F eminism

&
Article
Psychology
Feminism & Psychology
2016, Vol. 26(4) 444463
Love the kin youre in?: ! The Author(s) 2016
Reprints and permissions:
Kin network responses sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0959353516652917
to women and children fap.sagepub.com

experiencing intimate
partner violence
Linn J Sandberg
Stockholm University, Sweden

Abstract
Intimate partner violence is often known to a wider social network. Still little research
exists on the experiences of social networks, how they respond and how women and
children experiencing intimate partner violence perceive these responses. This article
draws on 16 qualitative interviews with women victims of intimate partner violence,
intimate partner violence-exposed children and their relatives in three kin networks.
The overall aim of this article is to study responses to intimate partner violence from a
multivocal perspective where the possibly concurring and conflicting perspectives of
both the victims and the networks are heard. More specifically, the article explores
what responses are perceived as possible/impossible to end violence and create safety
for women and children. The article shows how masculinity, in intersection with kin
position and age, figures both as an obstacle and a possibility to end intimate partner
violence. Moreover, the article shows that responses are shaped from intersections of
age, kin and gender in victims, more specifically understandings of maturity and adult-
hood of female victims and how this linked to responsible motherhood. The study
provided insights into responses to intimate partner violence as co-constructed in a
wider social network and how a focus on multivocality may be useful for understanding
the multidimensional character of responses to intimate partner violence.

Keywords
intimate partner violence, domestic violence, responses, social networks, children
exposed to violence, gender relations, social support, masculinity

Corresponding author:
Linn J Sandberg, Stockholm University, Universitetsvagen 10, Stockholm 10691, Sweden.
Email: linn.sandberg@gender.su.se
Sandberg 445

Mens violence against women in intimate partner relationships is frequently dis-

cussed as invisible or hidden. Although social isolation is a major problem con-
fronting women in abusive relationships and their children, intimate partner
violence (IPV) is often known to a wider social network (Klein, 2012). Studies
have shown that adult IPV victims more often disclose to informal social network
members than to formal institutional support, such as social services and the police
(Belknap, Melton, Denney, Fleury-Steiner, & Sullivan, 2009). To date, studies on
IPV have primarily focused on abused women and increasingly on IPV-exposed
children. The informal social networks such as the relatives, friends, colleagues and
neighbours of victims are, however, also aected by and respond to IPV (Klein,
2012).
Still fairly little is known about social networks roles and responses, and more
knowledge is needed of how responses to IPV emerge as an intersubjective phe-
nomenon actively made sense of within a wider social network. This article situates
itself within a small, but emerging, eld of research on the responses of the social
networks of battering men and women and children experiencing IPV (Gottzen,
2016; Hyden, 2015; Klein, 2012; Latta & Goodman, 2011; Sandberg, 2015, 2016a,
2016b; Van Niekerk & Boonzaier, 2016). As Goodman and Smyth (2011) argue,
IPV needs to be understood not only as a matter between two individuals but as
something involving both formal and informal social networks, and always occur-
ring in a community context.
Social network responses are often multidimensional, and victims and network
members may perceive them dierently (Rose, Campbell, & Kub, 2000; Trotter &
Allen, 2009). IPV victims, on the one hand, frequently experience negative or mixed
reactions when disclosing IPV to their social networks (Goodkind, Gillum, Bybee,
& Sullivan, 2003). Social network members, on the other hand, often experience
that they respond in order to help, but sometimes feel unsure about how to respond
(Latta & Goodman, 2011). This article, therefore, engages with multiple voices
from diverse positions, both victims and the social network. It draws on material
from an interview study in Sweden with three kin networks, which included women
experiencing IPV, their children and members of their kin networks. They all in
various ways narrate how they and people around them have responded to IPV.
The overall aim of this article is to study responses to IPV from a multivocal
perspective where the possibly concurring and conicting perspectives of both the
victims and the networks are heard. More specically, the article explores what
responses are perceived as possible/impossible to end violence and create safety for
women and children. The article focuses particularly on how gender, kin position
and age intersect and are used by interviewees as narrative/discursive resources in
order to make sense of responses.

Theorizing responses to IPV and intersections of gender, age

and kin position
IPV is dened as violence between individuals (more commonly against women)
who are, or have been, in an intimate relationship, cohabiting or non-cohabiting,
446 Feminism & Psychology 26(4)

and includes physical and emotional/psychological violence, threats of violence and

stalking (Basile & Black, 2011). While there is considerable research on the causes
and eects of IPV from medical, psychological and social work perspectives, this
article, however, focuses on responses to IPV. Studying responses to violence is a
eld of research currently in development (Hyden, Gadd, & Wade, 2016), and the
concept of response is, as I have argued elsewhere, useful since it encompasses a
diversity of reactions and actions: supportive, non-supportive and ambiguous
(Sandberg, 2015). As Hyden et al. (2016, p. 2) suggest: responses to violence
show how others interpret it, including their construction of the perpetrator and
the victim, and this may shed important light on the possibilities of and obstacles
to ending IPV in dierent contexts. Existing research on responses has, however,
not suciently expanded on responses as gendered and how gender in intersection
with other social categories is important for what responses become intelligible and
possible. This article, therefore, focuses on gender in intersection with age and kin
position as signicant for how to understand responses.
Theoretically and analytically, this article uses the framework of inter-
sectionality, which seeks to analyse how gender and other social categories are
co-constituted. The intersectional analyses focus on the everyday meaning-
making processes within which social categories operate rather than on structural
processes, as seen in, for example, Collins (1998) or Crenshaw (1991). Like Stauns
(2003), I am interested in a social psychological approach to intersectionality,
examining how various discourses are mutually articulated to shape available sub-
ject positions and responses linked to these. Following a tradition of feminist
poststructuralism, gender, age and kin positions are here understood as social
categories accomplished in ongoing interaction and as available narrative/discur-
sive resources that interviewees actively use to position themselves and others
(Boonzaier, 2008).
Gender, age and kin position are signicant for how we become intelligible as
subjects and social beings. Here age does not refer to chronological age but to a life
phase or an age category where dierent ages/life phases childhood, adulthood
and old age are linked to various social expectations and hold dierent meanings
(Narvanen & Nasman, 2004). As a relational concept, age, like gender, is con-
structed from opposites, that is, where being a Child is associated with, for exam-
ple, innocence, irrationality, a lack of responsibilities and dependency, and being
an Adult is constructed as its opposite: taking responsibility and being reasonable,
rational and independent (James & James, 2004). To mark out how age operates as
social categories, I spell Adult/Child with initial caps in my discussion. Moreover,
when discussing kin position, I am not primarily thinking in terms of blood ties but
in terms of the roles based on sets of social expectations and ongoing negotiations
(Finch & Mason, 1993).
Although gender, age and kin position are to some extent analytically distinct,
this article shows how they are empirically intertwined and inhabited simulta-
neously (Eriksson, 2008). In other words, for example, what it means to be a
parent or a grandparent is highly gendered but also age related; Adults are expected
to be responsible for Children. Notably too, gender, age and kin position are all
Sandberg 447

