As long as I can watch : violence towards non-heterosexual women in Amsterdam

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As Long as I Can Watch

Violence Towards Non-Heterosexual Women in Amsterdam

Master’s Thesis

Iris de Vries, 10367675 University of Amsterdam

Sociology: Gender, Sexuality and Society Word count: 20265

Supervisor: Dr. Marie-Louise Janssen Second Supervisor: Dr. Gert Hekma Amsterdam, August 25, 2017

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Summary

Introduction

Amsterdam is known all around the world for its liberal views on homosexuality. Therefore, violence against homosexuals in Amsterdam is an interesting phenomenon. Research about violence against non-heterosexuals is often only focused on the violence non-heterosexual men experience.

However, it is also interesting to research violence against non-heterosexual women.

Aim and Research Questions

In my thesis I aimed to provide insight in the experiences of non-heterosexual women with violence in Amsterdam. The main question I wanted to answer in this thesis was: (A) why do certain forms of

violence occur and (B) how do the women deal with it? Sub questions that I have answered are: (1) what are the experiences of non-heterosexual women with violence; (2) how can we understand violence against heterosexual women in a tolerant city and (3) is violence against non-heterosexual women located at the intersection of their sexuality and their gender?

Methodology

To answer these questions I conducted nine semi-structured interviews. The women I interviewed were cisgendered, feminine presenting, able-bodied, Dutch, white and most of them were highly educated. I came into contact with the women by asking my personal contacts, posting messages in several Facebook groups and by posting a message on a forum for lesbian women.1_{To analyze the}

data, I used the following theoretical concepts: homophobia, heterosexism, heteronormativity and objectification. These concepts are discussed in Chapter 2.

Results and Conclusion

In this study I found that (1) the women experienced interior-individual violence; exterior-individual violence; interior-collective violence and exterior-collective violence. This manifested in name-calling, sexual intimidation and sexual assault. But also in the way people talk about and treat the women. This contributed to the “othering” of those women. This study showed that (A) heterosexual men were by far mentioned most in the interviews as perpetrators of violence against

non-heterosexual women. This can be explained because the social hierarchy is based on a strict gender division. This division needs to be maintained in order to secure male domination and female submission.

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The policing of homosexuality can be understood as an act of articulation of one’s desire for the members of the other gender. It is a confirmation of one’s own heterosexuality and therefore secures the boundaries needed for male domination.

It indeed seems that (3) non-heterosexual women experience violence at the intersection of their sexuality and their gender. It can be concluded that the objectification of women by men create a context in which these specific forms of violence can be committed against non-heterosexual women, such as sexual assault and intimidation.

The findings of this study also show that (B) the threat of violence plays a role in everyday decision-making. Furthermore, the women often ignored violence when it occurred and downplayed the severity of the incidents afterwards. The women seem to have internalized negative ideas about homosexuality to the extend that they more or less legitimize the violence.

Violence against non-heterosexual women in Amsterdam can be understood because (3) the tolerant and gay-friendly discourse is prevalent in Amsterdam, but seems to be dominated by the heteronormative discourse that is still deeply rooted in Dutch society. The two discourses exist alongside each other, but the latter easily overrules the former when confronted with aspects of non-heterosexuality that are in conflict with traditional norms about gender and sexuality. This enables the paradoxical situation in which violence against non-heterosexual women in Amsterdam still occurs.

It is interesting that the women themselves also seem to be interpreting experiences with violence by relying upon those two competing discourses. They claim to feel safe in Amsterdam and free to be openly non-heterosexual, yet, they adjust their behavior and monitor their environment to prevent violence on a daily basis.

Implications

Ultimately, understanding violence against non-heterosexual women will contribute to tackling this problem. As became clear in this thesis, non-heterosexual women face specific forms of violence that are directed at their sexuality and their gender. Fighting these forms of violence need a specific approach. Information about the violence non-heterosexual women face, will enable the

municipality of Amsterdam, the police, LGBT-organizations and individual citizens to come up with approaches that challenge inequality at its roots and effectively fight violence against

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Preface

Before you lies my Master’s Thesis titled As Long as I Can Watch: Violence Towards

Non-Heterosexual Women in Amsterdam. I wrote this thesis to finalize my Master’s degree in Gender,

Sexuality and Society, a track within sociology at the University of Amsterdam.

The title of the thesis is a reference to earlier work on anti-gay violence in Amsterdam by Buijs, Hekma and Duyvendak (2011) titled ‘As long as they keep away from me’: The paradox of

antigay violence in a gay-friendly country. Their research was focused on homosexual men and they

found that homosexuality is tolerated as long as certain conditions are met. Aspects of

homosexuality that collide with traditional norms of gender and sexuality lead to violence. In my research about violence against non-heterosexual women I also found that non-heterosexuality was often tolerated, but only under certain conditions and that violence occurred when traditional norms about gender and sexuality were disrupted. However, the violence generally manifested in a

different way, as can be read in my thesis. The title of the thesis captures the major difference in attitude towards male versus female homosexuality: a man can be homosexual, as long as they “keep away from” the heterosexual men. A woman can be a lesbian, as long as heterosexual men can still be involved in the lesbian relationships. It is sometimes tolerated that women are intimate with each other, as long as the heterosexual man can “watch” this, because it is “hot”.

Even though the topic of this thesis is very serious, I look back on the past couple of months with a feeling of joy. I learned a lot and I really enjoyed writing my thesis. This would not have been possible without the help of others. I would like to thank a few people that have been of great support while I wrote my thesis. First of all, I would like to thank my supervisor Dr. Marie-Louise Janssen for her endless support and enthusiasm. She encouraged me to work very hard in order to obtain the best possible results. Furthermore, I want to thank her for her empathy, sympathetic ear and her support throughout the academic year. I would like to thank my second supervisor, Dr. Gert Hekma for his interesting input, his books and his hospitality. Thanks to them, this year has been a great adventure in which I learned a lot. I also want to thank Marlies and Donna for their emotional and intellectual support and Kelly, my mother and my sister for taking the time to proof read parts of my thesis. I really appreciate that!

Finally, my special thanks goes out to the women who were willing to share their personal experiences with me. I am grateful that so many women took the time to talk to me about such an important topic and that they were willing to share a part of their life with me.

I hope you enjoy reading this thesis as much as I enjoyed writing it, Iris de Vries

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Key Concepts

LGBT

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender

Non-heterosexual women

I define a non-heterosexual woman as any person who identifies as a woman and who does not consider herself heterosexual. For further elaboration, see Chapter 3.

Violence

In my thesis, violence is defined as “experiences that have a negative impact on physical and/or psychological well-being”. This concept is further elaborated in in Chapter 3. In my analysis I often use the model by Yep (2002). His model consists of four elements: (1) interior-individual; (2) exterior-individual; (3) Interior-collective and (4) exterior-collective. It might be useful to look at this short summary while reading this thesis.

