Reviewer’s report
Title: 
Exploring the Differences between Men’s and Women’s Perceptions of
Gender-based Violence in Rural Tajikistan: A Qualitative Study
Version: 
1 
Date: 
08 Jan 2020
Reviewer's report:
This paper does has not been revised to deal with my initial primary concerns as
copied and pasted from the review:
Overview: This paper seeks to understand differential perceptions of women's
empowerment in Rural Tajikistan, with the assumption that these perceptions
impact gender based violence. While this is a creative and important idea for a
project, there is a major causal leap assumed by the authors that perceptions of
empowerment *lead to* gender-based violence. Further, the presentation of the
data is in summary form—there is not quantitative or qualitative presentation of
data in terms of table, percentages OR quotations or examples from the data.
Without knowing what kind of data was collected, it is difficult for me to offer
advice as to how to go about presenting and analyzing the material, but I imagine
you have quite a bit that you can work with in order to offer a concrete and
meaningful analysis.
I agree entirely with what Reviewer 1 is stating about potentially implying that
perceptions of empowerment lead to GBV - this has been addressed through the
revisions indicated below. I'm also unsure why both reviewers indicated that
there were no quotations when all of the quotations were provided in tables 1
and 2. 
1. The connection between empowerment and GBV is still unclear. The main
argument of the article also remains unclear. While the paper covers many
topics, it remains unclear what are the primary findings from these interviews.
This is likely the result of issue number 2: quotations are not analyzed the level
of detail expected of qualitative research.
2. The authors claim to have used a content analysis, but do not present numbers
anywhere in the article. Content analysis refers to counting a number of pre-
defined themes. It may be an inductive methodology if you read through the
transcripts multiple times to identify the themes and then returned to the scripts
to actually count. However, you need to provide numbers if this was indeed your
methodology. The authors regularly describe how "there was a consensus among
participants" when presenting themes of the study. Exactly how many of
participants (provide an n and a %) agreed to your statement? Without data to
support these claims of "most" or "consensus", there is no way for readers to
evaluate your claims.
3. If you in fact are engaged in a qualitative study, you must present quotations
within the results / discussion section. Relegating the quotations to a table format
requires your reader to do the conceptual work for you. We must toggle back and
forth between the end of the paper and your summaries to see whether the data
fits your summary. Further, it leaves the summaries much too surface-level. You
can engage in much more robust analysis if you dig into individual level
responses and explore what exactly they mean, and what are the implications of
their examples/language. Without this, the paper is underdeveloped.
4. Of further concern is translation—what words were used in place of
"empowerment"? If interviews were conducted in three different languages, I
wonder if the words have the same exact translation? I wonder if there may be
some interesting language- and context-specific elements to the responses that
may be lost when the paper does not discuss the impact of linguistic differences.
5. I am not providing the same level of specific feedback as I did for the first
review given that my major initial concerns do not appear to be addressed.
Are the methods appropriate and well described?
If not, please specify what is required in your comments to the authors.
No
Does the work include the necessary controls?
If not, please specify which controls are required in your comments to the
authors.
No
Are the conclusions drawn adequately supported by the data shown?
If not, please explain in your comments to the authors.
No
Are you able to assess any statistics in the manuscript or would you
recommend an additional statistical review?
If an additional statistical review is recommended, please specify what aspects
require further assessment in your comments to the editors.
Not relevant to this manuscript
Quality of written English
Please indicate the quality of language in the manuscript:
Acceptable
Declaration of competing interests
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