ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on how the dialectic of the dominant ideology about intimate heterosexual relationships in contemporary society and social conditions in African American communities converge to create a particular dilemma for African American battered women. It illustrates gender-entrapment paradigm most vividly when experiences of the African American women who are battered are distinguished from members of the other two populations of incarcerated women. Violence against women—particularly within the context of intimate relationships—drastically shifts the structure and meaning of the household unit and radically alters the dynamic of adults' intimate interaction. The epistemological value of the gender-entrapment theoretical model is that it gives equal emphasis to multiplicity of factors that lead to women's illegal behaviour—therefore offering more textured analysis of relations between gender-identity development, violence against women, race/ethnicity, and women's involvement in crime. The commitment to dominant ideology and indeed the emotional work and social pressure to conform to it deeply influenced the African American battered women's adult intimate relationships.
