A friend posted a blog from scarymommy.com which had the title: “We Need To Change The Question From ‘Why Did She Stay?’ To ‘Why Did He Abuse Her?’”. The article by Michele Pliner was: pedantic; condescending; and, despite its length, rather short on reasonable argumentation. It’s essentially a long fictional story of a bad romance (not the Lady Gaga kind). The point of the fictional abusive relationships seems to be that women in abusive relationships don’t have good choices, therefore, asking why they stay misses the point. The question we should be asking, instead, is “why did he abuse her” in the first place – because she’s a pure victim; she doesn’t have good choices, therefore she isn’t responsible for her abuse.
But that misses the point altogether, I don’t know of anyone who asks “why did she stay” and means “she deserves it”. I also don’t know of anyone who asks “why did she stay” and means that victims of domestic abuse don’t live in fear or that there are all kinds of great options for victims of long-term domestic violence and abuse. In fact, the same friend who posted the article said that in her work with victims of domestic violence, the question “why did you stay” is an important one, not to lay blame at anyone’s feet, but to help women understand their own motivations and their own rubric for making choices. We ALL should seek to better understand our decision making processes, since understanding HOW and WHY we make choices is a necessary precursor to not falling into the same patterns and habits which cause us to make bad and self-destructive choices.
In preparing to write this I actually spoke to a woman, who lived out something very similar to this scenario – she feared for her life and said the only way she got out was because of God’s grace and good luck. But she also refused to accept the abuse and she looked for opportunities to escape and save her and possibly her child’s life! She emphasized to me that victims of long-term domestic abuse and violence live in fear, and there are no good options, and that a “successful” abuser is very “good” at isolating his victim and giving her no options.
So, I think if the point of the scarymommy article is to point out the fact that victims of long-term domestic violence often live in fear and have no way (or no good way) to escape, I think that all thinking people who’ve given anything more than cursory thought to this issue would agree! Their abusers would! I think we also need to agree that victims are not to blame for the abuse they receive. And I think the question "why did he abuse her?" is a really good question. It's something that we need to focus on, as a society broadly, and, specifically, as the Church trying to develop men who do not abuse their wives, children, or other people in their lives. And I’m focusing on husbands and fathers who abuse, here, because domestic abusers are predominantly men. To such a degree that it really can be called a “male” problem.
However, I also think that “victim-blaming” is not really a useful term because it means too many things to too many people. The article warns against it. And that’s fair enough as far as it goes. But it is just too nebulous a term; and what you might call victim-blaming, I might call “positing agency”…or vice-versa. Also, it seems that different circumstances lead to different sets of choices and different outcomes. One-off victims are different from people who are serially victimized. And children who are abused are a totally different category.
So, if we limit our conversation to adult women, in long-term relationships, I think that (at least) two things can be true, 1) that people who abuse other people are pathological and evil and sinful and their behavior is unacceptable and needs to receive full blame. 2) people who are in abusive relationships tend to get into other abusive relationships. Moreover, women sometimes, if not often, see signs that are troubling early on, but choose to not take action that will prevent being abused in the future. Making choices to stay in a relationship that is moving into or has become abusive doesn't make them not victims, but it does make them participants in their own victimization.
Saying that someone willingly participates in being abused is not victim-blaming and it doesn't alleviate their abuser from full responsibility for his (or her) behavior. It does, however, provide a durable model that will help women protect themselves. And, I think that the fact that abused women do NEED to participate, to some degree, gives their abuser more power.
In the example from the scarymommy blog, the husband has taken all financial control and the wife doesn’t own a car. She acquiesced to these choices and thus, her situation is, in some degree, one of her own making. This complicates the psychology and pathology of future choices, because the victim knows that she, at least in part, put herself in this situation. In this way, abusers play a game of emotional and volitional blackmail. Indeed, this kind of forcing people to harm themselves and become complicit in their own humiliation and degradation and abuse is the kind of behavior we see from bullies and thugs at all places in history. It has the same effect that the forced confessions in a police state have. Nobody but the stupidest people believe the confessions, but they have the demoralizing effect of utter will-breaking and humiliation.