connected to social structures and power relations that in this case inuence whose
responses are understood as possible.

Methods
Participants and interviews
This article is based on 16 interviews with 18 respondents in Sweden who partici-
pated in a larger project (20112014) on IPV-exposed children and the social net-
work responses. Although the project initially set out to study networks responses
to children, it became clear during the analysis that these responses were dicult to
disentangle from responses to the abused mothers. Thus, this article engages with
responses directed both towards the women and their children.
The interviews were conducted in Swedish by either me or doctoral candidate
Nina Akerlund and the extracts appearing in this article are translations from
Swedish. The interviewees were recruited through contacts with the social services
in a region in central Sweden. We established contact with the mothers that had
agreed to meet us, and as such they were key respondents who also gave us access
to their children and other social network members. In some cases, interviews (not
included here) were conducted with mothers who did not allow us to interview their
children or other network members.
For safety reasons and the sake of convenience, the participants could choose
the time and place (either in a private oce at the local social services or in their
own homes) to be interviewed. The place of the interview could have shaped the
content. Yet given the sensitive nature of the interviews, it was essential that the
interviewees could talk in an environment of their choice. Two interviews were
done with couples: the grandparents in the Englund network and the womans
ex-partner and his new wife in the Svensson network (to be presented below).
They chose to do these interviews jointly.
The interviews were semi-structured and opened with the following question:
Tell me whats happened in your family or Tell me about your family. This
enabled the participants to open up and speak in their own words about their
families and kin networks and their IPV experiences. The interviewer subsequently
followed up with questions based on what the participant initially said. The inter-
views were all similar in that all interviewees were asked to talk about the IPV
(women and children) or what they knew about the IPV (network members). This
was to identify the central persons in the social networks and to describe how they
experienced their (re)actions and those of others in response to the IPV. In some
interviews, the participants were asked to draw a map of their network and to
identify its positive and negative persons. This method enabled interviewees to
visualize the networks and how they had responded (see Hyden, 2015).
Three networks are discussed: Bergstrom, Englund and Svensson. All names
included in the article are pseudonyms. The abused women in all the networks
reported both physical and psychological violence but no sexual violence.
448 Feminism & Psychology 26(4)

The woman in the Bergstrom network had experienced severe physical and
psychological violence from her husband for more than a decade, including threats,
being stalked and the destruction of property. This also happened after the woman
and her children had left her abusive partner. The interviews were conducted more
than 10 years after the abuse had ended. Two minors were exposed during their
entire childhood and they were interviewed.
The woman in the Englund network recounted her husbands over-ve-year-
long severe physical violence, which included attempts at choking her. The woman
had ended the abusive relationship two years prior to the interviews, at the time of
which the violence had stopped. Two IPV-exposed children (aged one and three at
the time of exposure) were not interviewed because of their young ages.
The woman in the Svensson network had mainly experienced psychological
partner violence, but severe physical violence had occurred twice. The woman
had left the two-year relationship less than a year prior to the interviews. Three
IPV-exposed children, aged between 10 and 18, were interviewed. It was not the
childrens father who had been abusive.
All participants were of Swedish extraction and lived in a rural region in
Sweden, either in the countryside or in small communities with fewer than 5000
inhabitants.

List of interviewees
(relationship to children in brackets)

Bergstrom Age

Woman (victim) Mona 55

Child 1 Lasse 28
Child 2 Kalle 27
Mother Harriet (grandmother) 79
Sister Ebba (aunt) 50

Englund

Woman (victim) Frida 25

Mother Lotta (grandmother) 54
Sister 1 Beatrice (aunt) 34
Sister 2 Victoria (aunt) 29
Grandmother and grandfather Britt and 71, 76
Tore (great-grandparents)
Sandberg 449

Svensson

Woman (victim) Louise 38

Child 1 (oldest son) Oscar 19
Child 2 (middle sibling) Daughter Petra 18
Child 3 (youngest son) Henrik 11
Ex-partner, Hans, and his new partner, Kristina 44, 43
(the childrens father and step-mother)
Mother Eva-Marie (grandmother) 57

