Question

• Discuss the extent to which one of the following intersects with domestic violence: gender; sexuality; race; socioeconomic status; and/or education.

Answer 1

• Women’s economic status is linked to domestic violence in three primary ways. First, although domestic violence occurs across socioeconomic classes, poorer women are more likely to be survivors of domestic abuse than wealthier women, both due to contextual (e.g. neighborhood) and
  individual (e.g. male employment instability) factors.
• Second, women who are economically dependent on their abusers are less able to leave and more likely to return to abusive partners. Further, the degree of women’s economic dependence on an abuser is associated with the severity of the abuse they suffer. Greater economic dependence is associated with more severe abuse.
• Third, economic abuse is in itself a form of domestic abuse since abusive partners may act in ways that harm women financially and undermine their ability to become financially independent. Examples of economic abuse include limiting women’s access to funds and undermining their ability to gain employment or attend school.
• Low-income women are often trapped in abusive situations by a lack of financial resources; raising the minimum wage and the tipped minimum wage would benefit millions of low-wage workers, the majority of whom are women.
• Domestic violence is a main cause of homelessness for women and families, either when women are forced to flee a relationship or when they are evicted from their homes because of the abuse perpetrated against them. This is even truer for poor women due to a lack of safe and affordable housing options and housing assistance, as well as discrimination against survivors.
• Class does not appear, however, to be strongly related to women’s likelihood of becoming a victim of men’s violence. Australian data from the International Violence Against Women Survey, for example, indicated that levels of education were little different between women who had experienced physical or sexual violence and those who had not. The survey also found that victimisation differed little between working and non-working women, or with household income.
• The strongest predictors include: having attitudes condoning violence, rigid gender-role ideology, hostility, having a history of violence and drug/alcohol abuse.
• Other research suggests that men’s use of violence is linked to demonstrations of masculinity. This differs with class resources, such that men with fewer conventional markers of status (such as education and employment) may be more likely to use violence as a marker of power and control.