The Price of Safety: Hidden Costs and Unintended Consequences for Women in the Domestic Violence Service System by Sara Shoener

Author:Sara Shoener [Shoener, Sara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Public Policy, Family & Relationships, Feminism & Feminist Theory, Social Policy, Social Science, Political Science, Abuse, Domestic Partner Abuse
ISBN: 9780826521231
Google: T5vmDQAAQBAJ
Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press
Published: 2017-01-24T12:52:24+00:00

Figure 3.1: Potential Consequences of IPV Survivors’ Decisions

Survivors who did leave often faced years of repercussions, including judgment for destroying the family, lack of control over the abuse of their children, years of frequent custody court appearances and constant monitoring, and complete loss of contact with their children. This reality across the study sites deeply affected women’s choices and their advocacy options. As one attorney explained to me:

I always tell our clients, they should just prepare themselves because men get bonus points just for walking in the door. . . . And I think the court almost finds them more credible or more of a stand-up individual because they are fighting for their kids. And the court doesn’t see it as they don’t really care too much about their kids most of the time. They’re just doing it to get her. ’Cause he knows that she cares about her kids, and he knows the way to really hurt her is to take the kids. And the court just sees the men that are coming in who want to see their children, and they give good spiels in court: “I want to be there for my child, I want to do all of these wonderful things, I’ve never been abusive to my children.” Whereas if she said, “I’ve never been abusive to my children. I may have put my fist through the wall several times in front of them, but I’ve never hit them,” the court would have a problem.

The very systems meant to punish perpetrators and protect survivors of violence often bound the two together more tightly. Courts demanded that women seek safety for themselves and their children; however, women who sought to protect their children by limiting their abusive partners’ custodial access often found themselves vilified for their attempts.

Conclusion

The gendered organization of resource distribution, partners’ interactions, and individuals’ identities were central to women’s experiences of IPV. The prioritization of two-parent families when domestic violence is present can tether victims of violence to their assailants, privilege parental equality over safety, and provide additional resources for batterers to exert control over their families. Survivors’ frequently chose to maintain contact with their abusers in order to encourage closer relationships between their children and their children’s fathers or to lower the risk of losing their children to their abusers. When survivors did end their abusive relationships, domestic violence service system practitioners regularly forced women to maintain contact with their abusers for similar reasons. Though parenthood ideals varied across sites, survivors’ consequences for failing to meet these ideals remained the same. Their perceived parental missteps were often scrutinized harshly while batterers’ token attempts to parent were emphasized and praised. As a result, normative values about mothers’ and fathers’ responsibilities suffused every level of IPV survivors’ social worlds and shaped their risk of abuse.

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