Challenging the gendered approach to men’s violence towards women

Up until the 1970s, intimate partner violence (IPV) was routinely ignored in Britain, the United States and Canada, unless it has escalated to homicide; Dutton (2006a) labelled this the “age of denial” (p.16), here the sanctity and privacy of the home was valued and to be upheld. However, when Erin Pizzey opened the first women’s shelter in 1971 for women who were escaping abusive relationships, a research movement began to explore men’s violence against women. What followed was the development of a gendered model of IPV. Proponents of the gendered, or feminist, model (e.g., Dobash & Dobash, 1979, 2004) posit that IPV is an asymmetrical problem of men’s violence towards women, with gender ascribed as a causal factor. The violence exhibited is constructed as an extension of the domination and control of wives by their husbands. This male privilege and control narrative has exerted considerable influence since the 1970’s and deserves considerable credit for the influence it has had politically and in terms of awareness raising; however, it might now be argued to be in danger of offering a one size fits all response to what is clearly a complex social problem. The fixation on gender as central no longer accounts for a number of contemporary research findings (see Bates, Graham-Kevan & Archer, 2014) and thus is potentially holding back our understanding of IPV.