The World of the Fearful: Battered Women’s Narratives of Leaving Abusive Husbands

It is often suggested that battered women do not leave their abusive husbands because of fear. In this article, it is argued that fear of the husband is not only something that hampers women, but that it also could be regarded as a form of resistance on the part of women. Fear does not necessarily include action, but contains an unarticulated knowledge of what is wanted and what is unwanted. Based on interviews with 10 battered women at the time of leaving their abusers, and two years on, the article analyzes the fear that constituted a major part of the break-up process. Drawing on Foucault’s conceptualization of power, the accounts of fear were read as narratives of resistance to violence. Knowledge about the different ways that a battered woman can express her resistance to violence increases the prospects for researchers and professional and lay helpers to more adequately address the complexity of the abuse of women.