I once heard Bill Cosby try this while talking to some kids in jail, most of them who had been abandoned by their father's. He told them that someone had hurt them, and that that wasn't their fault, but that, ultimately, they'd be the ones who'd have to fix it. It's an unfair deal. But there's really no other way. Anyway, here's someone who'd know better than me:
There's a lot going on in this comments thread. And I haven't taken the time to carefully read all of it, though I've had a good skim over it. Honestly, I can't quite bring myself to read all of this in too much detail. My hands are already shaking just having read the piece Ta-Nehisi linked to.
I'm an abuse survivor, and Linda Hirshman's piece and the majority of these comments just don't have anything to do with my experience. I'm not doing a very good job structuring an argument here because, well, I'm not looking to be logically compelling, refute points, or even advance any particular assertion...except that I would really encourage everyone who is discussing this stuff here, and Hirschman, if they want to understand why women stay in abusive relationships, to trying asking a woman who was in one. And then five or ten more, because reasons vary a lot.
Somebody wrote something above, poking fun at an abused woman because "he left HER ass" or something to that effect. Well, I was left by my abuser and not the other way around. It took me a year after he left to figure out that it was abuse. If you want to ridicule someone, ridicule me. When I got together with my abuser, I was the head of a feminist organization at the university I attended. My feminism didn't prevent me from getting into an abusive relationship, unfortunately--in large part because, like others mentioned here, I thought it was something that happened to other people. Once the abuse began, I was so ashamed of having gotten into that relationship that it prevented me from reaching out to others and getting out. The problem wasn't that I was a feminist, of course. It was that although I was a feminist, I didn't know enough about intimate partner violence--both how to recognize it in its initial stages and the fact that the shame that isolates you from others is one of the most potent tools that abusers have.
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I've been in support groups with a wide variety of women who've been through domestic abuse, and if there's one thing I can tell you about all of them, it's that they are in no danger of not taking responsibility for their abuse. The struggle, actually, is to begin to hold your abuser responsible for what they did and to stop being so paralyzed by shame that you can't heal. The fact is, women who are abused are getting the message every day that's it their fault--from their abusers. It's hard sometimes to walk the line between denying women's agency and avoiding blame. I understand why people have a hard time finding a balance between the two. But if what you really care about is the well-being of abused women and not some kind of abstract notion of personal responsibility that it's tempting to apply to them, it's not that difficult: don't apply blame, or anything that is likely to sound to an abused woman like blame. Because shame, guilt, and blame are the basis of abuse. My shame hurt so much more than the blows I suffered. And every time I felt more shame, it pushed me further into my self-destructive relationship and made me feel that I had less agency.
I don't know if I'm actually getting this across very well, but I felt compelled to say something about this. There's been a lot of "I don't really know much about this, but here's my two cents" kind of talk on this thread. I would ask that people please try to refrain from making spurious assumptions about domestic abuse. Please, if you're really interested, read some good books about it, or if you know a woman who's been through it who is willing to talk, ask her what her experience was like. Or, heck, ask me. Mostly I would just ask that you open your mind to the possibility that maybe you don't already understand everything about this topic. Because being in an abusive relationship feels really different from imagining you are in one.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
This comment gets to the heart of what has really troubled me so much about the conversation about domestic violence going on lately. Questioning why a victim of domestic violence doesn't leave the abuser really misses the insidiousness of the abuse, which plays out in the way the victim blames herself for what's happening. Unfortunately, I, too, have experience of being in an abusive relationship, and to be perfectly honest, it never crossed my mind that I should leave because of the way he treated me. It was so clear to me that it was my fault, and that he wouldn't abuse me if only I were better, smarter, happier, more interesting or sexier. Why would I leave when he only wanted me to be a better version of myself? Victims of domestic violence don't only stay in their relationships out of practical necessity - part of what an abusive relationship does is train the victim to believe that she brings the abuse on herself.
Wow, amanda. That's real.
I'd like to add humbly that emotions are powerful things. I was in an emotionally destructive relationship for a quick minute and like you both. A good friend of mine upon hearing me talk about it was shocked and was loudly incredulous that I would put up with what I did. It hadn't even occurred to me until she had said that.
So, in a small way, this brother can definitely empathize.
I didn't read all the comments from the other post, but just in reading TNC's post about it, I didn't get the sense that he was caught up in trying to assign blame: He seemed to be saying that it's NOT clear why abused women stay in relationships, or why they seem to lack even a modicum of agency, but he was saying this in the service of trying to clarify, not trying to blame.
Oh, definitely - for clarification, I wasn't necessarily trying to call out TNC for assigning blame, but to address more of a general theme I've seen as this conversation has evolved in multiple places on the web.
Questioning why a victim of domestic violence doesn't leave the abuser really misses the insidiousness of the abuse, which plays out in the way the victim blames herself for what's happening.
I get what you are saying but it seems to me that we have to ask this question if we want to get to a solution. Unfortunately, I have known a number of abused women, too many, in my life including a couple within my extended family. Its always problematic to generalize but two things often pop up:
1. These women have been involved in numerous abusive relationships. The abusive relationship that I know of is generally not the first or last that they will be involved in. In other words, even if and when their abuser is stopped, there seems to be a pretty good chance that they will get involved with another before too long.
2. Everyone, except the abused woman seems to almost instantly recognize the potentially abusive tendencies of the men involved long before it ever gets to the point of violence. I know I can practically smell it on these guys.
So its obvious that the biggest part of any solution will be to find better, more effective ways of getting to and stopping the abusers. But we will still have a problem if we don't find a way to understand and transform the psychology of the abusees. Indeed, your comment is a very good start to doing just that and we don't get that answer unless we do ask the question.