Interior-Individual Violence

From a young age, it is learned that homosexuality is socially sinful, deviant, immoral or defective. pervasive messages that promote and maintain the ideology of heteronormativity. These ideas are often internalized in non-heterosexual people themselves.

Exterior-Individual Violence

Public expressions of anti-gay attitudes, such as: name-calling, avoidance, differential treatment, discriminatory behavior and physical violence.

Interior-Collective Violence

The words, tone, gestures, and images that are used to differentially treat, degrade and pathologize lesbian and gay experiences.

Exterior-Collective Violence

Finally, the heteronormative ideology also undergirds all social institutions and violence resulting from this can be understood as institutional violence.

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Chapter 1: Introduction

Last Saturday my girlfriend and I walked through a neighborhood in the old city center of Amsterdam (“De Negen Straatjes”) to grab a beer in a café. We passed the canals holding hands with the evening sun shining upon our faces.

“Lesbian,” yelled a passer-by on a bike at my girlfriend. I didn’t say anything and hoped that she didn’t hear him, but she did. “Just ignore it,” I said. We wouldn’t let a stranger ruin our night because he felt the need to point out our sexual orientation to us. Our “not-being-a-hetero.”

We quickly forgot about the comment and we ended up in a café with four other people celebrating their Saturday evening with beer. One of them stood up to go to the bathroom. My girlfriend gave me a kiss. Not a French kiss, just a regular kiss on the mouth. “Ho, ho, ho,” the passing man said mockingly, entering the bathroom. In Dutch, “ho” means something like “halt.” My girlfriend was furious. I just wanted to leave. It had been enough, for this night. “Why do you say this?” my girlfriend asked. The man said nothing.

When he returned from the bathroom, and we already put on our coats, he said: “I was thinking about why I said it and, honestly, I can’t find a reason why. I am happy that this is possible in our country. If anything, I want to support it.”2

1.1 An (Un)safe City

The Netherlands is known all around the world for its liberal views on homosexuality. In comparison with other European countries, the Dutch show great support for equal rights of sexual minorities and generally state to be against discrimination of homosexuals (Gerhards, 2010; Keuzenkamp & Bos, 2007; in Buijs et al., 2011). In particular, the capital of The Netherlands, Amsterdam, is often

associated with gay emancipation because it hosts the famous Amsterdam Pride and the city functioned as the decor of the world’s first legally recognized “gay marriage” in 2001 (Buijs et al., 2011). In a recent study conducted by Nestpick,3_{Amsterdam was chosen as the second}

LGBT-friendliest city in Europe. For a city to be a good LGBT-destination, they determined that it must have a vibrant gay dating scene, a lively alternative nightlife, open-minded citizens, low levels of hate crime, and positive national laws affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people (Nestpick, 2017). Amsterdam is proud of this tolerant image and the city actively works on improving the lives

2_{This was originally written in Dutch and posted on Facebook. I translated the text and used it as my}

introductory anecdote, with her permission of course. The author of the text prefers to stay anonymous.

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of its LGBT-citizens. This becomes clear in a report about LGBT-related issues in Amsterdam written in 2015, called De Roze Agenda 2015 - 2018 (literally: The Pink Agenda 2015 - 2018). In this report, the city states that their aim is to make Amsterdam a safe, open and internationally alluring “pink city” by 2018. They aimed to do this by working on several themes. For example, in the report they focused on improvements regarding safety of the LGBT-community, increasing the visibility of lesbian women and on positioning Amsterdam as an attractive gay destination for its visitors and its own citizens (Gemeente Amsterdam, 2015). This is still an important goal, as is illustrated by the anecdote in the introduction. The anecdote illustrates that displaying love in public is still not as easy and straightforward as is should be when this love is between two people of the same gender. This is even true in the heart of Amsterdam in a bar with “tolerant” Amsterdam citizens who support gay rights.

Unfortunately, experiencing unsafe situations is no exception for non-heterosexual people living in Amsterdam. AmsterdamPinkPanel4_{conducted a neighborhood survey about safety amongst}

the LGBT-community in 2016 (COC Amsterdam & UvA, 2017). Most importantly, the panel found that 25% of the participants experienced at least one unsafe situation in 2016. Unsafe situations included: being called names; experiencing a hostile atmosphere; receiving threats; being pushed or touched; being spit on and being beaten or kicked. It was not hard to find stories on the Internet about these types of violence. A quick search on the website of the local news broadcasters of Amsterdam (AT5) and North Holland (NH Nieuws) provided me with many recent examples of anti-gay violence in the capital of The Netherlands. For example, in October 2016, a homosexual couple was attacked at the ferry near central station. One of the men was kicked so hard that he ended up with a skull fracture (“Verdachte aangehouden voor zware mishandeling homo echtpaar”, 2017). In December of the same year, four people abused two men in the city center of Amsterdam because of their sexuality (“Mannen mishandeld en uitgescholden voor homo”, 2016). In March 2017, a robbery at the cruising spot in the Oosterpark ended fatally. The 33-year old victim died from his injuries the same night (“Slachtoffer dodelijke straatroof is 33-jarige Oost-Europeaan”, 2017). In April 2017, two men

verbally and physically abused a homosexual couple. The perpetrators yelled, “Fuck you gay!” and hit the men in the face (“Ook Amsterdams stel slachtoffer geworden van homogeweld”, 2017). In June 2017, two men were severely beaten up at the Dam Square (“Mishandelde homo is Surinaamse

4_{AmsterdamPinkPanel is a collaboration between the organization Cultuur- en Ontspanningscentrum}

(COC) Amsterdam and the University of Amsterdam. The aim of the AmsterdamPinkPanel is to give the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) community a voice and to do independent research in order to collect data about relevant LGBT-themes (“Over het panel”, 2016).

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toerist: ‘meerdere daders schopten op me in’”, 2017). Later that month, a 17-year-old boy knocked out a man because he was doing a presumably feminine dance in a supermarket in Amsterdam-West. The perpetrator also called him a “kankerhomo,” which is offensive slur meaning something like “fucking homo” (“Man uitgescholden en in elkaar geslagen om ‘huppeltje’”, 2017).

These incidents – that were sensational enough to make the news – all occurred in the nine-month period between October 2016 and June 2017. These examples illustrate that Amsterdam is a city in which violence against homosexuals is no exception. At the same time, participants who belonged to the 25% that experienced violence rated their safety at a 7.1 on a ten-point scale and the other 75% rated their safety with an 8.0 (COC Amsterdam & UvA, 2017). This paradoxical

situation in which Amsterdam is portrayed and experienced as a liberal and safe city on the one hand and as place in which a lot of anti-gay violence and discrimination occurs on the other hand makes Amsterdam an interesting city to conduct this research.

