Lesbian Mothering in the Context of Intimate Partner Violence

SUMMARY

Twenty-four lesbian mothers (12 African American, 9 White, and 3 Latina) who had experienced physical abuse by a same-sex partner were interviewed. Three types of IPV were found: intimate terrorism, situational violence, and mutual violent control. Further, relationships between mothers/abusers, mothers/children, and abusers/children were examined. Regarding relationships with abusers, 71% of mothers reported lengthy sagas, 17% had worked it out, and 13% made a clean break from the abuser. Regarding relationships with their children, 48% of mothers hid the violence, 26% minimized it, and 26% openly communicated about the situation. Relationships between abusers and the mothers' children were found to be either co-parental (29%), playmate (21%), abusive (21%), or non-parental (21%). Correlations among relational and demographic variables were also examined.

KEYWORDS:

• Intimate partner violence
• lesbian mothers
• parenting
• grounded theory
• intersectionality

Acknowledgments

Jennifer L. Hardesty, Ph.D., is anAssistant Professor ofHuman and Community Development at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She received her Ph.D. in Human Development/Family Studies from the University of Missouri, Columbia in 2001.

Ramona Faith Oswald is an Associate Professor of Family Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She earned her Ph.D. in Family Social Science from the University of Minnesota in 1998.

Lyndal Khaw is a doctoral student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she also obtained her B.S. and M.S. degrees.

Carol A. Fonseca is currently a Ph.D. student in Counseling Psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She received her B.A. in psychology at the University of Texas, El Paso in 2005.

Grace Chung is a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Culture and Health at UCLA. She received her Ph.D. in Human and Community Development at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

This research was funded by a grant from the Lesbian Health Fund, a program of the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association