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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A 3 page book review that also offers the writer's reactions to Traci C. West's Wounds of the Spirit: Black Women, Violence and Resistance Ethics, which is a text that chronicles stories of abuse from numerous African American women. However, as the full title suggests, this is not simply a book about victimization, as it also discusses empowerment and how these women draw upon spiritual resources in order to resist the social forces that seek to dominate them. This point is demonstrated by looking at four representative chapters of this text. No additional sources cited.
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3 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_khtwest.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
However, as the full title suggests, this is not simply a book about victimization, as it also discusses empowerment and how these women draw upon spiritual resources in order to
resist the social forces that seek to dominate them. This point can be demonstrated by looking at four representative chapters of this text. Chapter 2, "Contemporary Testimony from Interviews,"
relates the stories of black women, in their own words. While these narratives chronicle horrible abuse, these stories also highlight the ways in which women resist, physically, by distancing
themselves from their abusers, but also emotionally and psychologically. For example, in chapter 2, West describes how one woman, Aisha, found God to be a "pivotal spiritual catalyst," providing the
impetus that propelled her toward her "chosen vocation of ordained ministry with a focus on the empowerment of women" (West 30). The third chapter in the text, "Emotional and Spiritual
Consequences," addresses a point raised in Aishas story in much greater detail. Specifically, West discusses how violence and abuse affects women psychologically and how culture conspires with abusers in a
way that causes women to blame themselves, as "...the very fact of being girls and women is seen by some as exuding sexual signals that invite exploitation by men" (West
71). This seems to be particularly true for black women, who get caught between the double bind of being female in a male dominated society, while also enduring the ramifications
of racism. In explaining how abused women can come to blame themselves for the violence directed against them, West points out that a black woman may perceive herself as reproducing
the shame" that the man in her life has endured "due to white racism" (West 85). Furthermore, it becomes cultural accepted that any action on her part that can be
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