DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: EMPOWERMENT AND SELF-HELP GROUPS AMONG THE WIVES OF ALCOHOLICS IN BRAZIL

Introduction/Objective: Traditional values are still important in women’s orientations and actions in Brazil, where family values are still uppermost in the female world. In this study we describe how, through their participation in mutual assistance groups, the wives of alcoholic men are able to re-signify conjugal relationships that are usually deeply marked by physical and psychological violence. Methods: This is a qualitative research, with open-ended interviews with 12 female partners of male alcoholics who belonged to a support group in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Conclusion: When the women interviewed begin frequenting the self help group, they fell in with others whose discourse and experiences were similar to their own. Through a mutual self-identification, they began to see themselves in perspective and came to relativize situations that they never dared question before. The figure of “good mother” and “suffering wife” evoked by the majority of the women interviewed when speaking of their arrival at the mutual assistance group tended to disappear from the narratives over time. An aspect of the group’s ideology is the rejection of the discourse of victimization. The women reflected on their values and started to question their role in the family. This can be interpreted as being a strategy to move the women towards accountability and away from their passive position as a victim of “someone else” (the partner or the situation), thus promoting a more modern, individualizing type of discourse that helps them to adopt the position of subject, leading to greater autonomy.