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Gender-based violence and hegemonic masculinity in China: an analysis based on the quantitative research

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• Published: 05 August 2019
• Volume 3 , pages 84–97, ( 2019 )

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• Xiangxian Wang   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6944-2948 1 ,
• Gang Fang 2 &
• Hongtao Li 3  

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Based on a survey implemented in a county in central China, the researchers found it is common for women to experience gender-based violence, especially violence at the hands of intimate partners. About half of men surveyed reported inflicting physical or sexual violence on their female partners. One in five men reported having raped a partner or non-partner woman. The physical, mental and reproductive health of the female and male respondents were found to be significantly associated with women’s victimization and men’s perpetration of intimate partner violence. Gender-based violence, including intimate partner violence, is a construction of the social-ecological system. Four elements that are key to hegemonic masculinity are identified: male decision-making, male reputation, violence and heterosexuality. By positing the four elements as standards that define a “real man”, the domination of men over women is naturalized and legitimized. It is necessary to foster other non-violent and more equitable masculinities.

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1 Introduction

Since the concept of intimate partner violence (IPV) against women arrived in China in the 1990s, surveys conducted by institutions like the Women’s Federation of China (Tao and Jiang 1993 ) and China Population and Development Research Center (Zheng and Xie 2004 ) have demonstrated that IPV is the most common form of violence against women in China. In the effort to eliminate the violence, Chinese scholars have taken into consideration a wide range of topics such as feminist law, ethnic minority issues, marriage markets and the imbalanced sex ratio in their studies of IPV against women (Gu 2014 ; Song and Zhang 2017 ; Dan 2018 ). While more and more international studies point to the strong connection between rigid hegemonic masculinities and violence against women (Schrock and Padavic 2007 ; Duncanson 2015 ; Cossins and Plummer 2018 ; Heilman and Barker 2018 ), this connection is neglected in China. Understanding gender based violence, especially IPV against women, from the perspective of hegemonic masculinities is thus the goal of our survey.

In May 2011, field research was carried out in a county in central China where the majority of the population lives in rural areas. By multiple stage random sampling, 67 communities were chosen and then 50 interviewees (25 women and 25 men) were randomly selected in each community. We had a response rate of 83.7%, with 1103 women and 1017 men aged 18–49 years completing the female and male questionnaires. Among the respondents, 97.8% of them are currently or have been partnered. The female and male questionnaires and research protocol were provided by the institutions that initiated and provided technical support for the survey. The implementation team made slight adjustments to the questionnaires based on Chinese and local contexts. Personal digital assistants were used to ensure that the responses of the interviewees were strictly confidential. Further information is provided in the Table  8 in Appendix (see Table  1 ).

2 Intimate partner violence against women

2.1 prevalence.

A breakdown of details reported by men follows in this paragraph. With respect to emotional violence, 28.6% of men reported deliberately frightening or intimidating their female partners, 22.4% reported insulting or deliberately making their partner feel bad about herself, and 14.2% reported deliberately degrading her in front of others. In terms of financial violence, the three most common items concerned men were forbidding women to find work or earn money (10.6%), male partners who spent their own earnings on alcohol and cigarettes although they knew their female partners could not support the family alone (7.7%), and forcing the female partner out of the place of residence (7.2%). In terms of physical violence, pushing or shoving was the most common type (32.8%), slapping or throwing things at women was second (29.8%), and striking women with fists was third (17.8%). With respect to sexual violence, the most common occurrence was the man insisting on sex when the female partner was unwilling, because the man felt entitled to sex with the woman who was his wife or girlfriend Footnote 1 (15.0%). In other cases the man physically forced his female partner to have sex (12.1%). Both of these behaviors are categorized as partner rape. In terms of the lifetime prevalence of partner rape, 14.3% of male respondents reported having perpetrated partner rape and 9.9% of female respondents reported being the victim. The items partner rape and males forcing female partners to watch phonography or perform sexual acts they do not want are classified as sexual violence. In addition, based on reports from women, the prevalence of emotional, physical and sexual violence inflicted by male partners during the female partner’s any of pregnancy were 13.1%, 3.6% and 5.5%, respectively.

