The Language of Battered Women

Carol L. Winkelmann

Description

Winner of the 2005 Outstanding Book Award presented by the Organization for the Study of Communication, Language, and Gender (OSCLG)

This study of battered women living in a shelter offers a rhetorical analysis of survivors' personal theologies. Author Carol L. Winkelmann holds that while it is virtually ignored in the domestic violence literature, the Christian heritage of many battered women plays a significant, if complicated, role in their language, thoughts, and lives. The women's religious faith serves not only to sustain them through periods of profound suffering, but also to develop solidarity with other culturally-different women in the shelter. Designed to assist women to greater independence, the shelter actually functions as a culture of surveillance where women turn to one another and to their faith to cope with the trauma of violence. To heal, the women engage in dialogue that is dense in religious imagery, talking about the relationship of God and the church to suffering and evil. At the same time, these women also acknowledge that organized religion is very much involved in the maintenance of patriarchal marriage and its attendant abuses in their own lives. Together, battered women are sometimes able to construct creative theological responses to the problem of suffering and evil. A mix of religious and secular languages compels them to devise new ways of thinking about their role in family, church, and society.

Acknowledgments

Introduction: "I Stand All Amazed"

1. "I'll be Scared for Everyone in the World": The Pervasiveness of Domestic Violence

2. "Here We Women Support One Another": The Women's House as Shelter and Social Order

3. "Sometimes I Just Want to Give Up": Women's Anguish, Women's Pain

4. "I Sit in the Lord's Way": Theological Concepts of Suffering

5. "In a Spiritual Way, God Brings Justice": Battered Women and the Problem of Evil

6. "In the Bible, It Can Be So Harsh!": Shelter Women Talk about Religion

7. "Waiting on God Can Be a Hard Thing": Suffering and the Phases of Healing

8. "The Prayer of the Righteous Prevaileth Much": Language Change and Healing

9. "If God Were a Woman, It Would Be Wonderful!": Local Theology and Social Change

Conclusion: "Take Me to My Sister's House"

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Author Index

Subject Index

Sujets

• Theology
• Christianity

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 février 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780791485828
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

a rhetorical analysis

of personal theologies

carol l. winkelmann

The Language of

Battered Women

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The Language of Battered Women 

A Rhetorical Analysis of Personal Theologies

C L. W AROL INKELMANN

S TAT E  U OFNI VE RS I TY  N E W  Y O RK  P RE S S

Published by S U N Y P , A TAT E N I V E R S I T Y O F E W O R K R E S S L B A N Y

© 2004 State University of New York

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

For information, address State University of New York Press, 90 State Street, Suite 700, Albany, N.Y., 12207

Production, Laurie Searl Marketing, Jennifer Giovani

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Winkelmann, Carol Lea. The language of battered women : a rhetorical analysis of personal theologies / Carol L. Winkelmann. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 0-7914-5941-1 (alk. paper) — ISBN 0-7914-5942-X (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Abused women—Religious life—Appalachian Region, Southern. 2. Language and languages—Religious aspects—Christianity. 3. Appalachian Region, Southern—Religious life and customs. 4. Women’s shelters—Appalachian Region, Southern. I. Title.

BV4596.A2W56 2003 261.8'327'0820975—dc21

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

2003042562

For my mother,

Annella Joan Winkelmann,

and for my sister,

Linda Alane Gifford

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The Bible says the meek shall inherit the earth

and, ladies, we know this is not true.

—a shelter woman

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1

C O N T E N T S

A CKNOWLEDGMENTS xi

I NTRODUCTION :

“I S TAND  A LL  A MAZED ” 1

“I’ LL  B E  S CARED FOR  E VERYONE IN THE  W ORLD ”: T HE  P ERVASIVENESS OF  D OMESTIC  V IOLENCE 15

2 “H ERE  W E  W OMEN  S UPPORT  O NE  A NOTHER ”: T HE  W OMEN ’ S  H OUSE AS  S HELTER AND  S OCIAL  O RDER 27

3

“S OMETIMES I J UST  W ANT TO  G IVE  U P ”: W OMEN ’ S  A NGUISH , W OMEN ’ S  P AIN 53

4 “I S IT IN THE  L ORD ’ S  W AY ”: T HEOLOGICAL  C ONCEPTS OF  S UFFERING 79

5 “I N A  S PIRITUAL  W AY , G OD  B RINGS  J USTICE ”: B ATTERED  W OMEN AND THE  P ROBLEM OF  E VIL 101