Again, and I can’t make this clear enough, this doesn’t mean that an abused woman “had it coming” or “deserved it”. While some people may believe that, I don’t, and I don’t know anyone who does. I do however, believe that long-term victims of abuse become long-term victims because they didn’t assert themselves by getting out of an unhealthy relationship early enough. And, of course, some women who are pathologically codependent seem to seek out these relationships, even if only subconsciously…ah the stories I and other pastors could tell…but we won’t…so don’t even ask, you gossip-hounds.
Let me put it another way. Let’s look at this practically. If victims of domestic abuse are completely powerless and not at all complicit in their own victimization, why do we teach women the warning signs of an abusive relationship? Why do we teach women that being isolated from friends, and losing economic power, or losing transportation, are warning signs? If victims of domestic abuse and violence are victims who in no way participate in their abuse -- does this infantilize women? Does this mean women have no agency? Are women less human than men? Does this mean women need to be protected by a patriarchy (or matriarchy) that will make choices for them so they don't get into an abusive relationship or so they can get out?
Gwen Stefani gives voice to this question in the way only 3rd Wave Ska can:
'Cause I'm just a girl, oh, little old me
Well, don't let me out of your sight
Oh, I'm just a girl, all pretty and petite
So don't let me have any rights
The moment that I step outside
So many reasons for me to run and hide
I can't do the little things I hold so dear
'Cause it's all those little things that I fear
'Cause I'm just a girl, I'd rather not be
'Cause they won't let me drive late at night
Oh, I'm just a girl, guess I'm some kind of freak
'Cause they all sit and stare with their eyes
Oh, I'm just a girl, take a good look at me
Just your typical prototype
Gwen’s worry is that the world in which she and other women lived in was a world where women are treated as though they’re fragile china dolls that will shatter if dropped, or just walking targets of victimization that need to be guarded 24-7. Gwen doesn’t want to live in a world where she can’t be trusted to make her own decisions. And that seems to me to be at the heart of all Feminism. But a view of Feminism wherein women are capable, competent, and morally responsible agents comes with strings attached. This view of womanhood – the Competent Women view – means that women shape their own lives, and are responsible for their own choices. This means that if women enter into a relationship and over time it becomes increasingly abusive, that means that the victim – she’s still a victim – participated in her victimization by choosing to stay in an increasingly bad relationship while her freedom was increasingly stripped away and her opportunities for escape were progressively eliminated.
This doesn’t mean I blame a woman for staying with a scumbag. But it does mean that she made choices. Barring a circumstance where someone is kidnapped and tied to a radiator, most women in abusive relationships didn’t get slapped around on the first date – but there was a progression of the abuse over time. For some reason or another, the cost of staying was lower than the cost of leaving – until it wasn’t. Incidentally, this is similar to one of the theoretical definitions of war.
Now, you might say, “but Luke, maybe she didn’t realize it was abuse.” Sure. Maybe not. But whose fault is that? Why would someone allow themselves to be treated badly and not realize that the way she’s being treated is unhealthy? I’m sure there are myriad possible reasons for this – but I can’t think of any that are good. But whatever pathology is active in the early non-or-less-abusive stages of the relationship, women stay in the relationship as it gets progressively worse. Why did she stay when she saw things were getting bad? This isn’t blaming her; it’s trying to understand her. Am I to infer from the scarymommy blog that women are so emotionally fragile and incompetent that they can’t be asked a question like that? That doesn’t seem like a very Feminist view to me…moreover the women that I know in my life aren’t so weak and delicate that such a question will heap blame upon them.
The idea that asking an abuse victim why she tolerated the abuse is victim-blaming, is similar to the belief, which is incoherent and entirely faith based, that our behaviors have nothing to do with clinical depression – the “it’s not your fault” mantra. I’m not trying to blame people who are experiencing clinical depression, but I am asking if it’s a proven, or even reasonable hypothesis, that exactly zero percent of the cause for clinical depression stems from the behaviors or beliefs of the depressed person? Is that really reasonable? Is saying “it’s a chemical imbalance” really pointing out the efficient, material, and formal causes? Is there nothing behind it? Can behaviors not influence chemicals and influence their balance? Can life experience not affect biochemistry? If it’s purely chemical and not in any way behavioral, then I guess every therapist in America should quit treating people for clinical depression and we ought to just give people drugs, right?