1.2 What About the Women?

Finding news articles about violence directed at non-heterosexual women5_{was a much harder than}

finding articles of non-heterosexual men facing these issues. The archives of the local news broadcasters of Amsterdam and North Holland contained only a few examples of violence against non-heterosexual women. One of articles I found described events that took place 7 years ago in 2010. The article explained that a woman decided to move out of her house in Amsterdam-Oost because she was fed up with being hit, threatened and spit on when she walked down the street with her girlfriend ("Wegpesten lesbisch stel nieuw dieptepunt", 2010). The research conducted by PinkPanelAmsterdam (COC Amsterdam & UvA, 2017) revealed that homosexual men experienced unsafe situations way more often in 2016 (41.6%) than lesbian women (10.9%). On top of that, non-heterosexual men are highly overrepresented in the police reports. In 2010, Buijs, Duvendak and Hekma conducted research about violence against homosexuals in Amsterdam. Initially, they wanted to focus on violent acts against non-heterosexual men and women, but soon they hit a wall because police data about violence against non-heterosexual women was almost non-existent. The question arises whether the lack of data and news articles about violence against non-heterosexual women indicate that those women do not face violence in Amsterdam on a large scale or whether the violence goes unreported. According to Buijs et al. (2010), violence against lesbian and bisexual women does exist, just to a lesser extent than it exists for male homosexuals.

5_{I define a non-heterosexual woman as any person who identifies as a woman and who does not}

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However, the survey conducted by PinkPanelAmsterdam (COC Amsterdam & UvA, 2017) showed that approximately the same amount of men and women thought they were likely to end up in an unsafe situation. This seems odd, since it is so difficult to find news articles about violence against non-heterosexual women and they are highly underrepresented in the data about experiences with violence.

This can likely be explained by research that was done by Schuyf and Felten (2011) on violence against lesbian and bisexual women in The NetherlandsAs part of the research, Schuyf and Felten interviewed twenty-four women about their experiences with violence. During the interviews the women brought 54 cases of violence forward that violated the Dutch law. In their research they discovered that women are even less likely than non-heterosexual men to report crime to the police and that women tend to downplay the incidents. This was often because they were ashamed or so used to the incidents that they learned to ignore it. Additionally, my own experience as a lesbian woman and the stories of my queer female friends made me believe that there was something to uncover in this area. There were many situations in which I felt attacked, as a lesbian, but also as a woman. It could be argued that heterosexual women face different forms of violence than non-heterosexual men. Usually, in research about anti-gay violence, non-non-heterosexual men and women are investigated together as a homogeneous group. However, non-heterosexual women do not only have to deal with potential violence directed at their sexuality, they also have to deal with violent behavior because of their gender. Since sexuality and gender are highly interconnected concepts (as will be discussed later) it seems reasonable to assume that non-heterosexual women experience different or additional forms of violence than non-heterosexual men that are also worthy of investigation. Perhaps, in research about anti-gay violence these forms of violence are not

specifically looked at and are therefore missed. I would hypothesize that non-heterosexual women face violence based on their sexuality, their gender and at the intersection of those two. This was confirmed by Schuyf and Felten (2011). They found that many incidents were explicitly sexual or had a sexualized cause.Initially, the women did not talk about this second layer of violence with the interviewers. However, it became apparent when they thought about their experiences.

1.3 Research Aim, Questions and Method

In this thesis, I aim to provide: (1) insight into the violence6_{non-heterosexual women experience in}

Amsterdam; and (2) give a theoretical explanation and understanding of this violence. Ultimately, the

6_{In my thesis, violence is defined as “experiences that have a negative impact on physical and/or}

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understanding will contribute to tackling this problem. Importantly, the aim is not to analyze which form of violence is worse or which group suffers the most. This is not a competition. Instead, this is a recognition that violence against non-heterosexual women simply has not been investigated enough and theorized convincingly. This study is designed to fill this gap.

Research Questions

The main question I want to answer in this thesis is: why do certain forms of violence occur and how

do the women deal with it? Sub questions that I will answer are: (1) what are the experiences of

non-heterosexual women with violence? (2) How can we understand violence against non-non-heterosexual women in a tolerant city? (3) Is violence against non-heterosexual women located at the intersection of their sexuality and their gender?

Method

Only by listening to this relatively invisible group of people, are we able to gain insight in their experiences. The research of Schuyf and Felten (2011) found that women tend to downplay violent incidents and that themes were only discovered after thoroughly talking and thinking through the experiences. Therefore, I interviewed nine women living, working and/or studying in Amsterdam. I asked them to share their stories aboutviolence with me because it is essential that the women themselves provide the stories about their personal lives, experiences and thoughts.

1.4 Thesis Outline

My thesis is composed of seven chapters. In Chapter 2, I will lay out the theoretical framework that is used in this study. To analyze the data, I used the following theoretical concepts: homophobia, heterosexism, heteronormativity and objectification. The third chapter will set forth the

methodology used to complete this study. In this chapter I will describe my position as a researcher, the research process, the research group and reflect on methodological shortcomings and important considerations. Next, in Chapter 4, I will discuss the context of this research, the city of Amsterdam. In that chapter I will discuss the rise of a liberal sexual moral in the Netherlands, discuss the current climate for non-heterosexuals in Amsterdam and discuss how violence against non-heterosexual women can be understood in a tolerant city. In Chapters 5 and 6 I will present the interview data and analysis of the data and investigate the experiences of non-heterosexual women with violence, whether these experiences are located at the intersection of their gender and sexuality and why certain forms of violence occur and how do the women deal with those forms of violence. Finally, in

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Chapter 7 I will present the conclusion and the discussion. In that chapter I will give answer to the research questions posed earlier, discuss shortcomings and implications of this research.

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Chapter 2: Theoretical Framework

In this chapter I will discuss the theoretical framework that is relevant for the study of violence against non-heterosexual women. There are many possible explanations for anti-gay violence (Parrott, 2008) and here I will discuss the most relevant and popular of those theories. I will cover theories about the way heterosexuality and homosexuality are looked upon in Dutch society. With some of those theories I am able to provide interesting insight into the violence non-heterosexual women experience. However, the theories do not fully capture the essence of the experiences because many of the theories focus on homosexual men. It is important to include theories that take into account the gender of women as well because women, in general, face different obstacles than men. Equating the experiences of heterosexual women with the experiences of

non-heterosexual men “is to erase female reality once again” (Rich, 1980, p. 28). Therefore, I will include theory that not only focuses on the hetero-homo dichotomy (hetero-bi-homo - if you want), but also on sexism. In this way, it is possible to theorize about homosexual women in particular.

