Abstract
National and international quantitative violence studies show that if women are the victims of physical, sexual and/or psychological violence, it is most often a case of domestic violence by intimate partners—in contrast to men, who are more often victims of violence in public spaces at the hands of persons known or unknown to them, particularly at a younger age, up to around 25–30. Both women and men are primarily victims of violence by male perpetrators. Women comparatively rarely act as perpetrators of severe violence.
The present chapter deals with empirical findings on the extent, causes, backgrounds and consequences of violence against women from national and international empirical research particularly focusing on domestic violence. Furthermore, findings on perpetration of intimate partner violence are critically reflected upon. This includes considerations on the research method and its implications for data interpretation and future research. The chapter shows the value and effectiveness, as well as the limitations, of violence prevalence studies, data collection and data comparison from a methodological and gender-critical perspective.
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Notes
- 1.
The number of studies conducted on the prevalence of violence against women has also increased significantly in international terms over the past 10 years. A listing by UN Women shows that by the end of 2012 as many as 99 countries worldwide had conducted research on victimisation of women (cf. UN Women 2013). National and international studies on this issue have also been conducted within European research since 1990 (see e.g. Schröttle and Martinez 2006; EIGE 2012; WHO 2005; FRA 2014).
- 2.
Includes completed forced penetration, attempted forced penetration, completed alcohol/drug facilitated penetration.
- 3.
Includes made to penetrate, sexual coercion, unwanted sexual contact, non-contact unwanted sexual experiences.
- 4.
This has already been documented by large numbers of national and international studies documenting the connection between health and violence in women’s lives. See for an overview: Schröttle et al. (2008).
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- 6.
- 7.
Within the CAHRV-research network for comparative studies it was suggested to include “questions about perceptions of violence, about the understanding of questions, and on norms or opinions about disclosing sexual or intimate partner violence.” (Martinez and Schröttle 2007).
- 8.
The authors of the article suggested survey tools that specifically include questions on taboos and hesitation about talking about violence (within the family) for the European surveys (cf. Martinez and Schröttle 2007: p. 38). However, this suggestion was not pursued within the FRA-survey; thus it cannot be subsequently determined whether the high levels of women affected—for example in the northern European countries as compared with some eastern European states—actually reflect differences in the extent of violence, or merely in disclosure behaviours (cf. FRA 2014).
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Schröttle, M., Vogt, K. (2016). Women as Victims and Perpetrators of Violence: Empirical Results from National and International Quantitative Violence Research. In: Kury, H., Redo, S., Shea, E. (eds) Women and Children as Victims and Offenders: Background, Prevention, Reintegration. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08398-8_18
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