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slate.com - 4/10/2009

Why do women stay in abusive relationships. - By Linda Hirshman - Slate Magazine

— slate.com — Crazy Love by Leslie Steiner. Earlier this spring, when pop singer Rihanna went back to the man... who allegedly beat her , the blogs were full of objections to blaming the "victim." It just makes women feel bad to say, "Why doesn't she leave?" feminist ... (more) Why do women stay in abusive relationships. - By Linda ...

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Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde
The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan — This Hilzoy post on why women stay in abusive relationships is eye-opening: There are things that are comprehensible parts of the world, even if they're rare, like having your car stolen; and then there are things that are unexpected in a completely different sense, like having your car turn into an elephant before your eyes: things that make you wonder whether you're completely crazy. Being beaten up by someone who apparently loves you is one of those things. What this means is that precisely when a woman needs as much confidence in her own judgment ...

And round we go again on this
pandagon.net - we are the public option — ... telling the victim it’s her fault he hits her because she puts up with it (with all the implications that you’re a stupid bitch that brings to the table) is not helpful.  Because victims need to believe they’re not stupid bitches in order to say they don’t deserve this treatment.  You’re not helping when you imply that yeah, you agree with their batterer that they’re kind of stupid. That’s all I have to say on this subject. Hilzoy has a much better post.

"Why Do They Stay?"
The American Scene — ... to this post on the psychology of spousal abuse which is, indeed, “one of the best blog posts I’ve ever read,” and focuses on the seemingly simple question of why abused women don’t just leave, and peels off the profound intricacies of these situations. ...

Battered Women: The Sequel
Political Animal — Battered Women: The Sequel As a followup to my last post on this topic, I wanted to consider this passage from Linda Hirschman's post . She's discussing Leslie Morgan Steiner, author of a memoir about her abusive relationship: "It is difficult to understand why she stayed in this awful relationship, given that she was not risking starvation and had no children with her abuser. Which is why, no matter how many times Steiner and Marcotte and the others tell them not to, people keep asking the question. And it's terribly important to do exactly that. Asking why women ...

And Another Thing ...
Political Animal — And Another Thing ... In my post last Friday on domestic violence, I wrote: "I will also refer to abusers as 'he', and to their victims as 'she'; this is accurate in the overwhelming majority of cases." I think this was a mistake. I could just as easily have written that I would use these pronouns because while writing s/he is relatively easy, writing 'his or her', 'himself or herself', etc., throughout what I knew would be a very long post would be awful, or because I know the dynamics of relationships in which women are the victims of abuse better than others. I should have. ...

Weekly Feminist Reader
Feministing — Why Title IX is about more than sports. Listen to Jessica on this week's Liberal Oasis podcast. (mp3) On whether what you call your partner -- partner/wife/husband/boyfriend/girlfriend/significant other -- has political ramifications. Go read Hilzoy's post, "Why do they stay?," on women in violent relationships. Monica Roberts on the term "passing" -- what it means in a gender sense, what it means in a racial sense, and why she'll be using the term "blending" from now on. Sex workers in Ecuador are ...