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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Naccs 33rd Annual Conference, National Association For Chicana And Chicano Studies
Naccs 33rd Annual Conference, National Association For Chicana And Chicano Studies
NACCS Conference Programs
Linking Local and Global Struggles for Social Justice: Transnational Chicana and Chicano Studise
June 28-July 2006
Hotel Fénix and Hotel Morales
Confronting ‘Victim’ Discourses: The Identity Work Of Battered Women, Amy Leisenring
Confronting ‘Victim’ Discourses: The Identity Work Of Battered Women, Amy Leisenring
Amy Leisenring
In this article I explore how battered women both draw from and reject victim discourses in their processes of self-construction and self-representation. Data gathered from semi-structured interviews with forty women who experienced violence from an intimate partner in a heterosexual relationship demonstrate that available "victim" discourses are both enabling and constraining. Four common representations of a victim emerged as more influential to women identity work: as someone who suffers a harm she cannot control; as someone who deserves sympathy and/or requires some type of action be taken against the victimizer; as someone who is culpable for her experiences; and as …