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2 Black Feminist Criminology and the Power of Narrative ”I Just Wanted to Tell My Story”

Billie is a 42-year-old who has remained in the same western U.S. city and lived in low-income status her entire life. Although she has completed some formal vocational training, she left high school in her final year and throughout her life has maintained sporadic employment. Billie experienced abuse from a number of family members during her upbringing, including her mother, a brother, an aunt, and her grandmother. During adulthood, she has encountered four abusive heterosexual intimate relationships, including that with her current common-law husband, Odell, whose main form of abuse is mental and verbal. Billie began abusing alcohol and other drugs in her twenties, and, though she was able to overcome her addiction to crack cocaine, she continues to struggle with her abuse of alcohol. In fact, a day after I set my interview appointment with Billie and a week prior to the actual interview, she telephoned me in great despair and in desperate need of assistance. She phoned while at her home, where she said Odell and her teenage son were verbally abusing her. I could hear the men yelling at Billie, and her son eventually picked up the phone to inform me that “everything’s all right. She’s OK.” After the phone was handed back to Billie, I found it difficult to understand her, as she slurred many of her words, making incomprehensible statements. I surmised that she was likely under the influence of alcohol or other drugs, but, and more important at that moment, I determined that there was indeed some form of significant discord occurring in the home and against Billie. I asked Billie if she felt her physical well-being was in imminent danger,¹ and she contended that it was not but that I was the only person she knew to call. This declaration by Billie supports other research on Black women that has suggested that they are unaware of or do not feel comfortable in seeking assistance from professionally established sources of support.² It was both poignant and revealing that I, a researcher to whom Billie had spoken on the phone on only one occasion, was her resource for dealing with her victimization.

I confirmed the happenings in the home at that time with Billie’s adult daughter, Nia, to whom I had spoken the day before when Billie called to set an appointment to participate in the study.³ After Billie again returned to the phone to speak with me, she insisted that she needed to talk to someone. Although it was well beyond the scope of my research (and certainly not approved by the Human Research Committee of my university) to conduct any form of counseling with the women interviewed, I made the decision to simply conduct my interview with Billie that day and provide her with referrals to social service agencies. Billie and I agreed to have Nia drive her to a convenience store near their home, where I would meet them. However, the two did not show, and I was subsequently unable to reach Billie by phone for several days. I had no last name for Billie at that time, no complete address, and only a wireless phone number, so I was unable to even contact police to conduct a welfare check on the home and could only hope that nothing grave resulted from the verbal altercation.

Fortunately, the day before Billie’s originally scheduled interview with me, she contacted me to confirm the appointment. I verified that Billie was safe, but she did not offer any explanation for the incident or for why she did not meet me at the convenience store. Only once we met did I learn of Billie’s extensive history of drug use and her continued struggles with alcohol addiction. Essentially, even though family and intimate partner abuse were undoubtedly occurring when she called me the week before, Billie had been heavily intoxicated with alcohol. She did not wish for me to provide her with any social services resources to assist her with the familial abuse or her alcohol and drug addictions. Billie expressed that she was proud that she had not drunk since the day of her frantic call to me a week before, and we both wished out loud for her continued strength in combating both her alcohol abuse and the emotional abuse sometimes carried out by Odell and her son. To judge from my time with Billie, perhaps her admonition that she needed “to talk to someone” can be considered in the symbolic sense: She needed to tell her story to someone who would pass it on to others with the hope that transgressions against Black women and the life chances they have been afforded will be placed at the forefront of issues throughout the Black community.

Medea was another woman from whom I gained much insight. Medea is a 54-year-old who was raised in the southeast United States in upper-middle-class surroundings and who has since fluctuated between class levels but never dropped below the middle class. Her educational and professional pursuits have taken her throughout the United States and out of the country. She earned both bachelor’s and master’s degrees and currently works in a high-level administrative position with an agency that addresses intimate partner abuse. Like Billie, Medea also suffered abuse during her formative years, though not to the same physical extent as Billie. The abuse suffered by Medea was largely emotional and involved various forms of neglect by her guardians. Medea also shared that she was regularly harassed by classmates about her aspirations to focus on education and not on boyfriends, which was a form of “acting White.” She recalled, “Being smart was not acceptable, at least being smart in the way I was smart. Because that was viewed in the Black community as a White thing. White people have the privilege to be smart. White women could do things. But I couldn’t. There was a boundary there, and I kept crossing that boundary.”

