Men's violence against women and men are inter-related: Recommendations for simultaneous intervention (original) (raw)
Related papers
An Explorative Integration of Factors Causing Men’s Violence against Women
Journal of Psychology & Clinical Psychiatry, 2017
The United Nations [1] estimates that one in three women has been beaten or sexually abused in their lifetime and that this violence against women (VAW) is present in both highly developed and less developed countries. While men's VAW is one of our greatest social problems, research on VAW is generally polarized. Psychological research tends to explain violence at the individual level and, therefore, does not explain the social contexts that make violence acceptable to some groups. Meanwhile, feminist-oriented masculinity, based on patriarchal theory and structural relationships, theory can, in some forms, explain the power-relations that induce men to act violently. Yet, without a psychological perspective, we cannot explain why only some men are violent. Within feminist research, the sociological tradition has often emphasized socialization processes that make violence acceptable. Again, without a psychological perspective, however, we cannot explain why some men are violent and others are not; and without a power perspective from masculinity studies, we cannot explain how the underlying mechanisms make such socialization possible. Consequently, Brownridge [2] concludes that despite extensive research, there is currently no single theory that can explain men's VAW. According to Dutton [3,4], the lack of integration between approaches may be due to the fact that feminist scholars-while acknowledging that their research is not monolithic-have mainly studied power and macro-structures and as such have tended to delineate themselves from psychological research that examines offenders suffering from psychological disorders, attachment disorders and shame sensitivity. According to Jordan (2009), those few attempts at integrating research traditions suffer from the fact that they remain disconnected from one other when conducting empirical research. This in turn makes it difficult to unite the different perspectives. Many scholars believe, therefore, that despite great progress in individual disciplines, men's VAW remains as an intractable social problem that requires new approaches that can bridge the lack of integration between disciplines and achieve greater progress in reducing men's VAW. This theoretical work aims to develop new knowledge about how to unite the psychological research (that studies violent men's childhood, the sociological perspective (that studies socialization experiences) with the feminist-oriented masculinity research (that studies how VAW contributes to the reproduction of patriarchal and hegemonic masculinity power structures). This work only study factors that are possible to influence by social interventions and prevention. Genetic, neurochemical and bio-psychiatric factors are therefore excluded. VAW comprises in this paper, only emotional/reactive violence and violence influenced by patriarchal gender constructs. The typologies used here are abstractions and are used as a heuristic device to generate hypotheses that are intended to become concrete in a later research application.
Global Health Action, 2020
Background: Understanding the drivers of intimate partner violence (IPV), perpetrated by men and experienced by women, is a critical task for developing effective prevention programmes. Objectives: To provide a comprehensive assessment of the drivers of IPV. Methods: A comprehensive review of the drivers of IPV, at the end of a six-year programme of research through the What Works to Prevent Violence Against Women and Girls Global Programme with reference to other important research in the field. Results: Broadly, we argue that IPV is driven by poverty, patriarchal privilege, and the normative use of violence in interpersonal relationships. These factors also increase childhood trauma, poor mental health and substance misuse, and poor communication and conflict in relationships, which in turn impact on IPV. Disability status, and contexts of armed conflict, or post-conflict, further reinforce and exacerbate these risks. We move beyond describing associations towards describing the causal pathways through which these factors operate to increase IPV. Conclusions: Specific recommendations about the future of further research on drivers of IPV include a greater focus on understanding the causal pathways from drivers to IPV and clearly delineating association from causality in studies, particularly for women and girls with disabilities, in armed conflicts, and adolescent girls and young women. To achieve this, we recommend extensive in-depth qualitative research, and complex quantitative modeling studies. Understanding drivers and causal pathways better will enable the identification of points of entry for the development of more effective IPV prevention interventions.
Violence perpetrated by and against men and boys is a major public health problem. Although individual men's use of violence differs, engagement of all men and boys in action to prevent violence against women and girls is essential. We discuss why this engagement approach is theoretically important and how prevention interventions have developed from treating men simply as perpetrators of violence against women and girls or as allies of women in its prevention, to approaches that seek to transform the relations, social norms, and systems that sustain gender inequality and violence. We review evidence of intervention effectiveness in the reduction of violence or its risk factors, features commonly seen in more effective interventions, and how strong evidence-based interventions can be developed with more robust use of theory. Future interventions should emphasise work with both men and boys and women and girls to change social norms on gender relations, and need to appropriately accommodate the differences between men and women in the design of programmes.
