Help-seeking behaviors of marginalized battered women: Theoretical and policy implications

This dissertation explores the help-seeking behaviors and coping strategies of economically, racially and/or socially marginalized battered women. To analyze the help-seeking behaviors and coping strategies of this subgroup of battered women, 100 formerly battered women were identified and extensively interviewed at a number of community-based social service agencies located in low-income neighborhoods throughout New York City including community centers, homeless shelters, needle-exchange programs, health clinics, prenatal care programs, congregate housing for people with AIDS, and welfare centers. Interviews focused on the extent of battered women's reliance upon formal and informal sources of help; women's perceptions of the effectiveness of helpers; anti the impact of institutional responses on battered women's subsequent help-seeking behaviors and coping strategies. This study is a theoretically-guided project which applies the Modified Survivor Theory, a new theoretical model based on the Survivor Theory (Gondolf, 1988). The Modified Survivor Theory claims that while battered women actively seek help from a number of both formal and informal sources, there are a number of individual-level (personal), institutional and structural obstacles that constrain and shape battered women's choices. In particular, negative institutional responses can have several detrimental outcomes: battered women may remain in abusive relationships longer, or they may they rely upon extralegal methods of dealing with the abuse such as fighting back or using “street justice” (getting friends or family members to threaten or harm the abuser). The findings of this study largely support the main tenets of the Modified Survivor Theory—that battered women actively seek help from a wide range of formal and informal sources despite experiencing numerous personal, institutional and structural obstacles. And as expected, women who perceived helpers to be ineffective were more likely than women who regarded them as effective to physically fight back against their abusers. However, other aspects of the Modified Survivor Theory were not supported by the findings: battered women were not more likely to remain in abusive relationships longer or to utilize “street justice” if they regarded helpers as ineffective. Ultimately, the narratives of the woman in this study lend credence to a characterization of battered women from marginalized backgrounds and communities as “anguished survivors” who exert a diversity of coping strategies and help-seeking behaviors in response to severe abuse according to the limited and often inadequate options available to them.