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Can Battered Women Cope? A Critical Analysis of Research on Women’s Responses to Violence  


Author:  Sherry Hamby, Ph.D..; Bernadette Gray-Little, Ph.D..


Source: Volume 01, Number 03, Winter 2009 , pp.229-251(23)




Family & Intimate Partner Violence Quarterly

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Abstract: 

When abused women seek help, they are often presented with pat advice—leave their partners. If they don’t comply, care providers often conclude that there must be something wrong with them. As Hamby and Gray-Little describe, however, women’s reasons for staying are often far more complex. Indeed, in some situations, they may be making the safer choice. Women in abusive relationships may be balancing multiple potential harms and concluding that staying is a better choice if leaving means escalating the violence, living on the streets, or losing custody of their children. Intervention should include assessing these multiple harms, identifying resources and barriers, and increasing women’s social capital. Care providers also need to understand that women in these situations are, in fact, often making rational decisions.

Keywords: 

Affiliations:  1: University of the South and University of North Carolina Chapel Hill; 2: University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.

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