Of course not. Nobody really believes that behavior and choices and beliefs have ZERO impact on mental illness, particularly minor and major depression. It’s a convenient lie. It’s a ready-to-hand form of Secular Absolution. If going to the therapist is a Secular Sacrament then reciting, “it’s not [insert: my/your/his/her/ our/ your/ their] fault” is the Secular Act of Contrition and Benediction of Absolution. But nobody really believes this. Native biochemistry may be 100% of the cause some of the time; brain or emotional trauma may be 100% or the cause some of the time; but to say that behavior, choice, and beliefs are 0% of the cause 100% of the time defies credulity. Whence comes the chemical imbalance? That’s no more of an answer than saying that a house fire was caused by hot fuel and gas combusting – that’s not an explanation of a cause, that’s a description of the phenomenon. Explaining the mechanism of depression is extremely helpful – but it doesn’t explain away causality. And telling people that their behaviors cannot in any way contribute, when any sensible person knows that they can contribute, not only isn’t helpful – it ensures that a person will perpetually be in a position to keep paying clinical fees!
In fact, I can give the lie to this argument without any effort. If you tell someone that “depression is not their fault” why are you saying this? Because, presumably, you don’t want them to feel bad? Why not? Because it would aggravate their depression? So, a state of mind, and fixating on that state of mind can aggravate depression – that sounds an awful lot like a behavior being a cause?! Or, perhaps you tell someone, “it’s not your fault; you need to take anti-depressants”. Well…if a person refuses to take anti-depressants, and they don’t get any better isn’t their behavior an aggravating factor? If they would change their behavior – taking the drugs – they would get better. Sounds an awful lot to me like behavioral causes for depression are unavoidable. Thus it seems to me, saying “it’s not your fault” unless you’re talking to someone who’s suffered brain trauma, is untrue, or at best a half-truth since the depression most likely has at least some proportion of behavior causality to their chemical imbalances and their behaviors have an impact on the duration and severity of their malady.
In the same way, saying that victims of violence made ZERO choices that may have led to them getting into an intolerably abusive situation is, frankly, a feel-good-lie. But feel-good-lies don’t really help anyone. They may alleviate stress in the moment – but telling an abuse victim that she in no way participated in allowing her situation to become intolerable is not going to help her avoid another abusive relationship in the future. This isn’t “blaming” her. But it is saying that since she’s (presumably) an adult woman, capable of making decisions for her own welfare, that she has to recognize her own participation in her life. Are we to deny that? Are abuse victims to have their agency revoked? Are they not responsible for their own choices? Surely they aren’t responsible for other people’s choices. She didn’t make her husband/ boyfriend hit her. And this by the way is a simple distinction that is lost in the scarymommy blog. Being irresponsible for others’ choices doesn’t absolve you of responsibility for your own choices.
Abusers obviously try to create situations where the number of good options is severely limited. Abusers seek control (I think at least that much is agreed upon by psychologists). And the more control an abuser has, the more painful and the more costly getting out of an abusive relationship will be. I think everyone understands that a victim of domestic abuse generally doesn't have a lot of good choices. But that doesn't mean that she has NO choices. And it doesn't mean that she didn't allow her agency and freedom to be slowly winnowed down.
I don't think that this article – well-meaning as it may be -- is going to help women have more agency and gain the confidence to take more control of their own lives. When you tell someone that she's helpless and a victim with no agency, there's the chance she might believe it and behave like it -- especially if she has a codependent personality or some other personality trait that makes her particularly susceptible to abuse.
Anyways, as a father of a daughter with sisters and lots of girl cousins, I care A LOT about domestic violence. I want to see it stop. I think that the men who abuse woman (or anyone) tend to be very flawed and frail individuals who struggle to be men and try to assert their masculinity by abuse. Teaching my daughter to see warning signs of abuse will, hopefully, protect her from getting into a situation where she has only bad choices. But asking "why she stayed" is a legitimate and necessary question to ask if we want to help women who are in abusive relationships to get out of them.
In the end, as Christians, we have a vision of the human person that says that people do engage in self-destructive behavior. This topic fascinates me. The pathology of self-destruction is I think one of the great areas of theology that can be most helpful. But it can only be helpful if people are truly responsible for their actions and if their life situations, at least to some degree, can be owned by each and every individual. Again, none of us is responsible for other people’s choices – but all of us is responsible for our own. To say otherwise is to make us less human, and ultimately, to bear the Image of God less.