Kristin L. Anderson

GENDERING VIOLENCE Masculinity and Power in Men's Accounts of Domestic Violence

This article examines the construction of gender within mens accounts of domestic violence. Analyses of in-depth interviews conducted with 33 domestically violent heterosexual men indicate that these batterers used diverse strategies to present themselves as nonviolent, capable, and rational men. Respondents performed gender by contrasting effectual male violence with ineffectual female violence, by claiming that female partners were responsible for the violence in their relationships and by constructing men as victims of a biased criminal justice system. This study suggests that violence against female partners is a means by which batterers reproduce a binary framework of gender.

Religious Involvement and Domestic Violence Among U.S. Couples

A small but growing literature focuses on the links between religion and family violence. Several recent studies report that regular religious attendance is inversely related to abuse among both men and women. After outlining a series of theoretical arguments regarding possible direct and indirect links between religious involvement and domestic violence, we analyze these relationships using data from Wave 1 of the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH-1). Among the key findings: (1) regular religious attendance is inversely associated with the perpetration of domestic violence; (2) among men, this protective effect is evident only among weekly attenders, whereas among women, the protective effect also surfaces among monthly attenders; (3) although the estimated net effects of religious attendance are generally somewhat larger in models of self-reports of domestic violence, this link also remains strong and statistically significant in models of partner reports of violence; and (4) moreover, the inverse association between religious attendance and abuse persists even with statistical controls for measures of (a) social integration and social support, (b) alcohol and substance abuse, and (c) low self-esteem and depression. We conclude by discussing a number of implications of these findings, and by identifying several promising directions for future research.

Race/Ethnicity, Religious Involvement, and Domestic Violence:

The authors explored the relationship between religious involvement and intimate partner violence by analyzing data from the first wave of the National Survey of Families and Households. They found that: (a) religious involvement is correlated with reduced levels of domestic violence; (b) levels of domestic violence vary by race/ethnicity; (c) the effects of religious involvement on domestic violence vary by race/ethnicity; and (d) religious involvement, specifically church attendance, protects against domestic violence, and this protective effect is stronger for African American men and women and for Hispanic men, groups that, for a variety of reasons, experience elevated risk for this type of violence.

Gendering Coercive Control

This article examines the theory of gender presented in Stark’s Coercive Control: How Men Entrap Women in Personal Life. Stark suggests that gender is a form of structural inequality that makes women more vulnerable than men to the strategies of coercive control. However, Stark assumes rather than demonstrates that gendered structural inequality increases women’s vulnerability. In this article, the author applies the multilevel theory of gender as identity, interaction, and social structure to document the multiple ways coercive control is gendered. The author argues that, to understand the gender dynamics of coercive control, researchers must examine the interactions across levels of gender. The author concludes with an assessment of the prospects and pitfalls of applying the concept of coercive control to renew the feminist social movement to end domestic violence.

Who Gets Out? Gender as Structure and the Dissolution of Violent Heterosexual Relationships

This article applies a structuralist perspective on gender to investigate predictors of marital dissolution among men and women who are victimized by partner violence. Using panel data from the first and second waves of the National Survey of Families and Households, the study investigates the question of whether the differential positioning of heterosexual women and men in the structure of gender inequality affects their likelihood of getting out of two types of violent relationships—those characterized by minor/symmetrical violence and those characterized by severe/asymmetrical violence. Results indicate that the odds of leaving a violent relationship are affected by some indicators of structural gender inequality, particularly economic dependency, and that there are differences in the factors that predict dissolution between the two types of violence.

Victims’ Voices and Victims’ Choices in Three IPV Courts

Critics of mandatory interventions for intimate partner violence (IPV) propose that the justice system disempowers victims by denying them voice and choice in legal proceedings. This exploratory study examines this claim through observations of three criminal courts. Findings show that victims are offered voice and a degree of choice in only one of the three courts. Court procedures that enhance victim voice and choice include a specialized IPV court, victim advocates trained in victims’ rights issues, and a lead judge who models respectful treatment of victims. The author proposes that voice and choice are distinct aspects of victim empowerment and that the provision of voice may have benefits to IPV victims that are distinct from the benefits of choice.