551530 research-article2014
VAWXXX10.1177/1077801214551530Violence Against WomenRenzetti
Editorial
Editor’s Introduction
Violence Against Women 2014, Vol. 20(8) 903–904 © The Author(s) 2014 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1077801214551530 vaw.sagepub.com
This issue of the journal includes two articles that focus on violence against women in India. First, Sharmila Lodhia provides an analysis of the cyber and media discourses promulgated by the men’s rights movement in India. She shows how men’s rights groups construct their claims that legislation designed to protect women from men’s violence are “gender-biased” and harmful not only to individual men but also destructive to Indian families. Ironically, these groups draw on a human rights discourse to challenge the laws. Lodhia includes powerful images in her article to illustrate the discourses, reminding us of how even modest gains for victimized women can be quite threatening to the men who victimize them, and consequently fuel a vociferous backlash against feminism. In one example in her article, Lodhia quotes a man who claimed that the violence he perpetrated against his wife was not abuse; it was only a much-needed and routine correction for her misbehavior. In their article, Brenna Rabel, Solveig Argeseanu Cunningham, and Rob Stephenson report that many of the women in their study seemed to readily disclose incidents of minor intimate partner violence (IPV), and they hypothesize that this willingness to disclose is due to the fact that such abuse is a common and culturally supported dimension of marriage in India. Rabel and her colleagues analyzed data from the 2005-2006 National Family Health Survey in India to determine if interview interruption during data collection was related to disclosure of IPV. The researchers expected that interruptions would impede disclosure, but the data indicate that those women whose interviews were interrupted by an adult man or woman were significantly more likely to report IPV than those women whose interviews were not interrupted. Rabel et al.’s analysis raises important methodological issues for violence against women research, particularly cross-cultural studies. Adam Messinger, Deborah Fry, Vaughn Rickert, Marina Catallozzi, and Leslie Davidson report on their test of Michael Johnson’s IPV typology applied to an adolescent sample. Messinger et al. used a sample of female high school students to look at the key predictors of IPV in Johnson’s typology, but extended the typology with relationship-level variables. Their analysis shows that although adolescent IPV shares some similarities with adult IPV, the two patterns also significantly differ, and adding the relationship-level typology is useful in discerning the unique aspects of the adolescent IPV pattern. Rose Grose and Shelly Grabe are also concerned with improving our ability to explain IPV. In their study of the IPV experiences of adult women in Nicaragua, they found that of the array of variables used to predict victimization, measures of the level of power and control in the relationship had the strongest predictive power for
904
Violence Against Women 20(8)
explaining the violence. Grose and Grabe discuss the importance of their findings for research and practice, particularly the explanatory value of feminist psychology. David Nguyen and Michele Parkhill turn our attention to men who perpetrate sexual assault. As Nguyen and Parkhill note, previous studies of sexual assault perpetrators have identified several risk factors, including negative attitudes toward women, impersonal sex, experiences of childhood sexual abuse, involvement in delinquent behavior, low empathy, and alcohol use. The researchers added attachment insecurity and depression among perpetrators to test the confluence model of sexual assault perpetration. Their analysis shows that both attachment insecurity and depression contribute in unique ways to sexual assault perpetration severity. Nguyen and Parkhill discuss the implications of their findings for interventions with men who are at high risk for sexual assault perpetration. Allison Towns and Gareth Terry bring us full circle, in a sense, with their article that examines obstacles to men’s willingness to intervene in incidents of IPV. The themes they identify are not unlike many of the comments of the men quoted by Lodhia in the first article in this issue. Specifically, Towns and Terry report that the men in their study drew on notions of “mateship” to explain their (un)willingness to intervene in IPV incidents. They expressed concerns about becoming the targets of retaliatory violence, but they also emphasized that some contemporary discourses on violence against women impugn the moral integrity of all men and many were quick to note the culpability of women in IPV incidents. Although the men in Towns and Terry’s study were less blatantly hostile than the men in Lodhia’s study, their statements nevertheless have the ring of the backlash discourses identified by Lodhia. Claire M. Renzetti Editor
