Social policy, feminism, and research on violence in close relationships

Abstract

The history of research on intimate partner violence is reviewed, with a special focus on how my own work in this area has evolved. The role of researcher values in the research process is highlighted. Some of the issues emerging from this review are the need for better measures of intimate partner violence, reasons why women's violence has been ignored by many researchers, and a discussion of the conditions under which women display violence. Policy implications of this research are discussed. © 2008 The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues.