Battle Cries. Hillary Potter
Black feminism, critical race feminism, and Black feminist criminology proclaim that women have multiple intersecting identities that are all parts of their identity at one time, many other concepts and individuals do not distinguish Black women in this way. Persons who rely on stereotypes to guide their judgment may view battered Black women in a linear and hierarchical fashion. In this hierarchical categorization, race is at the forefront or pinnacle, and it eclipses gender, while both race and gender overshadow the women as “victims” because of the tendency not to consider Black women as victims of violent acts.38 Sexuality as part of one’s identity is often overlooked, even though hetero sexuality is viewed by general society as the default sexual classification for all individuals. However, because of the persistent typecast views of Black women (and men) as hypersexual, the sexuality identity may be part and parcel of the prevailing race identity of Black women by non-Blacks. Regarding socioeconomic status, a low-income class status with an inadequate education (or the inability to succeed in educational pursuits) is assumed when one is considering the average Black American, despite the few affluent Blacks who receive significant attention from the media.39 Explicitly, it is regularly suggested that the bulk of Black Americans, by their nature, are poor, government-dependent individuals who are not especially intelligent.
Although many White feminists rally against a number of oppressive behaviors and issues, the gender identity is the prominent focus of women’s identity. Because of the criticism of mainstream White feminists by many Black feminists, White feminists may view gender as the main characteristic of battered Black women, with race being regarded as a secondary concern.40 From the mainstream feminist viewpoint, the “survivor” label may be considered alongside the identity of womanhood because of the considerable focus by mainstream feminism on issues surrounding women’s victimization by men and the patriarchal social order. More recent notions of mainstream feminist thought,41 however, may provide an outlook in which race, gender, sexuality, class, and violence against women are seen as overlapping or interlinking.
Returning to the concept of utilizing Black feminist criminology to understand battered Black women’s experiences with abusive relationships, that Black women have multiple identities that are intricately interwoven was not lost on the women in my study, whose view of their identities in the context of the four basic levels of identity (race, gender, sexuality, and class) encompassed all these areas; the fifth characteristic (experience with intimate abuse) was tangential to this multiplicative identity.
In determining the extent to which battered Black women adopt the three different labels describing the violence in their lives—victim, survivor, or resister—I assert three propositions to support the adoption of only the resister label. First, the idea is not that of a sequential relationship where the battered Black woman starts as victim, moves to survivor, then ends as a resister. Second, the idea is not that a battered Black woman at once considers herself all three classifications. Third, a battered Black woman is not each of these at different times, continually moving between the categorizations in a cyclical manner. (The dynamic concept referring to fluidity does not apply here.) It is because of the factors discussed previously that I consider battered Black women’s view of themselves not as victims and not as survivors but as resisters. Describing battered Black women as resisters better captures their self-identity because of the women’s in ability to take on the other descriptive characteristics of victim or survivor as central to their Self. In essence, their dynamic lives aided in this rebuff of victimhood. Although they rejected labeling themselves as victims or survivors, most of the women were aware of the negative effects of the abuse on their self-worth.
By using the term “resister,” we can begin to combat the “victim blaming” surrounding the occurrence of intimate partner abuse. Women abused by their intimate partners are frequently held responsible for the abuse against them. This often happens because it is difficult for those looking into the relationships from the outside to understand why the women remain in the relationships. Even some women who are abused by their intimate partners blame themselves for the abuse. Because Black women usually are not afforded the same recognition for their “victimization” as White women are, it is highly likely that Black women are viewed even more as responsible for the abuse committed against them, more than their White counterparts. White women are often seen as being in need of protection, and Black women are typically perceived as being able to protect themselves. By renaming “victims” of intimate partner abuse “resisters,” we can continue to challenge the culpability placed on all women abused by male batterers. In doing so, accountability can be directed toward the abusers and their behaviors and the social, psychological, and other sources driving these behaviors. Additionally, the term “resister” implies that battered women oppose the abuse and violence directed toward them. The term recognizes the fact that battered women regularly employ dynamic efforts to combat and control the abuse against them.
It should be noted that use of the term “resister” does not necessarily or solely reflect the women’s propensity to physically retaliate against their batterers (particularly in comparison with White women). The term is employed because of battered Black women’s experiences and perceptions, including (a) their not seeing themselves as victims and their not being seen as victims; (b) their self-perception as fighters (whether physical or use of other tactics) against abuse by intimate partners; (c) their self-perception as Strong Black Women; and (d) their personal and ancestral history as Black women who have been confronted with and have resisted continuous sociostructural, cultural, and familial obstacles. The intersecting identity of battered Black women and their varied and ever-changing resistive attempts at combating interpersonal and societal domination yield the model of dynamic resistance.
A possible problem with dynamic resistance among battered Black women may be that battered Black women who have not left their first abusive relationship may present differently from the women in this study. This needs to be addressed in future research on battered Black women, specifically considering the sample selection. However, even Black women who are currently in abusive relationships and who are severely dominated and controlled without resisting can still exude dynamic resistance because they are likely resisting other oppressive situations. Despite this unknown effect, none of the women in this investigation were necessarily completely free of abusive relationships in their lives. This idea is based on the fact that the majority of the women had been in more than one abusive relationship. An admonition based on this awareness, then, is that the concept of dynamic resistance may work even better to explain battered Black women in multiple abusive relationships. As I discuss in Chapter 5, the women remained in subsequent abusive relationships for shorter periods as they progressed through the bad relationships. In essence, they progressively built up their resistance to withstanding abuse by their male mates.
Among the varied forms of oppression or domination, including those that are institutional, societal, or interpersonal, a question arises: Against which of the oppressive entities do battered Black women find easiest to employ resistance? I assert that the forms of domination in the battered Black women’s lives should not be considered through a better-than/worse-than analysis because the forms of domination are often not comparable. For example, how can intimate partner abuse be seen as better or worse than institutional racism? Each of these abuses may cause despondency in the target of the oppression, yet likely in a different way. Further, it is the individual’s ability to cope, her history of coping, and her personal coping strategies in the face of varying forms of oppression that dictate how she is able to tackle various modes of oppression. For that reason, dynamic resistance allows one battered Black woman’s experiences with forms of oppression to be different from those of another battered Black woman. For instance, a battered Black woman who is middle-class and college educated may find it relatively easier to maneuver in and to resist forms of oppression in the social sphere because of her socioeconomic class position. She may be well informed on how her class privilege, in relation to that of Black women who are situated in lower classes, provides her with the means to avoid the levels of economic oppression that face her lower-income sisters. In this context, the middle-class, college-educated battered Black woman may find her abuser more difficult to combat than the societal-level oppressors.