Intimate Partner Violence in Women’s Same-Sex Relationships

We need to consider a multitude of factors when considering an act of violence perpetrated by one individual against another. What are the motives, feelings, beliefs, and attitudes of the perpetrator and victim? What is the sociocultural context of the violence? What are the positions of perpetrator and victim within that context? What are their histories with family, society, and one another that influence this act? In this chapter, we take up these questions with our focus narrowed to one type of violent act: intimate partner violence (IPV) within female same-sex relationships. We present a model to help us understand IPV in female same-sex couples (SSIPV) and to help us organize our review of the research literature on female SSIPV, including studies on the individual, relationship, and sociocultural factors that are related to its occurrence, its consequences, and its treatment and prevention. We find that while a great deal has been written about IPV between opposite-sex partners, there is less research literature on IPV between same-sex partners and even less on prevention or treatment for this population (Winstead et al., 2017). Furthermore, a quick overview of peer-reviewed articles in the past 3 years found two and a half times more articles about IPV in male same-sex relationships compared to female same-sex relationships. Nevertheless, increasing attention to understanding sexual minority experiences and in particular the phenomenon of female same-sex IPV provides theory and research that can advance our knowledge and contribute to efforts at prevention and intervention.