2.1 Heterosexuality Versus Homosexuality

In this section I will cover homophobia, heterosexism and heteronormativity. There are no clear-cut definitions or descriptions of these terms. The terms coexist and overlap in many aspects but, most importantly, they are complementary and therefore able to give a more complete insight in the workings of violence against non-heterosexual women.

2.1.1 Homophobia: The Fear of Homosexuals

The popular term used to describe negative attitudes and behavior towards homosexuality is

“homophobia”. The American psychologist George Weinberg introduced the term homophobia in the late 1960s a few years before the publication of his book Society and the Healthy Homosexual

(Weinberg, 1972). Weinberg was a heterosexual psychologist who was taught to view homosexuality as pathology. However, he considered this view to be wrong. In an interview he explained that he came up with the idea of homophobia when he was reflecting on the fact that many heterosexual psychoanalysts had strong, personal reactions to being around homosexual people in a non-clinical setting. He coined the term homophobia because he observed a certain fear of homosexuals; a fear of contagion and a fear of reduction of the home and the family. According to Weinberg, this fear led to great brutality as fear always does. In this case, the brutality was aimed at the homosexual person.

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The first time Weinberg published a piece with the term homophobia in it, it was defined as: “the dread of being in close quarters with homosexuals — and in the case of homosexuals

themselves, self-loathing” (Weinberg, 1972 in Herek, 2004, p. 4). Weinberg explained that when this phobia incapacitates a person (whose behavior or thoughts are anti-gay) in normal daily life, that person suffers from homophobia. However, homophobia is directed at a specific group of people and homophobia leads to the mistreatment of that group. This idea challenged the way homosexuality was viewed at that time and it helped to more clearly expose the problem of anti-gay prejudice and stigma (Herek, 2004).Weinberg’s approach recognized that the “problem” of homosexuality was not the homosexual’s anymore but instead laid with heterosexual people who had difficulties with accepting homosexuality. The “problem” shifted from the homosexuals to the heterosexuals who had difficulties with accepting homosexuality. The emergence of this term allowed for this idea to spread widely. Weinberg named the problem and thereby popularized the idea that hostility against homosexuals was a social problem that was worthy of investigation and intervention (Herek, 2004). Homophobia became a tool for gay and lesbian activists and their allies to fight hostility. The fact that Weinberg helped to shift the “problem” of homosexuality from the homosexual to the person who held anti-gay attitudes or exhibited anti-gay behavior is an interesting starting point from which to research the “tolerant” context of Amsterdam where violence against non-heterosexual women still takes place. I will come back to this finding in Chapter 4 which will explain the proclaimed pro-gay attitude and anti-gay actions of perpetrators of violence against non-heterosexual women in Amsterdam.

However, the term also has its limitations. These limitations are described by Gregory M. Herek, a psychologist and expert on prejudice against gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders. Herek (2004) describes these limitations in his article Beyond “Homophobia”: Thinking About Sexual

Prejudice and Stigma in the Twenty-First Century. The major problems of using homophobia as a

term for understanding violence against non-heterosexual women are that: (1) the concept is androcentric; (2) it is not really a phobia; and (3) the term is too broad.

First, the prefix “homo” is usually used to describe male homosexuals. When talking about homosexuals in research and homos in daily language, the term is generally interpreted as describing male homosexuals. Research and public discourse about homophobia therefore very easily focuses on homophobia experienced by male homosexuals (Herek, 2004, p. 11). To understand the

experiences of the women, another term should be used. Attempts have been made to describe the “phobia” towards homosexual women by using the term “lesbophobia”. This term is frequently used in scientific articles about women in sport (Forbes, Lathrop, & Stevens, 2002) and recently, a piece in the Guardian described lesbophobia as " homophobia with a side-order of sexism" (Czyzselska,

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2013). Even though the concept of lesbophobia – as described by the Guardian – has great potential to explain violence against non-heterosexual women, the suffix “phobia” is also problematic. In the current edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), phobia is described as a “persistent fear that is excessive or unreasonable, cued by the presence or

anticipation of a specific object or situation” (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). The question arises whether negative attitudes and behavior towards homosexuals really come from an intense, irrational fear. Research suggests that this is not the case (Bernat, Calhoun, Adams, & Zeichner, 2001 in Herek, 2004). Because of its suffix, homophobia gets associated with other phobias such as irrational fear of height (acrophobia) and spiders (arachnophobia). It is problematic equate homophobia with other phobias, because viewing anti-homosexual attitudes and behavior as individual acts or fears, undermines the obstacles homosexuals face due to obstacles embedded in broader culture and interactions. Such obstacles include the invisibility of homosexual role models in mainstream media or laws that disadvantage homosexual couples to adopt children. At the same time, homophobia is used to describe diffuse phenomena ranging from private thoughts about homosexuals to policies of the government. This is an indication that there is a need for more nuanced language. Even though Herek wrote his article in 2004, homophobia is still a widespread term to describe the many forms of maltreatment of homosexuals. We need more sophisticated terms to address violence against non-heterosexual women.

Concluding, it is clear that homophobia has been an important concept because due to Weinberg, the “problem” of homosexuality shifted from the homosexual to the heterosexual person with anti-gay attitudes. However, homophobia is not always useful to understand violence against non-heterosexual women, because the term is androcentric and the violence is most often not triggered by intense fear. Furthermore, it does not take into account violence on broader cultural and interactional level. Next, I will discuss other terms and theories that take into account the shortcomings of the concept of homophobia.

2.1.2 Heterosexism: System that Denies, Oppresses and Stigmatizes Non-Heterosexuality

Another term that is used to describe the way homosexuality and heterosexuality is looked upon in Dutch society is “heterosexism”. In a heterosexist way of thinking, everyone is or should be a heterosexual. In heterosexism, people are categorized based on sexual activities and gender. Men and women are considered opposites that are complementary of each other. The categorization on basis of sexuality and the ideology that men and women are complementary are closely related to each other. “Normal” men and “normal” women end up in a heterosexual relationship with each

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other. In this system, lesbian women are not “real” women and homosexual men are not “real” men (Buijs et al., 2011). A non-heterosexual woman is breaking traditional gender norms by definition. By being attracted to women instead of men, she is perceived as “like a man” just as homosexual men are often perceived by society as “like a woman”. A non-heterosexual woman can act in a

stereotypical feminine manner yet the idea still holds that a lesbian is “like a man”. Suzanne Pharr wrote in her book Homophobia: A Weapon of Sexism (1988) that the label “lesbian” is not only used to describe lesbians themselves, but also to keep other women in line. The term is often used to describe women who break gender boundaries. For example, a woman who is assertive can easily be called a lesbian.

