Have you ever noticed that women are often blamed for the abuse they experience at the hands of their partners – sometimes subtly and sometimes not so subtly? A colleague of mine wrote this great piece on victim blaming and I wanted to share it with you. Karen.
Types of Victim Blaming
The following are statements or comments often made to or about women who have experienced abuse. Each statement carries a value judgment and implies that the woman who is abused by an intimate partner is somehow responsible for anticipating, causing, or stopping that violence. Consider the fact that the same statements applied to victims of most other crime (mugging, for instance) would be considered outrageous.
1) Implying that the woman provoked or “asked for the violence”:
What did you do to make him so mad?
You made your bed, now lie in it!
She’s such a nag – I’d like to hit her myself!
She’d drive anyone to abuse!2) Implying that the woman could / should have been able to anticipate the abuse:
How long did you know him before you married him?
Did he ever hit you while you were dating?
Did you know he was violent when you married him?
She should have seen it coming!
Couldn’t you tell he was getting upset?
Why didn’t you leave?3) Implying that the woman (not the abuser) is responsible for stopping or is able to stop the violence:
Why don’t you just leave?
Try to be a better wife
Pray harder
Try to learn better communication skills
Try not to make him so mad!4) Implying that the woman is masochistic or purposely chooses abusers:
She must enjoy it or she’d leave!
She’s just a co-dependent
She’s attracted to the violent type, you know
She always picks abusers to date5) Questioning the victim’s intelligence / implying that the woman is stupid or less intelligent:
Why, I’d never put up with it!
The first time a man hit me, I’d be outta there!
I told you he was not good!
What do you see in him?6) Implying that the woman is or continues to be abused because something is wrong with her:
She must be crazy
You’re making really bad choices
She’s self-destructive
by Julie Owen printed in the PASCH Newsletter – May 2007
2 Responses to “Types of Victim Blaming”
GL
I am in a support group that is using When Love Hurts as our manual. There are a dozen women in our group. None of them have been married less than 15 years. I look around the group. We are all intelligent, caring women. We just did not understand what we were dealing with. Many of us have never been hit, so we didn’t equate the term “abuse” with what we were suffering. But we were suffering. We have been mentally, spiritually, emotionally, relationally, financially, and sexually abused. We have been in a car with a man who “drove angry” and scared the wits out of us. I’ve learned that that is physical abuse. We may have been terrified, but we were not punched. So we didn’t realize it was abuse.
Karen and Jill, thank you for writing a clear, easy-to-understand and compelling book. Knowledge is the beginning of freedom. Life is not turning out the way I dreamed as a girl – but it is still good.
I am becoming a formidable woman: a force to be reckoned with. And I am okay with that.
Naomi Rempel
I have experienced so much of this subtle and not so subtle victim blaming. Why is the victim blamed and not the abuser? That really bothers me.