper. Support for writing the paper was provided by a summer fellowship from the Faculty Research Committee of the University of Richmond.     

Class,work and family in women's lives

Interviews with white, working professional and working class mothers suggest that these women share values about work, family and on-the-job sociality. Respondents draw from a common value system, and many of the statements voiced by one group are echoed in the other. Work and motherhood are important paths to the development of individual identity for both working class and professional women. Differences in jobs, however, lead to differences in the actualization of values in their lives. Professional women are pulled in two directions and face continuing dilemmas in balancing careers which extract strong commitments from them and the demands of motherhood. Working class women's jobs do not require the same intensity of commitment, and they find it easier to meet their families' demands on their time. But conceptualizing their work as meaningful becomes more difficult than it is for professional women. Sociality is the third area of concern. Women in this study emphasized sociality because it allowed them to complete their work more effectively. It also served expressive functions; some women made friends at work. Some de-emphasized sociality if it interfered with their work identities. The importance of sociality was not necessarily dependent upon respondents' class location.I would like to thank Harold Bershady, Charles Bosk, and Robin Leidner for their comments and encouragement during the research and writing of this project. I would also like to thank M. E. Hughes, several anonymous reviewers, andQualitative Sociology for their helpful comments on earlier version of this article.     

‘She will know that her mother’s doing something for her’: women with intellectual disabilities assuming the mother identity

This article explores the experiences of women with intellectual disabilities in becoming a mother. The presented findings are from a grounded theory research study with 19 women with intellectual disabilities from the Czech Republic. The findings are organised around external and internal factors affecting the women’s assumption of the mother identity, with the most prominent being poverty of the participating mothers, negative attitudes towards their motherhood, and a lack of preparation for motherhood. There is a need for systemic support for mothers with intellectual disabilities, starting in adolescence with sexual education, and continued throughout adulthood, including programmes focused on skills development.     

Critical reflection of the reintegration process through the lens of gender oppression: the case of social work with mothers in shelters

The article discusses the impact of the construct of motherhood on the process of reintegration of single mothers from shelters into permanent forms of housing in the Czech Republic. At the beginning of the article, we deal with the construct of women and mothers in Czech society and apply this construct to the construct of homeless mothers who are clients of shelters. We also describe the system of shelters in the Czech Republic. Our research involved 33 communication partners, who were either currently staying in a shelter or already reintegrated into permanent housing. When analyzing the results of the research, it showed that the construct of motherhood was one of the key themes and oppressive mechanisms. Mothers in interviews thematised the label of ‘bad mother’, the forced masculinization of their own conduct and takeover of the competence of mothers by the service, the construct of anti-mother and the need for ‘public mothering’. Based on the research data, we created a two-level model of the reintegration process.     

Body Image and Cultural Background

First place winner of the 2004 Alpha Kappa Delta Graduate Student Paper Competition
Poor body image affects women of all races, ethnicities, socioeconomic statuses, and cultural backgrounds. Researchers have found that body image can influence a woman's self-confidence, her assertiveness, and her attitudes regarding eating and exercise habits. Much research has examined White women's body image perceptions, but less research has examined this issue among women of diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds. The goal of this study is to examine and explore the factors that influence university women's perceptions of their bodies. Semistructured interviews were conducted in the spring of 2004 ( N =11). Results indicate that participants have struggled to achieve positive perceptions of their bodies as adults, tend to feel that women of all races and ethnicities are increasingly held to a similar standard of beauty (i.e., thin and White), and believe that images of the female body depicted in the media have significant effects on the way women perceive their own bodies.     

Motivations and Emotional Consequences Related to Engaging in Extramarital Relationships

ABSTRACT. The purpose of this study was to allow adults who were actively engaged in extramarital relationships to explain their motivations and emotions in their own words. We recruited 77 participants (22 men and 55 women) from an Internet discussion board aimed at people who were actively pursuing or involved in extramarital affairs. Participants completed an online survey that allowed them to describe up to three extramarital relationships, including the reasons for beginning each affair and the emotional consequences of each affair. We found sexual needs, emotional needs, and falling in love to be major reasons for beginning affairs. Both men and women were equally likely to cite sexual or emotional motivations if their primary relationship was not satisfying in either of these elements. Most participants reported experiencing both negative and positive emotions in consequence of their affairs. The results of our study illustrate the complexity of these kinds of relationships.     

