Power and Love in Intimate Partner Violence Theories: A Conceptual Integration

The field of study on intimate partner violence has long been characterized by a bitter debate between the following two opposing theoretical and ideological positions on the nature of the phenomenon: the first is typical of the feminist perspective and considers IPV as an expression of gender-based violence; the second is typical—among others—of the attachment-based perspective and maintains that IPV would be a neutral form of violence with respect to gender. The aim of this contribution is to try to show how it is possible to make a more heuristically fruitful comparison between these two antagonistic perspectives, shifting the focus on the conceptual frameworks that underlie them and on their two different corresponding key explanatory concepts as follows: on the one hand, gender-based power on which the feminist perspective hinges, and on the other, love and love-related emotional dynamics on which the attachment-based perspective focuses. Finally, we will argue how these two key explanatory concepts can be kept combined in a sort of binocular vision and integrated into a more complex “power-and-love” explanatory framework. To this end, we will refer to a systemic approach to IPV, in particular to the contribution of Virginia Goldner, who proposes a model based on the close interconnection between power dynamics and love-related dynamics in the genesis and perpetuation of male violence in heterosexual intimate relationships.