Violence in intimate relationship between women. Integrative literature review

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is widely portrayed from a heterosexual point of view, and there are few representations of violence in homosexual intimacy. This article analyzes the literature on intimate partner violence in relationships between women who have sex with women. Methodologically, the study corresponds to an integrative literature review that analyzed 60 articles published in Portuguese, English, and Spanish, available in the SCIELO databases; CAPES journals; Virtual Health Library; Redalyc and Dialnet, published between 2012-2019. The findings are analyzed descriptively using an instrument developed by the authors, called the review protocol. The results are presented into five categories that discuss cultural aspects related to IPV in this population. 1st) Gender; 2nd) Intergenerational violence; 3rd) Minority stress; 4th) Substance abuse and 5th) Barriers to coping with IPV, which show the intergenerational influence on intimate violence and that gender stereotypes make intimate violence between women invisible by making them think of themselves as non-aggressors at the same time. Women are crossed by intersectionalities that accentuate the stress experienced by being a sexual minority, and the barriers to coping with IPV involve the State's lack of preparation to deal with non-heterosexual IPV.

Bringing the Pandemic Home: The Shifting Realities of Intimate Violence for Disabled People in the Time of COVID-19

In this article, I explore the shifting realities of intimate violence for disabled people in the midst of a global pandemic. I argue that the social and political vulnerabilities of these pandemic times, which have (often deliberately) been compounded by conservative political regimes (like the Trump administration in the United States), make it urgent for anti-violence advocates/activists to root our organizing in the intersectional crip framework of disability justice. I suggest several avenues for intervention and resistance that are grounded in radical visions of care and access advanced by such disability justice theorists as Mia Mingus (2017), Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (2018), and Sins Invalid (2016). In particular, I describe how engaging with these visions and concepts opens up alternative pathways for a more inclusive, liberatory, and transformative anti-violence praxis. My purpose in writing this article is to promote further conversation about the impacts of COVID-19 on intimate violence and to support critical action centered around the lived experiences and access needs of disabled/crip peoples, especially those who have been most directly impacted by the pandemic (e.g., poor and homeless disabled people, queer and trans disabled people, and disabled people of color).

COVID-19 LOCKDOWN AND GLOBAL RISE IN DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND FEMICIDE

The global lockdown following the massive spread of COVID-19 pandemic has turned out to be a bitter pill to swallow for prevailing domestic violence sufferers with news data reporting a steep rise in the cases of intimate abuse and femicide in almost each country of the globe. The contagion leaves no section of the society at mercy, but news reports from different parts of the world verify the coronavirus as having a severe side effect on women amidst the quarantine period. This research article showcases the disturbing rise in the women helpline distress calls all over the world and will address this sensitive issue by throwing light on the grave matters concerning an upsurge in intimate abuse cases across the planet, which have reportedly resulted in a sudden hike in unwanted pregnancies and marital rapes, acceleration of femicide rate, and how mother’s abuse is spreading drastically to children. The data will be collated from varied news sources all over the world to address this silent pandemic on a collective level. Furthermore, this paper will dissect the social, economic, and psychological causes that lead an abuser to increase his violent activities amid crisis and the resultant physical and psychological effects on the victim. Finally, I will recommend various remedial measures that can sustainably help protect mental and bodily health of intimate violence victims during the quarantine period.

From abused to abuser, inevitably?: Female inmates accounting for identity categorizations to distance themselves from violence

Female inmates have encountered a great deal of violence during their life course, in most cases starting from abuse in the childhood home. In this study, I examine the accounts given by seven Finnish female inmates who have a two-fold relationship with violence: they have both experienced and perpetrated it. Thus, they have fractured the culturally dominant categorization of woman as nurturing and peaceful. They have an ambivalent relationship with culturally dominant discourses that narrowly depict violent women as either victims or perpetrators. By applying membership categorization analysis, I examine the kinds of identities that participants construct for themselves as both abused and abusers. The women mobilised interrelated yet non-linear and complex categorizations of abused child, substance user, object of intimate violence, perpetrator of violence and inmate. They accounted for their membership in the abused child, substance user and object of intimate violence categorizations, and thus constructed narrative accounts about why they were drawn into the ‘deviant’ category memberships of perpetrator of violence and inmate. By emphasising the category memberships or by resisting them, the participants distanced their identities from violence and were able to establish themselves as moral subjects.

Stress, Trauma, and Resilience Among U.S. Asian Older Adults: Findings From the Rutgers Asian RCMAR

U.S. Asians are the fastest growing group of older adults in the nation, increasing by 68% from 2000-2018. However, research on the psychological wellbeing of this population is limited. Drawing on the research of Rutgers Asian RCMAR Scientists, this symposium will address the impacts of stress, trauma and resilience on the psychological wellbeing of diverse groups of U.S. Asian older adults. Session 1 will assess the prevalence of psychological distress among older LGBT and non-LGBT U.S. Asian older adults, and the role of discrimination in medical care and intimate violence on psychological distress. Session 2 will take a mixed-methods approach to examining caregiver burden and depressive symptoms of Chinese American spouses and adult-children who provided care for their spouse or parents with dementia. Session 3 will explore the risk and protective factors for the mental health of sexual minority U.S. Asian older adults using data from the Research Program on Genes, Environment and Health. Session 4 will identify different patterns of coping repertoires of older immigrants, based on a combination of individual, family, and community coping resources, and the optimal coping repertoire that is associated with the best psychological outcomes. In summation, this symposium describes the psychological wellbeing of diverse groups of U.S. Asian older adults, including sexual minority, caregiver and immigrant groups. The symposium addresses both risk factors and the protective factors and coping mechanisms that mediate and mitigate psychological wellbeing and aims to inform interventions to improve psychological wellbeing outcomes in U.S. Asian older adults.