524047
research-article2014
VAWXXX10.1177/1077801214524047Violence Against WomenEditorial
Editorial
Editor’s Introduction
Violence Against Women 2014, Vol. 20(2) 139–140 © The Author(s) 2014 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1077801214526962 vaw.sagepub.com
The five articles in this issue of Violence Against Women focus on intimate partner violence (IPV). Soma Chaudhuri, Merry Morash, and Julie Yingling apply the concept of the patriarchal bargain to interpret their findings from a study of recent South Asian immigrant women to the United States. They compare the experiences of immigrant women who have been abused by their husbands with the experiences of immigrant women who report they have not been abused. Chaudhuri et al. point out that women in both groups exercise agency within the constraints of patriarchal culture and family relationships. They are willing to negotiate these constraints, however, in order to achieve their goals, which revolve around their desires to be more financially secure and to raise children in a financially and emotionally stable family environment. But for many of the women in the study, the patriarchal constraints were extreme and involved violence inflicted by their husbands and, not infrequently, by their in-laws. Chaudhuri et al. discuss the women’s efforts to address the abuse, many of which were unsuccessful, although some women, who sought help from advocates, especially advocates familiar with these cultural and familial constraints, were able to leave the abusive relationship, or less often, to get the abuse to stop. Jeffrey Ackerman and Tony Love present their analysis of National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) data to explore the question of whether there are ethnic group differences in police notification following incidents of IPV. Similar to other researchers, Ackerman and Love found that members of racial and ethnic minority groups were more likely to notify the police than whites were. But their analysis does not stop there; they also examined the influence of socioeconomic status on likelihood of notifying the police of an IPV incident. They report that socioeconomic differences between minorities and whites explain a significant amount of the variation in reasons for the observed racial/ethnic notification differences. Consequently, they argue convincingly that a structural, rather than cultural, explanatory framework best accounts for racial/ethnic differences in reporting IPV to the police. Michael Johnson is perhaps best known for his typology of IPV (see, for example, Johnson, 2008). In his article in this issue with Janel Leone and Yili Xu, Johnson points out that a serious error in many large, general IPV surveys is that they focus on data regarding current spouses, which most likely uncover primarily situational couple violence and very little intimate terrorism (the most severe IPV). Johnson et al. analyze data from the National Violence Against Women Survey (NVAWS) focusing on ex-spouses and show that when examining such data, one finds significant and important differences between intimate terrorism and situational couple violence and that these are best explained by feminist theories of IPV.
Downloaded from vaw.sagepub.com at Univ of Connecticut / Health Center / Library on May 11, 2015
140
Violence Against Women 20(2)
Veronique Jaquier and Tami Sullivan also emphasize the importance of examining past abusive relationships. Jaquier and Sullivan recruited more than 200 women who were currently involved with abusive intimate partners. Their focus was on identifying factors that contribute to posttraumatic stress among these women. Not surprisingly, they found that current IPV experiences as well as women’s experiences of abuse and neglect as children were related to the severity of the posttraumatic stress symptoms they were manifesting. But the major finding of this study is that women’s fear of their past abusive partners was in itself a significant contributing factor to the severity of the women’s current posttraumatic stress symptoms. Both Johnson et al. and Jaquier and Sullivan remind us of the need to examine not only current or most recent IPV experiences, but also past IPV experiences in relationships that may have ended long ago, in order to fully understand the consequences of abuse for victims. To conclude this issue, Walter DeKeseredy and Molly Dragiewicz discuss the recent backlash against feminism and, in particular, the anti–violence against women movement, in Canada. DeKeseredy and Dragiewicz offer several examples of how various political entities and economic exigencies have negatively impacted woman abuse research and, even worse, advocacy and services for abused women. Although DeKeseredy and Dragiewicz focus on Canada, their warnings—and their suggestions for how to most effectively respond to the backlash—apply to many other countries as well, including the United States. Claire M. Renzetti Editor Reference Johnson, M. P. (2008). A typology of domestic violence. Boston: Northeastern University Press.
