Domestic Violence at the Intersections of Race, Class, and Gender: Challenges and Contributions to Understanding Violence Against Marginalized Women in Diverse Communities

• NCJ Number: 208160
• Journal: Violence Against Women Volume: 11 Issue: 1 Dated: January 2005 Pages: 38-64
• Author(s): Natalie J. Sokoloff; Ida Dupont
• Date Published: January 2005
• Length: 27 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Literature Review
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This article reviews an emerging domestic-violence literature that focuses on services to battered women from diverse, and often ignored, social statuses and cultural backgrounds, while still addressing the structural inequalities (i.e., race, gender, class, and sexuality) that diminish and shape the lives of battered women, albeit in different ways.

Abstract

The terms applied to this emerging literature include "intersectionality theory," "integrative feminism," the women of color or multiracial perspectives, and "multicultural feminism." One section of this review discusses the challenges presented by intersectional and structural approaches to domestic violence. These include questioning the universality of woman battering, questioning traditional definitions of woman battering, and questioning the primacy of gender inequality in explanations of woman battering. Other challenges identified are tensions between culture and structure, tensions between culture and gender, and representing marginalized women. Another section of this article examines the contributions of the literature to feminist methodologies and practice by giving voice to marginalized women, encouraging activism that places typically marginalized women at the center of program planning and delivery, calling for culturally competent services for battered women, debunking stereotypical images of battered women, providing new theoretical frameworks, and forging alternative visions for dealing with domestic violence. In the concluding statement of this article, the authors note that this emerging area of domestic-violence literature is arguably in the midst of an identity crisis, in that one of the major criticisms of it is its failure to recognize class as an important variable in the distinctive and varied profiles of battered women. The authors agree with the assessment of Mann and Crimes (2001), i.e., that for scholarship on domestic violence to remain emancipatory, it must emphasize both individual and structural analyses of race, class, and gender inequality and marginalization in culturally diverse communities. 74 references