Reflexivity and ethical considerations

This studys feminist poststructuralist epistemology entails an understanding of all
knowledge production as partial and situated. Interviewing members of the same
family may shape participants stories in particular ways, for example making
interviewees less critical of and outspoken about conicts and problems within
the network, especially in the two cases where couples were interviewed jointly.
Also, all the interviews are expressions of retroactive accounts of violence, and how
distant the memories discussed were and thus how the narratives emerged varied
among the networks.
Feminist ethics also pervaded the conduct of the study, which involved recog-
nizing the vulnerability of participants, in particular when victimized by violence
and/or as children. Revealing dierent perspectives in an IPV-exposed kin net-
work may cause further conict in an already strained situation, especially
when the interviewees positionings were asymmetrical in terms of gender, age
and kin position. I take the view, however, that understanding responses to IPV
from several perspectives is an urgent issue which would benet from research
and practice on IPV and that having their voices heard was more advantageous
than the potential harm it could cause the participants, even those who are
children. All interviewees gave informed consent to participate, and for the
children under the age of 18, both custodial parents consented. All interviewees
names and personal details are anonymized. Importantly, we stressed that what
was said in interviews was not referred to in other interviews and only the
researchers, none of the other family members, could access the interview mate-
rial. For safety reasons, a participation requirement was, moreover, that the
violence had ended and that the abused woman had already left the relationship
at the time of the interview. The researcher interviewing the minors was a skilled
social worker with experience of talking to IPV-exposed children. We also col-
laborated with a support programme for victimized women, children and net-
work members, to which we could direct interviewees who felt they needed
further support.
450 Feminism & Psychology 26(4)

Analysis
The material has been analysed as it originally emerged in Swedish using a form
of thematic analysis driven by an analytical interest in responses (Braun & Clarke,
2006). The initial coding involved making three thematic maps of the responses to
violence that the interviewees in the dierent networks described. Responses were
loosely dened as actions and reactions negative, positive or ambivalent that
interviewees narrated: at the very time of a violent episode, in the more long-term
process of the IPV and after the woman had nished the relationship. The response
themes that emerged from the thematic maps were thereafter compared both within
each network and between networks in order to look for similarities or dierences.
I then coded the responses in terms of gender and how the responses in various
ways were linked to gender. At this juncture, I conducted a more detailed coding of
the specic interview extracts, the narrations of what men and women did or did
not do, what meaning was attributed to these responses and how understandings of
masculinity and femininity shaped the responses. Here I found that gender was
made intelligible in intersection with various narratives on kin position and/or age,
which directed me to the particular focus of this article. The analytical examination
of what were possible or impossible responses is characterized by a poststructuralist
analytic approach informed by Sndergaard (2002), which studies inclusive and
exclusive discursive processes. This entails looking for the discursive bound-
aries of categories in this case, what are the boundaries of a possible response.

Results
Patriarchal and matriarchal network responses
Similar to other studies (e.g. Trotter & Allen, 2009), narratives on responses to IPV
were indeed multidimensional; voices within the same network but also within the
same person were often complex and contradictory. Moreover, the Bergstrom and
the Englund networks, for example, diered signicantly in how the members
narrated their ability to respond, and this was very much linked to how gender
and kin gured in the narratives of the respective networks.
The Bergstrom interviewees all narrate a network highly strained by long-term
IPV, which is placed within a wider culture of violence within the network. In
particular, when drinking, ghts broke out between male family members and
neighbours. The network members narratives were very contradictory regarding
what responses had been possible. The mother, Mona, and her children, Lasse and
Kalle, clearly express their disappointment at the lack of resolute responses. They
shouldve taken us away from there, says Mona. Similarly, the response Lasse had
wanted was for the network to make it possible to break free earlier by making
all three move away from their father earlier. Monas mother, Harriet (the chil-
drens grandmother), and sister, Ebba (the childrens aunt), narrate their responses
in much more contradictory terms, however: both taking up positions as caring and
Sandberg 451

supporting family members and recounting that responses to intervene and stop the
violence were impossible.
To make sense of why it was impossible for her to intervene against the IPV, Ebba
positions herself through her kin position and age as a younger sister. By dint of this
position, she makes sense of herself as unaware of what was going on.

Ebba [sister]: Mona is ve years older than me, so when we were young, we were never
really in the same phase. She moved away from home when I was a teenager. So really
it was more when she had her kids; I was 15; she was 20, and I was babysitting and
those kinds of things. But it has changed. [. . .] When I had a kid myself that I
[realized], when their family troubles started. It had probably been going on earlier
too, but it was at that point that I became aware. I believe I was too young and had
not really realized [what was going on].

In this extract, taking up the position of the younger sister but also that of the
Child/Adolescent becomes linked to unawareness, which explains why she did not
intervene earlier. As Ribbens McCarthy, Edwards and Gilles (2000) argue, Adult
and Child are tied to moral understandings where children are constructed as
lacking moral responsibilities, whereas being an Adult is strongly linked to
taking responsibility for being morally accountable.
While Ebba draws on an aged kin position, Harriet instead refers to gendered
kin relations, narrating how her husband (Monas father) is loyal to the perpetrator
and strongly opposes divorce. Harriet told her daughter that she would help her
move out whenever she was ready, . . .cause I said, You cant live like this, but
her husband did not help her make Mona leave.

Harriet [mother]: It was no use talking to my husband cause he didnt like that. There
should be no divorce, absolutely not.

The fathers opposition to the idea of his daughter getting a divorce supports pre-
vious research on social network responses whereby cultural norms of coupledom in
the network may function as a barrier to leaving an abusive relationship (Latta &
Goodman, 2011; Rose et al., 2000). But Harriet also speaks of her husbands loyalty
towards friendship with the perpetrator as a reason for why a rm intervention was
not possible. Her husband, she argues, went hunting and drinking together with the
perpetrator, her daughters husband, and therefore he did not want to oppose him.

Harriet: My husband never dared to get involved in this cause he didnt want to be on
bad terms with him. He drove me there many times, but he didnt want to come inside
as he [Monas abusive husband] might take it the wrong way, and he didnt want this
to happen.

