NCJ Number
190135
Journal
Violence Against Women Volume: 7 Issue: 7 Dated: July 2001 Pages: 732-759
Date Published
July 2001
Length
28 pages
Annotation
This review of 11 studies of the prevalence of violence against women in 9 European countries, conducted between 1986 and 1997, focused on their research goals, methodology, and salient findings.
Abstract
The countries involved were the Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, England and Wales, Switzerland, Ireland, Iceland, Portugal, and Germany. Prevalence research in Europe has been increasing, as have efforts to capture the experience of gender-based violence more accurately. Even crime surveys have worked to encourage reporting and have broadened their scope to include impact and outcomes, intimidation and threats, and elements of context. Social research studies have modified and added items to include psychological and sexual violence and indicators of patriarchal dominance. The influence of American family violence research can be seen in the method of offering lists of behavioral acts, but there has been a trend to specify these and distinguish experiences of violation from acts that are not threatening. Apparently, addressing women specifically attains higher rates of response and of reporting. Findings from this review indicated that in all the countries and regions examined, violence against women persisted, and women seemed increasingly willing to name their experiences as criminal assaults. Nonetheless, underreporting was still widespread, especially with respect to current partners and more severely abused women. Research on the prevalence of violence in relationships was repeatedly confounded with the study of gender differences in aggression. Until this confusion is reduced, the information on women's coping strategies (such as calling police, legal redress, and separation) and on the desistance of aggression or violence will have only limited value. Without empirically validated measures of the severity of violence and the mutuality of aggression in various forms, it is premature to draw conclusions on risk markers from statistical correlations. Better distinctions must be drawn and operationalized between cultural and individual habits of interaction and forms of domination, intimidation, and inflicting or risking injury or harm. 1 table, 10 notes, and 49 references