Downloaded from vaw.sagepub.com at Univ of Connecticut / Health Center / Library on May 11, 2015
research-article2014
VAWXXX10.1177/1077801214524047Violence Against WomenEditorial
Editorial
Editor’s Introduction
Violence Against Women 2014, Vol. 20(2) 139–140 © The Author(s) 2014 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1077801214526962 vaw.sagepub.com
The five articles in this issue of Violence Against Women focus on intimate partner violence (IPV). Soma Chaudhuri, Merry Morash, and Julie Yingling apply the concept of the patriarchal bargain to interpret their findings from a study of recent South Asian immigrant women to the United States. They compare the experiences of immigrant women who have been abused by their husbands with the experiences of immigrant women who report they have not been abused. Chaudhuri et al. point out that women in both groups exercise agency within the constraints of patriarchal culture and family relationships. They are willing to negotiate these constraints, however, in order to achieve their goals, which revolve around their desires to be more financially secure and to raise children in a financially and emotionally stable family environment. But for many of the women in the study, the patriarchal constraints were extreme and involved violence inflicted by their husbands and, not infrequently, by their in-laws. Chaudhuri et al. discuss the women’s efforts to address the abuse, many of which were unsuccessful, although some women, who sought help from advocates, especially advocates familiar with these cultural and familial constraints, were able to leave the abusive relationship, or less often, to get the abuse to stop. Jeffrey Ackerman and Tony Love present their analysis of National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) data to explore the question of whether there are ethnic group differences in police notification following incidents of IPV. Similar to other researchers, Ackerman and Love found that members of racial and ethnic minority groups were more likely to notify the police than whites were. But their analysis does not stop there; they also examined the influence of socioeconomic status on likelihood of notifying the police of an IPV incident. They report that socioeconomic differences between minorities and whites explain a significant amount of the variation in reasons for the observed racial/ethnic notification differences. Consequently, they argue convincingly that a structural, rather than cultural, explanatory framework best accounts for racial/ethnic differences in reporting IPV to the police. Michael Johnson is perhaps best known for his typology of IPV (see, for example, Johnson, 2008). In his article in this issue with Janel Leone and Yili Xu, Johnson points out that a serious error in many large, general IPV surveys is that they focus on data regarding current spouses, which most likely uncover primarily situational couple violence and very little intimate terrorism (the most severe IPV). Johnson et al. analyze data from the National Violence Against Women Survey (NVAWS) focusing on ex-spouses and show that when examining such data, one finds significant and important differences between intimate terrorism and situational couple violence and that these are best explained by feminist theories of IPV.
Downloaded from vaw.sagepub.com at Univ of Connecticut / Health Center / Library on May 11, 2015
140
Violence Against Women 20(2)
Veronique Jaquier and Tami Sullivan also emphasize the importance of examining past abusive relationships. Jaquier and Sullivan recruited more than 200 women who were currently involved with abusive intimate partners. Their focus was on identifying factors that contribute to posttraumatic stress among these women. Not surprisingly, they found that current IPV experiences as well as women’s experiences of abuse and neglect as children were related to the severity of the posttraumatic stress symptoms they were manifesting. But the major finding of this study is that women’s fear of their past abusive partners was in itself a significant contributing factor to the severity of the women’s current posttraumatic stress symptoms. Both Johnson et al. and Jaquier and Sullivan remind us of the need to examine not only current or most recent IPV experiences, but also past IPV experiences in relationships that may have ended long ago, in order to fully understand the consequences of abuse for victims. To conclude this issue, Walter DeKeseredy and Molly Dragiewicz discuss the recent backlash against feminism and, in particular, the anti–violence against women movement, in Canada. DeKeseredy and Dragiewicz offer several examples of how various political entities and economic exigencies have negatively impacted woman abuse research and, even worse, advocacy and services for abused women. Although DeKeseredy and Dragiewicz focus on Canada, their warnings—and their suggestions for how to most effectively respond to the backlash—apply to many other countries as well, including the United States. Claire M. Renzetti Editor Reference Johnson, M. P. (2008). A typology of domestic violence. Boston: Northeastern University Press.
Downloaded from vaw.sagepub.com at Univ of Connecticut / Health Center / Library on May 11, 2015