"Real men don't hit women": Constructing masculinity in the prevention of violence against women
The primary prevention of violence against women (VAW) has become a national and international priority for researchers and policy makers. While optimistic about the potential of the prevention agenda, this paper advances two related critiques of the construction of masculinities within VAW primary prevention in high income countries. The first is that it affords gender norms an unjustified priority over gender inequality as determinants of VAW . The second critique is that the myopic focus of VAW prevention efforts on gender norms results in a "one-dimensional" (Marcuse 1964) view of masculinity. Nationally and internationally prominent VAW prevention activities are grounded in a view of masculinity as a normative phenomenon disembedded from economic and political processes. As the paper argues, such a sanitised and one-dimensional account of masculinity is unable to explicable the practical steps necessary to achieve the aims of primary prevention. The paper argues that primary prevention efforts should be reorientated away from decontextualized and quasi-transcendental accounts of masculinity and towards non-violence as a suppressed possibility within the existing social order, and one that requires economic and political as well as cultural change if it is to be realised.
Are Men Perpetrators of Gender-based Violence? Counseling for Trauma Prevention
There are ample literature and research pointing accusing fingers to men as perpetrators of gender-based violence, and if, men truly are perpetrators of gender-based violence what kind of impact does it have on their psycho-social adjustment to life. In this regard, this paper wishes to explore the different discourses that have been used to position men as perpetrators of gender-based violence, particularly the discourse of patriarchy and masculinity. Accordingly, this paper wishes to portray how these discourses embedded in the processes of socialization have not been favorable to men, thereby invoking men's (including the society at large) consciousness to the danger of using the negative premises of these discourses to position themselves as superiors. The implication of such socialization process is that men as boys learn early to dominate others, leading to varying instances of gender-based violence, which has traumatic impact on them as perpetrators or victims. Based on de facto observation such positioning has in the long run dehumanized men, making them to appear as abusers of others, particularly women and children. Consequently, this paper calls for advocacy counseling intervention paradigm in which evolution of consciousness should be re-engaged as strategy towards promoting the discourse and practice of complementarity. Through evolution of consciousness men will become proactive in deconstructing the superior discourse of masculinity to take up collegiality approach in their day-today relationship with others, resulting to shared mutual respect. In this way, our universe and particularly Africans will reenact the valuable cultural practice of communal interdependence in which 'I am' because 'we are'.
Man to Man Violence: How Masculinity May Work as a Dynamic Risk Factor
The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, 2005
This article presents masculinity as a dynamic risk factor in offences of violence between men. It argues that existing interventions into such violence, in prison, hospital and community settings may be enhanced by incorporating masculinity as a dynamic risk factor alongside other dynamic risk factors such as difficulties in anger management, social skills deficits or problems in moral reasoning. Masculinity is defined as a common denominator of men, as men, across social divisions, as opposed to existing approaches to men's identity, as men, which employ the concept of different 'masculinities' being produced by men in different social positions. The latter approach, while useful in terms of discovering men's personal identity, may be less useful in terms of explaining commonality between men, across other axes of social identity, and consequent broad patterns of violence between men. The development of masculinity as a dynamic risk factor depends on isolating masculinity from other axes of men's identity. It is argued that the individual man may demonstrate his masculinity by two categories of violence to other men: violence which includes victims in the category 'man' as worthy rivals and violence which excludes victims from the category 'man' as unworthy of being there. Masculinity as a dynamic risk factor in man to man violence is developed with particular reference to racism and homophobia.
2022
What are social norms approaches and what does the research say about how these approaches can be used to mobilize more men for violence prevention, gender equality, diversity, justice, and inclusion? This review covers the latest evidence on social norms-focused interventions and provides an overview of how social norms approaches have been used in the context of engaging men, what impact they’ve had, the strengths, gaps, and lessons learned. This is followed by a set of recommendations for using social norms approaches to engage and mobilize men in male-oriented settings to prevent violence and advance gender equality, justice, diversity, and inclusion. For more information on other approaches, review FAQs on the 9 promising approaches for practitioners engaging men in violence prevention and gender equality.