There is something profoundly human in how this plays out.
Since I was the one who pointed out that Steiner's abuser "left HER ass", I'd like to say I was not "making fun" of the abused. I just pointed out that many women stay in abusive relationships because that's the relationship they want to be in.
No one has to demean or mock you in order to question why you would stay in an obviously abusive situation. I say "obviously" because one woman's "strong man" is another's abuser.
My point was about Morgan Steiner's particular situation: educated, childless who repeatedly submitted to beatdowns because of "love". This conversation is labyrinthine because only the people inside that relationship can explain those dynamics. Steiner was in a symbiotic relationship that she willingly stayed in. If you haven't perused the book, I urge you to. It is not typical.
"I say "obviously" because one woman's "strong man" is another's abuser." I'm not sure I understand what you mean here. Can you explain?
This thread is about Morgan Steiner's new book, Crazy Love. We've jacked it to speak on domestic violence in general, but really, I'm focus on one particular woman's "smart" "sexy" boyfriend turned husband. She was shocked by his abuse before the wedding-- but not enough to cancel it.
Her situation was seemed to me not unlike my early eighties bodice-ripper romances: where "no means yes"...it was surreal.
Those vivid precursers to abuse: the casual derision, the claiming "I own you" and rampant jealousy should have sent any normal woman running. Steiner was simply in a place--at the time in her life-- where that was okay. Welcomed when any other woman would have been screaming for the hills.
Now, she has a new husband and I venture to guess, her ex may have a new wife. Steiner claims she is no longer abused, that this tome is an attempt to explain how this would happen, I still don't understand it.
I feel as if you're committing a pretty big jump in logic about humans here. As I understand it, you're saying that because Steiner (and others) stayed in an abusive relationship, she "wanted" to be in that relationship. It's not at all clear to me that the absence of doing something implies that someone didn't "want" to do it.
I haven't read the book you're referencing, but the gist that I got is that Steiner was in an abusive relationship, by which I mean it was unhealthy for her. I think that it's easy from an outside perspective to say that, well, this woman is in a bad relationship and the onus is on her to get out of it. There's nothing directly preventing her from doing so, therefore she must take a certain amount of responsibility for being in it in the first place. But I'm not sure that it's so simple.
Let's look at a different situation - obesity for instance. I doubt it's controversial to say that most people want to be thin - or to at least to be fit and healthily sized. Wanting this, however, is a very long way from attaining it, even when the person in question attempts to make the changes necessary in their life to do so. Obesity is a more obviously difficult problem because there are so many more factors involved, not all of which (like genetics) can be controlled. But I think that the emotional struggle in getting out of an abusive relationship might be similar.
A woman in an abusive relationship presumably knows that she's unhappy because of the relationship. But to her, it's not clear that the solution to becoming happier in the relationship is to leave it all together. She might think that there are things she can do to make the relationship better. After all, even relatively happy marriages involve a certain amount of compromise and work to maintain. You don't divorce your husband the first time you fight. There's always some conflict. I think the problem is recognizing what falls under the heading of "normal" conflict versus abuse. Since abuse tends to ramp up from small actions, the woman's sense of "normal" can be re-set, which makes it difficult to recognize when her "normal" is no longer normal by societal standards.
Furthermore, even if the woman does realize that she's in a not-normal, bad relationship, there are further emotional hurdles involved in concluding that the only way to fix it is to abandon it. We're all loathe to give things up that we've invested time and energy in. There's a certain amount of shame attached to "quitting" and that's on top of whatever shame comes with being abused in the first place.
Okay. I'm too through. My original, apparently callous, statement still stands: if he hits you once, he'll hit you again. ad nauseum. ad infinitum. Steiner (and others) should have BEEN got that memo.
Like I've previously alluded to: I grew up with courtside seats to my mother's abuse. I've seen the struggle. I've been referring to Steiner, her inherent resources and our inability to allow women a modicum of responsibility (NOT blame) for their circumstances.
A poster, Michelle, pointed out that "personal responsibility" can be used as a smokescreen for misogynists. As a black chick from Dickensian roots, I've been clobbered by that conceit by Social Darwinists to explain away systemic racism or generational poverty. Trust. That's not my intention.
Sheesh. I can't go on. I was speaking about Steiner, but now that it's personalized, it is way to unwieldy a conversation. I hope any person finds themselves at any point in their lives. Steiner's husband leaving made her reflect on what she endured. I'm glad he walked out before he "loved" her to death.
Looking at it praxeologically, a person that remains in an abusive relationship has a revealed preference for remaining in that relationship over some other state of affairs that they could have chosen. Thymologically, we can use our empathic intuition to judge that, ceteris paribus, that person would prefer not being abused, from which we can infer that other factors are in fact not held equal in their perception of available actions. From this point, if we desire to help the person in the abusive relationship, we can offer certain kinds of assistance: we can offer to expand their powers, offering new courses of action; we can critique their perception, causing them to re-evaluate the expected value of the courses of action available to them; or critique their ends if they are not consistent (for instance, if they misunderstand constitutive means to be instrumental) -- but not in the general case. Regardless, whether the relationship is "healthy" is obviously not the deciding factor in judging what actions will lead to the maximal satisfaction of the person's preferences.
The obesity case is parallel. I, myself, am overweight. Ceteris paribus, I would prefer to be more fit. However, I have a revealed preference for my current weight as a package deal with other factors, primarily, the constituents of my work, leisure activities, and diet. This choice is critiquable in the same constrained way as the actions above.
