Men's violence against
women:
What supports it,
what might prevent it
Jeff Hearn, AcSS,
Linköping University; Hanken School of
Economics, Helsinki; University of
Huddersfield, UK
Profeministimiehet
hearn@hanken.fi
1st Prevention of Violence against
Women Conference, Copenhagen,
September 2008
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'Men's violence against women'
Men's
violence against
(known) women:
What
supports it?
What might prevent it?
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'Men's violence against women'
Men's violence against
women: What is it?
physical & sexual violence, emotional,
psychological and sexual degradation,
rape, sexual assault, incest, sexual
coercion, homicide, damaging property
& pets, pornography, prostitution, war,
trafficking …
 minimal or extensive & life threatening
 one-off or persistent, sporadic, constant
 more or less damaging
 random or highly systemmatic
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'Men's violence
against women'& child abuse
 violence against
women,

 What
supports it?
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'Men's violence against women'
SOME TENDENCIES ...
not to gender men, to avoid naming men, doing the
violence, as men
 deny and minimise men’s violence
 define violence in narrow ways that limit it to physical
violence of certain kinds
 see men’s violence as primarily individual problem
 see men’s and women’s violence as symmetrical
 explain violence in ways that ’excuse’ men
 separate violence off from the rest of social life
 see current social relations between men and women
as ‘natural’

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'Men's violence against women'
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Presentation based on various researches
ESRC research: interviews with 75 men
Diverse sources, inc. 3 men’s programmes
Accounts of violence
Questionnaire on coping-social support
100+ agency contacts: police, doctors,
prosecution, men’s programmes etc.
Also other research on violence for: EU,
Council of Europe, UNICEF, Nordic Council of
Ministers, Sexual Violence Research Initiative,
Academy of Finland
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Some problems of gendering ...
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in the defining of such violence
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in the naming of such violence
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in the understandings and
explanations of such violence
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'Men's violence against women'
Women’s (who have experienced violence) views on violence
 forms separate or merged
 Physical and Threats
 Sexual – sexual assault; coercive/pressurised sex
 Emotional/Verbal/Psychological – psychological degradation;
complete obedience; undermining; humiliation
 Economic/Nutrition - access to money, paid work, food
 Reproductive/Medical – forced abortion; attacking whilst
pregnant; forced having of children
 Social – controlling friends, visiting, telephoning
 Spatial, Temporal – control of movement, time, friends
 Representational
[How] … violence and abuse suffuse every aspect of women’s lives
makes it difficult for women to emerge from abusive systems of
social relations
(Jalna Hanmer in Violence and Gender Relations, Sage, 1996)

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'Men's violence against women'
Men’s (who have used violence) views on violence
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men doing violence tend to focus overwhelmingly on physical
violence, separate violence off from the rest of life. Violence
constructed in relation to threats of physical violence or as if
‘incidents’ of physical violence. Generally constructed as:
physical violence that is more than a push – holding, restraint,
use of weight/bulk, blocking, throwing (things and the woman)
often excluded
 legal convictions for physical violence
 physical violence that causes or likely to cause damage, visible
or considered physically lasting
 physical violence that is not seen as specifically sexual; sexual
violence is seen as separate
 separation of violence against women, and child abuse
(Jeff Hearn The Violences of Men, Sage, 1998)

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'Men's violence against women'
Naming …
Domestic violence
 Spousal violence, conjugal violence
 Wife battering, wife beating
 Intimate partner violence
 Family violence
 Men’s violence to known women,
… and so on

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”Gender (a)symmetry”
problem
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Claims of gender symmetry in domestic violence made, sometimes noisily;
many draw on the quantification of acts of assault, especially Fiebert’s
(1997) review. Over l00 studies suggested men and women use ‘force’ with
partners in roughly equal numbers, at least in younger couples
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Many use Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS), critiqued for failure to contextualise
violence, attend to meanings of violence, differentiate quantification with
sufficient accuracy or consider differential damage from violence
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2001 British Crime Survey: half of the men reporting “domestic violence”
sustained “no injury” from the “worst incident” (Walby and Allen 2004: 48)
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Est. 3/4ths of women’s violent acts are in self-defence (Kimmel 2002)
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Men use overwhelming majority of planned, instrumental,
repeated, heavy, physically damaging, non-defensive, nonretaliatory, sexual and multiple forms of violence
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Explanations
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Individual (male) psychologies
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Socialisation experiences (of boys & men)
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Sub-cultures (of men)
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Societal (patriarchal) structures
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'Men's violence against women'
Location:
The privacy of the home …
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“The safest place for men is the home,
the home is, by contrast the least safe
place for women.”
(Susan S.M. Edwards Policing “Domestic”
Violence, 1989: 214)
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'Men's violence against women'
Walby & Myhill, drawing on
international research, summarised
risk factors of ’Domestic Violence’:
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previous domestic assault
‘minor’ violence predicting escalation to major violence
separation (women separating from their partner at much
greater risk than other marital statuses)
gender inequality in relationships, including men’s patriarchal
attitudes and marital inequalities
poverty and social exclusion
women’s employment status
pregnancy
ill health and disability
violence in family of origin/witnessing violence/criminal career
co-occurence of child abuse
age, i.e. youth
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'Men's violence against women'

”I’m not a violent man ...”

