An International Study of the Contextual Effects of Gender Inequality on Intimate Partner Sexual Violence Against Women Students

• Author: Will LeSuer
• Published date: 01 January 2020
• Date: 01 January 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/1557085119842652
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1557085119842652

Feminist Criminology

2020, Vol. 15(1) 97 –118

© The Author(s) 2019

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DOI: 10.1177/1557085119842652

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Article

An International Study of

the Contextual Effects of

Gender Inequality on Intimate

Partner Sexual Violence

Against Women Students

Will LeSuer1

Abstract

Rejecting biological and essentialist explanations, feminist scholars posit that

gender inequality is a driving force behind sexual violence against women. Using an

ecological approach, I test for significant associations between national-level gender

inequality and intimate partner sexual violence (IPSV). I use multi-level generalized

linear modeling to analyze the responses of 9,126 women from 29 countries in the

International Dating Violence Study. I find that while controlling for other risk factors,

gender inequality is significantly associated with increased odds of having experienced

severe, but not minor, forms of IPSV.

Keywords

intimate partner violence, cross-national comparative, sexual assault, rape, quantitative

research

Sexual violence is a cultural phenomenon, enabled and fostered by social structures

that create and maintain gender inequality. Societies across time and location experi-

ence varying levels of sexual violence (Sanday, 1981), some having minimal occur-

rences while others are infamous for their ubiquity. Yet the fact that sexual violence,

such as forcible rape and sexual coercion, is relatively uncommon in some societies

yet prevalent in others indicates it is likely not a manifestation of innate biological

traits or the result of individual mental illness. Instead, the structural configurations of

1University of Wisconsin–Platteville, WI, USA

Corresponding Author:

Will LeSuer, University of Wisconsin–Platteville, 1 University Plaza, 1147 Ullsvik Hall, Platteville, WI

53818, USA.

Email: lesuerw@uwplatt.edu

842652FCXXXX10.1177/1557085119842652Feminist CriminologyLeSuer

research-article2019

98 Feminist Criminology 15(1)

societies, especially those related to gender, either foster or hinder sexual violence

(Heise, 1998; Rozée, 1993; Sanday, 1981).

Feminist scholars argue that gender inequality is a macro-level driving force behind

sexual violence (Heise, 1998; Heise, Raikes, Watts, & Zwi, 1994; Rozée, 1993;

Sanday, 1981). Specifically, social structures of gender inequality create milieus or

“contextual effects” which shape individuals’ life chances of experiencing sexual vio-

lence. Contextual effects are the influences and impacts of macro-level forces upon the

individual; the social contexts in which individuals are located affect their individual

behaviors, life-chances, and risks. Due to the lower status of women to men and cul-

tural gender norms, some societies are more conducive to sexual violence than others

(Rozée, 1993; Sanday, 1981).

This article draws on three related theoretical frameworks that address the influ-

ence of culture and structure on individuals’ risk of experiencing sexual violence.

First, Sanday (1981) provides a cultural explanation for societal differences in rape

prevalence and categorizes societies as rape-prone or rape-free. Second, and in direct

response to Sanday, Rozée (1993) argues that societies can be better understood as

having degrees of rape-proneness instead of being put into a binary categorization.

Third is an ecological approach to address sexual violence as a public health issue by

organizing and integrating risk factors from multiple levels (Heise, 1998; Heise et al.,

1994). All three frameworks approach sexual violence ecologically by conceptualiz-

ing its origins as “grounded in an interplay among personal, situational, and sociocul-

tural factors” (Heise, 1998, pp. 263-264), though the first two focus primarily on the

macro, sociocultural level as a driving force behind sexual violence. As tests of macro-

level sociocultural explanations of sexual violence are often missing in past research,

this article aims to address this gap by examining macro-level gender inequality as a

factor in sexual violence.

This article specifically investigates whether or not macro-level gender inequality

has a contextual effect on individual women’s risk of experiencing sexual violence. To

test this, I focus on intimate partner sexual violence (IPSV), a specific but prevalent

form of general sexual violence. Using the International Dating Violence Study

(IDVS), I employ multi-level generalized linear modeling on 9,126 women students

from 29 nations to test if higher levels of gender inequality in a nation are associated

with an increase in individual women’s risk of having experienced IPSV. I look spe-

cifically at partners’ use of insistence, threats of physical force, and use of physical

force to coerce women into engaging in sex as forms of IPSV.

Theoretical Frameworks on Sexual Violence

A number of criminological perspectives posit that social inequality is a driving force

of crime (Fuller & Wozniak, 2008; Lynch, Schwendinger, & Schwendinger, 2008).

Scholars have addressed the relationship between crime and various sources of

inequality such as race, gender, and socio-economic status (Chesney-Lind & Morash,

2013; Daly & Chesney-Lind, 1988; Peterson & Krivo, 2005; Wright & Younts, 2009).

In particular, feminist scholars give the role of gender primacy in their analyses (Daly