In both cases, the extent to which outsiders can affect the available actions and their expected values (at least, leaving out recourse to violence) is quite limited. We can only expand the capabilities of others so far; we cannot, for instance, in general give them direct control over intangibles like shame and honor that they do not already possess. Similarly, perceptions may be accurate and ends may be consistent. Having exhausted these options, we can only maintain our ability to regard both the overweight person and the victim of abuse as fully human by respecting their ends and the choices they have made. Moreover, given that exhaustion of our means, their is necessarily no possible state of affairs that is actually better (by their own evaluation) for the person in question.
This, I think, is what agency is. Blame doesn't enter into it. Maybe "personal responsibility" is when an entity with agency has a sufficiently internal locus of control to be blame-worthy for the full state of affairs; I'm apathetic about the worth of defining such a thing. I do think that treating a victim of abuse as if they possessed agency is a minimal requirement for seriously engaging their problem because the nonviolent means available to us require that the person not significantly deviate from this state.
I should clarify the reference to violence in the third paragraph; executing an abuse victim's right to self-defense on their behalf constitutes a case of expanding their powers and is obviously okay with their consent (or presumed consent in extraordinary cases). The an example of excluded violent recourse would be forcefully removing the abused from the physical situation against their consent, which is obviously an action available and reasonable if you consider the victim to lack agency as some may regard children, etc.
"Obesity is a more obviously difficult problem because there are so many more factors involved, not all of which (like genetics) can be controlled. But I think that the emotional struggle in getting out of an abusive relationship might be similar."
Many more factors? Try calories. That is it. Too many calories equals obesity. The rest is rationalization. Staying slim is like so many other simple activities: just because it is simple doesn't mean it is easy.
Although I think your analogy of obesity to violence within relationships is way off, I suppose it is similar in one way: the solution is simple, but not necessarily easy.
You can lose weight by throwing out every bit of food you own, restocking only with fruits, vegetables and meats, and exercising vigorously and daily. But most people with enough discipline to do that dramatic a turnaround never got obese in the first place.
Similarly you can leave an abusive mate by packing your bags (and kids, if necessary), driving to a shelter and making a new life for yourself. Assuming there will be no swanky alimony or child support coming, that is a real tough road for most people, especially at first. Again, the people most likely to do that would probably not find themselves abused in the first instance, because at the first sign they say "GTF out!" to the abuser.
BTW, the feminist writer who claimed surprise at how she could be in abusive relationship is a great illustration of something I have seen in my life: the more independent, capable and free the woman, the less interest she has in academic feminism.
There are so many different levels of wrong you and Spartee are getting into by going at this through a "look at this other oppression" lens. Oppression Olympics Fail. Please try again, with less intellectual laziness this time.
I'm interested in the blame thing, because it seems in trying to avoid blaming the victim (a worthy effort), we create these boogeymen abusers, whom we don't have to try to understand because what they're doing is so heinous. It is heinous. But they're not monsters.
I haven't been in an abusive relationship, but I did have one relationship in which I came to feel really badly about myself -- "if only I were better, smarter, happier, more interesting or sexier," he would really love me, instead of tolerating me. And I don't have fond feelings for that guy, but I also don't really think the dynamic was his fault. It was OUR fault. He could be, probably is, a fine mate to some other woman. (It would be less easy to say this about a guy who beats on a woman, of course.) But I can see how I contributed to this thing that made me feel like utter shit.
The point is, we don't fix this unless we look frankly at the abused, as well as the abusers. We just don't.
I saw that comment, and thought it more or less got to the heart of the conundrum that occurs when you want to help someone cope with a bad situation. If you say anything, like it or not, they receive it as blame. Keep in mind that, as mentioned by the commenter, your target is already in a relationship dynamic where the abuse is "deserved"; it isn't that much of a stretch for this person to hear "this is your fault" when someone says "hey, snap out of it! take responsibility for yourself!"
I think that people are very confused about this agency and responsibility question. I tried to get at this in the other thread, but someone who suffers from a power imbalance in their lives can't simply wish that power imbalance away. I'm a woman, and I can't wish away the fact that men are privileged in certain ways in this culture. A black woman has the added burden of not being able to shuffle off racism because she wishes it wasn't there. We all do what we can, of course, in the world, but it isn't incompatible with a theory of free will to recognize that the exercise of choice and volition always occurs within certain limits.
And, of course, there's these societal power imbalances aren't comparable, which is why I don't much like your Cosby analogy, TNC. In a partner abuse situation, the power imbalance is daily, immediate, particular, and granular. There is no home to go back to and no shield. Maybe you can lock yourself in the bathroom once in awhile. But because a relationship with another human being goes pretty deep into one's sense of self, there is very little "outside" to the daily feeling of helplessness.
I mean, to me, the more important thing to do here than to tell someone they "need to take charge of themselves" is to repeatedly, and firmly, and unwaveringly, tell them this is wrong. And, frankly, to take it up with the abuser if you feel you MUST say something. Or the police. Or his workplace. I don't understand why any of these latter options are not discussed, although it is apparently perfectly okay for some people, it seems, to channel their frustration into, like it or not, perceived attacks on these women. I don't get it.
"repeatedly, and firmly, and unwaveringly, tell them this is wrong", instead.
Yeah. I see your point. for reals.
Provide a mirror and sounding board, not suck our teeth in exasperation.
Still, read Crazy Love. Just do.
I like your points here a lot, Michelle--especially what you wrote about their not being a home to go back to. It's ironic that you mention the possibility of locking yourself in the bathroom--my ex, like a lot of abusers, hated nothing more than being kept out of a room in that fashion. Once he tried so hard to beat down the bathroom door that he demolished the sides and top of the doorway. Luckily, the lock held until he had calmed down somewhat. That being said, sometimes the bathroom really is the only place you can make an excuse to be alone in, and sometimes I thanked my lucky stars for that.
