Reconceptualizing victimization and agency in the discourse of battered women who kill

lazar, Ruthy Lowenstein Lowenstein

doi:10.1016/s1059-4337(08)45001-9

Cited by 6 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…In cases of women who used retaliatory violence against abusive partners, a common legal defense strategy involves emphasizing the woman’s helplessness and psychological distress, negating her identity as an active individual. While intended to mitigate the severity of violent acts of resistance, this framing may cause further harm by perpetuating simplistic stereotypes about abuse and reinforcing a false dichotomy between female defendants who “deserve” sympathy versus those who do not (Lazar, 2008). “In depicting the women as victims,” Lazar (2008) notes, “the approach of the courts obscures any aspects of resistance and choice these women may have demonstrated in their acts and further creates a superficial distinction between victimization and agency and between oppression and resistance” (p. 5).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding Women’s Resistance to Intimate Partner Violence: A Scoping Review

Rajah

Osborn

2020

Trauma, Violence, & Abuse

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Scholars widely acknowledge that women oppose male violence and control in intimate relationships. Yet there is limited comprehensive knowledge of how resistance features in intimate partner violence (IPV) research across the social sciences. Our scoping review helps fill this gap, analyzing and synthesizing 74 research articles published in English-language scholarly journals between 1994 and 2017. Our review is guided by the following questions: (1) How is research on IPV and resistance designed and executed? (2) How do IPV researchers define the term resistance? (3) What specific types of resistance do IPV researchers discuss in their work? (4) What policy and practice implications are provided by current literature on women’s resistance to IPV? We find that scholarship on resistance to IPV is varied, spanning 10 scholarly disciplines with research samples drawn from 19 countries. Studies overwhelmingly used qualitative data, gathered through a range of techniques. The 42 articles that explicitly or implicitly defined resistance either conceptualized the term in the context of power relations, defined it as a form of agency, or understood resistance as a mechanism of physical, economic, and existential survival. Articles also identify several subtypes of resistance strategies including avoidance, help-seeking, active opposition, violent action, and leaving a violent relationship. In terms of practice and policy, articles identify several ways in which institutions fail to meet women’s needs, and recommend training so providers and legal personnel may better assist IPV victims.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding Women’s Resistance to Intimate Partner Violence: A Scoping Review

Rajah

Osborn

2020

Trauma, Violence, & Abuse

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“…Moreover, enacting selves that appear agentic may also be linked with attempts to counter the relative powerlessness brought on by imprisonment (Presser, 2010). Such enactments may also work to repudiate culturally circulating notions about women who have committed violence based on stereotypical categorizations marking them as deviant "others" (Gilbert, 2002;Lazar, 2008;Morrissey, 2003). Enactments of rehabilitated selves may be linked with similar aspirations.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, for women in particular, associating their acts of violence with a loss of control can entail grave difficulties because of the acuteness of the danger that they will be seen as irrational, pathological "others" (cf. Lazar, 2008). In their talk/texts, many of the participants emphasized their present or envisioned future lives as being free from violence -whether perpetrated by themselves or others.…”

Section: Lost Selvesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“I No Longer Let Anyone Hit Me for Free”: Affective Identificatory Practices of Women Imprisoned for Violent Crimes

Venäläinen

2017

NORA - Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research

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This article explores the ways in which Finnish women serving prison sentences for violent crimes attach meaning to their violence and to themselves in relation to it. The analysis is based on a study involving 20 imprisoned women, who either sent a written account or were interviewed. The analysis draws upon critical discursive psychology and Sara Ahmed's theorization of emotions. Hence, it focuses on the affective and discursive processes though which the women participating in the study enact identities in their narratives about their involvement with violence. These enactments are conceptualized as affective identificatory practices in which gendered, socioculturally circulating meanings and valuations become entwined with personal histories in locally variant ways. Four different groups of selves that emerged from the participants' narratives are discussed: victimized selves, defender selves, lost selves and rehabilitated/unrehabilitatable selves. By looking at the constitution of these selves in close detail, I put forward a reading in which the participants are seen as primarily striving to enact autonomous identities and hence to subvert devaluation by distancing themselves from vulnerability, which threatens their integrity as subjects.

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“…This portrayal rests on the argument that the woman suffered from a mental imbalance or illness—such as battered woman syndrome (BWS)—brought on by her partner’s abuse: rather than a rational agent acting in self-defense, she acted automatically and without will. As a consequence, some scholars contend that battered women are denied agency, and lose the self-determination they were trying to gain in committing the act, by excusing rather than justifying their violence (Comack & Balfour, 2004; Lazar, 2008; Morrissey, 2003). Importantly, however, some researchers argue that this explanation is conditional on the woman’s adherence to traditional notions of femininity in accordance with their roles as mothers, wives, or otherwise “regular” people (Meloy & Miller, 2009; Meyers, 1997).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The “Normal” Woman Who Kills: Representations of Women’s Intimate Partner Homicide

Pelvin

2017

Feminist Criminology

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Research suggests that the representation of women's lethal violence relies on stock narratives that deny women's femininity or neutralize their culpability. I test those claims by studying media coverage of female-perpetrated intimate partner homicides in Toronto, Canada, from 1975 to 1999. I find that the vast majority of these homicides received little or no media coverage, which I attribute to the circumstances surrounding "normal" killings and the characteristics of the offenders and victims involved in them. "Normal" homicides do not necessarily disrupt or challenge our understanding of femininity or violence, making them less newsworthy or in need of explanation.

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Reconceptualizing victimization and agency in the discourse of battered women who kill

Cited by 6 publications

References 5 publications

Understanding Women’s Resistance to Intimate Partner Violence: A Scoping Review

Understanding Women’s Resistance to Intimate Partner Violence: A Scoping Review

“I No Longer Let Anyone Hit Me for Free”: Affective Identificatory Practices of Women Imprisoned for Violent Crimes

The “Normal” Woman Who Kills: Representations of Women’s Intimate Partner Homicide

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