VAWXXX10.1177/1077801214551530Violence Against WomenRenzetti
Editorial
Editor’s Introduction
Violence Against Women 2014, Vol. 20(8) 903–904 © The Author(s) 2014 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1077801214551530 vaw.sagepub.com
This issue of the journal includes two articles that focus on violence against women in India. First, Sharmila Lodhia provides an analysis of the cyber and media discourses promulgated by the men’s rights movement in India. She shows how men’s rights groups construct their claims that legislation designed to protect women from men’s violence are “gender-biased” and harmful not only to individual men but also destructive to Indian families. Ironically, these groups draw on a human rights discourse to challenge the laws. Lodhia includes powerful images in her article to illustrate the discourses, reminding us of how even modest gains for victimized women can be quite threatening to the men who victimize them, and consequently fuel a vociferous backlash against feminism. In one example in her article, Lodhia quotes a man who claimed that the violence he perpetrated against his wife was not abuse; it was only a much-needed and routine correction for her misbehavior. In their article, Brenna Rabel, Solveig Argeseanu Cunningham, and Rob Stephenson report that many of the women in their study seemed to readily disclose incidents of minor intimate partner violence (IPV), and they hypothesize that this willingness to disclose is due to the fact that such abuse is a common and culturally supported dimension of marriage in India. Rabel and her colleagues analyzed data from the 2005-2006 National Family Health Survey in India to determine if interview interruption during data collection was related to disclosure of IPV. The researchers expected that interruptions would impede disclosure, but the data indicate that those women whose interviews were interrupted by an adult man or woman were significantly more likely to report IPV than those women whose interviews were not interrupted. Rabel et al.’s analysis raises important methodological issues for violence against women research, particularly cross-cultural studies. Adam Messinger, Deborah Fry, Vaughn Rickert, Marina Catallozzi, and Leslie Davidson report on their test of Michael Johnson’s IPV typology applied to an adolescent sample. Messinger et al. used a sample of female high school students to look at the key predictors of IPV in Johnson’s typology, but extended the typology with relationship-level variables. Their analysis shows that although adolescent IPV shares some similarities with adult IPV, the two patterns also significantly differ, and adding the relationship-level typology is useful in discerning the unique aspects of the adolescent IPV pattern. Rose Grose and Shelly Grabe are also concerned with improving our ability to explain IPV. In their study of the IPV experiences of adult women in Nicaragua, they found that of the array of variables used to predict victimization, measures of the level of power and control in the relationship had the strongest predictive power for
904
Violence Against Women 20(8)
explaining the violence. Grose and Grabe discuss the importance of their findings for research and practice, particularly the explanatory value of feminist psychology. David Nguyen and Michele Parkhill turn our attention to men who perpetrate sexual assault. As Nguyen and Parkhill note, previous studies of sexual assault perpetrators have identified several risk factors, including negative attitudes toward women, impersonal sex, experiences of childhood sexual abuse, involvement in delinquent behavior, low empathy, and alcohol use. The researchers added attachment insecurity and depression among perpetrators to test the confluence model of sexual assault perpetration. Their analysis shows that both attachment insecurity and depression contribute in unique ways to sexual assault perpetration severity. Nguyen and Parkhill discuss the implications of their findings for interventions with men who are at high risk for sexual assault perpetration. Allison Towns and Gareth Terry bring us full circle, in a sense, with their article that examines obstacles to men’s willingness to intervene in incidents of IPV. The themes they identify are not unlike many of the comments of the men quoted by Lodhia in the first article in this issue. Specifically, Towns and Terry report that the men in their study drew on notions of “mateship” to explain their (un)willingness to intervene in IPV incidents. They expressed concerns about becoming the targets of retaliatory violence, but they also emphasized that some contemporary discourses on violence against women impugn the moral integrity of all men and many were quick to note the culpability of women in IPV incidents. Although the men in Towns and Terry’s study were less blatantly hostile than the men in Lodhia’s study, their statements nevertheless have the ring of the backlash discourses identified by Lodhia. Claire M. Renzetti Editor