But I do have to take issue with some of the options you've mentioned at the end of your comment. I haven't tried to intervene in many abusive situations, so this doesn't come from personal experience. But I've talked with professional domestic violence counselors, people who work at my local shelter, and women who've been on the receiving end of attempts at help, and the consensus I've always gotten is that doing things like calling the police or abusers' employers usually puts abused women in more danger than doing nothing. There are exceptions. Of course, any time you feel someone is in danger of being severely hurt, or heaven forbid killed, you should always call the authorities immediately. If you hear someone calling out for help or you believe they are trying to signal for you to call the authorities, you should do so. But putting an abuser on the defensive usually just sends him into a familiar rut: blaming his partner and punishing her for somehow causing the negative consequences he is suffering. Not only is this likely to cause the abused person to be retaliated against, in the big picture it is going to discourage them from talking to anyone about their abuse or trying to get help.
If I had to sum up what I've learned about how best to approach a person you're concerned is being abused (and what I think would have been most helpful to me during my abuse), I would say that it's best just to let them know that some thing or things you've witnessed or heard about seem like they are not ok, that you are concerned about them, and that if they want to talk about it further or if they need help staying safe at any point you are available to help them. If you think they're ready to hear it, you can tell them you'd like to help if they choose to get out, but it can be harmful to bring that up with someone who isn't ready for it.
More to the point, I would say that if anyone reading this finds themselves wanting to help someone they believe is being abused, the best thing they can do is to call their local domestic violence shelter or any organization that advocates for domestic abuse survivors and talk to someone who deals with these issues in their work. There are people out there who have lots of experience and specialized training for how to best deal with these things effectively, and they can be a great resource.
Of course, the bottom line is that no one can get someone out of an abusive relationship without the person being abused making a decision to leave and doing the necessary work. That's why the best thing most of us can do is just to be there and be available for help when that person is ready to receive it.
Dynamics of abuse transcend physical violence. Someone above mentions that it's hard to say that a man who "beats on" his woman could possible be imagined to have a non-physically abusive relationship with another woman, but has an easier time imagining the emotionally abusive former partner being just hunky dory with someone who isn't her.
Unfortunately, all abuse (including violent physical abuse) is emotional abuse at it's core, which is why the choices of those embroiled in abusive relationships seem so irrational: the core abuse is irrational. This becomes a particularly sticky issue when you encounter physically abusive women in straight relationships or practically any abusive relationship in the gay community. When you remove the obvious "strong man hurting delicate woman" dichotomy that is so culturally entrenched as 'wrong' you can more closely examine the underlying, pervasive and ultimately mysterious emotional reasons that abuser and abused continue the cycle.
I think an important distinction needs to be made. There is no doubt, absolutely none, that victims of abuse need to know that they don't deserve to be abused. I don't think anyone's arguing that, and if they are, well, I'd like to see them try.
However, I do think we need to, culturally or whatever, promote the idea that you need to consider your own wellbeing and take responsibility for it. If you're in an unhappy, unhealthy relationship, you need to get out (if you can, and I recognize that that's not always safe or financially viable). You (I mean this generally, I really do, so please don't take it personally) don't deserve to be hurt if you do stay, no one deserves to be hurt like that. But it's not going to stop if you don't make the decision yourself.
And that's what, I guess, I'm concerned about. In my mind, and I may just be cynical/pessimistic, there are always going to be people out there who will take advantage of people and hurt them. We can vilify those offenders all we want. It doesn't stop pedophiles, it doesn't stop rapists, and it won't stop abusers.
We need proactive prevention. To me, that comes with empowerment, agency, and education. If someone slips up and falls into a relationship, they're human, no one deserves to be abused, forgiveness (should be) granted. No concerned party wants the abuse to happen again. But the only person who can reliably (noted exceptions and surprises aside) put a stop to it is going to have to be the person abused.
To me, that's the only way. I like Carol Gilligan's model. Valuing yourself while respecting others. I know it's not easy to get that selfworth up, but I just think it's the only way.
I think the challenge here is to understand abuse in a way that makes the following things clear:
1) The abuse is not your fault. It is the abuser's fault. Period.
2) As you say so clearly, deepfrieddm, the abused does not deserve to be abused.
3) You can do things to end the abuse.
For a long time addiction was conceived of pejoratively -- addicts were weak, their suffering was merely due punishment for their weakness. And then people started to conceive of addiction as an illness: it's not the addict's fault that they suffer from an illness; they've never done anything to deserve the illness or its terrible effects in their lives; they can do things to end that damage.
People now apply that disease model to drugs, alcohol, eating, gambling, sex, cosmetic surgery...all kinds of things. It seems to allow people to understand that their suffering is not their fault, and not deserved, and that they can none the less act to end it. Is there any way to apply a similar model to abuse? Does the fact that an actual person is the abuser, rather than a thing (drugs, alcohol, food) or behavior (gambling, surgeries), make that impossible? Would that kind of model help anyone?
@deepfried,
Thanks for the comment - I can feel your passion here. I really like how you supported the need and use of "proactive" intervention, but I think that that statement is somewhat dissonant with the main thrust of your post, namely that what the rest of us do doesn't influence the decision that an abused partner must ultimately make. My main contention is that you seem to downplay the importance of others helping survivors of abuse make their decision to leave.