At the time of our conversation, Medea had been without intimate relationships and had been celibate for many years, believing that because of the string of abusive partners in her life she is better off being alone: “I gradually came to a point where I decided, I’ve really got to learn to love myself. And I can’t do that with anybody else.” Medea’s current employment allowed her to take an active and more far-reaching role in fighting violence against women by helping other women in situations similar to hers. Still, Medea stressed that the intimate partner abuse of Black women remains hidden and ignored within many advocacy circles.

Although their lives are different in terms of educational, employment, and class standings, both Billie and Medea have made efforts throughout their lives to resist the abuse and violence perpetrated against them. Both women realized the constraints they faced as Black women within general society, the Black community, their families, and their intimate relationships. These factors were unearthed during the time I spent with them and with each of the other 38 women who volunteered to participate in this study and in my analysis of their stories. Like Billie, the bulk of the women wished only to share their life stories of adversity and triumph, which, in and of itself, was a form of continued healing from the hardships in their lives. They wished to call attention to what they and other Black women they knew endured from the men they loved. It was the exploratory and qualitative method of social science research that enabled me to stay true to the women’s motivations for reaching out to me and revealing some of the most painful experiences of their lives. That is, this research method is intended as an open-minded, open-ended, and detailed recounting and examination of personal narratives. While before initiating the project I developed a list of questions that I would ask the women, the list was used only as a guide, and the interviews resulted in more of a conversational style of inquiry (as is typically done in ethnographic research).

Exploratory and qualitative methods of inquiry into social life do not require that one begin with a theory or premise before entering the field to conduct research. However, individual researchers, including those who are of the ethnographic or qualitative bent, generally still have a point of view. Often, particularly for feminist scholars and scholars of color, this is based on a philosophy developed from personal experiences or activist pursuits. Arguably, it proves quite difficult to enter a research setting without having some preconceived ideas. What is left open to exploration, however, is the opportunity to truly learn from one’s informants. As such, while an interpretive scholar may penetrate a site with some theoretical foundation, she or he may be introduced to unexpected findings. This was true in my case. Although I had not yet connected a name to my overarching theoretical perspective, I entered the research through the lens of Black feminist, critical race feminist, and feminist criminology ways of thinking. In time, I labeled this perspective on crime and violence “Black feminist criminology.”⁴

Black Feminist Criminology

Just as there are many types of feminisms and feminists, it undoubtedly follows that no single feminist criminology can exist.⁵ Feminist criminology has aided in a notably improved understanding of gender variations in criminal activity and victimization and of the criminal justice system’s dealings with female and male offenders and victims. Feminist criminology has significantly expanded the foci within the field of criminology beyond simply exploring female criminal offending and female offenders to also examining violent acts against girls and women.⁶ Although gender is certainly important and crucial to considering women’s (and men’s) involvement in crime either as victims or as offenders, for Black women, and arguably for all women, other inequities must be considered principal, not peripheral, to such an analysis. This includes key factors such as race and/or ethnicity, sexuality, and economic status into any examination. Kathleen Daly argues that considering how gender, race, and class distinctions intersect is absolutely necessary in criminology.⁷ Because traditional feminist criminology is built on mainstream feminism, which historically has seen issues of race as secondary to those of gender,⁸ Black feminist theory and critical race feminist theory are also necessary to explain fully the source of and reactions to crime among Blacks and, especially, Black women’s positions in society, in their communities, and in their familial and intimate relationships. This proposition does not serve to devalue the remarkable work that has resulted from the establishment of feminist criminology or the concepts put forth and examined under this rubric. Instead, Black feminist criminology extends beyond traditional feminist criminology to view Black women (and, conceivably, other women of color) from their multiple marginalized and dominated positions in society, culture, community, and families. Although the example provided in this book to tender a Black feminist criminological theory focuses on one form of victimization of Black women, it has been well documented in feminist criminology analyses that there is often a clear correlation between women’s victimization and any ultimate criminal behavior by the women.⁹ As such, using intimate partner abuse perpetrated against Black women as an illustration provides us with an example that may be applied beyond Black women’s experiences with victimization into other encounters with crime and the criminal justice system.

