Negotiating Trouble in a Battered Women's Shelter

Abstract

The treatment of battered women is discussed by examining the micro- and macropolitical forces impinging on the operation of a battered women's shelter. Funding agencies, other social services, and interpretive frameworks of staff members formed the organizational context of the micropolitical context. The women's troubles were negotiated at three major stages—intake, processing, and return to the shelter—and the major micropolitical features of this negotiation were a therapeutic ideology, the need for social control, interpersonal conflicts, and personal feelings. Criteria for evaluating and controlling the troubles of women were established in light of self work, the primary objective of shelter residence. Professional expertise was the justification for imposing staff's definitions. Women who rejected the demands of staff were labeled failures and held responsible for the problems they encountered as battered women.