Terrains/Théories (Dec 2021)
Violences conjugales subies par les femmes
Abstract
In 2000 and 2015, two nationally representative statistical surveys on gender based violence, named « Enveff » and « Virage », were conducted in France. They produced sizeable databases and made a significant contribution to knowledge on intimate partner violence against women. The comparison between the frequencies of violent acts suffered by the women in their couple shows that there has been no significant decrease of the most serious acts since the early 2000s. In their everyday lives women are still faced with a violence continuum, involving different types of acts (Kelly, 1988, 2019) that impact their life course in the long term, as we shall see below. Men in general suffer less serious violence, with fewer different or continuous acts or situations. The acts they report occur for shorter periods and in most cases correspond to a conflictual relationship with their partner. The notion of intimate partner violence has less relevance for describing their experience. The data thus sweep aside presuppositions on the symmetry of the acts reported by women and men, especially when the current prevalence viewpoint (previous 12 months) is widened to the life course; when taking in account affects, in particular fear and shame, the analysis shows indubitably that the experiences of men and women are not symmetrical. From 1% to 3% of the men report violent acts, whereas more than 10% of the women, depending on their life path, have endured partner violence at some stage. These empirical findings emphasize the value of the comparative analysis of two statistical surveys carried out over an interval of 15 years. This comparison sheds light on the temporal, gender based or age related dynamics, using a methodological tool that is complex and so not easy to implement, including limits discussed in this paper. It also reveals the extent to which dimensions of affects and temporality are important in the women’s experience of intimate partner violence. Finally, through our use of statistical data, we shall see how the feminist theorization of violence has maintained its relevance over the last 30 years within a flourishing academic research field.
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