Homophobia and heterosexism are related because they both give explanations for why homosexuality is often disadvantaged. In 1988, Pharr even defined heterosexism by using the term homophobia. She defined heterosexism as “the systemic display of homophobia in the institutions of society, creating the climate for homophobia with its assumption that the world is and must be heterosexual” (Pharr, 1988, my emphasis). Heterosexism is different from homophobia because it focuses on the system that denies, oppresses and stigmatizes every form of behavior that is not heterosexual (Herek, Berrill, & Berrill, 1992). It can be stated that heterosexism moves away from the individual to the cultural and the institutional (Smith, Dermer, Ng & Barto, 2007 in Smith, Oades, McCarthy, 2012). Its beliefs and practices permeate the whole society and therefore, heterosexism is just like the air we breathe. It can be found in nearly all social institutions, such as: religion, politics, media, health care, and the police. It is, therefore, and interesting theoretical concept to consider in my thesis. What does the climate in Amsterdam look like and how can violence against

non-heterosexual women in Amsterdam be understood within this climate? I will investigate this in Chapter 4.

Heterosexism can also be described as a system in which heterosexuality is superior to homosexuality (Alden & Parker, 2005). This superiority takes the form of heterosexual privilege. This is a concept that is borrowed from theory on racism called white privilege (Simoni & Walters, 2001). It describes the benefits that heterosexuals take for granted. For example, two heterosexual people in a relationship never have to think about holding hands in public and they can book a hotel room without looking up if the place is hetero-friendly. When they turn on the TV it is common to see a romantic scene between heterosexuals. On the other hand, homosexuals experience certain disadvantages. A realistic story about a romance between two women is not so common on mainstream television. They do have to think about whether it is safe to hold hands and whether a place is gay-friendly. This is further elaborated on by Herek (1990) who states that heterosexism operates as a “dual attack”. Namely, homosexuality usually remains invisible. Then, when it becomes

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visible, homosexuality is attacked by society. For example, a lesbian relationship may be treated as simply being a friendship, rendering the nature of the true relationship invisible. As soon as the two women decide to hold hands, they can be attacked for that.

Anti-gay violence can be seen as an extreme form of heterosexism, as an extreme

manifestation of pervasive heterosexist norms rather than as a manifestation of individual hatred (as with homophobia). This can take many forms, such as slurs and jokes (Silverschanz, Cortine, Konic & Magley, 2008 in Smith, Oades, McCarthy, 2012), but also to overt hostile harassment and physical violence (Bernat, Calhoun, Adams, & Zeichner, 2001 in Smith, Oades, McCarthy, 2012). Because heterosexism focuses on the cultural and the institutional, it does not immediately become clear how exactly heterosexism creates a climate in which individuals conduct violence.

2.1.3 Heteronormativity: Heterosexuality as Default, Natural and the Norm

The third theoretical concept that explains the way hetero- and homosexuality is looked upon in Dutch society is “heteronormativity”. The roots of heteronormativity can be found in Rubin's notion of the "sex/gender system" (Rubin, 1975) and Rich's notion of compulsory heterosexuality (Rich, 1980). In line with those concepts, the term heteronormativity has a background in queer theory. The term heteronormativity itself gained popularity in the early 1990s by scholars such as Ingraham in The heterosexual imaginary: Feminist sociology and theories of gender (1994). Ingraham (1994) defined heteronormativity as institutionalized heterosexuality that constitutes the standard for legitimate and prescriptive sociosexual arrangements. In other words, heteronormativity is the idea or the belief that all human beings are heterosexual by default. Heterosexuality is seen as the natural and normal form of sexuality (Yep, 2003). Gust A. Yep is a Professor of Communication Studies Core Graduate Faculty of Sexuality Studies, and Faculty in the Ed. D. Program in Educational Leadership at San Francisco State University (“Faculty profile”, n.d.). He describes that heteronormativity is a system in which heterosexuality is “the indisputable and unquestionable bedrock of society”. Heterosexuality appears as a natural, coherent and fixed characteristic of all human beings. It functions as the blueprint for interpersonal relations. Heteronormative thinking assumes that heterosexual experience is equal to human experience. This understanding of human life renders all the other human sexualities pathological, deviant, invisible, unintelligible or written out of existence (Yep, 2002, p. 167).

In this context, heterosexuality is far more than a sexual practice alone. In heteronormative thought, women and men are mutually exclusive and complementary of each other (Pascoe, 2005). Heteronormativity reinforces the idea that all human beings can be divided and placed into two

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categories: man or woman. This binary view of gender is accompanied with stereotypical gender roles and the idea that women are subordinate to men. The opposition between genders and sexualities are needed in order to distinguish and reproduce power differences between men and women, and between homosexuals and heterosexuals. In this way, the social hierarchy is maintained (Yep, 2003). This idea has great similarities with the theoretical concept of heterosexism in which gender and sexuality are also closely related to each other.

The “rules” of heteronormativity constrain individuals because those individuals must constantly live up to the normative standards about gender and sexuality (Butler, 1990; West & Zimmerman, 1987). Similar to heterosexism, in heteronormativity expectations about

heterosexuality are embedded in social institutions, resulting in more class, power, status and privilege for some people (heterosexual men) than for others (Ingraham 1994, 212).

Yep further elaborated on heteronormativity and developed an interesting theory on how (1) heteronormativity functions as a central site of violence (Yep, 2002); and (2) heteronormativity is experienced by different people within and without the heteronormative framework. Furthermore, he provides an interesting reading of violence on individuals at the intersections of race, class, gender and sexuality (Yep, 2003). In this thesis, I aim to understand the way gender and sexuality intersect, therefore, I will further discuss the work of Yep. In his paper The Violence of

Heteronormativity in Communication Studies: Notes on Injury, Healing, _{and Queer World-Making}

Yep (2003) explains how women and men within the heteronormative framework experience heteronormativity as well as how lesbian, bisexual, gay, transgender and queer people experience heteronormativity.

First, he discusses the way women within the heteronormative borders experience heteronormativity. Heterosexuality can be seen as a patriarchal institution that subordinates, degrades and oppresses women. Because of this, a heterosexual romantic relationship between a man and a woman easily relies on sexist norms and asymmetry of power between men and women available in society. These sexist norms and asymmetry of power are normalized in society and many women learn to overlook those sufferings (Wood, 2001 in Yep, 2003). Although the ways in which heteronormativity affects heterosexual men are different, things such as compulsory heterosexuality are also imposed and enforced on heterosexual men (Connell, 1995 in Yep, 2003). The effects it has on men within the heteronormative borders can contribute to the understanding of some forms of violence they carry out against women and sexual minorities. In the heteronormative framework, to be a “real” man requires an exhausting and unending performance. The fear of being perceived as homosexual is at the center of the cultural policing of manhood, because “real” men are

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men ashamed and afraid. Heteronormativity makes a heterosexual man prove his manhood all the time. But why would a heterosexual man defend his heterosexuality if it is in fact natural, normal and universal? To understand this, taken for granted ideas about heterosexuality need to be challenged. Contrary to popular beliefs, heterosexuality is a historical invention instead of a universal and transhistorical given. This means that the social meanings of sexual desires derive from organizing gender and sexuality. Heterosexuality and non-heterosexuality are organized around and depended upon the idea of two distinct and complementary genders. Because heterosexuality is not stable, it needs constant confirmation, reproduction and very strict borders. The policing of every form of non-heterosexuality heavily protects these borders. The policing of homosexuality can be understood as an act of articulation of one’s desire for the members of the other gender: it is a confirmation of one’s own heterosexuality. Thus, the social hierarchy is based on the gender division and to secure male domination and female submission, this division needs to be maintained.