Black feminist criminology addresses concerns in the lives of Black women that I categorize into four themes: (1) social structural oppression, (2) the Black community and culture, (3) intimate and familial relations, and (4) the Black woman as an individual. As outlined earlier, the first three themes are components of interconnected social forces, whereas the fourth theme considers the interconnected identities of the Black woman as affected by the societal influences. The tenets of Black feminist criminology are an outgrowth of Black feminist theory and critical race feminist theory. In general, Black feminist theory is the theoretical perspective that places the lived experiences of Black women, including any forms of resistance to their situations, at the focal point of the analysis. This theory considers Black women as individuals encompassing numerous and interwoven identities. The crux of this theory is that Black women are frequently oppressed within both the Black community (by Black men) and society at large because of their subordinated statuses within each of these spheres. Although the sexist oppression in the Black community presents itself in a different form from that in the larger society and may not appear as obvious, it undeniably exists. Critical race feminist theory is similar to Black feminist theory in that it also considers women of color as individuals with multiple intersecting identities that do not eclipse each other. Specifically, however, critical race feminist theory has been used to consider the devalued position of women of color in greater society as their status relates to questions of the law.

Unlike many White women who enjoyed the “feminist lifestyle” because it provided them the opportunity to meet and bond with other women, Black women have always had a sense of sisterhood.¹⁰ Although it is often assumed that Black women did not participate in the development of feminist ideology and the practice of gender equality, it is evident that Black women have indeed been involved in liberation efforts. By reading the works of women who considered themselves to be Black feminists or were identified as such by others, one becomes aware that Black women have a lengthy and valiant history in the liberation movement.¹¹ Their struggles can be traced back to the 1600s, when African women who were captured and enslaved in the so-called New World endured multiple forms of oppression by their slave masters.¹² Many of these women made attempts to defend themselves against the inhumane treatment. Recent survey research demonstrates that Black women, even more than White women, are discontented with women’s situation in society and want to see changes in the social world that benefit women. In a Gallup poll conducted in June 2002, 48 percent of Black women affirmed that they were dissatisfied with the treatment of women within society; only 26 percent of White women responded similarly.¹³

Mainstream feminist theory places gender as the primary consideration in women’s liberation efforts.¹⁴ Black women have expressed difficulty in identifying with mainstream feminist theory because of its focus on this single aspect of womanhood and because historically the lives and concerns of White middle-class women were placed at the forefront of the liberation efforts.¹⁵ Black women regularly convey that they deal not only with issues of gender inequality but also with racial inequality. It is in this regard that Kimberlé W. Crenshaw argues that women of color are relegated to an invisible class in which they are pulled in two conflicting directions: the need to choose between being loyal to feminist ideas or being loyal to their racial or ethnic community.¹⁶ Patricia Hill Collins, author of Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment, distinguished Black women’s experiences from those of other groups of women and also considered Black women’s lives as individuals:

On the one hand, all African-American women face similar challenges that result from living in a society that historically and routinely derogates women of African descent. Despite the fact that U.S. Black women face common challenges, this neither means that individual African-American women have all had the same experiences nor that we agree on the significance of our varying experiences. Thus, on the other hand, despite the common challenges confronting U.S. Black women as a group, diverse responses to these core themes characterize U.S. Black women’s group knowledge or standpoint.¹⁷

This collective yet individualized aspect of Black women’s lives is an important aspect in Black feminism and must be taken into account when considering the lives of Black women.

Used in conjunction with Black feminist theory, critical race feminist theory is a valuable approach for studies of crime and Black women because it provides a specific application to issues of women of color involved in the criminal justice system as victims, offenders, or both. Like many Black feminists, most critical race feminists have not involved themselves in the mainstream feminist movement but admit that they make use of certain themes of mainstream feminism in the social sciences.¹⁸ Developed in the 1990s, critical race feminist theory is based in the tradition of Black feminist theory, critical legal studies, and critical race theory. People of color, White women, and others were initially attracted to critical legal studies because this approach challenged laws related to oppression based on race and gender.¹⁹ Those credited with developing critical race theory reported disillusionment with critical legal studies’ exclusion of the personal and intellectual viewpoints of scholars of color and of White women scholars. Accordingly, critical race theory places more focus on the role of racism and a racist and classist society in the construction of realities among people of color. Although the new discipline was seen as a move toward the inclusion of the experiences of all people in the analysis of social interaction and social justice, many women of color continued to feel that gender was not often introduced as a concern within critical race theory discourse, and, consequently, critical race feminist theory was born. According to Adrien K. Wing, critical race feminist theory, like Black feminist theory, is grounded in “antiessentialism” and intersectionality.²⁰ Antiessentialism asserts that women do not speak with one essential voice.²¹

