Rejecting biological and essentialist explanations, feminist scholars posit that gender inequality is a driving force behind sexual violence against women. Using an ecological approach, I test for significant associations between national-level gender inequality and intimate partner sexual violence (IPSV). I use multi-level generalized linear modeling to analyze the responses of 9,126 women from 29 countries in the International Dating Violence Study. I find that while controlling for other risk factors, gender inequality is significantly associated with increased odds of having experienced severe, but not minor, forms of IPSV.

Feminist scholars from various social science disciplines posit that gender inequality (GI) is harmful to women’s well-being. Feminist criminologists argue that GI is criminogenic, especially of sexual violence. I apply this framework to a specific form of sexual violence: child sexual abuse (CSA). Using multilevel generalized linear modeling to analyze the responses of 10,106 women from 27 countries in the International Dating Violence Study, I test for significant associations between national-level GI and self-reported retrospective reports of CSA. While controlling for other risk factors, I find that GI is significantly associated with increased odds of having experienced CSA among women.

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