In his article From Homophobia and Heterosexism to Heteronormativity: Toward the

Development of a Model of Queer Interventions in the University Classroom, Yep (2002) presents an

integrative model using heteronormativity “as a central site of violence”. He aims to examine

“homophobia and heterosexism within the larger context of heteronormativity, or the normalization of heterosexuality, at the intersections of race, class and gender” (Yep, 2002, p. 165). He aims to do that within the larger social and cultural domain (macro level) and the interpersonal context (micro level). His framework gives an understanding of the daily acts of violence against individuals and groups who do not conform to the “mythical norm” (Lorde, 1990, in Yep, 2002, p. 167) of heterosexuality. I will use this model to analyze the violence that is committed against non-heterosexual women.

His model consists of two interdependent dimensions: (1) interior-exterior and (2) individual-collective. These dimensions can be combined to create four elements: (1) interior-individual; (2) exterior-individual; (3) Interior-collective and (4) exterior-collective. In the following part I will briefly describe those dimensions brought forward by Yep (2002) and explain how those concepts are linked to my own research about violence against non-heterosexual women.

(1) Interior-individual

People learn that homosexuality is a shameful “condition” at a young age. Homosexuality is socially sinful, deviant, immoral or defective. Either way, it is easy to pick up that homosexuality is a “problem”. For example, this is learned by, for example, interactions with family and friends as well as from the media. Messages about the stigma of homosexuality can be found everywhere. It is these pervasive messages that promote and maintain the ideology of heteronormativity. When these

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messages are internalized and incorporated into one’s conception of selfhood and identity, they become, as Yep describes, internalized homophobia.7_{The interior-individual dimension can help to}

understand the way women deal with the violence they experience. Internalized ideas about the deviance of one’s own sexuality can shape the way this violence is understood and how it is

sometimes even justified by the women themselves. This will be discussed in Chapter 6 where I will describe the way the women deal with the violence they experience.

(2) Exterior-individual

Although public expressions of anti-gay attitudes are becoming less accepted, people still enact their negative attitudes towards non-heterosexual people. For example, name-calling and using

derogatory terms towards lesbians and gays are very common in everyday interaction. It can also be manifested in other ways: avoidance, differential treatment, discriminatory behavior and physical violence. These forms of violence will be described in Chapter 5 and I will use this exterior-individual dimension to explain violence against non-heterosexual women committed by individuals.

(3) Interior-collective

Non-heterosexual people are not only treated differently, but also talked about differently. This ranges from everyday conversations to media representations. Yep uses the term discursive violence and describes it as follows: “the words, tone, gestures, and images that are used to differentially treat, degrade, pathologize, and represent lesbian and gay experiences”.

An example of this form of violence is the extremely intimate questions non-heterosexual women get asked (“what do you do in bed anyway?” and “who is the ‘man’?”). Even though these questions are often presented as mere interest in “the gay lifestyle” and therefore socially

acceptable, as can be read in Chapter 5, these questions are rarely considered appropriate to ask a heterosexual couple. This way of talking about people contributes to the othering of

non-heterosexual women, which in itself is a form of violence.

(4) Exterior-collective

Finally, the heteronormative ideology also undergirds all social institutions and violence resulting from this can be understood as institutional violence (Richardson, 1996 in Yep, 2002). As is described before, heterosexuality permeates many institutions such as the family, domestic life, education,

7_{In paragraph 2.1.1 I argued that homophobia lacks the qualities to be a good term to describe}

violence against non-heterosexual women. Therefore I will try to avoid the word while still using the theoretical understanding provided by Yep (2002).

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organizations, church, social policy, and the mass media. Yep argues that heteronormative thinking is deeply ingrained, and strategically invisible, in our social and collective consciousness (p. 171, my emphasis). This means that heterosexuality is normalized. The process of normalization of

heterosexuality in our social system disadvantages and disempowers individuals who do not conform to this norm. The invisibility of heteronormative thinking in institutions makes institutional violence hard to challenge and to fight.

2.2 Sexism and Objectification

All women live in sexual objectification the way fish live in water – MacKinnon (1989)

Non-heterosexual women face different obstacles than homosexual men. It is important to take the gender of the women into consideration when doing research about violence against

non-heterosexual women. Sexism is a system in which masculinity and men are valued over femininity and women. This basic idea has many implications in the lives of women. For the scope of this research, I will mainly focus on the (sexual) objectification of women. Objectification can be roughly defined as seeing or treating a person not as a person, but rather as an object. This person is usually a woman. The quote by MacKinnon (1989) I used at the beginning of this section illustrates the fact that all women, experience and live in (sexual) objectification. This includes, of course,

non-heterosexual women. Objectification may be an explanation for some (or perhaps most) of the differences between violence against male homosexuals and non-heterosexual women. I will use this theory in order to investigate whether violence against non-heterosexual women is located at the intersection of homosexuality and gender. The theory of American philosopher Martha Nussbaum (1995) about (sexual) objectification op humans by other humans will be discussed next.

Nussbaum (1995) describes objectification as an affair in which “one is treating as an object what is really not an object, what is, in fact, a human being” (Nussbaum, 1995, p. 257). She suggests that the following seven notions are involved in the idea of objectification: (1) Instrumentality: The objectifier treats the object as a tool of his or her purposes. (2) Denial of Autonomy: The objectifier treats the object as lacking in autonomy and self-determination. (3) Inertness: The objectifier treats the object as lacking in agency and perhaps also in activity. (4) Fungibility: The objectifier treats the object as interchangeable (a) with other objects of the same type, and/or (b) with objects of other types. (5) Violability: The objectifier treats the object as lacking in boundary-integrity, as something that is permissible to break up, smash, break into. (6) Ownership: The objectifier treats the object as

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something that is owned by another, can be bought or sold, etc. (7) Denial of Subjectivity: The objectifier treats the object as something whose experiences and feelings (if any) need not to be taken into account (p.257). In summary, to objectify a person is to treat this human being in one or more of these ways. Langton (2009) added three more notions to the ones established by Nussbaum, namely: (8) Reduction to body: the treatment of a person as identified with their body, or body parts, (9) Reduction to appearance: the treatment of a person primarily in terms of how they look, or how they appear to the senses, (10) Silencing: the treatment of a person as if they are silent, lacking the capacity to speak.