Moreover, Mona points to her fathers friendship with the perpetrator as an imped-
ing factor for why her network never stopped the violence. But she also talks of her
452 Feminism & Psychology 26(4)

brothers as sometimes attempting to stop the violence, but how they afterwards
often became friends with the perpetrator again.

Mona [abused woman]: [M]y brothers, they dealt with it [the IPV. . .], yes, and there
was ghting and rows. But it all ended with: if I stay there [with him], I had only
myself to blame. But I had no. . . that they laid into him was of no help to me. They
shouldve taken me away from there. And then they became friends again and that
was all. The next weekend things were back to normal. Nothing really came out of it
until my husband got into a ght with my brother and my sister-in-law, and after that,
all contact with them ceased.

In the Bergstrom network, the voices of Mona, Harriet and Ebba concur in a
narrative of how responses became impossible due to male domination and homo-
social loyalty between men in the network. The description of Monas father as
condoning the violence experienced by his daughter depicts him as the patriarch in
its most classical sense as an intersection of kin position and gender, where fathers
hold authority over women in the household and as such enable or prevent dier-
ent responses (Walby, 1990). But Monas description of her brothers ambivalent
responses (laying into him about the IPV and becoming friends again) also
reects the response network overall as a patriarchal network where mens peer
support is an important aspect of the continued assaults on women (DeKeseredy &
Schwartz, 2009).
There is a strong polyphony in Harriets and Ebbas narratives: they refer to the
gendered kin network and the dominance of men as preventing their responses. Yet
they also strongly position themselves as being there by providing care and
support to Mona and her children and by reacting angrily and reproaching the
abuser. These narratives of care and support that Harriet and Ebba articulate can
be interpreted as ways of doing and displaying family, of realizing themselves as
mother/grandmother or sister/aunt, kin positions that are simultaneously gendered
positions (Finch, 2007). By speaking of their support, they position themselves as
morally accountable subjects and responsible family members who do not accept
violence.
If the responses in the Bergstrom network are understood as framed by patri-
archal relations and mens domination, the Englund network, in contrast, presents
kin positions and gender as enabling responses to IPV through the formation of a
matriarchal collaborative network. Unlike many social networks often strained due
to IPV, resulting in the further isolation of abused women and children (Goodkind
et al., 2003), the Englund network narrates a great cohesion. The interviewees
present a coherent family narrative on solidarity, support and understanding
why it is dicult for the abused woman to leave.
Frida starts a relationship with the abusive man, the father of her children, when
she is in her late teens, and she leaves him and returns several times. Frida tells how
her family (her mother Lotta, sisters Beatrice and Victoria, and grandparents Britt
and Tore) have tried to help her extricate herself from the relationship, persuaded
Sandberg 453

her to leave and assisted with caring for her children when she has left and
returned. All the interviewees narrate that the occasions when Frida returned to
the perpetrator were particularly dicult to respond to. Beatrice speaks about how
the whole network acted together when Frida went back to her abusive partner.

Beatrice [sister]: It was pretty obvious cause when she didnt reply to our texts or
phone calls, then you knew she was back [with him]; youd sense it at once. And then
we called each other, Mum and us sisters, and Okay, Fridas not answering, okay,
what is she doing? We became sort of a telephone chain.

Lotta and Victoria speak of their responses in very similar terms: how they called
each other a circle, and Beatrice refers to the network responses as sibling
power. Lotta in particular is positioned as central to the networks responses as
a coordinator but also as a source of knowledge and experience.

Beatrice [sister]: I think it matters a great deal, this thing being able to bounce ideas o
each other, that we are all dierent with dierent perspectives on things. Dierent advice
and ideas: its really important, and Mum in particular has been through a great deal in
her life, and I mean shes like that; she deals with things, makes phone calls, is rm and
decisive and thats great. [. . .] Shes passed a bit of that on to all of us [sisters] I think, this
thing of being decisive yet empathetic, you notice how people are feeling.

Beatrice describes her mother as a hub from which responses are organized. In
this, her age (an older woman who has experienced hardships) and her kin position
(a mother who through raising her daughters has passed on her qualities) are used
as narrative resources to explain how supportive responses became possible.
However, although Lotta is described as central to the network, it is the collabora-
tion between the women in the network that is continuously emphasized, not only
the mother and the sisters but also the grandmother.
The gendered structures of the Bergstrom and Englund networks dier signi-
cantly: the former is structured around the responses of men and the latter around
those of women. Gendered kin positions drawn upon in both networks narratives are
signicant for what responses become possible: the father in the Bergstrom network
(in collusion with the brothers) hinders Mona and her children from leaving, whereas
the mother in the Englund network (in collaboration with the sisters and the grand-
mother) becomes an enabler by providing support for Frida to leave the relationship.
Unlike the Bergstroms patriarchal network, described as structured by hierarchies
between men and settled by reoccurring violent ghts, the Englund network is deli-
neated as more equal and where words such as sibling power indicate strength in
kin collaboration instead of the domination of a mother or father.

Masculinity and heroic protection responses

So far I have discussed how gender and kin are employed dierently to narrate
what responses are possible. Particularly in the Bergstrom network, masculinity
454 Feminism & Psychology 26(4)

gures strongly as problematic and perpetuating violence. Still, masculinity and

men also feature as important since mens violent responses to IPV were discussed
as legitimate and even necessary. The interviewees in all three networks to various
degrees draw on a heroic protection discourse, which refers to a set of inter-
pretative resources and practices that normalise a form of masculine identity
that combines physical strength and aggression with the motivation to use physical
force in the service of protecting others (Dryden, Doherty, & Nicolson, 2010,
p. 6).
In the case of the Englund network, the sister Victoria evokes an imaginary
masculine heroic response by reecting on the role that her deceased father could
have played in ending the violence. If her father had still been alive, he would
probably have gone to the abuser and given him an almighty blow to the
head. This imaginary response of a departed father who acts as a hero is inter-
esting and surprising since the interviewees in the Englund network, including
Victoria, acknowledge the ability of the women to provide help and support.
Moreover, the interviewees largely understand the kin responses as successful.
Still, Victoria narrates a potential male response as more resolute and eective,
arguing that there had been a need for a dad or somebody who couldve gone
there and put his foot down and talked to him. The father, as a masculine kin
position, thus gures in two ways: he may condone violence but also he protects the
family and could use legitimate force to end the violence.
In the absence of a protective father, other Adult males could, however, function
as protectors. In the Bergstrom network, Mona and her two children in particular
narrate the forceful/violent responses of one man, a family friend who also knows
the perpetrator, as positive and signicant. Lasse describes the man as the only one
who intervened.