I agree with you 100% that empowerment and respect of the self is key to getting out of and recovering from an abusive relationship. Several posters have explained that partner abuse and sexual violence do deep harm to the notion of the self, and may leave the survivor with feelings of low self-worth or worse. But I'm not sure that you realize how important proactive prevention and post-abuse help really are: we really can only define our self by relating it to others. Counseling, support groups, and even crisis hotlines are about allowing survivors to take back their narrative self by telling their story out loud, and hearing respect and acknowledgment in response (You seem to be versed in feminist theory; I'm leaning heavily on Susan Brison here if you'd like to take a deeper look).
Second, I don't think that we should underestimate not only the issues of safety and financial stability, but the emotional and cultural norms that encourage staying with any partner, abusive or not. These are big exceptions that many, many abused partners face in the course of trying to get out of an abusive relationship. And as you note, abusers are aware of this position of power and milk it; abusers often take explicit steps to prevent the abused partner from leaving specifically by increasing the financial, physical, and social danger/disadvantage of leaving. This all makes the process of leaving an abusive relationship so much harder, and thereby a process that can benefit so much more from direct and proactive help and encouragement from others.
Surely it is a physical reality that the abused partner must extricate him or herself from the relationship, but the "proactive" supporters that you mention really make this possible. Having people listen, respect, and accept survivors' stories helps them realize that they are a full person without the abuse - because we know they are hearing exactly the opposite from the abuser. Brison wrote regarding her own violent rape that she was not able to move on emotionally from that episode until she began to open up about it, and take back the narrative of her self. Similarly, with the exception of an admirable and steely few, abused partners can't really be expected to arrive at the decision to leave the abuser solely through self-reflection and hard thought. They need support, and a network that will hear them, and help them make that tough decision. Relating their story to empathetic others makes "getting that self-worth up" and leaving an abusive relationship possible. And with this help should also come the means for financial, physical, and cultural safety that I noted were such a problem; this is why groups that support survivors of relationship and sexual violence are so incredibly important to our society as a whole. We are the concerned parties, and we should show survivors of abuse that we can help them make a tough decision, and not stand away and think that that person needs to get tough and make the call to leave.
That's my piece, at least. And just to reiterate, I admire your passion and empathy for survivors of abuse, and I don't mean to put you, deepfried, down in any way; I'm just kinda taking your post and running with it. So, thank you again.
Thank you so much for this comment! There's a lot here I would have said if I could have found the words.
Looking up Susan Brison right now...
I think an important distinction needs to be made. There is no doubt, absolutely none, that victims of abuse need to know that they don't deserve to be abused. ... However, I do think we need to, culturally or whatever, promote the idea that you need to consider your own wellbeing and take responsibility for it.
Put another way, there is a difference between (1) our cultural conversation about domestic abuse and (2) the question of how to talk to domestic abuse victims. We might say one thing when teaching our daughters how not to avoid becoming victims of domestic abuse; that doesn't mean we'd say that same thing to a victim of domestic abuse.
To be sure, there isn't a perfect differentiation between the two -- surely domestic violence victims have some awareness of the cultural conversation about domestic abuse -- but I don't agree that requires that our cultural conversation be limited to what would be OK to say within a private counseling session.
@ alkali and mckelroy:
Both very good points and well put. I certainly agree.
I like your point about the distinction between the prevention conversation and talking to a survivor. But I think it's important to keep in mind that something of the sympathy we would bring to a discussion with a survivor does belong in the prevention conversation.
That's a little vague. What I mean to say is that I think part of prevention needs to be acknowledging that even the best of us can find ourselves in an abusive relationship. Sometimes there are lots of obvious signs that someone has the potential to be abusive, and we can steer clear before we're at all entangled. But many abusers don't set off red flags right away, and often circumstances at the beginning of a relationship can obscure the red flags that are present until we are emotionally involved. We can't really teach our daughters, or anyone, a foolproof way to avoid falling for or dating someone who can abuse them, so we need to make sure that the prevention conversation includes a great deal of empathy for people who are touched by abuse at some point in their lives, so that if the people we're trying to educate find themselves in an abusive situation at some point down the line, they won't be silenced by shame at the crucial point where they first start to realize something is not ok.
I totally agree with all of your points here. No one can end an abusive relationship except the people involved. As people who are concerned about abuse, we can let someone who is being abused know that we care and that we are available to be a resource should they choose to turn to us, but no one but them can make the decision to get out.
The main point I wanted to make with my comment to the earlier entry is just that approaching someone who you believe is being abused is something that should be done with great care not to reinforce the dynamics of shame that are inevitably already part of the abuse. And to a lesser degree, survivors of abuse are also susceptible to feeling shamed and triggered if such issues aren't dealt with sensitively.
I especially liked your point about prevention. Honestly, I think we could all benefit from a more nuanced, reality-based picture of how abusive relationships work. If I'd had even a passing knowledge of what it was really like before it happened to me, I think I would have left my abusive relationship as soon as the significant danger signs began.
My heart hurts after hearing your story. Stay strong, and remember the value inherent in you. Nobody deserves to be abused.
I wrote the comment quoted above, which I assume you're responding to here. I just wanted to say I really appreciate your words and your sympathy.
What I'm about to write is not my opinion, but the opinion of a particular blogger who writes about "Game"/Pick up artist stuff. My dating days are behind me, but I've checked out his blog a few times out of curiosity. His opinion about abusive relationships (again, his opinion) is that there are women who get an erotic charge out of a man who uses force against them, that this fulfills some unconscious need in them to be dominated (his post on this was prompted by the Rihanna situation). For what it's worth, this blogger doesn't defend abusers morally, he just says that this is the response some women have to physical expressions of dominance. I mentioned this to my girlfriend, who thinks this a load of crap, but I thought I'd mention it here and see what others think.
