ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the unique factors that impact upon the domestic violence experiences of women with intellectual disabilities. It presents a small number of interviews with women with intellectual disabilities and human-service workers employed within the disability and domestic violence sectors of Australia. Constructions of sexless or unrestrained sexuality, negative feminine image and restricted gendered roles expose gender in the experiences of domestic violence for women with intellectual disabilities. Extensive literature reviews on women with intellectual disabilities and domestic violence revealed a scarcity of studies that include women's personal stories. Research epistemology has been dominated by assumptions that women with intellectual disabilities do not have the capacity to tell their life story. Women with intellectual disabilities value, seek and fulfil subject positions that will give them a gendered identity. However, the subject positions embedded in discourses of intellectual disability and traditional heterosexual relationships combine to perpetuate extreme isolation and powerlessness, and the invisibility of domestic violence in their lives.