Just ...
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'Men's violence against women'

”I wasn’t violent, but she used to do my
head in that much. I picked her up
twice and threw her against the wall,
and said ’Just leave it’. That’s the only
violence I’ve put towards her. I’ve never
struck a woman, never, and I never will.
... When I held her I did bruise her
somewhere on the shoulder, and she
tried making out that I’d punched her,
but I never did. I never to this day
touched a woman.”
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'Men's violence against women'
What
might prevent it?
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'Men's violence against women'
EU CAHRV Reports (website)
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Humphreys, C./ Carter, R. et al. (2006): The justice system as an arena for
the protection of human rights for women and children experiencing
violence and abuse
Martinez, M./ Schröttle, M. et al. (2006): State of European research on the
prevalence of interpersonel violence & its impact on health & human rights
Schröttle, M./ Martinez, M. et al. (2006): Comparative reanalysis of
prevalence of violence against women and health impact data in Europe obstacles and possible solutions.
Hanmer, J./ Gloor, D./ Meier, H. et al. (2006): Agencies and evaluation of
good practice: domestic violence, rape and sexual assault
Puchert, R./ Busche, M. et al. (2006): Protective environmental factors
securing Human Rights. A literature review
Puchert, R./ Busche, M. et al. (2006): Protective environmental factors
securing Human Rights. Structured map of literature
Hearn, J./ Novikova, I. et al. (2007): Methodological Framework Report
Martinez, M./ Schröttle, M. et al. (2007): Perspectives and standards for
good practice in data collection on interpersonal violence at European level
http://www.cahrv.uni-osnabrueck.de/
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women-centred services (e.g. women’s refuges,
rape crisis centres, incest survivors groups)
criminal justice system reforms
safer housing alternatives
income support for women and children
inter-agency policy development & co-ordination
education, training and publicity
recognition of differences, inc. services for black
and minority ethnic women, lesbians, women
with disabilities
attempts to create safer public spaces
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'Men's violence against women'
Prevention by changing …
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Male self
Men’s personal, intimate & sexual relations
Men’s family/household relations
Men in groups, men’s support for men
Men through education
Men in agencies, workplaces, organisations
Men by campaigns and public politics
Men through anti-poverty and inequalities
Men in societal structural relations
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'Men's violence against women'
Men’s programmes
The question “what’s the problem with
addressing men’s practices?” needs to be brought
into policy analysis
 Requires engagement with critical studies of men
and men’s practices
 Men’s programmes one of few agencies and
interventions specifically aimed at reducing or
stopping men’s violence to women
 Men often remain absent from social problemfocused services, policy formation and evaluation
 While such programmes address men’s practices,
that in itself is no guarantee of effectiveness

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'Men's violence against women'
In this context …
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Council of Europe (2002: 12) has
recommended that “(m)ember states
organise intervention programmes
designed to encourage perpetrators of
violence to adopt a violence-free
pattern of behaviour by helping them to
become aware of their acts and
recognise their responsibility.”
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The longest evaluative research, planned over
4 years, by Gondolf found mixed results
 Nearly half (47 per cent) of the men (both
completers and non-completers) used
violence during the first 30 months
 Only 21 per cent of men were reported by
their partner to have been neither verbally or
physically abusive in the period

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'Men's violence against women'

Tolman and Bennett (US) found 60 % of men
who complete programmes not physically
assaultive of women after 6 months
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With wide variation in methods and
approaches used, international evidence on
their effectiveness is such that
programmes cannot be evaluated or
recommended in general
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US National Institute of Justice (2003)
summarised international evaluation research
 The lead author Shelley Jackson writes:
“Early evaluations consistently found small
program effects; when more methodologically
rigorous evaluations were undertaken, the
results were inconsistent and disappointing.
Most of the later studies found that treatment
effects were limited to a small reduction in
reoffending, although evidence indicates that
for most participants (perhaps those already
motivated to change), “batterer intervention
programs” may end the most violent and
threatening behaviors.”