Your girlfriend is right.
Physical expressions of dominance are undeniably erotic for some people (male and female). But abusive relationships are something completely different. You might want to read the extensive comments in the "break your back" thread, in particular the bit near the end where a BDSM player speaks up.
Abuse, by definition and in practice, seeks to deprive the victim of free will.
"Abuse, by definition and in practice, seeks to deprive the victim of free will."
An abuser may seek to do this, but, in practice (in less it's one of those extreme, rare situations where a woman is literally held captive) it is the abused free will that keeps her in the abuse situation. In this way, it seems analogous to the part you quoted about Doms. The Dom may not have the same intent as the abuser, but both are empowered by the abused deciding to stay in the relationship.
Actually, about a third of female homicide victims were killed by a current or ex-spouse/boyfriend/significant other. That tends to give the very common "I'll kill you if you leave" threat some pretty substantial teeth.
Is someone who stays in a relationship under the implied threat of extreme violence if she leaves acting of her own free will? The courts have said not: contracts and wills signed under threat are unenforceable.
I would refer you to Michelle's comment above for some good discussion of why free will isn't quite so simple as we sometimes would like to believe. Abusive relationships are overwhelming, confusing, unrelenting, and designed to make you question all of your perceptions. Not choosing to leave such a relationship is a very different thing from choosing to be in a submissive bdsm relationship.
The commenter writes, "shame, guilt, and blame are the basis of abuse." Absolutely, and those qualities are socially-driven, not only driven by the abuser. One problem with this conversation about "responsibility" is that we assume that domestic violence happens out of context of everyone else shaming, guilting, and blaming survivors. Personal agency doesn't exist in a vacuum, but in the context of community that either supports the survivor's dignity or doesn't. If we're so busy "keeping it real" by telling the survivor how stupid she or he is for staying, how does that help build the capacity of her or his agency to make other choices?
TNC, regarding your earlier point about nationalism, the best nationalism wasn't just about holding people being responsible for themselves, it was about the collective being responsible for individual members. In some cases, there was collective-reflection about collective values that helped contribute to an individual collective member's choices. It's not that individuals don't have our own personal work to do, it's that we always do that work in the context of relationships with others.
Survivors of violence and oppression make their choices in the context of (liberatory or damaging) social pressure that their community and the larger culture create. Imagine how different the consequences of domestic violence would look if survivors didn't live in a culture that pathologizes and blames them (for their own good!). How much less trauma that person will experience. How much easier it would be to hold the abuser accountable.
I think we need to imagine agency more expansively than just "personal responsibility." Domestic violence isn't only motivated by the abusive person (or the survivor who stays), but is supported, reinforced, and legitimized by the social pressure of others and their choices (for example, shaming, guilting, and blaming). Agency is social, not just personal.
supported, reinforced, and legitimized by the social pressure of others and their choices
Exactly, and fully illustrated by the Rihanna/Chris Brown situation. The real story there is (or should be) the way his continuing abuse is supported and even enforced by his circle. Saying "why doesn't she leave him and stay away?" is a way of focusing on her as the active, blameable agent, of not-looking at the dudes using women to talk to the other dudes.
More education can really work toward prevention. I thank the commenter for sharing her story and TNC for posting it because this is the way I've learned about domestic abuse -- women sharing their stories. Hundreds of women on television, at teach-ins, and in print have shared their stories and I have learned from all of them. I have never been abused and never will be because they've taught me how the cycle of abuse starts and the horrible places it can end.
I just wish that these lessons started earlier in life. High school is a bit late to start talking with young women about abuse because they're already dating. We need to get to girls and repeatedly assert the message that no one has the right to beat you until it is as familiar to them as their own names.
And they all need to know that it CAN happen to them. I grew up in the generation right before the "everybody gets a trophy for showing up" group. My parents told me to eat my vegetables, wear a seat belt, etc. so it has never crossed my mind that anything I see in the news couldn't happen to me too. That message-- it can happen to you-- must be part of the education process too.
Hilzoy has a post on this today, too, and points out that there are a huge variety of reasons why women end up in and stay in abusive relationships.
I think the best way to avoid this is to teach kids to care less about what others think. Abusive relationships with spouses, with parents, with employers -- all exist because someone else's view of the victim's worth is trumping their own. While the hallmark of spousal abuse is the violence, many people are in situations where they are unhappy because someone else is defining the rules by which one's life is judged -- parents, society, spouses, employers, relatives, whatever.
The problem is that from an early age, everyone is bombarded with lessons that tell them that the approval of others is vital and necessary. Every time a parent says "why? because I'm your dad/mom and I said so" this is slightly more reinforced. Every time the mean kid at school says "you have no friends" this is reinforced. Even in movies about "the rebel" or the "outsider" there's always someone who believes in them -- they're never completely alone the way an abuse victim is.
This also helps on the other side of the relationship. Men don't abuse women because they are self-confident. They abuse to feel superior to someone -- they probably would abuse (or perhaps already do) their co-workers, family, friends or acquaintances if they could get away with it. Their spouse just provides the combination of proximity, inability to escape and a level of emotion dependance on the abuser.
If we want women to say "you have no right to do this to me, I'm gone" at the first sign of abuse and we want men to say "why would I ever hurt the woman I love?" then they need to be people whose self-worth is not bound up in the opinions of others.
I always feel strangely wrong posting this argument, since it feels like I'm encouraging sociopaths.
Why do you think you're encouraging sociopaths? Just because they have no conscience and the rest of us do? You don't need to be an evil, thoughtless person to take less interest in what others think. It's not caring what others FEEL that makes you a psycho.
Up until you confused me with that last line, I thought your argument was spot on.
