Behavioral and Attitudinal Factors Differentiating Male Intimate Partner Violence Perpetrators With and Without a History of Childhood Family Violence

This study utilized a sample of men (N?=?340) charged with assault against a female partner to assess differences among IPV perpetrators with and without a history of childhood family violence on factors such as angry, controlling and violent behaviors, substance use related behaviors, and attitudes towards women. Over two-thirds of the sample reported childhood exposure to maltreatment or witnessing IPV. Chi-square analyses and t-tests indicated significant differences between perpetrators with and without a history of family violence on eight of eleven measures. Findings suggest perpetrators with a family violence history more strongly endorse ideas that present women and feminine attributes in a negative light. This research demonstrates that while exposure to family violence during childhood is not necessary for IPV to occur, its presence may be a marker for more severe attitudinal and behavioral problems. Findings highlight the need for primary prevention efforts and can inform secondary prevention strategies.     

Reviews

Seyla Benhabib, Situating the Self: Gender, Community and Postmodernism in Contemporary Ethics (Polity Press) Cambridge, 1992.

Sneja Gunew and Anna Yeatman (eds), Feminism and the Politics of Difference (Allen & Unwin) Sydney, 1993.

Joyce Trebilcot, Dyke Ideas: Process, Politics, Daily Life (State University of New York Press) New York, 1994.

Paulina Palmer, Contemporary Lesbian Writing: Dreams, Desire, Difference (Open University Press) Buckingham & Philadelphia, 1993.

Catriona Moore, Indecent Exposures: Twenty Years of Australian Feminist Photography (Allen & Unwin) St Leonards, 1994.

Jeanette Hoorn (ed.), Strange Women: Essays in Art and Gender (Melbourne University Press) Melbourne, 1994.

Sharon Ouditt, Fighting Forces, Writing Women: Identity and Ideology in the First World War (Routledge) London, 1994.

Penny Russell (ed.), For Richer, For Poorer: Early Colonial Marriages (Melbourne University Press) Melbourne, 1994.

Jacqueline J. Goodnow and Jennifer M. Bowes, Men, Women and Household Work (Oxford University Press) Melbourne, 1994.

Janeen Baxter, Work at Home: The Domestic Division of Labour (University of Queensland Press) St Lucia, 1993.

Patricia Easteal, Voices of the Survivors (Spinifex Press) North Melbourne, 1994.

Lynette Finch, The Classing Gaze: Sexuality, Class and Surveillance (Allen & Unwin) St. Leonards, 1993.

Renate Howe (ed.), Women and the State: Australian Perspectives, A special edition of Journal of Australian Studies (La Trobe University Press) Bundoora, 1993.

Barbara Einhorn, Cinderella Goes to Market: Citizenship, Gender and Women's Movements in East Central Europe (Verso) London & New York, 1993.

Loulou Brown, Helen Collins, Pat Green, Maggie Humm & Mel Landells (eds), The International Handbook of Women's Studies (Harvester Wheatsheaf) Brighton, 1994.     

Reviews

Feminisms’ Psychoanalysis

Parveen Adams and Elizabeth Cowie (eds), The Woman in Question: m/f (Verso) London, 1990; Elizabeth Grosz, Jacques Lacan: A Feminist Introduction (Allen & Unwin) Sydney, 1990; John Lechte, Julia Kristeva (Routledge) London, 1990; Margaret Whitford, Luce Irigaray: Philosophy in the Feminine (Routledge), London, 1991.

Feminist Re‐Readings

Sarah Mills, Lynn Pearce, Sue Spaull and Elaine Millard (eds), Feminist Readings/Feminists Reading (Harvester Wheatsheaf) Hemel Hempstead, 1989.

Oppositional Interests and Women's Health Centres

Dorothy H. Broom, Damned If We Do: Contradictions in Women's Health Care (Allen & Unwin) Sydney, 1991.

(Re)Claiming Her Own Words: The Return of Michele Wallace

Michele Wallace, Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman (Verso) London and New York, 1990 [first published (Dial Press), New York, 1978]; Invisibility Blues (Verso) London and New York, 1990.

Australian Lesbian Feminist Studies

The Myth of Superwoman and Feminist Fictions

Ann Cranny‐Francis, Feminist Fictions (Polity Press) Cambridge 1990; Resa L. Dudovitz, The Myth of Superwoman (Routledge) London and New York, 1990.