Surviving intimate partner violence: Chinese abused women’s coping experiences

Abstract

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a form of gendered violence characterized by control and causing more harm to women than men. Feminists, such as Mies (2004; 2014) and Chodorow (1979), argue that IPV arises and persists within patriarchal societies. During capitalization, the gendered division of labour exploited women in both public and private spheres as reproduction patterns changed. IPV became a tool men used to maintain control over resources and production. Although IPV has been studied by Western feminists in recent decades, research generally focuses on white middle-class women in developed countries, rather than women in other social and cultural contexts.Adopting a feminist perspective, this study aims to explore the experiences of a triply marginalized group of female IPV-abused women in China, with a special focus on their coping strategies and processes, including self-identity construction, decision-making, help-seeking practices, and responses. This study is based on 62 interviews conducted between June 2022 and February 2023 with IPV-abused women, lawyers, social officials, and police officers. The study reveals the gender power imbalance in IPV in China and locates the causative factors of IPV in the Chinese social environment: intergenerational transmission of patriarchal culture of violence, exploitation of women's maternal labour after capitalization, and intergenerational struggles for individualization. Influenced by these features, women victimized by IPV undergo a complex and ongoing process of identity construction that transcends the “victim/survivor” dichotomy. Identity construction drives women to adopt emotion-centred, problem-centred, and maternal-protection-centred decision-making strategies when seeking help through formal and informal channels. Formal channels through which women seek help are usually patriarchal and paternalistic, while informal channels usually follow familialist values. Despite progress in survivor empowerment interventions, regional disparities are evident