Reviewer's report
Title:Mapping the Role of Structural and Interpersonal Violence in the Lives of
Women
Version:2Date:24 February 2015
Reviewer: Ravi Thiara
Reviewer's report:
This paper discusses the findings of a scoping review aimed at exploring the
relationship between symbolic, structural and interpersonal violence and in
particular how structural and symbolic violence contribute to violence against
women and the relationships between the social determinants of health and
interpersonal violence against women. This is an important publication that adds
to existing debate and knowledge about the causes, intersections and
explanations for this phenomenon. It is well-written. Using a scoping review, the
authors importantly argue for a shift in focus from individual behaviours to the
structural context. While this is to be welcomed, care needs to be exercised in
over-claiming that this has not been done before. The authors may want to
consider stating, as their starting point, that Health explanations and responses
have been focused on the individual level and can learn from insights that place
the issue in a wider context.
There needs to be a note about terminology – the authors use interpersonal
violence against women, gendered violence, gender based violence
interchangeably – and the reasons for using this. For instance, why interpersonal
violence and not intimate partner violence etc.
The abstract and introduction is too sweeping about what the authors consider to
be the gaps in theorising; however they then go on to utilise existing
theorisations. The abstract and introduction needs to be reworked to recognise
work that has been done in feminist scholarship, including the development of
the ecological framework, on violence against women and linking this to wider
structures and practices and to acknowledge that these insights have not been
fully utilised by the public health field. Claims made in in the introduction also
need to be more widely referenced. More could also have been said about
symbolic and structural violence and I would have liked to see more references in
these sections.
The authors state they utilised a scoping review but then go onto talk about a
systematic review (page 8, line 180) and should clarify this. The use of concept
mapping is very interesting and perhaps more could have been said about this;
even though the map is presented, a more detailed discussion would be useful
as the narrative is organised according to this. Some mention of the limitations of
the study would also be useful.
The paper would benefit from a close edit especially the references. Detailed
comments follow:
Page 5, line 114 – ‘positions of subordinate’ – this is unclear.
Page 5, line 128 – insert ‘other’ before criminal acts.
Page 6 – references to Riger in relation to the ecological framework would be
good here. Line 148, insert comma after framework; line 151 insert dash in
mesosystem to be consistent.
Page 7, line 165 insert full stop at end of sentence.
Page 9, lines 202-3 – first sentence is repeated from page 8.
Page 11, line 253, delete ‘we’; line 262 delete ‘be’ after ‘may’; line 270 delete ‘a’
before ‘women’s’.
Page 12, line 278 delete full stop before reference to PHAC; line 283 add ‘s’ to
‘prescribe’ and ‘women’ should be ‘woman’; line 285 ‘do not’ instead of ‘don’t’.
Page 13, line 300 ‘has’ instead of ‘having’; line 302 delete ; after 2007.
Throughout where quoting from PHAC need to have full reference including page
number/s.
Page 15, line 359 delete ‘of’ after witness.
Page 16, line 364 insert ‘parental’ before alcohol and delete ‘of parents’; line376
delete comma before female and delete death after dowry.
Page 17, line 384 ‘gowning’ – what is this?; line 387 insert ‘and’ after
employment; line 404 small ‘t’ in treatment.
There are some references in the text that are not in the references list – page
18, line 414 Anitha for instance and page 21, line 485 Chantler etc. Some
references are not full – page 22, line 498. Check this throughout the text. There
is also some inaccurate use of references, for instance Gill 2005 on page 27.
Page 19, line 441 delete comma after ‘as’.
Page 20, line 463 insert ‘the’ before largest.
Page 22, line 497 insert ‘for’ instead of ‘of’ before culturally.
Page 23, line 535, scale not scaled.
Page 24, line 543 delete ‘s’ from Aboriginals; insert comma after Alberta; line 552
insert ‘aimed’ before at understanding; line 553 delete ‘are’ after women; line 559
insert ‘t’ into ‘he’.
Overall, I would support the publication of this article once the above revisions
have been done.