Although there is increased acceptance of a variety of feminist theories, hooks has continued to question whether contemporary White women understand that their perspectives may not be indicative of all women’s realities and that their views may still be racist and classist.²² In referring to the issues raised regarding Anita Hill’s reports of sexual harassment during the U.S. Senate hearings before Clarence Thomas’s confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court, Nellie Y. McKay wrote that White women feminists “forgot that for Black women, issues of gender are always connected to race.… Black women cannot choose between their commitment to feminism and the struggle with their men for racial justice.”²³ Crenshaw echoed this sentiment by maintaining that modern discussions of feminism and antiracism have disregarded how racism and sexism are interwoven and that, “because of their intersectional identity as both women and people of color within discourses that are shaped to respond to one or the other, the interests and experiences of women of color are frequently marginalized within both.”²⁴ Collins’s theoretical approach can be applied to the way in which investigations into the lives of battered Black women should be conducted, as was evident when she established that Black feminist theory is positioned within the “matrix of domination,” as opposed to being dissociated from sociostructural truths.²⁵

Numerous Black feminist and critical race feminist scholars have addressed the “intersecting oppressions” of Black women. In the classic 1970 article “Double Jeopardy: To Be Black and Female,” Frances Beale, a journalist and civil rights activist, wrote of the burden of the Black woman’s disadvantaged status, which is based on gender, race, and class.²⁶ Vivian V. Gordon’s analysis identified these three conditions as Black women’s “trilogy of oppression,” and she stated that Black women are often confronted with determining which form of oppression is most important.²⁷ Deborah K. King advocated for the term “multiple jeopardy” to describe Black women’s oppression, given that Black women often undergo even more than three forms of subjugation and that these categories of oppression affect Black women simultaneously.²⁸ Wing, who used the term “multiplicative identity” to capture the identity of women of color, argues that “women of color are not merely White women plus color or men of color plus gender. Instead, their identities must be multiplied together to create a holistic One when analyzing the nature of the discrimination against them.”²⁹

Intimate partner abuse has been considered by many Black feminist scholars, even if only in a portion of their work.³⁰ Although still in its youthful stage, critical race feminist theory has been specifically applied to intimate partner abuse in the lives of women of color.³¹ Considering issues of both identity intersectionality and intimate partner abuse, Beth E. Richie argues, “We now have data that supports [sic] the existence of racial and ethnic differences in rates but a theoretical orientation and public policy that can’t accommodate or make sense of this new understanding.”³² The use of Black feminist theory and critical race feminist theory as foundations in considering the issues with intimate partner abuse against Black women, as well as considering battered Black women’s involvement in “criminal behavior,” will assist in addressing this limitation and contribute to the development of Black feminist criminology. The labeling of a Black feminist criminology brings attention to the need to simultaneously consider several levels of social interaction that affect an individual’s responses to crime and violence.

Black feminist criminology incorporates the tenets of interconnected identities, interconnected social forces, and distinct circumstances to better theorize, conduct research, and inform policy regarding criminal behavior and victimization among Blacks. The interconnected identities to be considered among Black individuals include race and/or ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class status, national origin, and religion. Certainly, this is not a comprehensive list, as this precept allows for other identities to be included according to how an individual self-identifies. In U.S. society’s stratified composition, occurrences of inequity are often experienced because of the spectrum of diversity within each identity and the intolerance and ignorance among some members of society. As such, various identities are seen as of less value than others. This devaluation affects how certain individuals maneuver through life, including how they respond to events and opportunities with which they are confronted. Starting from this vantage point can help us begin to improve our explanations for the experiences of battered Black women’s entry into abusive relationships, their responses to their abusers, and their use of systemic resources to help them withdraw from the relationships.

