Reviewer's report
Title:An Examination of Domestic Partner Violence and its Justification in the
Republic of Georgia
Version: 2Date:29 April 2013
Reviewer: Enrique Gracia
Reviewer's report:
This is an interesting paper on an important social and public health problem
across societies, such as intimate partner violence. Furthermore, this paper
addresses a relatively under researched area on this issue like public beliefs and
justifications. Also, as the authors noted, there is little research on these issues in
countries from Eastern Europe. The large sample is also an strength of this
paper. For this reasons, I believe that this paper may add a relevant contribution
to this growing body of international research.
I have a couple of suggestions that the authors may or may not wan to follow.
The first one is precisely related to this understudied topic of research within
domestic violence research area. Precisely because justification of violence is a
quite under-researched topic, the background and theoretical discussion would
benefit for a wider inclusion of relevant papers on this issue conducted across
different countries and cultures. The authors do a nice job in this paper revising a
sizeable amount of studies across countries on these issues. However, there are
other relevant studies from different countries, including other European
countries, that the authors may want to consider. It would be interesting for this
paper, but also for other researchers to find in this article a wider dialog with this
international literature addressing similar issues. If the authors wish to do so
Below I include a set of references that the authors may want to consider to
establish this dialog both in the background and in the discussion sections of the
paper.
Another issue I would like to note to the authors is related to their use of the
concepts of common couple violence and patriarchal terrorism. These terms are
commonly used as distinctions between types of intimate partner violence, rather
than explanatory theories. I am not sure whether they refer to these types
proposed by Johnson and Ferraro (they proposed four types of intimate partner
violence: common couple violence: intimate terrorism, violent resistance).
Another
Question is whether these types of partner violence may have different
etiologies. For example, they suggested that common couple violence appears to
be gender symmetric but intimate terrorism is a primarily male and violence
resistance is a primarily female pattern. This should be make clearer in the
paper.
Additional references on public attitudes and beliefs regarding domestic violence
against women
Europe:
Fernbrant, C., Essén, B., Östergren, P. O., & Cantor-Graae, E. (2011). Perceived
threat of violence and exposure to physical violence against foreign-born women:
a Swedish population-based study. Women's health issues, 21(3), 206-213.
Gracia, E., & Herrero, J. (2006a). Public attitudes toward reporting partner
violence against women and reporting behavior. Journal of Marriage and Family,
68, 759-768.
Gracia, E., García, F., & Lila, M. (2009). Public responses to intimate partner
violence against women: The influence of perceived severity and personal
responsibility. The Spanish Journal of Psychology, 12, 648-656.
Medina-Ariza, J., & Barberet, R. (2003). Intimate partner violence in Spain:
Findings From a National Survey. Violence Against Women, 9, 302-322.
Nicolson, P., & Wilson, R. (2004). Is domestic violence a gender issue? Views
from a British city. Journal of community & applied social psychology, 14(4),
266-283.
Podana, Z. (2010). Reporting to the Police as a Response to Intimate Partner
Violence. Sociologický #asopis/Czech Sociological Review, 46 (3), 453-474.
Middle East:
Faramarzi, M., Esmailzadeh, S., & Mosavi, S. (2005). A comparison of abused
and non-abused women's definitions of domestic violence and attitudes to
acceptance of male dominance. European Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology
and Reproductive Biology, 122(2), 225-231.
Haj-Yahia, M. M. (2005). Can people’s patriarchal ideology predict their beliefs
about wife abuse? The case of Jordanian men. Journal of Community
Psychology, 33, 545–567.
Asia:
Tang, C. S. K., Wong, D., & Cheung, F. M. C. (2002). Social construction of
women as legitimate victims of violence in Chinese societies. Violence Against
Women, 8(8), 968-996.
North Africa
Antai, D., & Antai, J. (2009). Collective violence and attitudes of women toward
intimate partner violence: Evidence from the Niger Delta. BMC International
Health and Human Rights, 9: 12.
Hindin, M. J. (2003). Understanding women’s attitudes towards wife beating in
Zimbabwe. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 81, 501-508.
USA
Worden, A. P., & Carlson, B. E. (2005). Attitudes and beliefs about domestic
violence: Results of a public opinion survey. II. Beliefs about causes. Journal of
Interpersonal Violence, 20, 1219-1243.
Other
Nayak, M. B., Byrne, C. A., Martin, M. K., & Abraham, A. G. (2003). Attitudes
toward violence against women: A cross-nation study. Sex Roles, 49(7-8),
333-342.
Yoshioka, M. R., DiNoia, J., & Ullah, K. (2001). Attitudes Toward Marital Violence
An Examination of Four Asian Communities. Violence Against Women, 7(8),
900-926.
Types of intimate partner violence:
Johnson M. 1995. Patriarchal terrorism and common couple violence: two forms
of violence against women. Journal of Marriage and Family.; 57: 283–94.
Johnson, M., and Ferraro, K . 2000. Research on domestic violence in the 1990s:
Making distinctions. Journal of Marriage and Family 62: 948-63.
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests