EUKN - European Urban Knowledge Network - Partnership violence against women

Partnership violence against women- the Finnish case

Introduction

This study considers the picture survey conveys of partnership violence against women and the question, why young women particularly experience violence in their partnerships more often than other women do.

Description

The main targets for this study are to research:

whether women's experiences of violence are connected with a specific stage in life, and are that kind of changes in the lifestyle of young women, which are making them more vulnerable to violence than older women.
whether young women are simply more likely than the older generations to recognise violence and do they have a different attitude where violence is concerned.
whether young women's experiences of violence differ from those of older women and how does the experience of violence affect on meanings of violence.
how do the methodological choices made in the survey, like the used definition of violence and the context of survey, may partly effect on the result that violence is directed especially toward young women.

The researcher approaches these questions from the perspective of age, generation and modernisation.

The study consists of four separate articles and a summary. The research report is published in Finnish with an English summary.

Methodology

The picture on partnership violence against women conveyed by a survey is shaped in this study both from the data analyses describing the partner violence and from the analyses of partial non-response to the question on partner violence and from the entirety these together forms.

The researcher used the data from a Finnish survey done 1997 about male violence against women for women aged 18 to 74 (n=3,500).

Conclusions

The results showed that the experiences of violence among young women differ from those of older women and they do have better opportunities to act to change their life. Also the long lasting physical, psychological and social consequences of violence have not affected yet on their conceptions of themselves, partnerships and violence. The survey method reaches the experiences of violence of younger women better than those of others do and young women have different attitudes on telling and speaking about violence.

In this study the researcher considers the picture conveyed on partner violence against women by survey as representations of lived life. The central concept, which is summing up the results, is the concept of agency. Agency refers in this study to the increased possibilities for women agency in society and thus, for better possibilities to respond in partnership where the husband is violent. Agency refers also to the context where women recognise and name violence in partnerships and give meanings to their experiences.

Methodological consideration focus on questions, whether such a sensitive subject as violence against women can be studied by survey, what kind of speech is allowed in the survey and what kind of picture of violence is drawn from the survey data. While constructing this picture, the researcher uses the idea of survey as communication between the researcher and the respondent.

The theoretical bases of this study are feminist debate on violence against women and victimology. The study connects also with that methodological discussion on researching violence against women by surveys and feminist and constructionism debate on how the methodological choice effect on the knowledge produced in research.

Contact info

Ministry of Justice
Finland
http://www.om.fi
Ms. Minna Piispa, tel. + 358 9 16068110

Publication date

01/11/2004

Researcher

Minna Piispa

Article info
ISBN: printed 952–467–349–5; web publication 952-10-2347-3
ISSN: 0355–2071

Links

The web publication in Finnish

Document type

research

Themes

Urban Policy > Social inclusion & integration > Equality

Keywords

Gender Equality