Is domestic violence due to sexism

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Is domestic violence due to sexism?

• Ilga Vossen
• Kai Epstude
• Caroline Kamau
• Nathalie Delacollette
• Thomas Schubert
• Emanuele Castano
• Richard Felson

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Empirical Evidence

• Gender inequity perceptions (Bryant, 2001)
• Male privilege and family collusion (Hammer,
  2000)
• Labour Market and compensation for lost
  masculinity (Alder, 1997)
• Further reference e.g. Fawcett et al. (1996)
  for review

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Model of sexism and domestic violence
Patriarchy
Male gender development Beliefs in
masculinity Reinforced masculine behavior
Dominance in relationships
Domestic Violence when dominance is challenged
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Components of the model

• Patriarchy as inherent in societal culture
• gender development during childhood and
  adolescence
• the instilling of masculinity beliefs through
  socialization
• Social learning viz. behaviorism male/violent
  behavior is positively reinforced
• Dominance in marital or quasi-marital
  heterosexual relationships
• Challenging of male dominance by female
  insubordination contributes to domestic violence

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Study testing the model

• Correlational study in which the dependent
  variable is the incidence of domestic violence
  and in which the predictors are
• Patriarchy belief and approval of the
  patriarchal nature of society
• Sexism belief that men and women are unequal
• Social learning background of the reinforcement
  of sexism/sexist behavior
• Masculinity/dominance in relationships sexist
  behavior

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• Sample of representative or random couples.
• Male participants all measures
• Female participants measure on the incidence of
  domestic violence to corroborate their spouses
  self reports

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Analysis

• Hypothesis The incidence of domestic violence
  will be predicted by the interaction between
  patriarchy, sexism, sexist behavior
  reinforcement, masculine dominance in
  relationships.
• Data would be treated by ensuring that reports of
  domestic violence tally between the spouses.
• Analysis would be by multiple regression.
• It is predicted that the variance in the DV will
  be significantly accounted for by the interaction
  between the IVs (it is proposed that in excess
  of 75 of the variance will be accounted for)

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Further research

• Longitudinal studies to test the proposed model
• Cross-cultural studies of matriarchal or else
  varying levels of patriarchy
• Meta-Analyses of existing research supporting the
  sexism claim

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Is violence against women always caused by sexism?

• Most violent men are not specialized in violence
  against women.
• Men are most violent outside domestic contexts.
• Heterosexual and homosexual couples do not differ
  in amount of violence.
• ...

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Issues to be studied to investigate sexism
argument

• If sexism is the cause of violence against women
  then there should also be more violence against
  sisters (at least during adolescence).
• Violence should also be more highly correlated
  with other hostile acts against women compared to
  hostile acts against other men.

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Relation between sexism and domestic violence
against women

• Traditional men should be more violent against
  their female partners than
• against strangers (during a verbal fight)
• non-traditional men
• But they are not. Why?
• Chivalry Norm to protect and not attack women
  (similar to benevolent sexism Glick Fiske,
  1999)

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Relation between sexism and domestic violence
against women

• Benevolent sexism may seem positive, but in fact
  treats women as less competent than men.
• Benevolent sexism often related to hostile sexism
  (derogation of women not conforming to the
  traditional norm)
• Hostile sexism dark side of chivalry?

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• If women violate gender norms they will be a
  target of hostile sexism.
• Traditional men will be more likely to use
  violence against their female partner if she does
  not conform to the norm (i.e. the norm of
  chivalry doesnt apply anymore).
• Women most likely to break the norm are usually
  non-traditional.

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Traditionality, gender and fights
lt
lt
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• possible explanations
• parsimoneous attitude dissimilarity breeds
  conflict
• but conflict is not violence! possible model

nontraditional men in total less likely to use
violence, but for any reason
attitude dissimilarity
conflict
violence
traditional men when traditional gender role
expectations are violated, chivalry does not
apply anymore
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Study idea

• scenario study describing women violating norms
• design
• 2 (traditional men vs. nontraditional men,
  between) x
• 2 (traditional female target vs. nontraditional
  female target, within) x
• 2 (violated norm related to traditional gender
  norm or not)

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• dependent variables proxies to the use of
  violence
• what would the man in the scenario do?
• describe the mans violent reaction, ask if they
  could accept it

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Operationalization of traditional men
traditional men
Hostility
Ambivalent sexism inventory (Glick Fiske)
non-traditional men
Benevolence
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Operationalization of non-traditional women and
violated norms

• profession
• hobbies
• pictures (clothes, haircut)
• violated traditional gender norm
• going on holidays with her girlfriends
• getting very drunk

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main hypothesis (3way interaction!)

• only traditional men punish gender norm
  violations harder than violations of other norms
• only traditional women get a chivalry
  protection only from traditional men only when
  they break non-gender norms

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feel free to ask questions ...