Violence on and by Women in Chicago: An Intersectional Study of Female Violence Prevention Workers

• In Event: Sociology of Sex and Gender Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 16. Gender and Sexual Violence

Abstract

This study investigates how female violence prevention workers in Chicago understand and respond to violence—both the violence they encounter in their work and, at times, the violence they may have enacted themselves. Drawing on feminist standpoint theory and critical race theory, the research centers the lived expertise of women who work daily at the intersection of gender, race, poverty, and community harm.
Using in-depth qualitative interviews followed by two focus groups composed of the same participants, the methodology intentionally brings together women with differing perspectives, positionalities, and experiences across Chicago’s violence landscape. This design recognizes that women do not view violence as a singular phenomenon; rather, they see and experience it through different lenses informed by personal history, geographic context, community ties, and system involvement. By convening these workers to speak collectively about violence on and by women and girls, the study seeks to surface both converging and divergent insights into the needs, responses, and consequences surrounding victimization and perpetration.
The project explores the blurred boundaries between professional role and personal experience, acknowledging that many violence prevention workers carry their own histories of trauma and survival, which shape their motivations and strategies for intervention. It also interrogates the expectations placed on women—particularly Black and Brown women—to carry the emotional and caretaking labor of community safety while navigating structural violence themselves.
Ultimately, this research aims to reframe how violence is understood, prevented, and supported in Chicago. By listening to those who stand closest to it, the study offers a more nuanced understanding of women’s roles in both surviving and interrupting violence, informing more humane policies and sustainable models of frontline work.

Author

• Kaitlin Devaney, Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy (UIC)