Intimate partner violence in lesbian couples: A systematic review on the barriers to seeking help

Abstract

The process of seeking help for violence in lesbian couples is complex due to the variety of factors and actors that can be involved. It is a process in which the women may or may not take action to ask for some kind of support, depending on the stage at which they find themselves. However, even though women may realise that they are in a situation of mistreatment or abuse in their relationship with their partner or ex-partner, there may be barriers that hinder them from seeking help. This paper presents a systematic review of the barriers that lesbian women encounter in seeking help or accessing support systems when they are victims of intimate partner violence. Out of 139 studies reviewed, 120 were selected for further review, and 8 studies meeting the methodological inclusion criteria were finally selected. The results of this research show that psycho-social and legal barriers exist, which, within a system of oppression – heterosexist society – do not occur in isolation, but are inter-related, making it difficult for lesbian women victims of intimate partner violence to seek help or access support services. This review finds limitations in the literature reviewed and makes recommendations for future research.

Keywords:

• Intimate partner violence
• lesbian women
• support
• barriers

Acknowledgments

This study was carried out within the Doctoral Programme in Gender Studies: Cultures, Societies and Policies (University of Vic–Central University of Catalonia), as part of doctoral research supervised by Dr. Conchi San Martín Martínez and Gerard Coll-Planas (UVic-UCC).

Code Availability

Not applicable.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The datasets generated during and/or analysed in the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Notes

1 ‘Survivor’ is a term which applies in other areas, such as the disease of cancer, presenting similar problems, for example, when women are at an advanced stage of the disease or in cases where they have died in the end.

2 From this perspective we can detect and modify situations that generate victimization (Morillas et al., 2014). Victimology is the interdisciplinary science that studies the process of victimization and de-victimization (Pereda Beltrán & Tamarit Sumalla, 2013; Tamarit Sumalla, 2006).

Additional information

Funding

This research receives no external funding.