Sandra Cisneros takes her time setting the context in Woman Hollering Creek. She describes their tough relationship. They struggle to find passion in it. Most of the workload is done begrudgingly towards each other. Neither of them left out of a sense of obligation to one another. They stick through it because they rushed into a relationship. It happens slow and then suddenly. Sandra recognizes this and paces the story in the same way. Each day gets a little worse, and they fight a little harder. It creeps up on them and leaves them surprised the first time it happened. “The first time it happened she had been so surprised she didn’t cry out or try to defend herself” like she had always thought she would. She had learned to expect it and had a plan for if it did. Emotionally its really tough to prepare for something like that. It can numb a person. Abuse is not something to be tolerated. Sandra Cisneros tells a common story. Yet in many cases leaving can be so hard. Many women stay. Woman Hollering Creek is empowering and inspiring with a postitive ending. It can be easy to convince oneself they didn’t mean it, won’t do it again, or worse, that they’ve deserved it. Then that its not that bad. It was integral to Cleófilia’s and her children’s wellbeing that the health worker had reported the abuse. Do not stand for abuse. It can be hard to leave emotionally and physically. Fear is a powerful feeling and we need to do what we can to help. Stay weary for signs of gendered violence. It can and does happen.
Hi Griffin, I agree that abuse is a very complex issue to understand especially for an outsider who has never experienced abuse themselves. In terms of the economics for marriage, women who enter into a marriage where they intend to specialize in household production are at risk because they are under payed for their home production in exchange for them being overpaid when they’re older (i.e. when children are involved, women work more, whereas men’s wages increase overtime). Due to this imbalance, this creates an incentive for men to break the marriage contract. Additionally, men who are the head of the household ultimately have more bargaining power over their spouse which is essentially the probability that one person will get their own way in a disagreement. Therefore, even in the event of abuse, women are economically better off if they stay in the marriage as opposed to divorcing.
However, there is a positive relationship between bargaining power and female economic independence because women who can support themselves will not enter into marriages where they have little bargaining power. Consequently, men have no choice but to relinquish bargaining power if they hope to marry. I just finished a Netflix series called “Maid” which is about a young mother who escapes domestic violence, battles through homelessness and poverty to ultimately achieve financial freedom. It’s a very empathetic take on abuse and doesn’t villainize her abuser either because he too was subject to poverty, addiction and trauma. I definitely recommend it.
You made a very interesting comment. What I also found interesting was that the author clearly stated that this abusive behavior was not demonstrated at home when Cleófilia grew up. Thus, one can ask why such an event would arise in a women’s own life. It is possible that even though she was not exposed to an abusive relational model in her childhood, she was not exposed to parental behaviors that taught her self-worth. Because such self esteem is the basis of the boundaries we implement in our lives, it can be the reason why she herself in abuse.