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
In their own research they found no
significant differences between men who
battered in the men’s programme and the
control group in one case. In the other case
men completing the 8-week programme
showed no differences from the control
group, but men completing the 26-week
programme had significantly fewer official
complaints lodged against them than the
control group, but no significant change in
attitudes towards domestic violence.
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Priority measures in developing
programmes include:

Ensuring, highest priority, safety of women and children
victims, through contact between the programme staff
and the women and staff working with them; such
professional contact is especially important when the
man is living with or in contact with the woman
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Not avoiding the legal consequences of criminal
behaviour; linking programmes to court-mandating; not
replacing legal sanctions
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Work in cooperation/coordination with programmes
dealing with protection of women, inc. women victims’
assessments in evaluations of men’s programmes
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Clear principles in programmes, including recognition
men’s violence to women
is much about power &
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control, in context of
dominance
'Men's
violence against women'

Recognising men responsible for their violence within
gender power analysis
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Examining effectiveness of programmes, & whether
effectiveness justifies the cost; need to recognise
problems in conducting comprehensive, long-term
evaluations of new programmes
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Resourcing of programmes must not divert funding from
women’s projects and services
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Improve programmes, including co-leadership by women
and men, full training of leaders, gender power analysis
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Great attention to risk assessment & selection; such
programmes unlikely effective for most dangerous men
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Recognition of dangers in overstating effectiveness
claims, in offering false
partners, ex-partners
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Jeff Hearn
violence
against
women' plans on that basis
and affected parties'Men's
who
may
make
Impact of lower household income, financial
difficulties of households, women’s, and
children’s, poverty, and women’s lower
employment status upon men’s violence
 To chart risks does not mean that violence is
only by men with less financial resources; it is
spread across all sectors and classes
 Does not suggest excuses, justifications or
simple causes and effects
 Yet men’s violence may link with economic and
material circumstances; these, along with
changing patriarchal practices and attitudes and
family/marital inequalities, need to be addressed
in policies and strategies against men’s violence

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In Societies at Peace Howell and Willis posed
the question: what can we learn from
peaceful societies?
definition of masculinity had a significant
impact on men’s propensity towards violence
in societies in which men were permitted to
acknowledge fear, levels of violence lower
in societies where masculine bravado,
repression & denial of fear was defining
feature of masculinity, violence likely higher
Where bravado prescribed for men,
definitions of masculinity and femininity very
highly differentiated
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Some ways forward …
gender the men, name men, doing the violence, as men
 recognise, not deny and minimise, men’s violence
 define violence broadly; not only limit it to physical
violence of certain kinds
 see men’s violence as a social, rather than primarily
individual, problem
 see men’s and women’s violence as asymmetrical
 not to explain violence in ways that excuse men; give
responsibility to men
 see the relations of violence with the rest of social life;
 not see the current social relations between men and
women as ‘natural’Please cite if you use. Jeff Hearn

'Men's violence against women'

women’s predictions of risk of violence from
their partners substantially improved
prediction of violence with risk factors
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women’s predictions of risk of violence from
their partners were by themselves better
predictors than several established
psychological risk measures
E.W. Gondolf & D.A. Heckert (2003) in Violence and Victims, 18(4)
D.A. Heckert & E.W. Gondolf (2004) in Journal of Interpersonal
Violence
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Some texts on violence by Jeff Hearn

‘Sex’ at ‘Work’. The Power and Paradox of Organisation
Sexuality, with W. Parkin, Prentice Hall/Harvester
Wheatsheaf/St. Martin’s, 1987/1995.
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Taking Child Abuse Seriously: Contemporary Issues in
Child Protection Theory and Practice, with The Violence
Against Children Study Group, Routledge, 1990.
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The Violences of Men: How Men Talk About and How
Agencies Respond to Men's Violence to Women, Sage,
1998.
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Children, Child Abuse and Child Protection: Placing
Children Centrally, with The Violence Against Children
Study Group, John Wiley, 1999.
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Gender, Sexuality and Violence in Organizations, with W.
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Ending Gender-based Violence: A Call for Global Action
to Involve Men, with H. Ferguson et al., SIDA,
Parkin, Sage, 2001.
Stockholm, 2004.
http://www.sida.se/content/1/c6/02/47/27/SVI34602.pdf
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'Men's violence against women'

Working Against Men’s “Domestic Violence”: Priority Policies
and Practices for Men in Intervention, Prevention and Societal
Change, with S.S.M. Edwards, Council of Europe, 2005.
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European Perspectives on Men and Masculinities: National and
Transnational Approaches, with K. Pringle & CROME, Palgrave
Macmillan, 2006
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Unge, kjoenn og pornografi i Norden – Mediestudier, with A.
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Sex, Violence and The Body: The Erotics of Wounding, edited
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‘The implications of information and communication
technologies for sexualities and sexualised violences’, Political
Geography, 25(8), 2006.
Hirdman, M. Jyrkinen & S. V. Knudsen, Nordic Council of
Ministers, 2007. At:
http://www.norden.org/pub/velfaerd/jamstalldhet/sk/TN20065
44.pdf
with V. Burr, Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
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'Men's violence against women'
Variations in homicide rate
NORWAY 0.95, SWEDEN 1.42, RUSSIA 22
per 100,000 p.a.
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FINLAND
 ‘violence or threats by their ex-partner
had been experienced by 50 per cent of
all women who had lived in a
relationship which had already
terminated’
(Heiskanen and Piispa, 1998, 3)
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 www.who.int/violence_injury_preve
ntion/vaw/infopack.htm
 www.cromenet.org
 www.successunlimited.co.uk/
[Bully Online]
 www.humanrights.coe.int/equality/
 www.unicef-icdc.org/
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