About battered women:
From Domestic Violence Resource Center: Studies show that access to shelter services leads to a 60-70% reduction in incidence
From Commision on Domestic Violence: More than half of female victims of intimate violence live in households with children under age 12.
From ABA on why women stay:
If the batterer holds a prominent position in the community, the victim may doubt her ability to make herself heard or believed.
If the batterer is the primary wage earner,the victim may question her ability to provide for herself and her children.
The victim may still love the batterer; if she has children, she may have concerns about separating them from their father and raising them alone.
The batterer may blame the abuse on substance abuse issues or job stress, leading the victim to believe that if these problems can be solved, the domestic violence will end.
father requested some form of custody, he was successful.
The victim may be without financial resources if she leaves, and may not have marketable job skills.
charm or charisma.
Religious beliefs may lead victims to think they must tolerate the abuse to adhere to their faith.
Cultural defenses may be cited by batterers,victims, or other community members; similarly, the victim may feel torn
between reporting the abuse and participating in a justice system she feels is biased against her ethnic or racial group.
Giving women access to shelters and resources resulted in a 60-70% reduction. So sure, loving a spouse even when they beat you is illogical (never mind the logic that goes into beating your spouse), but there are many more reasons why women stay. Given teh 60-70% reduction, if you teach a woman that she is a human being and give her the resources to stand on her own two feet (which is what feminism does with regards to giving women access to jobs that can support families), she will leave the horrific situation. Feminism helps solve that problem.
Never mind that before feminism (at least in secular society), women were the possesion of men. Abuse? You must have deserved it. Spousal rape? No such thing.
I wouldn’t say men and women are equally illogical, just differently illogical. Men are more likely to destroy their marriages by seeking happiness outside the home. Women are more likely to stay in a bad marriage longer. Both are destructive in different ways.
(I’ll continue in another post)