Marital violence: comparing women in violent and nonviolent unions.

This study examined marital violence among Israeli Jews. Data were obtained from a sample of 161 women who gave birth at Soroka Medical Center in the Negev region of Israel in 1992. The literature reveals that Jewish families tolerate domestic violence if an "evil" woman refuses housework or shows no respect for her husband. It is believed that Jews do not beat their wives. This study explored the degree to which women accept as legitimate the gender division of authority and use of power. It is posited that women in violent marriages (VMs) tend to accept the traditional division of labor and authority and hold more tolerant attitudes toward VMs. It is posited that VMs may be less egalitarian and democratic. VMs may be maintained if women are emotionally dependent on husbands, have a lower self-image, and perceive their husbands more positively. The questionnaire asked about social background and resources, attitudes toward marital power and violence, power relations, self-image, conflict solving, and women's emotional dependency. 18% had 1 domestic violent episode. 8 factors explained 56% of the difference between VMs and non-VMs and 90% of the cases. Husbands tried to avoid conflict. Wives fought for their interests and used external resources when conflict occurred. Husbands were reluctant to share power. There were 2 distinct patterns: the battered women syndrome and the struggle for power. Marital conflict was associated, as in the American literature, with economic hardship, lack of collectiveness in the dyad, and the form of conflict solving tactics used by both spouses. Women in VMs had different attitudes toward husband control and were emotionally dependent on their husbands.     

An examination of sheltered battered women's perpetration of stalking and other unwanted pursuit behaviors

In the current study, sheltered battered women (n = 105) self-reported whether they had perpetrated stalking or other unwanted pursuit behaviors (e.g., harassment, threat) during relationship separations from their abuser. Results indicated that sheltered battered women who admitted perpetrating stalking behavior (about 25% of the sample) had more self-blame, depression, and a greater tendency to leave the shelter within the first week (45%) than did battered women who did not report perpetrating stalking behaviors. The majority of battered women who reported perpetrating stalking behavior also reported being victimized by stalking behaviors (bidirectional stalking). Although these women reported similarly high levels of fear toward their abuser as did unidirectionally stalked women, bidirectionally stalking women were less likely to perceive that their abuser was using his violence to obtain control over them and were more depressed and self-blaming. Directions for future research, recommendations for shelter staff, and the potential treatment implications of these findings are discussed.     

Interpreting and defensively responding to threat: examining appraisals and coping with acquaintance sexual aggression

Resistance and prevention programming aimed at strengthening women's ability to protect themselves against acquaintance sexual aggression has lacked attention to the cognitive and emotional processes women engage in when encountering such threats. Building upon current theory related to cognitive appraisal and coping processes, this study applies a theoretical model of how women evaluate and respond to sexual aggression by male acquaintances. Two hundred and two college women who had been sexually victimized by male acquaintances responded to a questionnaire that assessed their cognitive appraisals of and emotional and behavioral responses to the incident, in addition to aggression characteristics. Path analytic regression analyses examined theorized relationships among primary and secondary appraisal and emotional response variables in addition to their collective prediction of behavioral responding. The hypothesized model accounted for significant variance in behavioral responding and indicated different patterns of appraisals, emotions, and aggression characteristics predicting women's assertive and diplomatic behavioral responses to their assaults. These findings are consistent with research and theory related to individuals' appraisal of and coping with threatening events. Theoretical and intervention implications for resistance and prevention efforts are discussed.     

Migration,Motherhood, Marriage: Cross‐Cultural Adaptation of North American Immigrant Mothers in Israel

This study probes the cross‐cultural adaptation patterns of North American women who immigrated to Israel with their Israeli‐born husbands (or married there) and are mothers in their new country. In order to undertake a cultural analysis of the interplay between immigration, motherhood and bicultural marriage, we examine: the effects of motherhood and North American culture of origin on cross‐cultural adaptation; the effects of immigration to Israel on motherhood and childrearing; the influence of family of origin on the immigrant motherhood experience; and the role of Israeli husbands and their families in the women’s cross‐cultural adaptation process. We study patterns for the entire group as well as bringing out individual differences. Our main finding is that motherhood serves as the principal social link to the Israeli host society. The high status of North American culture and English proficiency facilitate cross‐cultural adaptation in Israel. Our findings reveal transnationalist tendencies co‐existing with various adaptation strategies. We propose an expansion of previous acculturation models to accommodate this dual modus vivendi.