Compared with to the instances of IPV documented above, men controlling the behavior of female partners was much more common. A total of 91.0% of men reported having done this at some point during their lives and 86.4% of women reported being controlled at some point. Among the specific items of men controlling the behavior of female partners, the most common is the male partner having more power to make big decisions (72.4%), followed by the male partner not allowing the female partner to wear certain items of clothing (45.8%) and getting angry if the female partner asks him to use a condom (40.3%).

Women often experience more than one type of IPV. Among women who reported experiencing emotional, financial, physical or sexual IPV, 43% of them experienced only one type, 30% experienced two types, 20% experienced three types and 8% experienced four types. Based on the reports of male perpetrators, the four percentage were 36%, 34%, 22% and 9%, respectively.

With respect to emotional, financial, physical and sexual IPV during the 12 months prior to the survey date, the prevalence of perpetrations reported by men were 19.1%, 10.5%, 14.4% and 7.5%, respectively, and the prevalence of victimizations reported by women were 10%, 6.9%, 6.8% and 3.3%, respectively.

2.2 Health consequences and seeking help

The statistics show the ratio of women injured from IPV was alarmingly high. Among 364 women who reported being victims of physical IPV, 40.7% (n = 148) suffered injuries including sprains, burns, knife cuts, bone fractures, lost teeth and other injuries, or had to receive medical care or be hospitalized. With respect to the severity of physical IPV injuries, 34.5% of 148 injured women were bedridden for a period of time, had to take work leave, or had to receive medical care. Beside these physical injures, IPV harmed women in other ways. Compared to women who never experienced IPV, the possibility that women who experienced IPV would suffer from mental and/or reproductive health problems was significantly higher (see Table  2 below).

Many women who are victims of IPV do not seek help. Among 364 women who reported experiencing physical IPV, 60% kept silent, only 6.6% reported the IPV to the police, 10% sought medical help and 36.8% told family members. Among 24 women who reported IPV to the police, 11 women did not report the details of how the police reacted to their reports, only one woman got the chance to open a court case, three women were sent away, and nine women were asked to compromise with their partners. Among the women who sought medical help, only half of them (n = 30) told the truth about how they had been injured. Of the 133 women who told family members about the IPV, nearly half of them (44.4%) were not supported by the family. Instead what they said was treated with indifference, or the family blamed the woman for causing the IPV or she was told to keep silent. In 24.8% of the cases, families were supportive, among other things, suggesting the women report the matter to the police. In 30.8% of the cases, the family’s reactions were ambiguous.

Women who claimed to be victims of rape or attempted rape by non-partners had similar experiences. Among 176 women who reported experiencing such violence, 72% kept silent and the rest sought help from family, hotlines, the local Women’s Federation or community committee, medical personnel or the police. Among 14 women who reported to the police, 8 women had cases opened. Among 30 women who told their families about being victims of sexual violence, nearly half of them (43.3%) were treated with ambivalence, 30% were not supported and 26.7% were supported.

3 Men’s childhood trauma and the rape of non-partners

3.1 childhood trauma.

Data for five kinds of childhood trauma were collected and are presented below. Hunger here refers to not enough food during childhood. Three behaviors are defined as neglect: living in different households (not with parents) at different times during childhood; parents did not look after the child due to alcohol or drug abuse; or the child spent nights outside the home and adults at home did not notice. Emotional violence includes the following behaviors of parents or teachers: scolding children for being lazy, stupid or weak; or humiliating children in public. Children who witness their mother being beaten by her husband or boyfriend are also victims of emotional violence. Physical violence refers to children being beaten by hard objects, being scarred by beatings, and being physically punished by teachers or principles. The following items are considered sexual violence against children: other people touching a child’s hips or genital areas, children being forced to touch themselves, children being frightened or threatened into having sex with others, or children having sex with men or women 5 years older than they are.

As Fig. 1 shows, many respondents experienced violence or adversity during childhood and male respondents were more likely than females to be involved (P < 0.0001). Besides the traumas listed in Fig.  1 , 24.7% of male respondents reported being bullied at school or in their communities during childhood, and 21.8% reported bullying others.

Source as Table 1

The prevalence of childhood trauma reported by male and female respondents.

