Friendship between women : the influence of incest

Abstract

This study focused on the mother/daughter relationship in father/daughter incest and how that relationship influences women's friendships with other women. Many researchers have concluded that females who were sexually abused by male authority figures, i.e., father, step-father, grandfather, older brother, minister, babysitter, will have impaired relationships with men.Clinicians surmise that the enormous betrayal of trust involved in the incest leads the child to generalize from her experience with one male to all males. Victims express feelings of distrust, fear of intimacy, and fear of personal expression in all male/female relationships.Studies suggest that in families where father/daughter 2 incest has occurred the relationships between mother and daughter are also impaired. Most often cited is the distant relationship between the mother and daughter. Also discussed is the intense anger the daughter feels toward the mother for not protecting her from the perpetrator's abuse. Betrayal, in the form of the mother's inability to provide protection, often evokes more anger from the daughter than does the father's betrayal.The hypothesis, that there would be a difference in the intensity of same-sex friendships between incest and non-incest groups, with the non-incest subjects having friendships of greater intensity and more positive quality as determined by their responses as measured by a Friendship survey, was not supported. However, a significant difference between groups was found with regard to subject's assessment of closeness as a child to their mothers. Half of the incest victims reported they did not feel very close to their mothers, -in contrast to the non-incest respondents, the majority of whom reported feeling close to their mothers. Also of interest was the finding through a factor analysis that these incest survivors do not appear to clearly differentiate between a best and next closest friend.