NCJ Number
228680
Journal
Journal of Family Violence Volume: 24 Issue: 8 Dated: November 2009 Pages: 547-558
Date Published
November 2009
Length
12 pages
Annotation
Since India exemplifies a patriarchal system in which women and men are expected to fulfill distinctly different roles from birth, this study surveyed 64 women living in Tamil Nadu, India, in order to test the hypothesis that Indian women are unlikely to label domestic violence as criminal or socially unacceptable, and such women are less likely to seek help than those women who have a negative assessment of domestic violence.
Abstract
As hypothesized, the survey found that women of higher socioeconomic status were both less likely to have a negative perception of domestic violence and were less likely to report or view domestic violence as a problem that impacts women across Indian society. This attitude toward domestic violence was held among the women despite the fact that all but one of the women had experienced some form of domestic abuse within the past year. A woman's ability to recognize her own experience as abuse was directly related to her perception of domestic abuse as a societal problem, as well as to accurately identify the survey descriptions as abuse. This suggests that the cultivation of accurate cultural definitions of domestic abuse across socioeconomic levels in India could change women's views of their experience of intimate partner violence and make it more likely that they would seek help. The 64 women were recruited from both urban and rural areas of Tamil Nadu. All participants were at least 18 years old, were native to Tamil Nadu, and were married (97 percent) or widowed (3 percent) at the time of the survey. The questionnaire addressed demographic characteristics, manifestations of conflict within the marital relationship (Revised Conflict Tactics Scale), and their assessment of the acceptability of 11 acts that involve violence in domestic interactions. 4 tables, 5 figures, and 26 references