Why do we say domestic abuse is gendered?
Every case of domestic abuse should be taken seriously and each individual given access to the support they need. All victims should be able to access appropriate support.
Whilst both men and women may experience incidents of inter-personal violence and abuse, there are important differences between male violence against women and female violence against men, namely the amount, severity and impact. Women experience higher rates of repeated victimisation and are much more likely to be seriously hurt (Walby and Towers, 2018; Walby and Allen, 2004) or killed than male victims of domestic abuse (ONS, 2023a).
Further to that, women are more likely to experience higher levels of fear and are more likely to be subjected to coercive and controlling behaviours (Dobash and Dobash, 2004; Hester, 2013; Myhill, 2015). It is particularly important to understand that men do not experience domestic abuse as part of embedded, structural inequalities against their sex. For women, however, domestic abuse is deeply rooted in inequalities between women and men. Other forms of inequality (such as racism, ageism, discrimination against disabled women and women who self-define as LGBT+) also intersect with sexual inequality to affect a woman’s experiences of domestic abuse.
Domestic abuse perpetrated by men against women is rooted in women’s unequal status in society and is part of the wider social problem of male violence against women and girls. We found in our research with the University of Bristol that sexism and misogyny set the scene for male abusive partners’ coercive and controlling behaviours. Sexism and misogyny serve to excuse abusive behaviour by men in intimate relationships with women and put up barriers to female survivors being believed and supported to leave abusive men (Women’s Aid et al, 2021). Read the blog about this research here.
The United Nations defines gender-based violence in the following way:
“The definition of discrimination includes gender-based violence, that is, violence that is directed against a woman because she is a woman or that affects women disproportionately. It includes acts that inflict physical, mental or sexual harm or suffering, threats of such acts, coercion and other deprivations of liberty.”
- In the year ending March 2023, data supplied from 28 police forces showed that the victim was female in 73.5% of domestic abuse-related crimes recorded by the police, compared with 26.5% of domestic abuse-related crimes where the victim was male (ONS, 2023a).
- Over 80% (83%) of high frequency victims (more than 10 crimes) are women. (From a study of data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales, a nationally representative household survey) (Walby and Towers, 2018).
- On Track national data [4] relating to female service users shows that the overwhelming majority of the alleged perpetrators are male (94.4% of perpetrators were male) (Women’s Aid, 2024).
- The majority of domestic homicide victims (killed by ex/partner or a family member) for the year ending March 2020 to the year ending March 2022 were female (67.3% or 249 victims) and most of the suspects were male (241 out of 249; 96.8%). In the majority of female domestic homicides, the suspect was a male partner or ex-partner (74.7%), whereas in the majority of male domestic homicides, the suspect was a male family member (66.1%) (ONS, 2023a).
- The total number of women killed by a partner/ex-partner over this three-year period was 186. All of the suspects were male. This means that over a three-year period on average at least one woman a week was killed by a male partner/ex-partner (ONS, 2023a).
- Almost all those convicted for controlling or coercive behaviour in England and Wales in the year ending December 2022 were male – 553 out of 566 (97.7%) (ONS, 2023b). The ONS publication does not give the sex of the victims here, but we know from other research that the majority of victims are likely to be women. A study of Merseyside Police domestic abuse data found that 95% of coercive control victims were women (Barlow et al, 2018).
- One study of crime survey data found that women are far more likely than men to be the victims of coercive controlling behaviour abuse that involves ongoing degradation and frightening threats – two key elements of coercive control. Working within the limitations of the current crime survey questions, the study found that among intimate personal violence victims who had experienced only one abusive relationship since the age of 16, almost a third (30%, n = 791) of the abuse reported by female respondents could be classified as coercive control in this way, contrasting with only 6% (n = 52) of the abuse reported by male respondents (Myhill, 2015).
- A survey of male heterosexual patients in GP practices found that while more than half (52.5%) of the men reported experiencing potentially harmful physical, emotional or sexual behaviour from a partner, only 4.4% of the men experienced coercive controlling violence and of those nearly half also reported perpetration against their partner (Hester et al, 2017).
- One study of 96 cases of domestic abuse recorded by the police found that men are significantly more likely to be repeat perpetrators and significantly more likely than women to use physical violence, threats, and harassment. In a six-year tracking period the majority of recorded male perpetrators (83%) had at least two incidents of recorded abuse, with many having a lot more than two and one man having 52 repeat incidents. Whereas in cases where women were recorded as the perpetrator the majority (62%) had only one incident of abuse recorded and the highest number of repeat incidents for any female perpetrator was eight. The study also found that men’s violence tended to create a context of fear and control, which was not the case when women were perpetrators (Hester, 2013).
- A study involving in-depth interviews with couples affected by intimate partner violence (95 men and 95 women) found strong gender asymmetry in experiences of domestic abuse. Both the quantitative and qualitative evidence suggested that, apart from a few men who had suffered serious injuries, men tended to view the domestic abuse by female perpetrators as “relatively inconsequential and of no lasting effect”, whereas female victims of domestic abuse by men tended to express “fear, bewilderment and helplessness” (Dobash and Dobash, 2004).
- In 93.0% of domestic abuse-related sexual offences in the year ending March 2023 there was a female victim (in 7.0% there was a male victim) (data supplied from 28 police forces in England and Wales) (ONS, 2023a).
- A research study on the relationship between stalking and homicide looking at 358 cases of criminal homicide between 2012 and 2014, involving a female victim and male perpetrator, found that in 71% of cases the victim and perpetrator were in, or had previously had, an intimate relationship (Monkton Smith et al, 2017).
