understanding the abused’s staying in the relationship is part of that puzzle
Could believing that “all men are abusers” contribute to staying with the one specific abuser? Such model provides only the choice between an abusive man or no man… where a different model would also provide an option of finding a non-abusive man.
(A data point about a slightly different situation: I knew a woman who believed that all men are alcoholics; the only difference is that some are honest about it and get drunk in public, the remaining ones are in denial and get drunk at home; and from these only two options, the former ones are more honest and more social. No surprise that all her partners were alcoholics. She complained about that, but instead about her bad choices, she complained about the bad male nature. Attempts by other women to convince her otherwise only led to responses like: “You are so naive to believe that. Just wait until you know your darling better and you will find out that he is an alcoholic too.”)
Could believing that “all men are abusers” contribute to staying with the one specific abuser?
Sorta, yes, no. Cart before the horse. I think some women who stay with abusers may rationalize it by believing that all men are abusers. Mostly rationality is used for “understanding” what is happening, not generally to prompt fundamental changes. When I was drinking I had a very warped idea of how much other people drank, I thought I was drinking a little more than them. When I stopped drinking, and especially when I stopped feeling driven to drink, I realized that a tremendous fraction of my world was barely drinking at all, and that even among drinkers, most of them were sober enough to read the bill at the end of the night (which I generally wasn’t on Fridays).
The evidence about other people’s drinking was always there, I discounted gigantically its difference from what I was doing. In most of modern life, the evidence for other men treating other women differently is there, the question is why would one woman in an almost identical information rich environment as another women never give a guy who once raises his voice at her a second chance, while another stays through multiple mate-induced hospital visits?
why would one woman in an almost identical information rich environment as another women never give a guy who once raises his voice at her a second chance, while another stays through multiple mate-induced hospital visits?
I’d start by looking at the conditions the two women grew up in.
For what it’s worth, I’ve heard that there aren’t really good predictors of who will end up in an abusive relationship, but people from healthy backgrounds get out faster. Unfortunately, I don’t have a source.
Could believing that “all men are abusers” contribute to staying with the one specific abuser? Such model provides only the choice between an abusive man or no man… where a different model would also provide an option of finding a non-abusive man.
(A data point about a slightly different situation: I knew a woman who believed that all men are alcoholics; the only difference is that some are honest about it and get drunk in public, the remaining ones are in denial and get drunk at home; and from these only two options, the former ones are more honest and more social. No surprise that all her partners were alcoholics. She complained about that, but instead about her bad choices, she complained about the bad male nature. Attempts by other women to convince her otherwise only led to responses like: “You are so naive to believe that. Just wait until you know your darling better and you will find out that he is an alcoholic too.”)
Sorta, yes, no. Cart before the horse. I think some women who stay with abusers may rationalize it by believing that all men are abusers. Mostly rationality is used for “understanding” what is happening, not generally to prompt fundamental changes. When I was drinking I had a very warped idea of how much other people drank, I thought I was drinking a little more than them. When I stopped drinking, and especially when I stopped feeling driven to drink, I realized that a tremendous fraction of my world was barely drinking at all, and that even among drinkers, most of them were sober enough to read the bill at the end of the night (which I generally wasn’t on Fridays).
The evidence about other people’s drinking was always there, I discounted gigantically its difference from what I was doing. In most of modern life, the evidence for other men treating other women differently is there, the question is why would one woman in an almost identical information rich environment as another women never give a guy who once raises his voice at her a second chance, while another stays through multiple mate-induced hospital visits?
I’d start by looking at the conditions the two women grew up in.
For what it’s worth, I’ve heard that there aren’t really good predictors of who will end up in an abusive relationship, but people from healthy backgrounds get out faster. Unfortunately, I don’t have a source.
Related TED talk: Leslie Morgan Steiner: Why Domestic Violence Victims Don’t Leave