Intimate Partner Violence and Domestic Violence within Same-Sex Relationships

Abstract: This thesis seeks to analyze the issue of intimate partner violence (IPV) within female same-sex relationships in order to uncover how/if it can be related to an invisibility of female same-sex relationships in society at large. By analyzing various articles and academic texts dealing with IPV in both heterosexual and homosexual relationships, the hope is to establish some core differences and similarities within the field of IPV research. The analysis will also look at how the notion of the violent female is addressed, and how other characteristics such as race, ethnicity, age and ableness compound in the narratives of IPV in female same-sex relationships. The analysis will be carried out with the use of domestic violence theory through an ecological model which allows all environments an individual inhabits to be analyzed. Intersectionality alongside a post-colonial and queerfeminist approach will also be applied in the qualitative text analysis of the material. Numerous methods and explanations are put forward in the literature in order to explain IPV, in hetero and homo relationships. Lacking in the discussion is the image of the female abuser while also missing discussions on other intersecting identity markers.