Looking through the Prevailing Kaleidoscope : Women Victims of Violence and Intersectionality

When we each look at anything or anybody, say violence against women, our perceptions are the outcome of our own individual upbringing and our experiences which for most, are to some degree, weighted heavily by the wider cultural context of dominants' knowledge and language. Credibility and intersectionality is an extremely important issue to look at particularly in the context of victimisation and violence. Multiple sources of disempowerment are evident in issues of violence. It is not my intention here to provide an in-depth analysis of these victims, the types of violence that each group is especially vulnerable to, and the plethora of difficulties they encounter in being heard by the system but more to develop a kaleidoscopal explanation that can help us understand these women's differential discriminatory experiences. Hopefully this model will benefit others who do research on or work with these women by providing a conceptual framework with which to understand their unique needs and their discriminatory experiences