But, Who Is the Victim Here? Exploring Judgments Toward Hypothetical Bidirectional Domestic Violence Scenarios

Abstract

Gendered models of abuse describe intimate partner violence (IPV) as unilaterally perpetrated by dominant, aggressive men toward vulnerable women. This unidirectional conceptualization has contributed to a “domestic violence stereotype” which, alongside broader attitudes regarding gender, influences attitudes toward “non-typical” victim and perpetrator groups (e.g., male victims, female perpetrators, those within same-sex relationships), and has significant outcomes for help-seeking decision-making, as well as responses from service providers and the criminal justice system. While prevalence data and research suggest bidirectional violence is in fact the most common pattern, there is still little known about how the stereotypes and attitudes described above manifest in scenarios where both parties occupy “victim” and “perpetrator” labels. The present pilot study therefore asked 178 undergraduate students to allocate “victim” and “perpetrator” labels, and make judgments of severity, resolution, and justice outcomes, toward hypothetical opposite-sex IPV scenarios varying on the proportion of abuse perpetrated by each party, and type of violence. Results showed that participants were infrequently labelled men as “victims,” and women as “perpetrators,” across scenarios. They were also less likely to recommend that the man should call the police. These exploratory results suggest that powerful stereotypes about IPV and gender may serve to influence perceptions of bidirectional violence and point to a need to study this issue in more detail to elucidate the most appropriate way to begin to address these issues.

Third-party perceptions of intimate partner violence victimization in men.

“…Coupled with highly visible examples of gendered understandings of IPV, Hine (2019) held that traditional gender-role stereotypes undoubtedly influence how we perceive IPV. Our findings, and those of others (e.g., Hine et al, 2020) suggest that traditional gender-role stereotypes continue to exert significant influence in both how we perceive others, and how we may perceive ourselves. In holding strong stereotypes, individuals become more susceptible to a wide variety of biases common in social interaction (e.g., confirmation, bandwagon, availability, etc.…”

“…Walker and colleagues’ findings and those of other studies (e.g., Dutton & Nicholls, 2005; Gueta & Shilchove, 2022; Winstok, 2017) detail a variety of gendered stereotypes applied to men who are IPV victims by individuals in their sphere, including friends, family, and social service and court officials. Various findings suggest that violence against men is perceived as less serious by lay third-parties (Felson & Feld, 2009; Hines et al, 2020), by psychologists (Follingstad et al, 2004), and by police (Cormier & Woodworth, 2008); that male victims are conjectured to be responsible for their victimization (Parker et al, 2020); that male perpetrators are rated by third parties as nine times more criminal than female perpetrators (even when controlling for body size and perceived injury; Parker et al, 2020); and that male victims are much less likely than female victims to acknowledge their victimhood, despite meeting well-defined behavioral criteria for victimization (Arnocky & Villancourt, 2014). Regarding Arnocky and Villancourt’s study, paradoxically, men with higher levels of personal IPV victimization history (as measured by the CTS2) were less likely than men with lower victimization to perceive hypothetical IPV behaviors against themselves as abusive, a potential real-world reflection of men’s rejection of the “victim” label.…”

“…In a similar vein, Hine et al (2020) examined third-party use of victim and perpetrator labels in written vignettes of bidirectional physical and psychological IPV in which either a man, a women, or both (equally) engaged in IPV. They hypothesized that a “domestic violence stereotype” (White, 2013) would be evoked in which the “perpetrator” and “victim” labels are explicitly gendered.…”

The Help-Seeking Process in Same-Sex Intimate Partner Violence: a Systematic Review

“…The frequent adoption of a heteronormative conception of IPV further aggravates the invisibility of the problem and the disconnection between help-seekers and sources. Due to the widespread presence of gendered beliefs about violence (Hine et al, 2020b) in the public, in service providers (Freeland et al, 2018), in victims and in perpetrators, situations that do not fit the stereotypical conceptualization of IPV (i.e., a heterosexual man perpetrating physical violence on a heterosexual woman) have a lower chance of the violence being recognized as a problem: this is not an issue in SSIPV alone, but involves male victims (Hine et al, 2020a) and female perpetrators (Freeland et al, 2018;Irwin, 2006) of violence as well, who may not recognize the situation they are in.…”

The Impact of Gendered Stereotypes on Perceptions of Violence: A Commentary

“…These gender roles impact further on our perceptions of bidirectional or mutual violence; this type of violence is reported as being more prevalent than uni-lateral violence (male only or female only; Langhinrichsen-Rohling et al, 2012a). Despite this, service responses and criminal justice agencies typically still work with a model of needing to identify a "perpetrator" and a "victim" (Bates, 2016), and within scenario-based studies where there is a clear use of violence by both parties, people are still reluctant to label it in this way or identify women as perpetrators (Hine, Noku & Bates, 2019).…”