Women Negative Relationships

It is nothing new to see or hear of women who are in bad relationships standing by their men. These “bad relationships”, can involve as mental abuse, psychical abuse, verbal abuse, adultery, or all of the above. Most women deal with this kind of abuse every day, but they keep it a secret, not even telling their family and close friends. There have been many women, however, over time, who are in the public eye, and have had to “air their dirty laundry” in front of the world: Hillary Clinton, Tea Leoni, Elin Woods, Rihanna and even Pamela Anderson, to name a few. These women have been cheated on, lied to and even psychically assaulted. The experience of an abusive relationship is embarrassing enough, but to have the whole world watch while your significant other admits to his affairs or abuse is humiliating. In most of these cases, the women stay and stand by their men. Why? Is it love; fear; moral’s; or is it a deeper issue? And what role does the media play in their choices?

Joyce Hamilton Berry, a clinical psychologist in the Washington D.C. area states that “women often find themselves in such circumstances because society puts the burden of maintaining the relationship or marriage on the female. She says in everyday social interactions we continue to hear comments such as "She let her man get away" when in fact the woman never had him, or perhaps he lost her. By the same token, many abused women believe they did something wrong and that is why they are abused” (Norment 126).

I believe this is where the media influence most strongly effects women. Sure, we hear songs about women being cheated on and the man begging for forgiveness, and we can’t help but think “awe that is so cute, I’d forgive him”, but nothing has more of an influence than real life situations. We see strong respectable women like Hillary Clinton standing by her man after he admits to his infidelities and it has an impact on our own decision making when and if it happens to