Ideologies of Control: Understanding the Discourse of Intimate Partner Violence in Memphis

Abstract

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a major social and public health issue that affects millions of people in the United States, particularly in the city of Memphis, which possesses some of the highest rates of IPV in the country. Though women of color, poor women, and members of the LGBTQ+ community are disproportionately impacted by intimate partner violence, the dominant model of intervention services operates on a guise of colorblindness while primarily catering to the needs of white, heterosexual, cis, middle class feminine victims. Using an intersectional feminist lens, I problematize this current model and employ a historical review of the political advocacy of the Women's Shelter Movement to investigate how white, middle class women became the model victims of intimate partner violence. I argue that intimate partner violence continues to be a major issue in the city of Memphis, over thirty years since the Women's Shelter Movement, because of the way in which Women's Shelter advocates developed an incomplete discourse of understanding intimate partner violence and the way in which advocates across the country and specifically in Memphis appealed to Southern ideologies that dictate who is a victim and who is not.