These interconnected identities are greatly shaped by larger social forces. Specifically, groups of individuals and society at large produce and perpetuate conflict, competition, and differences in merit among the members of society. It is not battered Black women’s identities that exclusively form their perceptions and reactions but the treatment of these identities filtered by (a) the impact of the social structure through (b) the community or culture to (c) familial and intimate exchanges. Nevertheless, this does not necessitate a linear association in every case; instead, it serves to demonstrate that a patriarchal, paternalistic, and racialized social structure affects all other institutions and interactions in society. Black women’s reactions to abuse are affected by their “place” in society because of their intersecting identities. Being at the least valued end of the spectrum for both race and gender places these women in a peculiar position not faced by Black men or White women (although Black men and White women are indeed challenged by their relative and respective dominating forces). In a similar manner, other women of color, such as Latinas, Native American women, Asian American women, and immigrant women (of color), can easily be placed alongside Black women in this analysis.

Last, the characterization “battered woman” or “criminal offender” should not be considered an element of the identities of women victims or offenders. Being abused or having committed criminal acts is a situation that women encounter or in which women become implicated, not one that is endemic to their identity. Of course, this is not to diminish the seriousness of the victimization of women or of criminality among women; instead, it is to emphasize that the individuals themselves rarely recognize these parts of their lives as central to their identities. Furthermore, incorporating these distinct circumstances into Black women’s identities risks pathologizing Black women victims or offenders by making these events appear normal or expected among Black women.

Themes of Black Feminist Criminology

As mentioned earlier, the four themes considered within Black feminist criminology include social structural oppression, interactions within the Black community, intimate and familial relations, and the Black woman as an individual, all under the premise that these segments are interconnected. Use of this framework allows us to make the connection between woman battering and structural, cultural, and familial restraints. Under the theme of social structural oppression, matters of institutional racism, damaging stereotypical images, sexism, and classism are routinely addressed by Black feminists and critical race feminists and incorporated for analysis. Included in the examination is the limited access to adequate education and employment as consequences of racism, sexism, and classism.

The second theme addressed by Black feminist criminology, the interactions within the Black community, is based on the cultural distinctions of Blacks. The nature of relationships among Blacks is a topic scrupulously discussed by critical race and Black feminists. These discussions often include the impact of historical experiences of Blacks in the United States. Some specific subjects addressed by Black feminists (although this is not an exhaustive list) include issues of Black women’s and Black men’s roles in the Black community, the occurrence of violence within the Black community, and the role of spirituality and the Black church as a staple institution in the Black community. Such a concentration allows for each of these features to be considered in how it affects Black women’s encounters with intimate partner abuse.

The theme of intimate and familial relationships is the third area on which Black feminist criminology concentrates. The family of origin and generational characteristics of the Black family are among the foci here, including the embeddedness in othermothers³³ and family members outside the immediate family unit (the extended family). Last, the theme of Black women as individuals is examined in Black feminist criminology. Although the Black woman is studied as an individual, her life as a Black woman is strongly connected to her location, status, and role in the social structure, the Black community, and interpersonal relationships. Within this category, issues such as mental health, sexual health, and sexuality are addressed. Inclusion of this precept allows a personal yet comprehensive view of battered Black women.

Some criticism of Black feminist criminology can be foreseen. To start, this theoretical contribution may be viewed as being too limiting because the examination expounded here is grounded in Black and critical race feminist theories and focuses on Black women specifically. The claim might be made that this approach does not serve an overarching benefit as we seek ways to respond to and prevent intimate partner abuse. A rejoinder to this potential criticism would rationalize that because Black women are estimated to be victims of abuse at higher rates than White women, it is imperative that we make greater efforts to understand and determine how to address this concern. In addition, because Black women are also overrepresented in areas of the criminal justice system as offenders (number of arrests, incarceration, and so on), a new approach for comprehending this trend should be welcomed. For both victim and offender status among Black women, starting at a place where Black women’s historically and contemporarily situated place in society is strongly embraced affords a more comprehensive understanding of a group disproportionately implicated in offending and victimization. Ignoring distinctions in identity and experiences based on that identity serves only to perpetuate indifference toward Black women and their plight.

Black feminist criminology may also be critiqued as pathologiz-ing Black women. By focusing on Black women’s distinctive standpoint, it may be seen as viewing Black women’s victimization and criminality as something normal and endemic to their personality or genetic traits. Although there is a history within communities of color of not wanting to reveal the injurious behavior taking place between members of these communities—often for fear of upholding criminal stereotypes—it is imperative that more attention be given to the abuses inflicted on women of color. Exposing these concerns via a Black feminist criminology demonstrates that the instances of crime and violence in the Black community occur not because of a so-called acceptance of such behavior and illuminates the compelling effects of structural influences. In turn, this approach helps explain the prevalence of intimate partner abuse, how Black women experience such abuse, and the reactions by the criminal justice system and its representatives.

A third anticipated criticism of Black feminist criminology is that by examining Black women as a group, it assumes that all Black women have the same experiences. Although Black women in U.S. society indeed encounter similar circumstances, there are numerous gradations and variations in their lived experiences. As addressed earlier, both Black feminist theory and Black feminist criminology consider Black women from their collective and individual experiences simultaneously. Stories communicated by battered Black women reveal similarities that will aid efforts to make culturally competent services available to Black women. As with all battered women, the individual circumstances of Black women must always be considered in conjunction with the shared experiences of these women.

The specifying of a theory that seems to consider only Black females actually opens the field to considering gender, race, and class analyses of criminality, crime victimization, and observation of the criminal justice system. Black feminist criminology highlights the need to consider the intersectionality of individual identities in all crime-related concerns. Certain individuals in society are more privileged than others, and social structure influences culture, families, and the individual; thus, it stands to reason that individuals other than Black women and Black men are affected by their positions in society.

As established at the outset, there can be many variations on feminist criminology. There may be variations on Black feminist criminology, as well. Even so, this concept provides a solid starting point for placing Black women victims of intimate partner abuse at the center of analysis. As such, even if another Black feminist criminology theoretical proposition leads in a direction different from that presented here, at least Black women’s (and Black men’s) interlocking identities will be considered central, as opposed to tangential or not at all, in relative investigations. Although there exists the potential for disapproving reactions to a Black feminist criminology, such an approach to understanding abuse in Black women’s intimate relationships is more desirable than disadvantageous.

The Power of Narrative

Black feminist criminology places Black women at the focal point of consideration, as opposed to wedging them into theories developed based on the lives of men or White women that may not necessarily represent the experiences of Black women in the United States. Therefore, it was important that my study focus only on Black women, their lives, and the stories of the abuse perpetrated against them. To do this, I set out to conduct in-depth interviews with a diverse group of Black women.

Women who identified themselves as Black or African American, who were at least 18 years of age at the time of the interviews, and who had been or were at the time of the interviews involved in abusive intimate relationships were eligible to participate in this study. I did not restrict the study to heterosexual women and relationships; however, only heterosexual women abused by men replied to the solicitation. I also did not limit the participants to those who had been abused only by Black men. As a result, one woman’s only abusers were non-Black men, and an additional three women were in relationships with non-Black abusers in addition to their Black male abusers.

The majority of the women came to me by way of an advertisement of the study in a monthly Denver-based newspaper mainly geared toward a Black audience. Thirty-nine-year-old Zora captured the sentiment of many of the women regarding the placement of the advertisement in the community newspaper: “I was so happy to see an ad regarding African Americans and domestic violence. Just seeing the ad and knowing that that’s an issue and hoping that people were taking advantage of the resource. To be able to talk about it and to know that there are other people that are in the same situation or have been.”

Between May and November of 2003, I made contact with 95 women who fit the study criteria. While I would have been delighted to speak with each of these women, I was limited by time and funding (each woman received a monetary incentive upon completion of the interview, and a transcriber had to be employed to expedite the completion of the project). Further, theoretical saturation was attained before the fortieth interview; it was highly likely that the additional interviews would have revealed similarities among the women’s stories.

A detailed account of the study recruitment and the demographics of the women can be found in the Appendices, but a brief description is outlined here. Ultimately, 40 women were interviewed. The women ranged between the ages of 18 and 69; most were of the Christian faith, and they had a variety of educational backgrounds and levels of wealth. Eight of the women belonged to four mother-daughter sets (mothers and daughters were interviewed independent of each other). All 40 women had experienced at least one physically abusive relationship that also included verbal or mental abuse. At the time of the interviews, three women were in verbally or mentally abusive relationships that they thought had the potential to also become physical.

