Choices Women Make: Agency in Domestic Violence, Assisted Reproduction, and Sex Work

2 Should I Stay or Should I Go?: Intimate Partner Violence and the Agency in “Victim”

In this chapter and the next two, I use the theory developed in the previous chapter to examine the multifaceted nature of agency and choice in women’s lives by considering how agency develops and is deployed. In looking at agency in particular contexts, I consider together the development of internal capacities for autonomy and the external relations shaping the creative capabilities of particular persons so as to see the varied ways in which political and social inequalities shape how one believes oneself able to engage the world. The political and social constructions of desire (autonomy) and possibility (freedom) are the political prerogatives of agency discussed in chapter 1. In these three chapters, I hope to illuminate the processes of subjectification that give rise to gendered agency, which is always intersected by and understood as simultaneously raced and classed agency. Why examine domestic violence as a site of agency? On the one hand, it seems to be a pretty clear-cut case of compromised agency. Bodily integrity is one of the primary principles of and requirements for agency, and bodily integrity is lacking in most cases of intimate partner violence .1 On the other hand, domestic violence is one of the primary areas of political contestation over the nature of women’s agency, particularly in terms of placing “victimization” in direct opposition to agency. Whether 37 c h a p t e r 2 34# Should I Stay or Should I Go? Intimate Partner Violence and the Agency in “Victim” 38 Should I Stay or Should I Go? the issue is battered women who kill their partners, funding for domestic violence shelters, making domestic violence a civil rights crime, mandatory arrest at all domestic dispute police calls, or any of the many other public policy and legal issues that arise in this case, the debate nearly always centers on whether women are victims of a patriarchal culture and legal system or whether they are autonomous adults who have made bad choices (and who are, anyway, nearly as violent as men). Because the law deals with intimate partner violence too uniformly, because society demands easy answers to this complex problem, and because women’s acts of agency and resistance in violent relationships are either overlooked or held against them, this case is a perfect example of where a more nuanced theory of agency is sorely needed. I will discuss four critical analytical points about the possibilities for and exercise of agency in situations of domestic violence. The first is that not all women who stay with their abusers are dupes or lacking in agency. There are a variety of actions women take, whether they stay with or leave a partner, that could count as agentic. The second point follows directly from the first: to assess agency, one must see victims of violence as they are situated in social and culturally specific contexts. Staying with an abusive partner might well be mere iteration of gender norm expectations in one context but, in another context, it could be an attempt to struggle with, resist, or otherwise assert one’s will toward opening up future horizons of action and self-development. One can only understand the individual’s sense of purpose, desire, and opportunities by considering her in her environment. At the same time, while there are different ways that women and men react to situations of domestic violence, there are patterns that emerge that are based on socioenvironmental factors.2 From this insight emerges my third point: that agency and victimization are coincident rather than mutually discrete categories.3 My final analytical point is that investment in and adherence to hegemonic gender norms and the heteronuclear family comprise the primary facet of normative competence that confounds resistant agency Should I Stay or Should I Go? 39 because it directly affects who stays and why. For women of color and poor women, this effect is even more pronounced than with relatively affluent white women.4 What this means is that a one-size-fits-all approach to dealing with domestic violence will never succeed. Most theorists , social service providers, and policy analysts would agree—and the discussion here underscores—that racism, sexism, homophobia, and poverty all facilitate violence. Thus, all of those concerned about intimate partner violence must work to eradicate these factors to meet the goal of making domestic violence less frequent. I am taking a...