Viveka Enander

Why Does She Leave? The Leaving Process(es) of Battered Women

In this article, the authors present the main findings from a qualitative study of processes undergone by women who have left abusive male partners. Three overlapping leaving processes are described: Breaking Up, Becoming Free, and Understanding. Breaking Up covers action (i.e., the physical breakup), and the turning point by which it is preceded or with which it coincides is analyzed. Becoming Free covers emotion and involves release from the strong emotional bond to the batterer, a process that entails four stages. Understanding covers cognition, and is a process in which the woman perceives and interprets what she has been subjected to as violence and herself as a battered woman.

Self-reported exposure to intimate partner violence among women and men in Sweden: Results from a population-based survey

BackgroundFew population-based studies assessing IPV among randomly selected women and men have been conducted in Sweden. Hence, the aim of the current study was to explore self-reported exposure, associated factors, social and behavioural consequences of and reasons given for using psychological, physical and sexual intimate partner violence (IPV) among women and men residing in Sweden.MethodsCross-sectional postal survey of women and men aged 18–65 years. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were used to identify factors associated with exposure to IPV.ResultsPast-year IPV exposure rates were similar in women and men; however, earlier-in-life estimates were higher in women. Poor to moderate social support, growing up with domestic violence and being single, widowed or divorced were associated with exposure to all forms of IPV in men and women. Women and men tended to report different social consequences of IPV.ConclusionsOur finding that women reported greater exposure to IPV earlier-in-life but not during the past year suggests the importance of taking this time frame into account when assessing gender differences in IPV. In-depth, qualitative studies that consider masculinities, femininities power and gender orders would be beneficial for extending and deepening our understanding of the gendered matter of IPV.

Violent Women? The Challenge of Women's Violence in Intimate Heterosexual Relationships to Feminist Analyses of Partner Violence

The aim of this paper is to describe the academic discussion on gender symmetry, emphasizing the responses of feminist researchers to the questions raised by reports of womens violence against men in intimate relationships. The article serves as an introduction to an academic debate that has been lively in the United States and, to some extent, in Great Britain, but hitherto not in the Nordic countries. The author argues that the discussion on gender symmetry shows that the domestic violence field is ready for multi-faceted analyses of gender and violence that make it evident that all violence is gendered.

Theoretical Considerations on Men’s Experiences of Intimate Partner Violence: An Interview-Based Study

This study aims at exploring and interpreting men’s experiences of intimate partner violence (IPV) in the light of selected current theoretical contributions to the field, with an emphasis on Michael P. Johnson’s violence typology. The material consisted of twenty interviews with men who self-identified as having been subjected to IPV. Men generally did not consider physical violence to be threatening when it was perpetrated by women. They were also not subjected to the multiple control tactics that define the intimate terrorism category of Johnson’s violence typology, lending support to the argument that women’s and men’s experiences of IPV differ in opposite-sex relationships. Furthermore, our findings encourage the integration of structural inequalities related to gender and sexuality in analyses of men’s experiences of IPV.