Gender symmetry in prevalence, severity, and chronicity of physical aggression against dating partners by university students in Mexico and USA

Abstract

The paper reports results from analyses of the physical aggression against dating partners by four samples of university students in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Mexican Americans and Non-Mexican Whites in El Paso and Lubbock Texas, and New Hampshire (N=1,544). The percent reporting partner violence (PV) was high in all samples, but also differed significantly between samples. The lowest rate was in New Hampshire (29.7%), followed by Texas, Non-Mexican Whites (30.9%), Texas Mexican American (34.2%), and the highest rate was in Juarez (46.1%). When only severe assaults were compared, the differences between samples was similar, i.e., lowest in New Hampshire and highest in Juarez. In all four samples, there was no significant difference between males and females in either the overall prevalence of physical aggression or the prevalence of severe attacks. Among the 553 couples where one or both of the partners were violent, in almost three quarters of the cases (71.2%) there was gender symmetry in the sense that both partners engaged in this type of behavior. When only one partner was violent, this was twice as likely to be the female partner (19.0%) as the male partner (9.8%). Among the 205 couples where there was an act of severe aggression, symmetry was less prevalent (56.6%), but when only one partner was violent, it was again twice as likely to be the female partner (29.8% female only versus 13.7 male partner only). These results are consistent with the gender symmetry in PV found in many studies. They extend those results by showing that gender symmetry prevails in four different cultural contexts. The presence of gender symmetry in these different cultural contexts, combined with studies showing that women are injured more often and more seriously by partner-assaults, and studies showing that women initiate PV as often as men, suggests that programs and policies aimed at primary prevention of PV by women are crucial to ending PV and for reducing the victimization of men and women.

Testing predictions from the male control theory of men's partner violence

“…Felson and Lane (2010) also observed that offenders who perpetrated IPV were similar to other offenders in terms of their criminal convictions, alcohol use and experiences of previous abuse. Other studies demonstrate that IPV and aggression to same-sex nonintimates share similar risk factors (e.g., Straus & Ramirez, 2007). …”

“…Similarly, Hamel (2007) advocated a "gender-inclusive" approach to IPV, that is, avoiding any preconceptions that it must necessarily be primarily male-to-female, as the male control approaches do. Supporting these views are an extensive range of studies, originally undertaken from a family violence perspective (Straus, 1977(Straus, -8, 1979(Straus, , 1999, showing that women are as likely to be physically aggressive towards their partner as men are, if not more so (Archer, 2000(Archer, , 2002Moffitt, Caspi, Rutter, & Silva, 2001;Straus, 2011;Straus & Ramirez, 2007). Furthermore, these studies usually report both victimization and perpetration, and typically show high correlations between the two measures, indicating a degree of mutuality in IPV (e.g., Carrado, George, Loxam, Jones, & Templar, 1996;Kessler, Molnar, Feurer, & Applebaum, 2001;Straus, 2008Straus, , 2011Straus & Ramirez, 2007).…”

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“…Los resultados obtenidos también ponen de manifiesto la bidireccionalidad de esta problemática, donde tanto chicos como chicas ejercen acoso hacia sus parejas en proporciones similares, apoyando aquellos estudios que describen la violencia entre las parejas jóvenes como un fenómeno bidireccional (Fernández-González, 2013;Straus y Luis, 2007;Straus y Mickey, 2012;Straus, 2004).…”

“…Pero cabe destacar cómo según algunos autores (Fernández-González, 2013) esta regla cambia, encontrándose tasas similares de perpetración y victimización independientes del género. Así pues, en parejas jóvenes, el patrón de agresión podría darse de forma bidireccional (Straus y Luis, 2007;Straus y Mickey, 2012;Straus, 2004). Además, cuando se analiza la relación entre bidireccionalidad y edad, se encuentra que cuanto menor es la edad de los sujetos mayor es la bidireccionalidad y la prevalencia de agresión por parte de la mujer (Archer, 2002en Fernández-González, 2013.…”

Counselors' Attributions of Blame Toward Female Survivors of Battering

“…Other studies suggest that 1.5 million women and 800,000 men report having experienced IPV at some point in their lifetimes (Tjaden & Thoennes, 2000). IPV not only affects married or cohabitating couples; 34% of college students report acts of physical aggression in relationships each year (Straus & Ramirez, 2002). In addition, one-third of high school and college students have experienced some form of IPV, either as perpetrator and/or the victim at least once in their dating history (Fincham et al, 2008).…”