In spite of recent literature regarding the personal, historical, and socio-cultural factors related to women’s use of IPV, more needs to be done to determine how these factors play out in the adult lives of women who use IPV. My assertion is that both the perpetration of violence by men and women as well as their victimization must be addressed and can be done so sensitively
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and safely if the examination of the context in which their violence occurs is considered. Examining women’s IPV does not take away from their victimization, rather it simply
acknowledges their location within the context of IPV and increased knowledge of these impacts can assist in better policies and interventions for women, men, and families. Further, much of women’s IPV is understood against the backdrop of men’s partner violence and, as a result, the issues are decontextualized and women’s violence is constructed to be similar to men’s violence. Critical feminist theory and scholarship also bears weight in understanding women’s position and voices, recognizing their lived experiences are varied, multilayered, and not monolithic. The need to focus efforts toward recognizing individual experiences while drawing from collective standpoints is critical (Stanley & Wise, 1990 as cited in Comack, 1999). Using the foundational underpinnings of critical feminist theory, specifically feminist standpoint theory, and a
descriptive phenomenological analysis, a deeper understanding of the reality and intricacy of women’s IPV can be reached. Their diverse and multi-layered experiences collectively render a standpoint for the women, while staying true to their individual experiences. This will also help in better understanding Indigenous women’s IPV as there is a lack of depth in understanding IPV from the voices of Indigenous women perpetrators. The literature is just starting to explore these women’s life trajectories, which are markedly different from those of their male counterparts. Overall, the literature points to the importance of learning experiential perspectives related to women’s violence and how they understand the context in which this occurs. The themes generated from the women’s experiences may contribute to more informed strategies for addressing IPV for this population as well as more generally.
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Chapter Three - Theoretical Framework for Understanding Women’s IPV:
Feminist Standpoint Theory
3.1 Introduction
Feminist theory underpins my work due to its focus on the changing assumptions about the study of social phenomena pertaining to women that have been historically studied from a point of view that lay in traditional sociological inquiry. I assert that feminist knowledge better informs the context of women’s experiences and has historically set out a path toward research practices that has guided and altered the construction of traditional modes of inquiry, which historically have been androcentric. Recognizing and understanding that women’s position of ‘knowing’ differs from that of men is critical in the study of IPV. Women’s lived experiences, their multiple realities, their marginalized and oppressed positions, and their way of
contextualizing these experiences is at the heart of feminist scholarship. When it comes to IPV, women’s knowledge is different than men’s. Therefore, it is critical that IPV be studied from the perspective of women in this way. Also essential, is gaining knowledge from Indigenous women who have historically come from an oppressed and marginalized position. Accordingly, no one woman’s story is deemed to be representative of the whole; rather, it is many individual voices that speak together (Baber & Allen, 1992).
When it comes to women’s violence in general, historical understanding has been against the backdrop of their male counterparts. Further, women’s violence has been understood in the context of women’s victimization and argued to be devoid of women’s voices or any discussion of women’s agency (Africa, 2010). Comack &Brickey (2007) further this notion, suggesting that women’s violence, and their IPV in particular, has been understood in the context of three competing notions: victimized woman, bad woman, and mad woman. Africa (2010) contends that the resulting effect is the ongoing perpetuation of the construction of their violence rather
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than efforts to seek to understand directly from the women themselves. Kelly (1996) broadens the discussion, suggesting that gender is constructed in a manner that has not included women’s experiences, which should be at the fore of understanding the research and discourse of IPV. Research in the field has portrayed gender variations in quantitative ways (e.g., frequency, injury severity, and risk of serious harm) and qualitative ways, concerning relational dynamics and motives (Hamberger & Potente, 1994; Johnson et al., 2000). In this vein, women’s use of violence should not be constructed through the lens of women behaving like men, as this assumes that men’s violence is the norm with women’s violence being compared against this backdrop (Flemke, 2003). Comack & Brickey (2007) also contend that women’s IPV should be studied with their social context in mind.
While gendered violence is cited in the literature as a key understanding of women’s violence and specifically their use of IPV, I contend it is only one part of the story in the research and practice toward understanding it. Where women find themselves at a particular point in time, in terms of their social location, or how their violence emerges that may result from their
histories or their socio-cultural backgrounds is also part of this discourse. Kokushin (2014) argues that understanding social issues, particularly issues related to race, class, and gender, has been at the exclusion of women’s voices in feminist scholarship (Kokushin, 2014). Further, Kokushin argues that not only have women of all races been excluded from mainstream theory and scholarship but there has been historical tension amongst feminist theorists regarding
women’s position as it pertains to issues of privilege between race and class groups. Hill-Collins (1990 as cited in Kokushin) illustrates this in her work, Black Feminist Thought, where she argues that while feminist movements have sought to include women’s voice, theory, and research into the mainstream, the perspectives and voices of women of color have been
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systematically excluded from this movement (Kokushin, 2014). This becomes an important consideration when examining women’s IPV as the act of IPV crosses racial and socio-economic lines.
Thus, although gender as an explanatory model is understood as important, the notion of intersectionality also offers a theoretical explanation for women’s victimization or vulnerabilities that would co-occur alongside their use of violence and abuse. Thus, whether victim or
perpetrator of violence, the lived experiences of women in this regard cannot be read through the lens of gender alone; rather, a consideration of the intersecting factors that fundamentally shaped their lived experiences must be considered (Lipsitz-Bern, 1993).
3.1.1 The History of Feminist Contributions and its Use in Understanding Women’s