Has anyone else noticed that this conversation began with Ta-Nehisi discussing male insecurity and that we’ve ended up discussing female lack of agency instead?
I disagree with DaveinHackensack’s girlfriend and with Katherine, who argue that women never experience a positive erotic response to dominance. As Ta-Nehisi pointed out about men and women “you'll be shocked by who pulls out the handcuffs, and what they plan to do with them.” That doesn’t always happen within an intentional BDSM context. Often it’s spontaneous or even subconscious.
Exploring why powerful women allow experimentation with submission to extend beyond the bedroom is important—especially because, as Destron says, being in an abusive relationship feels a lot different than you expect it will (especially if you consider yourself a feminist). It’s confusing to be (or watch) a smart, successful woman suffering a fool.
But, as previous posts show, we’ve already done a lot of thinking about why it happens.
I’d be more interested to explore why smart, successful men allow their desire to “break a woman’s back” extend beyond the bedroom (even in non-abusive relationships). I’d like to hear from the men who find themselves being overly critical of their partners. Or from the men who find that they’re yelling at their girlfriends more than they’d like to.
So can we go back to Ta-Nehisi’s original thought?
Can we talk about that casual desire to break a woman’s back and how that morphs into suppressing her will? Can we talk about how a man feels when he walks into a room with a beautiful woman, knowing that other men there want to break his girl’s back, too? Does he feel proud or frustrated? Can we ask how even a subconscious need for control manifests when a man is insecure, or when he feels less attractive, less successful than his partner? And for men and women both, can we talk about why exerting our will over someone else’s makes us resent them in a way that tends to be cyclical?
Other readers balked at Ta-Nehisi’s endorsement of the break-her-back feeling. But I guarantee he’s not the only dude wrestling with control and insecurity. And as a woman, I’d rather talk about it than deal with it. So let’s have at it.
One thing that got lost in the initial discussion over the TVOTR song is that aggression (itself an approximate term) is not the same thing as control, or even the desire to control. The sentiment I hear expressed in the song is not a desire to dominate or control, but a desire to throw yourself at another person with nothing held back. To abandon self. It's a desire that can lead equally easily to violence and to intimacy (and one thing that tends to get lost in the domestic violence discussion is the intimacy of violence). And it's a desire that I think informs the wish to be dominated as much as the wish to dominate.
One thing that I think would be helpful in understanding co-dependent abusive relationships (and I want to point out that much abuse is not co-dependent, but based on the absolute terrorization of the abused) is that the abuser and the abused generally share a lot - not only a relationship and a set of common experiences, but a set of compatible, mutually reinforcing desires. I'm not trying to collapse abuse into S&M, and like I said, there are many many abusive relationships where the abused stays only out of fear, but it situations like what I take Steiner's to be (without having read her book), the abuser often meets a specific desire or need--though not the need to be abused (which nobody needs).
That's not what I said. I said that the erotic response to dominance -- whether in a BDSM context or not -- does exist, but is completely different from the situation in abusive relationships.
The critical question is what happens if the person being dominated says no? That could be "no, I don't think I need to take you along every time I have lunch with my friends" or "no, I'm really not into handcuffs" or even "handcuffs are one thing, but this is getting too weird for me." Dominance respects the person's right to say no. Abuse demies it and undermines it.
We kind of did talk about it in the other thread, about the line and its contextual ramifications specifically. It's just a long thread and lots gets said/lost.
I will say that I, personally, (and my girlfriend/additional commentators as well) interpreted the line as a reference to female orgasm, in that the speaker wants to make the women orgasm to a degree of hyperbole. That doesn't necessarily excuse it, but I don't think it's as sinister as suppressing her will.
Mostly I would just ask that you open your mind to the possibility that maybe you don't already understand everything about this topic. Because being in an abusive relationship feels really different from imagining you are in one.
Thank you for this. I've got a friend whose relationship seems to be taking this turn, but it's been hard to figure out how to be supportive and give opinions without being judgmental or authoritative about something I don't really understand.
TN is always talking about the importance of fathers, but having grown up with an abusive father I don't know that fathers always help, although in my case I went to bed every night swearing to myself that I would never be a violent human being as a result. The issue of spousal abuse, however, is one that affects children, decades after, of the abused profoundly as well as the women who are abused.
There is a tendency in these threads to speak to what women should do, but very little attention about male responsibility here--not only individually, but from older men in mentoring younger men, fathers, uncles, grandfathers, friends of the family, teachers, primarily, but also mothers teaching their sons about respect and its correlation with love. The root of the problem is male violence against women (although to be sure there are also women who abuse their mates physically as well as psychologically), and if we want to solve the problem, we need to go to were the real agency is.
Looking at abusive relationships I've seen from outside: Yes, some women do look, from the outside, as if they have something broken in their choosing (e.g. repeatedly get involved with similar types of problem men, ignore things that look from the outside like obvious warnings). And some don't; some women I've known, as far as I could tell, were involved in one abusive relationship only, made fine decisions once they were able to get out, and if there were signs, they weren't the kind of thing you'd expect should be obvious to someone who hadn't been there. As far as I can tell, looking from the outside, there's a whole range of reasons women stay, and a whole range of different women who stay.