Among other things, feminist research expects the researcher to identify her or his position in the context of the subject matter.³⁴ This enables the researcher to identify any personal values that may have an effect on the findings. Sandra Harding writes that many feminist investigators employ the phrase “reflexivity of social science” to describe this new relationship between the researcher and the participant.³⁵ A particular characteristic of feminist research methods includes variations in the interviewing process. Feminist investigators do not believe that social distance needs to be maintained between the informant and the researcher. Feminist researchers often prefer semistructured or even nonstructured interviewing because it provides a medium for gathering more information from interviewees.³⁶ In addition, informants’ questions are answered, and forming personal relationships with informants occurs and is sometimes expected. The entire interview environment is usually documented, including such factors as whether others were present, how long the interview lasted, and how the investigator established rapport with the informants.³⁷ As for feminist ethnography and other qualitative research settings, Shulamit Reinharz suggests that the goals of such research involve documenting the lives of women, understanding the experiences of women from their points of view, and conceptualizing the women’s behaviors as expressions of contemporary social environment.³⁸

Leon E. Pettiway makes the case that, in the quest to make criminology a real science, criminologists overemphasize the need to remain neutral in their research. Pettiway argues that this has resulted in criminologists who “fail to consider their own identity in their investigative enterprises.”³⁹ While reflexivity is generally inherent—and maybe required—in qualitative research, Pettiway’s arguments rest on the need for reflexivity in all criminological pursuits. Reflexivity in social science research should involve both being reflexive and doing reflexivity.⁴⁰ Specifically, the researcher must understand not only how her beliefs affect the research process but also how to consider how these beliefs affect the way in which the data are analyzed.

Early on in my gathering of the women’s narratives, I began to consider the relational aspects between the women as interviewees and myself as the interviewer. One of the first issues of contemplation was comments made by a few of the women upon my meeting them at the designated interview site. In these cases, prior to the start of the interview and during the signing of the informed consent form, the women stated their appreciation of the fact that I am a Black woman. They admitted to having assumed that I am a White woman because, in part, the advertisement for the study listed the University of Colorado at Boulder as the affiliation; this is a predominantly White university in a predominantly White town. One woman stated, “I thought you were some White person from Boulder trying to study us.” It was statements like this that led me to believe that the women likely felt less inhibited about disclosing their stories to me, particularly those reports that involved their perceptions of White people and the criminal justice system. Even though I had not experienced intimate partner abuse as they had (and I wholly recognized how this might affect my interpretation of the women’s stories), the women seemed to assume that as a Black woman I could understand their views of the world around them. This is supported by Patricia Hill Collins, who argues that “Black women intellectuals best contribute to a Black women’s group standpoint by using their experiences as situated knowers.”⁴¹ Accordingly, she concludes, “In terms of Black women’s relationships with one another, African-American women may find it easier than others to recognize connectedness as a primary way of knowing, simply because we have more opportunities to do so and must rely upon it more heavily than others.”⁴² In the process of telling their stories, a few of the older women were eager to offer me protective advice about ways to avoid finding myself in abusive relationships with men.

Collins discusses at length the place of Black women scholars in the theory, research, and activism process. She argues that the continued development of Black feminist thought is imperative to the discipline of social theory. This does not preclude those who are not Black women from participating in the advancement of Black feminist thought but instead places Black women’s intellectual and activist work on Black women at the forefront of theoretical hypothesizing and investigation.⁴³ It is from this stance that examinations of the lives and experiences of Black women victims and offenders should be investigated. An analysis of approaching intimate partner abuse against Black women from this position may offer a more comprehensive appraisal of their experiences with and responses to their victimization. Considering the historical experiences of Black women in the United States, which have been couched in multiple forms of domination, the approach advanced here is based on a fresh viewpoint that regards how Black women’s lives may position them to encounter intimate partner abuse differently from women of other races and ethnicities (especially White women).

My arguments by no intention undervalue the important and noble work done by original feminist criminology and its adherents. It is the advent, subsistence, and practice of feminist criminology that makes the concept insisted on here obtainable because of feminist criminology’s position that, although women and girl victims and offenders have parallel life circumstances, there are variations among them that are based on cultural, racial, and other distinctions. Indeed, mainstream feminist theory and feminist criminology allow for a more suitable assessment of women and criminal victimization than traditional male-centered criminology, but Black feminist criminology necessarily provides for consideration of Black women’s multiple and interconnected identities and their position in U.S. society as a central element of any examination.