The effects of marginalization and multiple marginalization on intimate partner violence victimization

Abstract

When intimate partner violence (IPV) first began to be viewed socially and recognized legally as a crime, feminist activists and scholars were instrumental in informing the narrative around IPV as a universal phenomenon, emphasizing the possibility that it could happen to anyone. However, those marginalized by factors such as race, sex, class, and sexual orientation are more vulnerable to negative life outcomes such as IPV victimization, and individuals who are marginalized on multiple axes of identity are not only more so, but additionally vulnerable in ways that are unique to the intersections of oppression in which they live. Existing research on marginalized populations and experiences of IPV victimization tends to focus on diversity of experience within groups (such as comparing victimization of men and women or heterosexual and queer individuals of a particular racial group) or to conduct a deeper dive into a particular group's experiences (such as Black women or sexual and gender minorities of color); few studies conduct comparisons across all axes of gender, racial, socioeconomic, and sexual orientation, and even fewer are guided by a theoretical background developed specifically for marginalized populations.This dissertation uses the sociological concept of intersectionality to examine how experiences of IPV victimization differ based on locations at the intersections of marginalized identity; additionally, it incorporates the perspectives of general strain theory and minority stress to further hypothesize the indirect ways in which marginalized identity makes negative health outcomes more likely, which in turn increases risk of IPV victimization. The results suggest that marginalized individuals are more likely to experience IPV and that their experiences of IPV victimization vary based on marginalized identity; additionally, they indicate that as the perspective of minority stress predicts, experiences of strain mediate the relationship between