Dating Violence

The aim of this paper is to analyse Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) in cisgender lesbian women and heterosexual trans women . We have chosen to focus on these different phenomena because both of them reveal the insufficiency of the classic power and control wheel created by feminist anti-violence organisers in order to analyse, understand and counteract domestic violence. In addition, the strict use of classical categories developed by the study of violence in opposite-sex couples has shown its limits too, as we will affirm in the “definition” paragraph. We are referring to lesbians and trans women from within a “strategical essentialist” view, namely a way to present subordinate or marginalised social groups focusing (temporary) on a number of core elements and putting aside local differences in order to forge a sense of collective identity, and to create solidarity toward a specific social problem (Spivak 1987). As stated by Phillips (2010), strategic essentialism is a way to “[…] invoke a collective category – like the subaltern or women – while simultaneously criticising the category as theoretically unviable. Though she [n.d.a. Spivak] subsequently distanced herself from what she saw as misuses of the notion of strategic essentialism, the idea that we may have to ‘take the risk of essence’ in order to have any political purchase remains an important theme in feminist theory and politics” (Phillips 2010, p.48). In the first part of this paper we will discuss the topic of the definition of IPV, starting from a critique of the traditional rigid definition, grounded on a gender-based heteronormative framework. We will propose a contextual definition based on a postmodern intersectional framework, in accordance with the literature about LGBTQ IPV (David & Glass 2011; Greenberg 2012; Ristok 2005; Courvant & Cook-Daniels 1998). In the following section we will present the theoretical framework which underpins our interpretation of the problem of IPV and, in relation to survivors, draw upon the : coercive control model (Stark 1995), minority stress model (Mayer 1995) and affirmative therapy models. Furthermore, we will apply the minority stress model to analyse the specific features of discrimination against LGBTQ persons. In the final part we will apply the conceptual tools provided by the abovementioned theoretical models and we will focus separately on the analysis of the peculiar characteristics of IPV towards lesbians and trans women trying to take into consideration the social inequalities that contribute to the establishment of an oppressive relationship. Finally, we will also try to outline some practical guidelines for professionals dealing with these phenomena, based on the literature about LGBTQ IPV, on the affirmative therapy models or on examples of programs that try to work outside the traditional domestic violence protocols.

Gender violence in teen dating (VPA henceforth) refers to repeated abusive behavior exerts a teenage boy
against a girl that maintains or has maintained a relationship with the intention to exercise dominion and
control over the girl and the relationship. This behavior is classified into four types of agression: physical,
psychological,  sexual  and  economic.  Recent  research  makes  visible  a  reality  that  affects  millions  of
women worldwide and helps understand the mechanisms of partner violence. One of the most important
findings  of  this  research  has  indicated  that  the  source  of  this  violence  comes  from  the  first  couple
relationship during adolescence. The dynamics of violent relationship established between pairs of young
teens  seem  to  have  explanatory  multi-causal  origins.  The  ecological  model  of  factors  associated  with
domestic  violence  in  teen  dating  provides  an  adequate  explanatory  framework  for  research  work,
intervention and prevention in this field. The involvement of teachers and parents in prevention programs
and the development of multidisciplinary intervention programs throughout  the process to help prevent
adolescents who begin a relationship with a violent partner from a different background. Moreover,  an
increased sensitivity of the media towards this reality would encourage a shift towards more egalitarian
and less discriminatory behaviors in roles and beliefs that exist between boys and girls when they start
their first relationship.