Discovering Women's Agency in Response to Intimate Partner Violence

Feeling Like Feminist Frauds: Theorizing Feminist Accountability in Feminist Family Studies Research in a Neoliberal, Postfeminist Context

“…In her frustration, she revealed her opposition to valuing light skin. My oversights pushed me to revisit the data multiple times, similar to Lloyd, Emery, and Klatt () and Merrick (). Rereading with a different frame (poststructuralism) led me to discover new ideas in the data, helping showcase moments of agency and disrupting notions of Whiteness by devaluing basic assumptions of Whiteness.In this example, if I had analyzed only the remark from the participant who found “dark‐skinned” Black men unattractive and not discussed the other two incidents underscoring resistance to the systematic, inflated value of white skin, I would have committed an act of omission.…”

“…Intersectionality is a stark reminder of heuristic divides between the humanities (theoretical, abstract, postmodern) and the social sciences (largely characterized by empirical studies as well as positivist and postpositivist paradigms). Although it is often perceived by many feminists as the main means of framing our participants' experiences in both identity and oppression, the application of intersectionality in our research projects has given us (and many others) considerable pause (Lloyd, Emery, & Klatt, ; McCall, ). Below, we offer Elizabeth's attempt to consider intersectionality in her analysis.…”

Intimate partner violence and forced migration during pregnancy: Structural constraints to women's agency

“…In highlighting women’s agency alongside the realities of intersecting structures of economy, class, and gender in Kenya, we aim to avoid the tendency to focus only on a woman’s ‘choice’ to leave and unwittingly further dichotomizing victimhood and agency (Dunn & Powell-Williams, 2007). Instead, our data were able to unpack in preliminary ways how agency is “fraught with fluidities” (Lloyd, Emery, & Klatt, 2009). In alignment with other (non-IPV) literature, we conclude that agency represents a woman’s capacity to act even as she is constrained by a distinct socio-cultural reality, and it often involves the creation of a new and unfamiliar path that is neither purely agentic or oppressed (Ahearn, 2001; McNay, 2013).…”

A Feminist Analysis of Campus Sexual Assault Policies: Results from a National Sample

“…Comparatively, patriarchal‐gender based models of sexual assault services treat (the mostly female) survivors as passive, dependent, and in need of male protection (Lloyd, Emery, & Klatt, ; Nichols, ). Survivor “agency” in this context is either completely absent or limited to a narrow set of behaviors, such as pressing charges or behaving in ways that may reduce the risk of assault in the first place (Lloyd et al, ). Patriarchal victim services mimic the loss of control inherent in victimization and may lead to survivors receiving services that they do not want.…”