The relationship between economic dependency and the reporting behaviours of victims of intimate partner violence: a case study of Bothaville in the Free State Province
- Authors: Mwatsiya, Innocent https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2845-5512
- Date: 2015-06
- Subjects: Wife abuse , Abused women
- Language: English
- Type: Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10353/24761 , vital:63549
- Description: This research study explored the relationship between economic dependency and the reporting behaviours of victims of intimate partner violence. The study was conducted using qualitative methods. Data was gathered using semi-structured interviews and a focus group discussion. Data analysis was done using thematic analysis where themes were allowed to emerge from the raw data findings. The study intended to explore the experiences; reporting behaviours; coping strategies and available sources of support for victims of intimate partner violence. The study drew mainly from literature and the tenets of the Resource Theory as well as the Learned Helplessness Theory. The study established that economic dependency supported the existence of intimate partner violence owing to the fact that victims of intimate partner violence feared financial vulnerability should they report the perpetrator resulting in his arrest. It was also established that the relationship between economic dependency and the reporting behaviours of victims of intimate partner violence was compounded by the number of children the victim had including the number of family members dependent on the victims besides her own children. More dependents were linked to a lesser likelihood of reporting intimate partner violence. This was due to the fact that more dependents translated into a greater financial burden in the absence of the source of income; the perpetrator. On the other hand, the study also established that even those victims who were employed, though earning lesser money than their partners (the perpetrators), did not leave abusive relationships. This was linked to the possibility of learned helplessness as well as the possibility of their individual incomes being too little to afford them a life away from the perpetrator. The study also established that victims of intimate partner violence experienced physical violence more than all other forms of violence. Availability of support, frequency and severity of abuse were identified as determinants of the timing for reporting. The study established that families were the most active sources of social support for victims of intimate partner violence whilst all professional networks of support were discovered to be functional. The study made several following recommendations including awareness raising, introduction of policy amendments and the inclusion of victims of intimate partner violence in income generating projects. Lastly the study concluded that little has been done and much needs to be done regarding the alleviation of the conditions of victims of intimate partner violence across the divide. , Thesis (MSoc) -- Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, 2015
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- Date Issued: 2015-06
Ambivalence and paradox : the battered woman's interactions with the law and other helping resources
- Authors: Labe, Dana
- Date: 2001
- Subjects: Family violence -- Law and legislation , Abused women , Wife abuse , Women -- Crimes against , Women -- Counseling of , Family violence -- Prevention
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSocSc
- Identifier: vital:699 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006424 , Family violence -- Law and legislation , Abused women , Wife abuse , Women -- Crimes against , Women -- Counseling of , Family violence -- Prevention
- Description: This thesis explores how the battered woman attachment to her abusive partner impacts on her interactions with the legal system and non-legal resources. This qualitative research project is based on in-depth interviews conducted with seven abused women who procured interdicts in terms of the Prevention of Family Violence Act 133 of 1993 to restrain their husbands from assaulting them. The research reviews the nature of abuse suffered by the participants, their psychological attachments to their husbands, and their patterns of help-seeking in relation to the law and non-legal resources. Two main theoretical frameworks, psychoanalysis and feminism inform this study. The study found that the participants retained unrealistic hopes that their husbands would reform and become loving, caring partners, and that they treated their husbands with care and sympathy despite their husbands’ often brutal behaviour towards them. The findings suggest that the women’s behaviour towards their husbands was the product of two reality distorting psychological defences, splitting and the moral defence which they used to preserve their attachments to their abusive partners. These defences intersected with rigid patriarchal prescriptions of femininity which dictate that women should be stoically caring towards their husbands, and should hold relationships together no matter what the cost to themselves. The participants interactions with the legal system and with non-legal sources of help were structured by their reliance on splitting and the moral defence, and by the dictates of patriarchal ideology. Whilst it is undoubtedly true that at one level the participants sought help to get protection from abuse, the study shows that their help-seeking was motivated by their conflicting desires to punish and reform their husbands. The participants sought help in ways which enabled them to strike a compromise between expressing their anger at their husbands, whilst simultaneously preserving their psychological attachments to them. The study concludes that the women’s interactions with the law and with other helping resource reflect their attempts to preserve their paradoxical attachments to their husbands, and to stabilise their own fragile sense of self and gender identity
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2001
Ambivalence and paradox: the battered woman's interactions with the law and other helping resources
- Authors: Labe, Dana
- Date: 2001
- Subjects: Family violence -- Law and legislation , Abused women , Family violence , Wife abuse , Women -- Crimes against , Women -- Counseling of , Family violence -- Prevention
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSocSc
- Identifier: vital:3333 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003127 , Family violence -- Law and legislation , Abused women , Family violence , Wife abuse , Women -- Crimes against , Women -- Counseling of , Family violence -- Prevention
- Description: This thesis explores how the battered woman attachment to her abusive partner impacts on her interactions with the legal system and non-legal resources. This qualitative research project is based on in-depth interviews conducted with seven abused women who procured interdicts in terms of the Prevention of Family Violence Act 133 of 1993 to restrain their husbands from assaulting them. The research reviews the nature of abuse suffered by the participants, their psychological attachments to their husbands, and their patterns of help-seeking in relation to the law and non-legal resources. Two main theoretical frameworks, psychoanalysis and feminism inform this study. The study found that the participants retained unrealistic hopes that their husbands would reform and become loving, caring partners, and that they treated their husbands with care and sympathy despite their husbands’ often brutal behaviour towards them. The findings suggest that the women’s behaviour towards their husbands was the product of two reality distorting psychological defences, splitting and the moral defence which they used to preserve their attachments to their abusive partners. These defences intersected with rigid patriarchal prescriptions of femininity which dictate that women should be stoically caring towards their husbands, and should hold relationships together no matter what the cost to themselves. The participants interactions with the legal system and with non-legal sources of help were structured by their reliance on splitting and the moral defence, and by the dictates of patriarchal ideology. Whilst it is undoubtedly true that at one level the participants sought help to get protection from abuse, the study shows that their help-seeking was motivated by their conflicting desires to punish and reform their husbands. The participants sought help in ways which enabled them to strike a compromise between expressing their anger at their husbands, whilst simultaneously preserving their psychological attachments to them. The study concludes that the women’s interactions with the law and with other helping resource reflect their attempts to preserve their paradoxical attachments to their husbands, and to stabilise their own fragile sense of self and gender identity.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2001