Domestic Violence: The Increasing Tensions Between Experience, Theory, Research, Policy and Practice

Abstract

For most of the twentieth century domestic violence was dismissed as a private, personal issue; it is now recognised globally as a significant social issue faced by up to one in three women in their lifetimes (WHO 2013). It acts as a barrier to women realising their rights and achieving their full potential and it intersects with other forms of inequality, including ethnicity, class and (dis)ability (Westmarland 2015). Feminists have located it within the wider concept of violence against women and girls, identifying commonalities and connections between the many forms, including: low reporting rates; low conviction rates; a range of myths and stereotypes that serve to justify abuse; and a historic failure of the state to prevent, prosecute and protect (Coy et al. 2008). In 2012/13 in England and Wales, 91 people were recorded as being killed by their partner or ex-partner, of these, 76 were female and 15 were male (Office for National Statistics 2014). These figures should be considered a starting point since an unknown number of women die because of partner violence in other ways, for example through suicide, drug or alcohol misuse, or the effects that long term physical violence has on their bodies (Westmarland 2015).