Citation

Banwell S. Fem. Criminol. 2010; 5(2): 116-134.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2010, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/1557085110366223

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

There has been a tendency within discourses of women’s violence to adopt an either/ or binary approach to women’s use of violence in intimate relationships. Women are either portrayed as blameless victims or culpable agents. To dichotomize women’s violence in this way is reductionist. Using in-depth life-story interviews of three women, this research examined women’s use of violence and aggression within the context of their agency, their victimization, and the choices available to them to illustrate how and why this binary approach limits the understanding of women’s violence in intimate relationships.