The majority of theorists, for example MacKinnon, an American radical feminist, consider objectification as something immoral or wrong. However, Nussbaum argues that objectification can be benign or even positive. The context is incredibly important to our understanding of

objectification. Objectivity is negative when it occurs in a situation without equality, respect and consent. This criterion will be considered when I use this theory to analyze violence against non-heterosexual women in this thesis.

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Chapter 3: Methodology

In this chapter I will dive deeper into the methodology of this research. I will describe exactly what I did and why I did it. I will talk about my position as a researcher, describe the research process and I will present my research group. I will also reflect on methodological shortcomings and important considerations in this chapter. By doing this, it will be possible for the reader to follow my train of thought, understand my personal attitude about the subject and have a complete insight in the research process.

3.1 Transparency

I believe it is very important to be transparent about my own background and my personal interest in the research topic. As a feminine presenting lesbian feminist living in Amsterdam, violence against non-heterosexual women in Amsterdam is a topic that is very personal and emotional to me. My interest in this topic emerged from my own experiences. When I tried to find research on this topic, I was not satisfied with what I found. Therefore, I wanted to investigate violence against

non-heterosexual women further. The fact that I am part of my own research population shapes the way I conducted this research. My own experiences shaped the way I conducted the interviews and interpreted the stories of the women I interviewed. This made an “objective” approach impossible. In the interviews, there was no clear distinction between the researcher and the researched. However, this position gave me the ability to “read between the lines”, because I recognized a lot of situations all too well. I did not put words in their mouth, of course, but I think my own experiences gave me the ability to get to the bottom of certain topics.

3.2 Operationalization Key Concepts: Non-heterosexual Women and Violence

It is also important to discuss and operationalize key concepts in my thesis. This research focuses on the violence that is committed against non-heterosexual women. It is reasonable to wonder: what exactly is violence, who is a woman and who is non-heterosexual? Those categories are hard to define and the definition might differ for certain people. In the introduction I briefly introduced those terms. In this section I will elaborate on my decisions, because the language in this thesis is important; it matters what words I choose.

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Non-heterosexual Women

In this research I am interested in the violent experiences of women who are romantically or sexually interested in other women: I will call them “non-heterosexual women”. As I briefly mentioned in Chapter 1, I define a non-heterosexual woman as any person who identifies as a woman and who does not consider herself heterosexual. Talking about heterosexuality, bisexuality and homosexuality is very tricky. By categorizing sexuality like this, it immediately implies that there are only two

genders and that one is either a man or a woman who is attracted to men and/or women. Social categorization of people in science is often contested because it is difficult to decide who has the requirements to fit into one or the other category. Still, it is important to demarcate my research group. Even when categories are socially constructed and the borders are rather vague, the reality of people is different based on which category can potentially fit into. The hetero-homo dichotomy might be artificially constructed, but the violence people encounter in their lives because they can fit into that homosexual box is very real. The same goes for the gender binary. One may, and should, argue that men and women are not really that different from each other after all, however, sexism is a real problem. This leads us to the first decision I had to make: what makes someone a woman, a lesbian or a bisexual and who is included in this research?

The words “lesbian” and “bisexual” are oversimplifications of sexualities. Using the more inclusive word non-heterosexual takes into account this complexity. Non-heterosexual can be considered an umbrella term that includes a wide variety of sexual identities. The downside of this term is that it perhaps reinforces the sexuality binary and puts emphasis on the normalization of heterosexuality and the deviant position of everyone who not identifies as such. On top of that, the question can be asked whether all non-heterosexual women have the same experiences with

violence. For example, do lesbian identified women have the same experiences as bisexual identified women or does this make a difference? Also, it can be argued that transgender women experience different forms of violence than cisgender women. Still, I chose to use “non-heterosexual women” to describe my research group because I wanted the term to be as inclusive as possible. In this study, I chose to include people who identify as women and non-heterosexual. Since this study is explorative in nature, I did not think it was necessary to decide who is and who is not woman or

non-heterosexual enough to participate in a study about non-non-heterosexual women. I chose to accept and appreciate diversity of the people that were willing to talk to me and to accept the methodological issues that this diversity might cause. However, my research sample ended up rather homogeneous as will become clear in section 3.4. This makes generalizing results of this study easier for that particular population.

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Violence

What is the distinction between violence and non-violence? It is vital to decide how to define violence and what forms violence can take. I will try to give insight in the process of deciding what I consider violence and what I considered non-violence in my thesis. What first comes to mind when thinking about violent situations are perhaps the situations that caused severe physical damage to a person. However, if there is no physical harm and so no discrete act of violence performed by one body upon another, does it not count as violence? I feel uncomfortable with the claim that only physical harm qualifies as violence. Even though the focus on interpersonal physical violence is critical to ensure the immediate safety of individuals, it undermines the way structural,

institutionalized, mental or psychological maltreatment of individuals affect the quality of their lives. I was inspired by the model of Yep (2002) in which individual; exterior-individual; interior-collective and exterior-interior-collective violence is used to describe a wide range of violence against non-heterosexual people. This model not only focuses on physical violence, but also on discursive, internalized and institutional violence. In this thesis, violence is defined as: experiences that have a negative impact on physical and/or psychological well-being. In the interviews, I explained what forms of violence I wanted to research. Then, I asked the question: “If you think about violence against non-heterosexual women in you own life, what comes to mind? Also think about situations that bother you or limit you in your daily practices.”

3.3 Research Methods

This study is explorative in nature, because there is not much literature on the experiences of non-heterosexual women, let alone non-non-heterosexual women in Amsterdam. Therefore, I wanted to investigate the topic as open-minded as possible. I followed the vision of grounded theory. This means that I wanted the research question to serve to identify the phenomenon of interest. This was a challenging task, because naming and categorizing a group of people (“lesbians”, “bisexuals”, “non-heterosexuals”) and using the term “violence” already shows assumptions about the topic. It is impossible to ask a question without making assumptions. However, I attempted to remain at a descriptive level and use the research question to identify the phenomenon.

I came into contact with the women by asking my personal contacts, by posting messages in several Facebook groups and by posting a message on a forum for lesbian women. I actively

approached everyone who was tagged in the reactions of the posts and women who liked my posts. Some women approached me via email or WhatsApp. In total, I conducted nine interviews.

