Cultures of gendered violence: An integrative review of measures of attitudinal support for violence against women
| Author | Anastasia Powell,Kim Webster |
| DOI | 10.1177/0004865816675669 |
| Published date | 01 March 2018 |
| Date | 01 March 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Australian & New Zealand
Journal of Criminology
2018, Vol. 51(1) 40–57
!The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/0004865816675669
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Article
Cultures of gendered violence:
An integrative review of
measures of attitudinal support
for violence against women
Anastasia Powell
RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
Kim Webster
School of Health Science, The University of Melbourne, Carlton, VIC,
Australia
Abstract
National and international research has repeatedly identified the specific gendered nature and
context of women’s victimisation of violence, whereby women are disproportionately victims
of sexual and partner violence and overwhelmingly at the hands of known male perpetrators.
As such, violence against women warrants a targeted and substantial focus, within overall
violence reduction and prevention efforts. In the Australian policy context, there is an
emerging and influential focus on attitudes towards violence against women as key targets
for primary prevention and as foci for monitoring progress in reducing this violence. The
Australian National Community Attitudes Towards Violence Against Women Survey was
established to estimate community-level understanding of and attitudes towards violence
against women. It has arguably evolved into an important instrument both for monitoring
shifts in Australians’ knowledge and attitudes, as well as for directing primary prevention
efforts. The purpose of this article is to provide an integrative review in relation to one of the
key dimensions of the national community attitudes survey: violence supportive attitudes (see
Webster et al., 2014). Here, we seek to identify patterns in defining and measuring attitudes
that support violence against women, as well as advance the field by offering recommenda-
tions for progressing the measurement of violence supportive attitudes in Australia in the
future.
Keywords
Community attitudes, domestic violence, primary prevention, rape myths, violence against
women
Corresponding author:
Anastasia Powell, RMIT University, 411 Swanston Street, Level 4 Reception, Building 37, Melbourne, Victoria 3000,
Australia.
Email: anastasia.powell@rmit.edu.au
Introduction
Violence against women is a significant and pervasive global health and human rights
problem (World Health Organization, 2005). In Australia, figures from the Australian
Bureau of Statistics (ABS) report that one in five women have experienced sexual vio-
lence since the age of 15, while one in six report having experienced physical or sexual
violence from an intimate partner (ABS, 2014). Overall both nationally and internation-
ally, research evidence regarding the prevalence, under-reporting, impacts and costs of
violence against women all make evident that its prevention is crucial to improving
health, wellbeing and quality of life for women and families. The World Health
Organization (WHO, 2005, 2009) has highlighted the importance of primary prevention
in particular and asserts that this area has received too little attention in public health
and health promotion. To this end, there have been significant advances in policy frame-
works, strategic prevention plans, and funded projects focused on primary prevention
over the last 10 years in particular and most notably in the United States (CDC, 2013;
DeGue et al., 2014), the European Union (Council of Europe, 2014), and Australia
(Commonwealth of Australia, 2011; OurWatch, 2015; State Government of Victoria,
2010; VicHealth, 2007). Indeed, the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (hereafter,
VicHealth) developed one of the first comprehensive frameworks identifying the oppor-
tunities for primary prevention of violence against women (VicHealth, 2007). Drawing
on a public health approach, the VicHealth framework, Preventing Violence Before it
Occurs, has proven to be influential in subsequent government policy and prevention
programme development and funding in Australia. Most recently the framework has
substantially informed a subsequent national plan for the primary prevention of violence
against women and their children launched in November 2015 (OurWatch, 2015). The
rationale behind these frameworks and indeed much Australian primary prevention
policy work, as elsewhere, is that violence against women is reduced in communities
where knowledge of violence against is accurate, where there is low attitudinal and nor-
mative support for violence, and where there is a high level of normative, structural and
practical support for gender equality in public and personal life (e.g. Department of
Premier and Cabinet, 2013; OurWatch, 2015; State Government of Victoria, 2010;
VicHealth, 2007).
As part of an ongoing policy commitment to reducing violence against women,
successive Australian federal governments have funded three national surveys of com-
munity attitudes since 1995, with a further survey scheduled in 2016–2017. The most
recent national community attitudes towards violence against women survey (hereafter,
NCAS) includes questions that seek to measure (a) understandings or knowledge of
violence against women, (b) attitudes towards violence against women (including atti-
tudes that blame victims and/or excuse perpetrators), and (c) attitudes towards gender
equality (VicHealth, 2014; Webster et al., 2014). The NCAS arguably acts as an
important benchmarking tool which, at a broad societal level, provides an indication
of change over time in each of the three key dimensions: knowledge of violence against
women, attitudinal support for violence against women, and endorsement of gender
equality. While the NCAS does not serve as an evaluation of the range of primary
prevention strategies and programmes operating across Australia, the data are indica-
tive of which aspects of knowledge and attitudes towards violence against women may
Powell and Webster 41
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