Overview

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.

Full Product Details

Author:   Carol L. Winkelmann
Publisher:   State University of New York Press
Imprint:   State University of New York Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.50cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.227kg
ISBN:  

9780791459416

ISBN 10:   0791459411
Pages:   285
Publication Date:   20 November 2003
Audience:   General/trade ,  Professional and scholarly ,  College/higher education ,  General ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Out of Print
Availability:   Out of stock  

Table of Contents

"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"

Reviews

An honest assessment and dramatic rendering of the paradoxical relationship between battered women and theology. Winkelmann's analysis of the unique problems of conscience faced by battered women is mature and nuanced, keyed to the ironies and difficulties real people face when they try to make real changes in their lives. This is a very moving book.

"""An honest assessment and dramatic rendering of the paradoxical relationship between battered women and theology. Winkelmann's analysis of the unique problems of conscience faced by battered women is mature and nuanced, keyed to the ironies and difficulties real people face when they try to make real changes in their lives. This is a very moving book."""

Author Information

Carol L. Winkelmann is Associate Professor of English Language and Literature at Xavier University.

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