in terms of sociocultural factors in patriarchal contexts women s empowerment is more likely to lead to increased conflict and ipv at least in the short term hence the relative status of women and men in terms of decisionmaking and how their power and resources compare to each other is an important contributing factor for increased ipv hughes et al this seems especially common in situations where a man is unable to fulfil his genderascribed role as breadw inner and a woman is beginning to contribute relatively more to family maintenance or where a woman takes a job that defies prevailing social convention hughes et al