Women Battery

12 Pages 3017 Words

ries can be taught to relearn their aggressive responses. Assertion rather than aggression, negotiation rather than coercion is the goal.

The social-learning theory known as “learned helplessness”, is the psychological rationale developed to explain why the battered woman becomes a victim in the first place and how the process of victimization is perpetuated to the point of psychological paralysis. Women are systematically taught that their personal worth, survival, and autonomy do not depend on effective and creative responses to life situations, but rather on their physical beauty and appeal to men. They learn that they have no direct control of the circumstances of their lives. Having been trained to be second best, women begin marriage with a psychological disadvantage because marriage in our patriarchal society does not offer equal power to men and women. Power in marriage is also related to economic and social status. Since men more often than women hold higher paying jobs with more status, their occupational prestige give...