Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses an ethnography of 2 women's shelters. Exploring both the experience of women, and accounts by professionals of institutional processes to 'deal with' domestic violence, the resulting long term effects can be seen as an extension of State induced compliance of the female body.

Paper long abstract:

The experience of being subjected to violence from a loved one is a paradox. The person trusted most, also poses the most danger and causes the most damage. The connection between love, terror and how this effects women's decision-making in situations of domestic violence (DV), has been somewhat investigated. Yet when combined with an exploration of immediate services available to women, illustrate how legal, social, and governmental avenues of assistance only mirror common abuse strategies used by perpetrators to control women. Results show a tangle of double binds women are left with, which leave no good options to improve their situation. Despite any physical, psychological or financial abuse that partners exert on women's bodies, lives or minds, it is women who are held solely responsible for the success or failure of the relationship, and the continued parenting of children. I argue that experiencing terror from partners who women are socialised to trust utterly, with the lack of viable options to escape, is so obscure to people without first-hand knowledge, as to resist adequate language to express it. Abuse strategies perpetrators employ to undermine women's interpretation of violence and control through epistemic privileging are common. Institutional processes can be seen to do the same, encouraging a dissonance between a woman's embodied experience of harm, and others' interpretations of it. This paper provides insight into current service provision and to develop an evaluation criteria for implementations and new interventions that better target the unique paradox of family violence.