Looking at my own closest brush to abuse: I had a friend, when I was in college, that I finally gave up on after he pushed me too far. He was not a lover; he was someone who wanted to be my lover, whom I wanted to leave as a friend. And I wanted to keep him in the "just friends" category partly because he struck me as fun to be around in some ways, but too controlling to give that kind of power over me. He wanted to tell me how to dress, what drugs I really should loosen up and be taking, etc. He was an older non-student hanging around campus, and in hindsight I think that the supply of younger women not yet savvy to standing up to him may have been part of the appeal of the campus. Once he kicked me out of his car and made me walk home alone, at night, because I wouldn't make out with him when he wanted. The one (and only one) time I consented to some minor, fully clothed making out (to my lasting shame), he got non-consensually rough, and angry when I pushed him away and called a halt to said non-consensual roughness. I told him that was it, and never, ever again could he expect anything the least bit sexual or romantic from me (and I stuck to that). He said he was sorry; he seemed to mean it, and I thought he understood what he'd done, enough that we could be friends (if never ever anything other than that).
So I stayed friends, until the day he came after me in the shower, despite my having said no three times and pushed him away. (Why didn't you leave the shower when he first entered, a friend asked later. Full truth: I didn't leave because I was so focused on getting soap out of my then long hair, and by the time I registered that he was there, it also registered that he was bigger and stronger than me, so that it took me a minute to get up the nerve to resist.) I pushed him, I got out safely (with him yelling after me, "You women don't have the right to do this"), and from that point on, we were never friends.
But it still took me a few months to realize this wasn't just my personal problem, and get him barred from the house. That happened when another man in the house pointed out that he'd seen this guy harrassing the women, and several of us were talking with the RA about this, and someone asked, "Why don't the women just say no," and I said, "He doesn't stop when you say no," and told my story. And then I heard from the roommate of another woman, about how her roommate was repeatedly in tears about this guy. And no one who was bothered by him had dared to speak up; they thought he had far more fixed a position in the house than he actually did.
And here's the thing: In one sense, I did the right thing, exactly the thing Linda Hirshman (and anyone) would have wanted me to do. I realized quickly that the controlling guy was bad boy friend material, and did not form a romance with him. I broke off the friendship, before too much damage had been done to me. And I did speak up to the whole house about him, so that action was taken. I identified as a feminist at the time, and, though young and naive to some things, I still managed, when push came to shove, to stick up for myself as you'd think a feminist ought to do.
But the delay in speaking, even if it was only a matter of months, was all about my being ashamed and feeling there was something wrong with me, that I'd ever gotten in a position to let someone treat me the way this man did. I think I've felt way more shame over his treatment of me than he ever felt over what he had done. When I remember this incident, there's still always the question: Why didn't you see through this guy? Why were you friends with him at all? Why didn't you speak up sooner? And those questions can paralyze your ability to protect yourself, if you turn them back on yourself too much.
And in a lot of ways, in my case, I think the answer to them was: You were very young then. You made a mistake. You didn't ask for any of this; it's just that you can't always know the signs of trouble before you've lived through them. You weren't someone inviting trouble, just an ordinary young woman trying to be nice, not savvy yet to people like this guy.
What I did do, after that, was to get books which talked about the signs of abuse, and learn them, and try to apply what I'd learned to people I'd met. I figured, you may never have absolute certainty that you'll be able to see something before someone turns abusive, but knowledge is power and can at least improve your odds. And I thought about this guy long enough to conclude what the red flags had been that I'd missed, and that I would end any friendship (sexual or not) that showed those same red flags in the future.
I was in an abusive relationship in college, but obviously the dynamic's quite a bit different when it's a woman abusing a guy. Still, I think it gave me a bit of insight into understanding what the commenter TNC quotes is talking about.
You could argue that the victims in abusive relationships almost suffer from an excess of agency, and part of what they need to learn is that it is not their fault that their partner hits them. There's nothing they did to deserve it; they didn't set him off, and they cannot control his moods.
They need to hear this, because the abuser is telling them the exact opposite: That he doesn't want to hurt her, "but you just make me so crazy baby, it's because I love you so much and lose control" and so forth.
"I once heard Bill Cosby try this while talking to some kids in jail, most of them who had been abandoned by their father's. He told them that someone had hurt them, and that that wasn't their fault, but that, ultimately, they'd be the ones who'd have to fix it. It's an unfair deal. But there's really no other way."
This reminds me a lot of something that my therapist has had to tell me over and over again since I began therapy after my abusive relationship ended. To paraphrase: staying in my abusive relationship was a mistake, a failing of sorts. I did something I shouldn't have and not only was I hurt as a result, but so were people who cared about me, who experienced worry and fear when they knew I was being mistreated (even if they didn't know the extent). But there is a big difference between making the mistake of staying with an abuser, and the moral failing of abusing another person. And I had to have that drilled into my head for years before I believed it. I blamed myself disproportionately for my abuse. This doesn't mean that I didn't contribute to what happened, but I do think there is a very important moral distinction there. Understanding that on a deep down level was necessary in order for me to start taking back the reins of my life. It was a kind of excessive sense of responsibility that made it so difficult, both during and after the abuse, to do what I needed to do to take care of myself.
It's funny, I went back to the original entry on the Hirschman blog today and was a little disappointed to see that no one had responded to my comment. Then I looked at my rss feed and there was a whole other entry where my comment, the first comment I've made on this blog, was quoted. I was pleasantly surprised. There are so many great comments here. I want to thank Ta-Nehisi and everybody who took the time to read what I wrote and participate in this discussion.
For anyone who's interested, here are two good posts from the perspective of women who have left abusive relationships. They explain why asking in an accusatory way, "why do you stay?" only reinforces the feelings of inadequacy that kept them there:
Amanda Marcotte
Hilzoy
The best way to prevent abusive relationships is to teach people that it's never ok to emotionally and physically abuse the people you love. Ever. Any effort to teach daughters how to choose the "right" partners or recognize the signs of abuse are well-intentioned by misguided. The road to hell is paved with those good intentions.