Lasse [child]: He was the only one I know of who could grab Dad when he went too
far.

Interviewer: Was he important to you, this man who intervened?

Lasse: Yes, he was. Yeah, I guess he was; he was big and protective and assured.

Mona describes the man in very similar terms.

Mona [abused woman]: Cause he was the only one who actually did something. And
he intervened and was threatened with weapons and everything. But he didnt care; he
still intervened. And he was big and strong and sort of tipped him upside down more
than once.

The evocation of the words big and strong creates images of a particular
kind of masculinity in the man, whose bodily features also come to signify him
as a protective person who helps keep both the children and their mother safe. Not
backing down, despite the risk of being harmed, makes him gure as the fearless
Sandberg 455

lone hero. In other instances, the Bergstrom children, Kalle and Lasse, describe the
ghting between their abusive father and other men as something negative that
normalized the violence at home and thus prevented responses. In the case of the
male friend, however, his grabbing of their father, the perpetrator, is narrated as
something positive and as the only ever real response. Similarly, while Mona
describes her brothers responses of giving him a talking-to as ineective, she
looks upon her male friends forceful intervention positively.
In the two examples above, there are Adult males who gure as (potential)
heroes, taking up the role of protectors through using force. In the Svensson net-
work, however, it is the oldest child, Oscar, an adolescent, who, in the absence of
Adult males, assumes the role of the male hero. Unlike the two other networks, the
childrens father had not been abusive. The perpetrator is instead the mother
Louises new partner. This man has primarily been psychologically violent but
on two occasions physically violent. Both times, Oscar, then 18 years old, inter-
venes to stop the assaults by being physically violent towards the perpetrator. That
he eagerly intervened was not the way Oscar presented this; instead, he had to when
things went too far (cf. Akerlund & Sandberg, forthcoming).

Oscar [child]: Sure, quarrels happen, but then I see in the corner of my eye how he
grabs [Mums] hair and pulls her from the bed, and then its only a matter of seconds
before I react. I went there and grabbed him and asked him what the fuck hes doing.
And he pushed me, and Mum got angry and stood up, and he started pulling her hair,
and I had to intervene and pull them apart cause he was holding her by the hair.

Both in this extract and when he speaks of his response during the second assault,
he says that he had to intervene since no one else could respond. When his
mother describes the violence, she regards her son as a hero and a protector for
using force against the perpetrator.

Louise [abused woman]: Wed been out and when we returned, he [the abusive part-
ner] pulled my hair and dragged me across the living room. And I lost a lot of hair.
[He was] yelling and screaming, kicking the door and walking around [the place]. And
my son was at home with a friend, and [he] just threw him [the abusive partner] out.

Interviewer: Right, so your son took him and sort of. . .

Louise: Yeah, he saved me.

Oscars violent response is approved of not only by Louise but also by her mother,
i.e. Oscars grandmother.

Eva-Marie: Well, the oldest boy got a slap the last time, but in return, he beat him up
and gave him a few real good blows. But that was something I applauded. I said that
was the right thing [to do].
456 Feminism & Psychology 26(4)

By drawing on a heroic protection discourse where mens violence becomes

legitimized to save women, the joint narratives on Oscars violent responses by
his mum, her mother and Oscar realize him as a masculine subject. Similar to
the other examples from the Bergstrom and Englund networks, a mans violent
response is understood as a possible and eective response. However, whereas in
the Englund and Bergstrom cases, Adult males are expected to respond forcefully,
the Svensson network deemphasizes the position of Oscar as a Child, vulnerable
and in need of protection, and instead promotes him as a responsible masculine
Adult protector. Oscar, however, assumes this position more ambiguously and also
reinstates his position as a Child by referring to his own fathers inaction and how
he would have wanted him to act dierently.

Oscar [child]: [Dad said] that there was nothing he could do. That Mum had to decide
for herself. But the only thing he could do was to let me and my siblings come and stay
with him.

Interviewer: Did you feel that this was enough?

Oscar: At the time I didnt think so; he couldnt have done more, but I wanted him to
talk to her and make her realize. He did talk to her, but I wanted him to force her
somehow [to leave the abusive man].

Here Oscar resists the responsible Adult position and instead reinstates his
father (i.e. Louises ex-husband) as someone who should have taken control and
could have forced his mother to leave the abusive relationship. As I have argued
elsewhere, IPV-exposed adolescents are vulnerable since they are conned between
an Adult and Child position (Akerlund & Sandberg, forthcoming). Adults in the
network position Oscar and, to some extent, also his adolescent sister as competent
and mature, while their vulnerability and need for protection are overlooked.
By positioning his father as a male kin gure who should forcefully make his
mother leave, he seemingly tries to evoke his own vulnerability and Child position
and challenge a heroic protection discourse.

