Dear Colleagues,

Within academic literature, there is a long-term (see Steinmetz, 1977 for a discussion of husband battering) and sizeable debate about the applicability of gender and power as a means of understanding the violence that occurs in heterosexual relationships. Named the “gender symmetry debate”, many arguments are based largely on data collected through the use of the Conflict Tactics Scale, which report that both women and men in heterosexual relationships engage in the use of violent and abusive acts at equal or near equal rates (for example, Stets and Straus, 1990). On the basis of these findings, some researchers have concluded that abuse and violence are not a problem of men’s aggression toward women, but mutual as male and female partners are violent to each other (Straus, 2011) and that women’s violence toward their male partners has been ignored (Besthorn, St. George, & Wulff, 2014; George, 2007; Graham-Kevan, 2007). In response, others—largely feminist theorists and researchers have consistently maintained that violence against women is a result of gender inequality and patriarchal norms and that women’s use of violence against male partners is motivated by self-defense, fear, and retaliation, with only a minority of women using violence as a means of control (see Swan & Snow, 2006).

Understanding the violence and abuse that occurs within same-sex relationships has not been fully included in these debates, and in turn, knowledge generated about the use of power and control within same-sex relationships (see Giorgio, 2002 for definitional hegemony) has not been integrated into analyses of heterosexual relationships (Baker et al., 2012). Due to a growing belief that women and men are mutually violent, men increasingly make claims to victim status (Allen-Collinson, 2009; Boonzaier, 2008; Corbally, 2014) and, in Western nations, changes to services and policies have been proposed to accommodate these experiences (Hester, 2012; Stanley et al., 2012). The Special Issue on violence against women invites publications that propose new and innovative approaches to understanding the meanings and roles of gender and power in explorations of women’s use of violence against both female and male partners, yet also emphasizes that women continue to experience violence, not only due to gender discrimination, but also due to racism, heterosexism, colonialism, disabilism, classism, ageism, etc. For example, what is the role and meaning of gender and power in situations in which women are violent toward their male and female partners? Are situations in which women are violent toward men examples of crimes that should be dealt with individually or instances of systematic oppression of women toward men? Is there a notion of domination or entitlement (akin to patriarchy) by which women as a group can be said to access as a source of power and control in their intimate relationships—in both same-sex and heterosexual relationships?

Further, debates about the relevance of gender to understanding violence are mainly based on evidence from high-income Western countries (Krahé, Bieneck, & Möller, 2005). Outside of Western jurisdictions, there is now a global movement against gender-based violence wherein men are often described as perpetrators (Krahé et al., 2005). In contrast, Western discourses increasingly describe intimate partner violence as bidirectional and the result of individual pathology (Adelman, Haldane & Wies, 2012). Although quantitative surveys demonstrate that IPV occurs across international jurisdictions, efforts to understand these results and compare rates across national boundaries are hampered by these very different conceptualizations (Krug et al., 2002). Accordingly, the Special Issue invites papers that explore the above questions concerning the complexity of violence against women and women’s use of violence. These papers should be grounded in an understanding of local cultural norms and gender relations. In this manner, the Special Issue will enable a collective description of how these patterns vary across diverse cultural groups and national contexts.

Prof. Judy Hughes
Guest Editor

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References:

Adelman, Madelaine, Hillary Haldane, and Jennifer R. Wies. “Mobilizing Culture as an Asset a Transdisciplinary Effort to Rethink Gender Violence.” Violence against Women 18, no. 6 (2012): 691–700.

Allen-Collinson, Jacquelyn. “A marked man: Female-perpetrated intimate partner abuse.” International Journal of Men’s Health 8, no. 1 (2009): 22–40.

Baker, Nancy L., Jessica D. Buick, Shari R. Kim, Sandy Moniz, and Khristina L. Nava. “Lessons from examining same-sex intimate partner violence.” Sex Roles 69, no. 3–4 (2013): 182–92.

Besthorn, Fred H., Sally St. George, and Dan Wulff. “A Postmodern Critique of Societal Discourses of Male Violence in Interpersonal Family Relationships: A Balancing Act for Social Work.” Journal of Progressive Human Services 25, no. 3 (2014): 163–80.

Boonzaier, Floretta. “‘If the man says you must sit, then you must sit’: The relational construction of woman abuse: Gender, subjectivity and violence.” Feminism & Psychology 18, no. 2 (2008): 183–206.

Corbally, Melissa. “Accounting for Intimate Partner Violence: A Biographical Analysis of Narrative Strategies Used by Men Experiencing IPV From Their Female Partners.” Journal of interpersonal violence (2014): 0886260514554429.

George, Malcolm J. “The ‘Great Taboo’ and the role of patriarchy in husband and wife abuse.” International Journal of Men’s Health 6, no. 1 (2007): 7–21.

Giorgio, Grace. “Speaking silence: Definitional dialogues in abusive lesbian relationships.” Violence against women 8, no. 10 (2002): 1233–59.

Graham-Kevan, Nicola. “The re-emergence of male victims.” International Journal of Men’s Health 6, no. 1 (2007): 3–6.

Hester, Marianne. “Portrayal of women as intimate partner domestic violence perpetrators.” Violence against women 18, no. 9 (2012): 1067–82.

Krahé, Barbara, Steffen Bieneck, and Ingrid Möller. “Understanding gender and intimate partner violence from an international perspective.” Sex Roles 52, no. 11–12 (2005): 807–27.

Krug, Etienne G., Linda L. Dahlberg, James A. Mercy, Anthony B. Zwi, and Rafael Lozano, eds. World Report on Violence and Health. Geneva: World Health Organization, 2002.

Stanley, Nicky, Benedict Fell, Pam Miller, Gill Thomson, and John Watson. “Men’s Talk Men’s Understandings of Violence against Women and Motivations for Change.” Violence against women 18, no. 11 (2012): 1300–18.

Steinmetz, Suzanne K. “The battered husband syndrome.” Victimology 2, no. 3–4 (1977): 499–509.

Stets, Jan E., and Murray A. Straus. “Gender differences in reporting marital violence and its medical and psychological consequences.” In Physical Violence in American Families. Edited by Murray Arnold Straus and Richard J. Gelles. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1990, pp. 151–80.

Straus, Murray A. “Gender symmetry and mutuality in perpetration of clinical-level partner violence: Empirical evidence and implications for prevention and treatment.” Aggression and Violent Behavior 16, no. 4 (2011): 279–88.

Swan, Suzanne C., and David L. Snow. “The development of a theory of women’s use of violence in intimate relationships.” Violence against Women 12, no. 11 (2006): 1026–45.

• violence against women
• gender; masculinity
• international perspectives
• gender-based violence
• power
• control