How do professionals talk about gender and men's intimate partner victimization?

What is it about?

This study traces the discursive process of problem construction concerning gender and intimate partner violence (IPV) in social and crisis workers’ talk about men’s victimization through focus group interviews conducted in Finland. The analysis shows that social and crisis workers’ sense-making closely aligns with talk about men’s victimization by men’s rights advocates; they predominantly construct and justify men’s victimization in intimate relations as a pressing societal concern in ways that, firstly, posit gender-specific normative conceptions as a significant and oppressive context for men victims, and secondly, diminish the value of attending to gendered structural inequalities by advocating gender-neutral understandings and solutions for IPV. By shedding light on these paradoxical dynamics in social and crisis workers’ meaning-making around gender, power, and IPV, the analysis highlights central challenges in attending to IPV with a gender-sensitive approach in the context of widespread politicization of men’s victimization.

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Why is it important?

By shedding light on the paradoxical underlying assumptions in social and crisis workers’ meaning-making around gender, power, and IPV, the analysis highlights central challenges in attending to IPV with a gender-sensitive approach in the context of widespread politicization of men’s victimization. This is important, because the contradictions the article sheds light on detract from the effectiveness of intimate partner violence interventions in attending to the full picture of IPV and its gendered dynamics.

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