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To investigate the violence that the women experience, I chose to do semi-structured interviews. In this way, I could capture verbal and non-verbal cues and explore the topic thoroughly beyond the surface of their responses. I chose to do this because the research conducted by Schuyf and Felten (2011) about violence against lesbian and bisexual women taught me that the women only brought up certain topics when the interviewers specifically asked for it or when they were forced to think about violent situations for a while. I used a topic list to guide the conversation, see Appendix B. Yet, I wanted the interviews to give new insights, so I tried to be flexible and to pick up on topics the women raised. I encouraged the women to talk about their experiences freely, while asking questions such as “what do you mean by that?”, “when exactly did this happen” and “can you recall his exact words?” Each of these stories contributed to my understanding of the phenomenon and each interview shaped the next interview and changed my interpretation of the previous.

The environment in which an interview is conducted is very important when talking to people about sensitive and personal issues. Therefore, I let the women choose an ideal interview location. I suggested several locations and made sure they picked their favorite location to speak to me. Eight out of nine interviews were conducted at a café somewhere in Amsterdam. Most women preferred to meet in a neutral environment, but one woman preferred to meet at her home. I arrived at the cafes at least 30 minutes early to pick a quiet spot and set up the perfect environment for a personal conversation. I wanted to build trust before the interview. In the interviews that took place at a café, I bought the women coffee (or something else they preferred) and I always tried to have a casual chat before the interview.

Ethical considerations and Anonymity

Before the interview, the women read an information sheet and signed the informed consent, see Appendix A. In the information sheet, information about the research was presented in an

understandable way. I asked for permission to audio record the interview. In order to safeguard the anonymity of the women, I generated nine random names (“Random name generator”, n.d.). I put them in alphabetical order and linked them to interview 1 to 9, see Table 1.

3.4 Research Sample

A total of nine women were willing to talk to me about their experiences of violence in Amsterdam. Most of the women I interviewed were between 18 and 25 years old. I only interviewed one woman of 45 years old. They were all cisgendered, feminine presenting, able-bodied, Dutch and white. Some of them had a religious background. However, none of them were actively practicing their religion.

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Eight of the women were or had been studying at the University. One of them completed intermediate vocational education.8_{Three women finished or were currently working on their}

bachelor’s degree, four women were doing their Master’s degree and one woman completed her PhD. Four women identified as lesbian or homosexual. Two women identified as bisexual. One girl identified as queer. The others said they sexuality did not fit into a rigid category. They were not necessarily “doing” femininity in the traditional way (having long hair, applying make-up, doing nails etc.), but all of the women realized that they were probably perceived as “feminine” by others, especially by heterosexual men. The women were currently in a relationship or had been in a relationship with other women (or a non-binary person) before.

Table 1. Information Research Sample

Generated Names Age Educational Level Sexuality9

Amanda 24 Currently: Master’s Degree “bisexual, I guess”

Anne 25 Obtained: Bachelor’s Degree “lesbian, but complicated”

Gloria 23 Obtained: MBO “lesbian”

Jessica 23 Currently: Master’s Degree “don’t like labels, but I like women so Much more and couldn’t be in a relationship with a man” Kelly 26 Currently: Master’s Degree “lesbian”

Lillian 21 Currently: Bachelor’s Degree “queer” Norma 20 Currently: Bachelor’s Degree “bisexual” Pamela 25 Obtained: Master’s Degree “homosexual”

Rachel 45 Obtained: PhD “homosexual”

3.5 Data Analysis

I recorded the interviews and transcribed them afterwards. As I described before, I used a grounded theory approach. In grounded theory, data is constantly compared to the data analysis and the results. I started by coding the transcribed interviews. I coded them by hand.

8_{Middelbaar Beroepsonderwijs (MBO) in Dutch.}

9_{These are the answers the women gave to the question: “how would you define your sexual}

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The interviews were conducted in Dutch, therefore I had to translate interesting quotes from Dutch to English. I tried to capture the meaning of the quote rather than literally translate what the women said.

3.6 Strengths and Shortcomings

The main strength of this research is that it sheds light on a group, non-heterosexual women, that is normally overshadowed in research about anti-gay violence. Because I conducted interviews, it was possible for the voices of the women to be heard. Additionally, because my research group ended up to be homogeneous, it is possible to see certain patterns and draw conclusions that can be

generalized to a larger population, namely: non-heterosexual cisgendered, white women who present themselves in a way that is considered feminine.

The heterogeneity of the research sample is a weakness at the same time. It is impossible to say something about other non-heterosexual women. However, I hope research about those groups will be carried out in the future.

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Chapter 4: Homosexuality in Amsterdam

4.1 Introduction

I conducted all of the interviews in Amsterdam, the capital of The Netherlands. In this chapter I will describe the context in which violence against non-heterosexual women can be placed. Amsterdam is an interesting city to conduct this research, because since the 1970s the city has a worldwide reputation of tolerance and open-mindedness about homosexuality (Hekma & Duyvendak, 2006). Still, homosexuals face violence in Amsterdam on a regular basis. AmsterdamPinkPanel found that 25% of the LGBT-community in Amsterdam experienced a violent situation in 2016 (COC Amsterdam & UvA, 2017). Since Amsterdam is the capital of The Netherlands I will start with a brief overview of the development of a more liberal sexual moral in The Netherlands. Thereafter, I will narrow it down to a discussion of the current climate in Amsterdam. In this way, the discussion of the context starts broad and eventually narrows down to the specific context in which this research can be placed. In this chapter I aim to answer the sub question: how can violence against non-heterosexual women be understood in a tolerant city?

4.2 The Rise of Liberal Sexuality in The Netherlands

Since the 1970s, the Netherlands became known as one of the most liberal countries with regard to sexuality and sexual politics. Partly, the liberal sexual culture of The Netherlands could be attributed to the political culture that is based on the separation of state and church. This principle states that religious institutions and the Dutch state do not interfere with each other. In The Netherlands, the law has the highest authority. This means that one is free to do whatever they want, as long as it is not in conflict with the law. This is also the case for religion. One is still free to express their religion as long as it does not violate the law. The same applies for sexuality; one is free to express sexuality as long as it is does not violate the law. This law protects sexual minorities from being treated unequally on religious grounds.

Interestingly, around the 1970s, The Netherlands transformed from a conservative religious country to a country that was more secular and with more liberal views on sexuality (Hekma & Duyvendak, 2006). From that time, the idea that homosexuality is a sin, evil or an illness gradually started to change (Hekma & Duyvendak, 2006). Until the 1960s, The Netherlands was organized into separate “pillars”. All citizens were members of distinct community: Roman Catholic, Protestant or Humanist. These communities, pillars, all had their own schools, churches media and culture. Eventually, the Dutch became more and more secular during this period and the religious pillars and

As long as I can watch : violence towards non-heterosexual women in Amsterdam