Citation

Stanko EA. Violence Against Women 1996; 2(1): 5-24.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1996, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

12348985

Abstract

This study applies a gender perspective to a content analysis of pamphlets, posters, and other relevant material about women and safety prepared by local government bodies, statutory and voluntary agencies, and the police in England, Scotland, and Wales. The study also shows how the advice contained in these publications is reproduced by media coverage of men's violence against women. After an introduction that presents the study questions, contextual background is provided about women's fear of crime, reforms resulting from public scrutiny of how the police treated female crime victims, and agendas for state responsibility for women's safety. The next section describes the methodological and theoretical approach to the study and proposes that an ambivalent treatment of women as both needlessly frightened and rationally wary negotiators of their own safety exists because the theoretical basis of crime advice is gender-neutral and, thus, obviates consideration of women as the intentional targets of men's violence. The article continues with a content analysis of booklets that advise women to be wary when home alone, to be vigilant when out and about, and to expect a sympathetic partnership from the police if the worst happens. Then, the article discusses the relationship between the police and the media, both of which individualize the problem of violence against women and fail to condemn male violence as indicative of women's subordinate position in society. The article concludes that women need to find a way to stop male violence collectively, not individually.

Language: en