Citation

Keseredy WS, Alvi S, Schwartz MD, Perry B. Can. Rev. Sociol. Anthropol. 1999; 36(4): 499-516.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1999, University of Toronto Press)

DOI

10.1111/j.1755-618X.1999.tb00961.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

No North American study has systematically examined the extent of various types of woman abuse in public housing, including sexual and racial harassment. Public housing communities and inner-city ghetto streets are key arenas where gendered power relations are played out, and where the influx of drugs has exacerbated the degradation and abuse of women. Using data from the Quality of Neighbourhood Life Survey, administered to households in six public housing projects in an urban centre in Eastern Ontario, this paper helps fill a major research gap. Exploratory data on the incidence of intimate violence, stranger violence, and three types of harassment experienced by women in these dwellings are discussed.

As men on the street lose their former authoritarian power in the household, they lash out against the women and children they can no longer control. Men are not accepting the new rights and roles that women are obtaining; instead, they are desperately attempting to reassert their grandfathers' lost autocratic control over their households and over public space.