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No More secrets: Violence in Lesbian Relationships.(Book Review)-

Article Excerpt
Janice L. Ristock

New York/London: Routledge, 2002; 226 pp.

In moving away from an attempt to simply document the social problem of relationship abuse or compare lesbian abuse with heterosexual abuse, Janice Ristock utilizes a discursive analysis of stories told by lesbians. In challenging preconceived "truths" established by empiricist and standpoint approaches, using a reflexive postmodern approach she builds on critiques of lesbian battering research, challenging theorists to consider the heteronormitivity of theoretical frameworks as well as to problematize the methodological tools utilized to quantify this phenomenon. Highly critical of research which simply superimposes feminist theories used to explain male abuse of heterosexual women, Ristock is careful to build on previous work that is critical of the generation of knowledge of lesbian battery from a white, middleclass, heterosexist, Western standpoint. Ristock points out that dichotomizing, narrow, unspecified explanations simply reify typologies used to explain male violence against women. Critical of analy ses which focus on societal or individual-based explanations of lesbian battery for not specifying difference and for not "raising new questions about the meaning of intimate violence in different contexts,"(p. 18) , Ristock suggests we need to consider contexts which challenge our preconceived understanding of violence based...

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