Positioning abused women as lacking adulthood

So far I have discussed gender primarily in terms of how masculinity shaped what
responses were understood as possible. Next, I will turn to the women as victims to
argue that what was perceived as a possible response was also linked to perceptions
of the victimized woman as either a Child or Adult and to her kin position as an
(ir)responsible mother.
Unlike the Englunds self-described cohesive network, where narratives on pos-
sible and desirable responses were very uniform, the Svensson network consisted of
more contradictory narratives. Louises mother, Eva-Marie, describes her daughter
as a rebellious teenager and how their relationship for a long time was conict
Sandberg 457

ridden. Her daughter had often taken the opposing view to her, and this also
shapes the grandmothers responses to the abuse later on.

Eva-Marie [grandmother]: Well, I could probably say, of all her boyfriends, Ive only
approved of one, one I liked, so to speak. The others were more out of protest; I dont
know if she saw it that way, but if I said no [to a man], it attracted her even more. [. . .]
But Ive learnt [to keep quiet]; with the last guy [the abusive man], I didnt say no even
though I didnt like him; there was something dodgy about him. But I promised myself
not to say no cause then she might see reason.

Here Eva-Marie positions her daughter as a Child by referring to her as wilful and
unreasonable. Although Eva-Marie distrusts the abusive man from the start, she
feels unable to respond as her daughter will only act childishly and oppose her.
Later, when asked how she feels about the violence having aected their family,
Eva-Marie returns to her daughters immaturity as an obstacle that prevented her
and her husband from responding: Were there [for her/them], and theres not
much to do about it. Well, we just hope shell grow up at some point. The
impossibility of responding to IPV is here made sense of in terms of the character
of the abused woman, who lacks adulthood.
However, Eva-Marie, despite her assertions about how theres not much to do
about it, also narrates that she responds rmly: she forces Louise to move out
and makes her realize that if he beats you once, hell never stop. This response
is seemingly enabled by regarding her daughter as a Child who cannot make the
right decisions and thus needs direction. In a similar vein to how Eva-Marie nar-
rates her own responses as forceful, Hans, the Svensson childrens father, and his
current partner describe their responses as signicant in making Louise leave her
abuser. Hans speaks of how he demanded that she move out or else the children
would stay with him permanently.

Hans [the childrens father]: So I said, They are not coming back until youve moved
out from there [the abusers house]. And then like, You can choose for yourself; its
your life, but the children wont be staying with you in that case.

When interviewed, Hans and his new partner describe how they have
attempted to create a normal everyday life for the children in the aftermath of
the violence but also how he put his foot down for the sake of the children. They
simultaneously position Louise as partying a lot and self-centred. Both Hans and
Louises mother, Eva-Marie, use expressions like I made her realize and it
seems like it nally sank in, which partly positions her as nave and themselves
as capable.
Through these narratives, in which they position Louise as a Child and an
irresponsible mother, they simultaneously realize themselves as responsible and
caring Adults and parents/grandparent. As Ribbens McCarthy et al. (2000) have
discussed, in constructions of the Child and the Adult, the latter is formulated as
morally accountable and responsible for children in their care. Proper parenting
458 Feminism & Psychology 26(4)

thus depends on an Adult positioning. Eriksson (2008) argues, however, that pre-
valent discourses often question the parenting of abused mothers and that the
dependent victims position may be dicult to reconcile with the responsible
mothers. This becomes evident in the above narratives of Eva-Marie and Hans,
where they motivate their responses from constructions of the abused woman as a
Child and an irresponsible mother. Notably, Louise resists this construction of her
and tries to establish herself as morally accountable by narrating herself as a
supportive mother who is close to her children.

Louise [abused woman]: They [my children] know Ive always been there for them no
matter what. I would stop at nothing [for them]. So weve become very close after this
[the violence]; we were close before that too, but even more now.

In the Englund network, the narratives on adulthood also gure repeatedly as a

resource with which the interviewees make sense of their responses. There is a
signicant dierence, however, between the Svensson and Englund networks: the
latters members seek to enable Frida to be an Adult and thus grant her agency
beyond her victimhood.
The interviewed network members position Frida in rather ambivalent terms as
an Adult or Child. Victoria, one of Fridas sisters, discusses how it has sometimes
been dicult to know whether their attempts to help Frida were eective but
argues that she ultimately feels their involvement has been helpful and a way to
counter the perpetrators attempts at isolation. In this, she evokes a discourse of an
independent Adult as someone who should be able to take care of herself.

Victoria [sister]: I think its helped; if we hadnt cared at all or, you know, mind your
own business we shouldnt interfere, youre a grown-up, then she wouldve felt very
lonely.

In the quote above, Victoria uses the term grown-up and links this to autonomy,
referring to how one does not interfere in an Adults business. However, treating
Frida like an Adult, responsible for her own life and her children, would not have
got her out of the violent relationship, she argues. Elsewhere in the interview,
Victoria is critical of how her other family members have treated Frida too
much like a small child.

Victoria: And then its been like, if shes moving out, Oh, well help you and all that
mollycoddling, and shes not allowed to take any responsibility herself.

Fridas mother, Lotta, also uses the term Adult when discussing her response to
her daughters return to her abusive partner. She argues that since Frida is an
Adult, all they could do was accept her decision.

Lotta [grandmother]: We had to accept it; there was nothing else [to do]. Shes an
adult, but still, you feel its terrible for the kids.
Sandberg 459

