ent examples of the urge to blame and punish. While the Japanese internment and the McCarthy loyalty purges didn't result in many deaths, we should not get too smug. Thousands of people were driven out of their jobs and lost their homes and much else. Most of our present social reform movements, including the modern DV movement, came directly out of the organizations that developed in response to those injustices and the killings by the Nazis. Domestic violence in lesbian and hetero relationships both can be examined using the abuse/battering spectrum -- incorporating emotional/psychological, sexual, social/environmental and physical abuse. The cycle of tension building, outburst and repentance/honeymoon is the same. The batterers batter for the same reason, i.e. to get their partner to behave in a desired way. The victims stay for the same reasons, i.e. being in a relationship is very important, they love their partner and hope they will change, they fear life on their own, they believe it when their partner promises it will not happen again, and so on. Often both batterers and victims where raised in families where violence occurred, or where very dysfunctional power dynamics were the norm. Both commonly believe the same myths about how relationships should be. DIFFERENCES BETWEEN HETEROSEXUAL AND LESBIAN BATTERING, AND SPECIAL PROBLEMS FACED BY LESBIANS IN A BATTERING RELATIONSHIPThere are no significant differences between abuse/battering in a heterosexual or in a lesbian relationship. However, as a very small and socially repressed community, lesbians face pressures and problems that are not of concern in hetero relationships. In hetero relationships usually both sets of parents know that the relationship exists and acknowledge it as a valid relationship, even if they do not approve of the choice of partner. The same can be said for work and other social associations. This may not be true in a lesbian relationship, and in fact it i...
