2005, Number 4
The perception of social support in women with conjugal violence experience.
Juárez RC, Valdez SR, Hernández-Rosete D
Full text
Language: Spanish
References: 45
Page: 66-73
PDF size: 96.72 Kb.
ABSTRACT
1. IntroductionSocial support and social networks are related to social science studies and both topics are related to protective factors in models predicting differential responsiveness to problems of individuals of a social network.
In the mental health area, populations with stress were reported. Infant mortality and poverty are social problems that have been subject to social support and to social networks´ research approach.
Social networking is a factor that emerges as fundamental in the life of individuals. Conjugal violence (from now on, CV) is defined as a violent or abusive relationship, where interaction occurs in an imbalanced power-struggle situation.
The aim of the present anthropological screening is to give light on the social construction of meanings and repercussions of CV on the heterosexual couple.
This paper accounts solely for women´s perceived social support -among informants- and for their rationalization in regard to the CV experience.
2. Materials and methods
Analysis was based on discursive interpretation of CV among 28 women, 14 of them attending to rural and urban health care centers, 14 attending a non governmental organization.
Field work was fulfilled in one period between November 2000 and August 2001. The main inclusion criteria was to have lived or being living in prolonged cycles of CV.
Research was conceived within the interpretative-hermeneutic approach. Research techniques employed pertain to the ethnographic method. In order to proccess information, a data matrix of seven categories and 22 subcategories was designed in the Ethnograph 4.0 software.
3. Results
Two clearly defined groups were found:
First Group: Women perceiving themselves as lacking any social support: informants with a diluted social support network
Socioeconomic characteristics
Seven women constitute this group; five come from rural settings and are health care center assisted. Of the urban informants, one is assisted in a non governmental organization and the other, in a state managed center for CV victims attention. In this group, age average is 24.5 years old, with an average of three children and an educative level of three elementary school grades.
Two of these women have a job, the rest are economically dependant on their emotional partners. Five have a non marital relationship, one was married and the other, divorced. Duration of CV ocurrence in this group was between one and 12 years.
Five of this seven women grew in a hostile familiar atmosphere, witnessing traumatic events in their originary families. Two out of the group had been subjects of sexual abuse by male relatives during their infancy. Six out of seven had had other sentimental couples, four of them had children born from these relationships.
Perceived lack of support and the feeling of loneliness
"¿Why is it that they feel alone and unsupported to cope with their problems?"
The informants that come from a rural setting show a relationship pattern where physical violence and excesive control of spouse on everyday actions and social relations is established, a pattern which is manifested in physical and emotional violence. Upon this pattern, the women construct their subjectiveness on a disappointing general outlook of life, which seems logical because the partner control of social contacts results in isolation, a reality enhanced by the symbolical perception of their dependance.
The social support map typical of this group shows that they perceive family as the limit to their social relations, and that they do not recognize their close relatives as a source of support. As to friendship and laboral relations quadrants, in contrast, whit the quadrant of communitary relationships, health care center personnel appears as significative stressing, the fact that health care institutions should be integrated in preventive strategies against CV.
Second Group: Women perceiving themselves as having social support to cope with CV: informants with an established social support network.
Socioeconomic characteristics
21 women constitute this group; 10 come from rural and urban settings and are health care center assisted. Of 21, ten are assisted in a non governmental organization and one, in a state managed center for CV victims attention. In this group, age average is 34.8 years old, with an average of two children and an educative level of secondary school; 12 of them have a job, the rest were economically dependant on their emotional partners or their families. Five had a non marital relationship, one was married and the other, divorced. Duration of CV ocurrence in this group was between several months and 36 years.
This group reported their perceptions of a social group that supported them in several ways. The social support map typical of this group shows that they perceive the presence of much more significative persons in their social relations, a fact that results in a discursive construction less prone to suffering.
Women of this group that were assisted by self help support groups reported having found significative frienships among their peers.
As to the laboral relationships quadrant, women with a job found their laboral sphere as a protective factor.
4. Discussion
Social support and social networks
Two aspects of the debate are stressed:
a) a conceptual difference between social support and social networks.
b) a controversy regarding the relation between socioeconomical status and social support.
As to the findings of the present screening, the definition of social support of Wethington y Kessler is employed.
In the absence of a social network, the notion of social support is evidently lacking of tides, since the perception of support is founded in reciprocity, a relevant factor in cases of CV.
Findings from several authors, stress the importance of the social stratification variable in the personal representation of social support. Regarding the present findings, this conceptualization would exclude the possibility of getting social support for populations with low economical resources, what would put an end to the cycle of the so called culture of poverty.
In the narration of our informants about their CV experiences, we found significant aspects closer to the Dressler model, with an ideal cultural model of social support. Based on perceptions on what the informants perceive should be the expected kind of support from families and acquaintances, a cultural trait which excedes the boundaries of social stratification.
On both groups, it is clear that reinforcing the social network depends on the standardization of cultural practices on certain activities such as personal counseling, or suggestions for problem-solving; this moral practice is obviously based on ethic notions of right and wrong, and thus secondary to moral judgments upon a given frame of reference.
Based on the context of CV, the evidence generated by the present study should be aknowledged to understand the apparent paradox posed by the fact that familiar and close acquaintance networks may contribute, without making it conscious, to the cultural reproduction of violence.
REFERENCES
22. HERRERA C y cols.: La experiencia de la mujer y la percepción de los prestadores de salud sobre la violencia de pareja; un análisis cualitativo. En: Violencia Contra las Mujeres: un Reto de la Salud Pública en México. Informe Ejecutivo de la Encuesta Nacional de Violencia Contra las Mujeres. INSP. 28-33, Cuernavaca 2004.