Being treated like an Adult is discussed here as an important aspect of the

responses to IPV, and Victoria uses the word mollycoddling to point out that
her sister needs to be treated like an Adult and take responsibility. Lotta similarly
stresses that her daughter needs to be positioned as an Adult, and as one, she
should be able to make her own decisions. As I have explored elsewhere, acknowl-
edging the independence and self-determination of the Adult children was overall
a central response for grandparents whose grandchildren were exposed to IPV, and
in this case, Lottas acknowledgement of her daughter as an Adult is experienced as
conicting with her kin position as a grandmother who should care for her grand-
children (Sandberg, 2016).
Fridas adulthood is seemingly unstable and subject to ongoing negotiation
within the narratives of the Englund network. All in all, it seems as if the family
members experience that she needs to be enabled to become an Adult, but she is not
entirely there yet. The grandparents Britt and Tore, for example, discuss her tra-
jectory of leaving and going back to her abusive partner by saying that it probably
had to mature [within her]. And realize yourself that it doesnt get better. They
talk about how living with long-term violence has not allowed her to develop her
own Adult agency. Breaking free from IPV and becoming an Adult are thus con-
structed as simultaneous and interlinked processes.
In the Englund and Svensson networks, the ages of the victims, in terms of
Adult/Child, gure as a narrative/discursive resource used to relate possible and
impossible responses. Both abused women in these networks were narrated as a
Child but with dierent consequences for the responses. In the Svensson network,
Louise is narrated as a Child in the sense that she is positioned as irresponsible and
as such cannot conform to proper motherhood, according to the network; this
warrants resolute responses, for instance forcing her to leave and threatening to
take the children. In the Englund network, Frida is also partly conceptualized as a
Child in terms of being dependent and vulnerable. But this is seen as a consequence
of her position as abused, and instead of intervening and forcing her to leave, the
network members argue that she had to be granted a position as an Adult.

Conclusion
Social networks could be an important source of support for women and children
experiencing IPV but also an obstacle to ending abuse (Klein, 2012). This article
has explored kin network responses from multivocal perspectives to understand
further how some responses emerge as possible and impossible and how intersec-
tions of gender, kin position and age matter in this.
In the three networks discussed above, masculinity gures in two ways: On the
one hand, masculinity, mutually articulated with kin and age through the narratives
about Adult males, is expressed as an obstacle to responding to IPV. This was most
evident in the Bergstrom network. On the other hand, masculinity features as the
solution through a heroic protection discourse where Adult males, a father (gure)
or brother, respond violently to end IPV. Masculinity, in intersection with father/
brother positions and adulthood, thus becomes a narrative resource to explain why
460 Feminism & Psychology 26(4)

it was impossible to intervene and how it is possible to intervene. Although it seems

from this study that mens violent/forceful responses were more often recognized as
really doing something, i.e. an eective response, it is also in a poststructuralist
vein signicant to acknowledge disruptions to male hegemony. The Englund net-
work could be understood as such disruption since gender, kin and age were con-
gured dierently. Here it was the kin collaboration of women and where the
mother was understood as a hub that made positive responses possible.
Intersections of gender, age and kin also mattered for how the victimized women
were positioned. Examples from the Svensson and Englund networks show how the
abused womens adulthood was questioned or negotiated. The articulation of the
abused woman as a Child warranted dierent responses from the networks, how-
ever. For the Svensson network, that members forced her to leave was made sense
of as a possible response since she was positioned as an irresponsible Adult/parent.
The Englunds, in contrast, understood the abused woman as a non-Adult in terms
of her dependency and how IPV had deprived her of adulthood. They thus sought
to provide her with Adult agency through letting her make her own decisions. This
can be compared to the study by Latta and Goodman (2011) in which the social
network members engagement strategies also involved listening to the IPV victims
needs and believing that she knew what she required.
The positioning of women as Child victims is understood from the links between
victimhood and dependency. Since dependency is so closely associated in modern
society with being a Child, being a victim becomes by denition a non-Adult position
(Ribbens McCarthy et al., 2000). But concurring with Boonzaier (2008), the historical
representation of women as childlike has also been part of their exclusion and dis-
empowerment. Positioning the abused woman as nave, immature and irresponsible,
and turning her into a Child, and consequently responding by overruling her per-
spectives could thus be understood as a disempowering response. Also, as Eriksson
(2008) argues, and which is visible in the Svensson network, the victims position as a
dependent Child may, however, be dicult to reconcile with that of the responsible
Adult parent. This may require extensive discursive work by the victimized women in
order to become acknowledged as good-enough mothers. However, the Englunds
attempts represent a middle way: the woman is acknowledged as both a vulnerable
victim in need of support and an Adult and capable parent possessing agency.
This rst attempt to study social network responses as gendered has focused on
kin, but future research needs to also involve the voices of friends, colleagues,
neighbours and others in the social network to further expand the picture of
social network responses. It is for example likely that the understanding of (lack
of) adulthood of victimized women diers signicantly between relatives and
friends of IPV victims. Future studies, moreover, need to engage with childrens
experiences of social networks as this study shows that the perspectives of minors
are often overlooked and largely positioned as dependent and their voices and
agency were not accounted for. While adults in childrens social networks may,
for example, leave children out and omit telling children about whats going on
with regards to the IPV as a way to protect them, children may experience this as
disempowering and frustrating (cf. Akerlund & Sandberg, forthcoming).
Sandberg 461

In attempting to understand why IPV persists, despite substantial political and

policy eorts to end violence, the responses of social networks play a crucial role. It
may seem straightforward that members of social networks should always respond
to end IPV. Still, the polyphony of narratives of abused women and children and
their kin networks of this study suggest that how to respond is far from straight-
forward and linked to processes of collaborative meaning-making on IPV and the
narrative/discursive resources at hand. This article aligns with the signicant emer-
ging eld of social network responses to IPV and contributes unique knowledge of
how intersections of gender, age and kin position matter. First, this knowledge may
be of use for practitioners supporting victims of IPV and designing intervention
with abusers, to get a better understanding of how social networks may or may not
be helpful resources for ending violence. Second, the knowledge emerging from this
study may forge theoretical discussions in feminist studies of IPV, to further chal-
lenge the pervasive understanding of IPV as a private matter.

Acknowledgements
The author wishes to sincerely thank the interviewees for sharing their stories and making
this study possible. Thanks also to Lucas Gottzen, Klara Arnberg, Linnea Boden, Helena
Hill and the participants at the Gender Studies Higher Seminar, Stockholm University, for
feedback and suggestions on earlier drafts of this article. The author is also grateful for the
support and inspiration provided by Margareta Hyden and the Responses to Interpersonal
Violence research team, Linkoping University, in conducting this research.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conicts of interest with respect to the research, author-
ship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received no nancial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication
of this article.

