Citation

Lindsey S. Am. J. Polit. Sci. 2022; 66(1): 187-204.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/ajps.12637

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

How does armed conflict affect attitudes that tolerate violence against women? This article examines the effects of armed violence on preferences for punishing crimes against women using original quantitative data from 80 focus groups across 20 villages in Democratic Republic of Congo and a matched pair design. Challenging unidirectional logics within theories of violence against women, the data reveal that local exposure to armed violence increases how severely men prefer to punish rape while decreasing how severely men and women prefer to punish domestic violence. Building inductively, I develop a theory of protective masculine norms to account for armed conflict's gendered and crime-specific effects. When armed violence heightens demand for local male protection, crimes perceived to pose a community threat are affected differently from "private" crimes.

Language: en