Lesbians are socialized in the same heterosexist, male dominated society and hold some of the same beliefs as others. Like most of society, they find authenticity in the artificial idea that men are aggressive and women aren‘t. This belief has contributed to the myth that lesbians neither oppress nor abuse one another. Girshick (2002) lays out the circular argument which leaves survivors isolated, invisible, and imaginary ―A women is not supposed to be a sexual perpetrator or batterer. Without the perpetrator, there cannot be a victim; hence, women cannot be victims of assault by other women.‖
Kimberly demonstrates the fallacy of this belief in her story:
They just think they- people can‘t fathom women doing that to each other. Because we‘re suppose to be loving and nurturing and all that crap but – and I think women think that too. I think it happens just as much as it does in the heterosexual world, because we‘re the same people. I mean just because we‘re gay doesn‘t mean that we‘re not – that there‘s not violent people in our community.
The myth that women cannot hurt one another does not exist only in the heterosexual
community. It is also alive and well in the lesbian community. Lynn describes the messages she has received from members of the lesbian community.
I have heard, unfortunately, lots of stories of women that have gone through domestic violence situations and the attitude that I‘ve always heard is that it‘s not domestic
violence; it‘s two women arguing. It‘s a catfight. It‘s, you know, you‘re both women, so you should be able to figure it out. It‘s almost like there‘s this belief that domestic violence can only happen if there is physical power; there‘s a physical power difference. It has to be that someone is more physically able to control the other one, which isn‘t the case.
This pervasive misconception about violence in lesbian relationships is dangerous to lesbian survivors. This common air of disbelief works to strengthen the wall of denial that continues to entrap lesbians who are battered by their partners.
Lynn was working in a domestic violence shelter while she was being abused at home and still did not recognize her experience as IPV
It happened so gradual that it took – it took before – it got serious before I realized how bad it was and I think I had a mindset… I felt immune. I had went through all these trainings and I was a counselor at the domestic violence shelter and I was a volunteer there, and I think because there was no male component…I think it took me longer to accept what was really going on.
In addition to the societal beliefs into which Lynn was indoctrinated, her formal training at the domestic violence shelter reaffirmed the idea that in order for intimate partner violence to exist there must be a ―male component.‖ Compounded with Lynn‘s own personal experience of being sexually abused by her brother, these experiences further cemented her thoughts that in a
relationship with another woman she was safe, and as she said ―immune.‖
The denial that women can and do abuse each other puts women at greater risk even when they are reaching out for help. Susan opened up to her mother about her abusive relationship and asked her mother for help after being beaten by her partner, Greta.
My mom didn‘t believe me—when I told her she didn‘t believe that she- her
reaction was that doesn‘t happen with other women. Women don‘t do that to each other. And I think it took her actually seeing me bruised to have her realize the yeah, I wasn‘t just blowing this out of proportion. It hurt. It made me feel like she didn‘t believe what I was telling her. When I called her and asked her to come over and get me because Greta had hurt me, she stopped at a sewing machine place on the way because she had an errand to run. So, I mean that – that, I think hurt more than Greta‘s fist.
The lack of support from family, friends and the lesbian community injure survivors as much, if not more, than the violence perpetrated against them by their partners. The mistaken belief that a) violence does not occur in the absence of men and b) lesbians relationships are egalitarian and immune from violence supports, perpetuates and further enables lesbian intimate partner
violence to flourish unrestrained. In addition, the lack of support by family and friends creates additional barriers for the survivor to overcome. Due to the lack of support from traditional domestic violence agencies, law enforcement and judicial systems, not being believed, supported or assisted by family and friends is a devastating blow to these women who suffer at the hands of their intimate partners. It truly leaves them isolated with no place to turn thus making it
extremely difficult to escape the violence. 3. How Girls Fight
As stated previously, violence between women is not seen as particularly harmful or dangerous to the women involved. The stories of these women provided graphic images of the level and extent of violence perpetrated by women. The range of abuse experienced in this sample included emotional abuse (isolation, control, threats to pets, harassing phone calls), verbal abuse (yelling, name calling, insults), stalking, throwing object to frighten, financial abuse (taking entire paycheck, creating debt, stealing money), physical abuse (restraining, pushing, shoving, punching, slapping) and sexual abuse (coercion, forced sex, rape). The women experienced a combination of multiple forms of violence.
The women‘s stories bring to light the types of emotional, physical and sexual violence they experienced at the hands of their female partners. The violence in the relationship started slow and was almost always undetectable or unrecognized by the survivors., The violence
increased in severity and frequency over time, sometimes peaking when the survivor tried to leave the relationship.
Barbara described her relationship as more emotionally abusive and controlling but it became physical when she tried to leave.
I remember the first time very much. I was going to end the relationship. I had gone to stay at some friend‘s house and that‘s where I was going to move into. And she showed up there, and I remember I was in bed. And she comes and just gets on top of me and is just punching me in the face over and over and over again. ―Your not going to leave me....You‘re not going to go, I won‘t let you.
Susan described the types of violence and the escalation of violence she experienced.
I mean screaming really loud and she would call me stupid, she would tell me I‘m fat and just always hit on the things that really hurt, you know. For the first year there wasn‘t any physical violence. She was very controlling as far as sexually. She had to always be the one to initiate and it was when she wanted. That‘s when we would have sex. After the physical abuse started happening she wouldn‘t take no for an answer. And typically it was after there had been- like after she had hit me. At first she would just bitch and bitch and bitch until I finally was like okay, whatever, and I‘d just lay there and whatever. But towards the end of our relationship, which it was five years, towards the end of the
relationship there – she would physically force me to have sex. She would rape me. And I think that happened probably two or three times towards the end of our relationship.
In addition to emotional and physical abuse Lynn also suffered sexual abuse. Her partner was also very cruel and used the abuse Lynn had suffered as a child to hurt her.
She claimed that she felt she needed to toughen me up and she used to say she couldn‘t stand women that were weak and couldn‘t handle things. But there was a time that she pinned me down and she just was touching me and it made me very uncomfortable and she knew that, and she was like, ―Oh, is this the way you used to let your brother fuck you?‖ and things like that, just really cruel. Really cruel, she was good at that.
It is not difficult to see that the types of violence experienced by these women far exceed a ―cat fight‖ and do not differ significantly from violence found in male to female IPV. Female batterers can and do perpetrate the same types of violence as male batterers. These findings are consistent with Miller et al. (2001). In a study of lesbian IPV, Miller et al. (2001) concluded that
lesbians use the same types of aggression and violence that are found in heterosexual relationships.