References
Akerlund, N., & Sandberg, L. (forthcoming). Children and violence interactions: Exploring
intimate partner violence and childrens experiences of responses. Child Abuse Review.
Basile, K. C., & Black, M. (2011). Intimate partner violence against women. In C. M. Renzetti,
J. L. Edleson & R. K. Bergen, et al. (Eds.), Sourcebook on violence against women (2nd ed,
pp. 111130). Los Angeles, CA: Sage.
Belknap, J., Melton, H., Denney, J., Fleury-Steiner, R., & Sullivan, C. (2009). The levels and
roles of social and institutional support reported by survivors of intimate partner abuse.
Feminist Criminology, 4, 377402.
Boonzaier, F. (2008). If the man says you must sit, then you must sit: The relational
construction of woman abuse: Gender, subjectivity and violence. Feminism &
Psychology, 18, 183206.
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research
in Psychology, 3, 77101.
462 Feminism & Psychology 26(4)

Collins, P. H. (1998). Its all in the family: Intersections of gender, race, and nation.
Hypatia, 13(3), 6282.
Crenshaw, K. W. (1991). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and
violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review, 43, 12411299.
DeKeseredy, W. S., & Schwartz, M. D. (2009). Dangerous exits: Escaping abusive relation-
ships in rural America. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Dryden, C., Doherty, K., & Nicolson, P. (2010). Accounting for the hero: A critical psycho-
discursive approach to childrens experience of domestic violence and the construction of
masculinities. British Journal of Social Psychology, 49, 189205.
Eriksson, M. (2008). Revolutionary mothers? Interacting power relations, agency and social
change. NORA: Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, 16, 96113.
Finch, J. (2007). Displaying family. Sociology, 1, 6581.
Finch, J., & Mason, J. (1993). Negotiating family responsibilities. London, UK: Routledge.
Goodkind, J., Gillum, T., Bybee, D., & Sullivan, C. (2003). The impact of family and
friends reactions on the well-being of women with abusive partners. Violence Against
Women, 9, 347373.
Goodman, L., & Smyth, K. (2011). A call for a social network-oriented approach to services
for survivors of intimate partner violence. Psychology of Violence, 1, 7992.
Gottzen, L. (2016). Displaying shame: Mens violence towards women in a culture of gender
equality. In M. Hyden, D. Gadd, & A. Wade (Eds.), Response-based approaches to the
study of interpersonal violence (pp. 156175). London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
Hyden, M. (2015). What social networks do in the aftermath of domestic violence. British
Journal of Criminology, 55, 10401057.
Hyden, M., Gadd, D., & Wade, A. (Eds.). (2016). Response-based approaches to the study of
interpersonal violence. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
James, A., & James, A. L. (2004). Constructing childhood: Theory, policy and social practice.
Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave.
Klein, R. (2012). Responding to intimate violence against women: The role of informal net-
works. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Latta, R., & Goodman, L. (2011). Intervening in partner violence against women: A
grounded theory exploration of informal network members experiences. The
Counseling Psychologist, 39, 9731023.
Narvanen, A.-L., & Nasman, E. (2004). Childhood as generation or life phase? Young:
Nordic Journal of Youth Research, 12, 7191.
Ribbens McCarthy, J., Edwards, R., & Gillies, V. (2000). Moral tales of the child and the
adult: Narratives of contemporary family lives under changing circumstances. Sociology,
34, 785803.
Rose, L., Campbell, J., & Kub, J. (2000). The role of social support and family
relationships in womens responses to battering. Health Care for Women International,
21, 2739.
Sandberg, L. (2016a). Caught in between: Grandparents responses to children exposed to
domestic violence. In M. Hyden, D. Gadd, & A. Wade (Eds.), Response-based
approaches to the study of interpersonal violence (pp. 98114). London, UK: Palgrave
Macmillan.
Sandberg, L. (2016b). Being there for my grandchild: Grandparents responses to their
grandchildrens exposure to domestic violence. Child and Family Social Work, 21,
136145. doi:10.1111/cfs.12123.
Sndergaard, D. M. (2002). Poststructuralist approaches to empirical analysis. Qualitative
Studies in Education, 15, 187204.
Sandberg 463

Stauns, D. (2003). Where have all the subjects gone? Bringing together the concepts of
intersectionality and subjectification. Nora: Nordic Journal of Womens Studies, 11,
101110.
Sylaska, K. M., & Edwards, K. M. (2014). Disclosure of intimate partner violence to
informal social support network members: A review of the literature. Violence,
Trauma, Abuse, 15, 321.
Trotter, J. L., & Allen, N. E. (2009). The good, the bad, and the ugly: Domestic violence
survivors experiences with their informal social networks. American Journal of
Community Psychology, 43, 221231.
Van Niekerk, T., & Boonzaier, F. (2016). Rules and representations: Social networks
responses to mens violence against women in South Africa. In M. Hyden, D. Gadd, &
A. Wade (Eds.), Response-based approaches to the study of interpersonal violence
(pp. 5676). London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
Walby, S. (1990). Theorizing patriarchy. Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell.

Author Biography
Linn J Sandberg, is Assistant Professor of Gender Studies at Stockholm University,
Sweden. Drawing on feminist and intersectional theories her research includes
studies on intimate partner violence, gender and intergenerational relationships
as well as studies on gender, sexuality and ageing and later life. She is one of the
contributors of the research anthology Response Based Approaches to the Study of
Interpersonal Violence (eds. Hyden, Wade & Gadd, 2016). The study on which this
article is based was her postdoctoral research.