Key challenges of feminist approach to measure, understand and prevent violence against women

• In Event: WCCJ Panel 8 – Measurement and Technology in Domestic Abuse

Abstract

Violence against women is a serious violation of human rights and public health. According to estimations by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, almost 60% of the 87,000 women who died from intentional homicide in 2017 were killed by their intimate partners or family members. Feminist research was a major milestone in this topic, playing a significant role in bringing attention to a neglected and scarcely researched problem until the mid-70s. It also provided many tools to improve how we understand its multiple and more invisible dimensions, its systemic nature, and how we should prevent the problem. Among the contributions of feminist scholars was the shift from an individual pathological problem to a structural one, particularly focusing on the cultural dimension. Social norms and gender roles embedded in power asymmetries in society are decisive in identifying, explaining, and preventing violence against women.

The goal of this presentation is to discuss the challenges of the feminist approach, particularly how the focus on culture has significant consequences in four key aspects regarding the problem of violence against women. First, in terms of the capacity to define, identify, and measure violence suffered by women with relative clarity, consistency, and utility in terms of diagnosis and explanation. Second, how this definition affects the diagnosis in terms of violence asymmetry between both sexes. Third, how culture and more specifically gender norms and patriarchal values have a decisive role in explaining violence suffered by women and what are its potential limitations. Finally, the relevance and efficacy of modifying these patriarchal values and norms for the prevention of violence against women.

Authors

• Nicolas Trajtenberg, University of Manchester

• Olga Sanchez de Ribera, University of Manchester

• Emiliano Rojido, Laboratório de Análise da Violência, Universidade Estadual do Rio de Janeiro