Socio-Cultural Contexts for Normative Gender Violence: Pathways of Risk for Intimate Partner Violence (original) (raw)
Related papers
Intimate partner violence: A test of cultural spillover theory
Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 2019
Cultural spillover theory asserts that the prevalence of socially legitimate violence to attain ends for which there is widespread social approval is part of the explanation for the prevalence of illegitimate violence. This study was a test of the cultural spillover theory as it applies to intimate partner violence (IPV). Based on data from the International Dating Violence Study (IDVS) in 32 countries, we tested the proposition that agreement with socially approved forms of violence “spills over” into violence against an intimate partner. Two versions of an index to measure legitimate violence were constructed: (a) An individual-level legitimate violence index based on the beliefs and behavior of 14,252 university students in 32 nations in the IDVS and (b) a nation-level legitimate violence index consisting of the mean of the student scores on the legitimate violence index for each of the 32 nations in the IDVS. We used the revised Conflict Tactics Scales to obtain the data on physical violence and injuries inflicted by the students in the IDVS. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test the hypothesized relation of the individual student legitimate violence index to IPV. Socioeconomic status, limited disclosure scale, respondent’s age, and length of the relationships were included as covariates. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to further investigate the associations between legitimate violence index obtained from the aggregated student data and the nation-level IPV, controlling for the gross domestic product (GDP) index and limited disclosure scale. Both individual- and nation-level analyses consistently supported cultural spillover theory’s explanation of IPV. The association between legitimate violence and IPV at both levels of analysis was stronger for women than men, which is consistent with some previous studies. The results suggest that reducing legitimate violence can make an important contribution to reducing IPV.
A cross-national analysis of physical intimate partner violence against women
2010
This study investigates the cross-national correlates of intimate partner violence against women with a sample of 40 developed and less developed countries. Specifically, we analyze physical intimate partner violence against women during the 12 months prior to data collection, using data from nationally representative surveys. In the process, we examine the evidence for three explanations we discern from the literature: empowerment of women, cultural context (i.e. religion, institutions), and globalization. The results of our analyses provide strong support for the empowerment of women explanation, which draws from feminist concerns regarding socioeconomic status of women, and reveal some effect of cultural context and globalization. Female labor force participation in non-agricultural sectors and women's secondary school enrollment decrease the likelihood of intimate partner violence while increasing total fertility rate signals more partner violence. Religious fractionalization and dependence on high-income countries as export partners also increase the likelihood of intimate partner violence against women.
Family Structure and Family Violence
Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, & Conflict, 2008
This chapter examines evidence from a number of studies relating to the question of what kinds of family structures promote or inhibit either violent or nonviolent relations.
2016
ory and social –learning theory, previously not studied in this context. Furthermore, findings from this study show that several individual- level correlates (depressive symptoms, PTSD symptoms, borderline personality traits and stressful conditions), and relationship – level correlates (communication problems, conflict, jealousy, dominance and relationship commitment) jointly with socio-cultural correlates (changes in values and gender roles, tolerant attitudes toward violence and adherence to patriarchal norms) appeared to be significantly associated with IPV (physical, psychological and sexual violence) among university students, compatible with findings from other studies using the same measures and same samples of students. Besides, findings show that there is overlap between IPV victimization and perpetration correlates. Conclusively, findings from this study provide evidence for applicability of western models of IPV to diverse cultural settings. As such, they provide number ...
Increasing Rejection of Intimate Partner Violence: Evidence of Global Cultural Diffusion
American Sociological Review, 2013
This study extends existing world society research on ideational diffusion by going beyond examinations of national policy change to investigate the spread of ideas among nonelite individuals. Specifically, I test whether recent trends in women’s attitudes about intimate partner violence are converging toward global cultural scripts. Results suggest that global norms regarding violence against women are reaching citizens worldwide, including in some of the least privileged parts of the globe. During the first decade of the 2000s, women in 23 of the 26 countries studied became more likely to reject intimate partner violence. Structural socioeconomic or demographic changes, such as urbanization, rising educational attainment, increasing media access, and cohort replacement, fail to explain the majority of the observed trend. Rather, women of all ages and social locations became less likely to accept justifications for intimate partner violence. The near uniformity of the trend and spe...
Culture, Gender, and Men's Intimate Partner Violence
Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2008
This article reviews research on cultural beliefs and expectations about gender and romantic relationships that are related to male intimate partner violence. We link beliefs about men (manhood is tenuous and must be proven, men must protect women, and honor must be defended), about women (good women put sacrifice and family loyalty first and good women are morally and sexually pure), and about relationships ( jealousy is a sign of passionate love) to show how they create a cultural context in which intimate partner violence is tolerated, accepted, or rejected. We end by discussing avenues for future research that take an expansive approach to examining culture's influence on intimate violence.
Social Sciences
To discuss the cultural roots of violence against women (VAW), this study focuses on individual gender norms, prescriptive gender role expectations, moral justification of VAW, and institutional gender norms that define gender cultures, that provide opportunities for VAW, and legitimize roles and behaviors. We used indicators of gender norms related to VAW from different sources to provide an overview of 12 countries (Armenia, Cyprus, Czechia, Germany, Greece, The Netherlands, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Turkey, and Ukraine). The indicators include individual gender role attitudes and justification of wife beating from the World Values Survey; information on national legislation and institutional discrimination from the Social Institution Gender Index from the OECD; and each country’s position on the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence—a transnational platform with relevant transformative power that has been op...
The Journal of HARM, 2023
Most international violence research that are firmly rooted in the ontology and cultural background of individualism make rash generalisations about violence and human nature by taking the examples of self and gender concepts in Western settings as the only reference point for their claims. Based on the understanding of self in Western cultures, many social psychological studies have over the years blamed interpersonal violence, including intimate partner violence (IPV), on perpetrators' self-image. For example, while some studies indicate that people with low self-esteem are more likely to turn violent in order to gain esteem, others have theorised that individuals with inflated (high) self-esteem are more susceptible to use violence, particularly when the inflated self is threatened in interpersonal relationships. A growing body of interdisciplinary scholarship also traces the aetiology of IPV and the propensity for men to commit violence against women to the internalisation, endorsement and enactment of culturally defined male gender role. Despite the valuable contributions of these studies, there are significant challenges inherent in research that make broad universal claims about self and violence at the expense of culture and context. One of the most important phenomena that seems underexplored, overlooked or neglected in the context of violence research is how culture-specific notions of personhood and masculinity shapes male-perpetrated IPV. In this article, I explore the centrality of context and culture-specificities of personhood and masculinity in understanding maleperpetrated IPV. I discuss how the dialogical relationship between men's psychological sense of who they are (personhood) and cultural notions of masculinity provides new insights for understanding violence research in context. I argue that, rather than a threat to a person's dispositional self, the social pain of unfavourable third-party communal evaluations of masculine inadequacy threatens a man's relational sense of personhood, and consequently provoke the use of violence towards the source of the threat in intimate relationships in Ghana.
BMC Public Health, 2011
Background: Intimate partner violence (IPV) against women is a global public health and human rights concern. Despite a growing body of research into risk factors for IPV, methodological differences limit the extent to which comparisons can be made between studies. We used data from ten countries included in the WHO Multi-country Study on Women's Health and Domestic Violence to identify factors that are consistently associated with abuse across sites, in order to inform the design of IPV prevention programs. Methods: Standardised population-based household surveys were done between 2000 and 2003. One woman aged 15-49 years was randomly selected from each sampled household. Those who had ever had a male partner were asked about their experiences of physically and sexually violent acts. We performed multivariate logistic regression to identify predictors of physical and/or sexual partner violence within the past 12 months. Results: Despite wide variations in the prevalence of IPV, many factors affected IPV risk similarly across sites. Secondary education, high SES, and formal marriage offered protection, while alcohol abuse, cohabitation, young age, attitudes supportive of wife beating, having outside sexual partners, experiencing childhood abuse, growing up with domestic violence, and experiencing or perpetrating other forms of violence in adulthood, increased the risk of IPV. The strength of the association was greatest when both the woman and her partner had the risk factor.
A meta-analysis of cross cultural risk markers for intimate partner violence
Aggression and Violent Behavior, 2016
The majority of IPV research has originated from western countries and neglected to examine cultural influences. We meta-analyzed the strength of various well-established risk markers (demographic, individual-level and relational) for male-perpetrated IPV across different cultures. Using Hofstede's (2010) individualism scale, we grouped studies from countries into individualist and collectivist categories, and then accounted for the influence of the large number of U.S.-based studies, by creating 3 groups: U.S., Individualistic, and Collectivist. Risk markers across collectivist and U.S. groups had similar effect sizes across while risk markers in the U.S. had larger effect sizes than those found in the international individualist countries. Our findings suggest that if a comprehensive understanding of IPV perpetration is to be achieved, cultural context cannot be ignored.