Sally Engle Merry “Rights-Defined Identity”Assignment 09
Merry is arguing that with the help of the battered women’s movement and law there are greater possibilities for protecting women against intimate partner violence. Merry is explaining that when battered women seek out help from the legal system gender identities are altered. With the assistance of activism put forth by battered women’s movement battered women are presented as legally capable and men are met with the criminalization of their violent behavior which is usually viewed as natural to men.
Merry also explains that in these instances women take on an individual identity or one that is “not defined by family, kin” or work relationship. Once she accesses the legal system “she takes on a more autonomous self protected by the state” (Merry, 2003, p. 345). The rights defined identity that Merry explains means that women who report instances of violence at the hands of their partners are asserting their autonomous selves with the right not to be battered. This autonomy allows her to define herself as a person separate from her identity as a wife or mother.
The subjectivities that are produced through encounters with the legal systems means that woman’s decisions to press charges, go to court or get TRO depends on her encounters with police officers, battered women shelter advocates and judges as well as on” her sense of self that is deeply at odds with other senses that are rooted in family, religion, and community” (Merry, 2003, p. 345). If a woman initially contacts the police then refuses to testify or follow through with the process she is then labeled a “bad” or “difficult” victim because of her resistance to “the shift in subjectivity required by the law” (Merry, 2003, p. 345). If a woman reports abuse to the police and the police do not take her complaints seriously or if the abuser is not arrested this encounter will shape her future decisions on whether or not she will report the abuse. So if she encountered negative reactions from law enforcement such as her rights treated as if they are irrelevant she may choose either not to report the abuse or she will not consider her complaints of abuse from a rights framework. Her choice to report and/or follow through depends on her experiences with the legal system trying to assert her right not to be battered.
The subjectivity that Merry is referring has to do with social location based on gender , class, marital status, religion etc. A rights-defined identity is another layer to a women’s social location that some women did/do not know that they possessed until turning to the legal system when subjected to violence by their partner. This has to do with gender roles and identity which is altered when the male is unable to maintain control and his masculinity is challenged due to the woman involving law enforcement and asserting her rights. The woman contacting the police is going against the concept of her submissiveness to her mate. Her position negates his fantasy power and identity which creates crisis which leads to violence (husband to wife) because she turned to the law for help.
