ABSTRACT
During an episode of the Sally Jessy Raphael show, three wives tell the host and audience about their controlling husbands. One by one the women are brought on stage to talk about the abuse and control their husbands inflict on them. When their husbands are eventually brought out, the audience boos them and Sally reads each of them the riot act. The last ten minutes of the show are spent with the “expert” who is there to give the couples advice. The expert says that although she is concerned about the husbands, she is more concerned about the wives. She asks them where along the way they lost their power. Why did they allow their men to abuse them? The audience cheers and claps as the expert “empowers” the victims. The victims struggle to answer the question. They struggle to figure out how they ever had power. Eventually, most of them seem to agree that they must have lost their power and that was why their husbands are abusing them.