3.2 Rape against non-partners

This study investigated men raping non-partner women. This included a man forcing or persuading a woman to have sex against her will, or a man having sex with a woman who was unable to give consent because of excessive alcohol or drug consumption. Gang rape, in which a woman was forced or persuaded to have sex against her will with more than one man, was also investigated. In order to present non-partner rape in context, data on partner rape are also listed in Table  3 . Although the majority of rapes are partner rapes, as indicated in Table  3 , women also face the risk of non-partner rape. One in five women reported being the victim of rape or attempted raped by non-partner men.

Regarding the motivation of rape, according to 222 male respondents who reported raping or attempting to rape non-partner women, the most common motivation was a feeling of male sexual entitlement. This included the man wanting to have the woman sexually, wanting to have sex, or wanting to show that he could have sex. Among these male respondents, 86.1% reported being driven by sexual entitlement. As well as sexual entitlement, 58% of the men reported being bored or seeking fun, 43% were angry or wanted to punish the woman, and 24% reported they had been drinking alcohol. Figure  2 indicates that some men’s sexual entitlement towards a women did not stop after the end of an intimate partner relationship. In fact ex-husbands and ex-boyfriends were the most likely perpetrators of non-partner rape. A look at the information reported by males who acknowledged having raped a woman, 91% of them committed rape for the first time between the ages of 15 and 29 years old, and 19.8% of the men raped more than one women.

Information on the perpetrators of 47 non-partner rapes and 145 attempted rape, as reported by women.

As shown in Fig.  3 , among 222 men who reported raping or attempting to rape non-partner women, nearly half of them reported suffering no consequences and only one quarter experienced legal repercussions. These findings correlate with the fact that about three quarters of women respondents kept silent after experiencing rape or attempted rape by non-partners.

The consequences of rape and attempted rape of non-partner women, as reported by male perpetrators.

4 Hegemonic masculinity and the risk factors of gender-based violence

4.1 hegemonic masculinity.

The views of the respondents on gender, femininities and masculinities were evaluated on several scales and Table  4 summarizes the specific elements of hegemonic masculinity. All except one of the items were supported by more than half of the male and female respondents.

There are two contradictions in Table  4 . First, while almost every male and female respondent agrees in the abstract principle that women and men should be treated equally, more than half of them also agree that men have more privileges than women when it comes to decision-making and sex life. The second contradiction is that, although more than 80% of male and female respondents agree men should share in the housework, more than half also consider looking after family members as women’s paramount duty. The gap between their attitudes and behaviors is greater for male respondents. While Table  4 shows that 92% of male respondents agree women should not be beaten in any situation, 44.7% of them reported inflicting physical IPV against women.

Why are there such striking contradictions? Table  4 reveals four key elements of hegemonic masculinity that provide at least part of the answer: (1) Men should decide important issues; (2) Men should be tough and use force if necessary; (3) A man should not beat a woman unless the woman challenges the man’s reputation; and 4) Men have to be heterosexual and it is in the nature of men to need sex more than women. By establishing these four elements above as a standard that defines “real men”, men’s domination over women is naturalized and legitimized. Such a definition of masculinity has negative ramifications for the notion of gender equality and can help to explain why there is such a large gap between male attitudes and behaviors. If hegemonic masculinity is the norm, gender equality does not mean that men and women should be treated the same, it means that men should treat women according to their “real” natures. In a world where men should decide important issues, be strong and use force if necessary, and need sex more than women, it becomes a simple matter for a man to justify forcing sex on an unwilling woman (i.e. raping a woman)—this is simply a manifestation of the natural order of things. While most people, men and women, agree that gender equality is a good thing in the abstract, widely accepted stereotypes of femininity, masculinity and gender differences lead instead to men dominating women and high levels of gender inequality.

Consistent with hegemonic masculinity which encourages men to be tough, use violence and not control sexual desire, male respondents reported a high likelihood of engaging in violent behavior and having unprotected sex. Nearly one in 5 men (18%) reported having participated in some form of violence including owning weapons, fighting with weapons, joining in gangs, being arrested and being in jail. Having unprotected sex was strikingly common. Among 856 men who reported having sexual experiences and answered the related questions, 82.7% of them reported never or seldom using condoms. Among 88 men who had had more than one sex partner during the last 12 month, 78.2% never or seldom used condoms.

IPV against women, one of the most common forms of violence engaged in by male respondents, also harms the male perpetrators. Compared with male respondents who never perpetrated IPV, Table  5 indicates that men who had perpetrated IPV were more likely to experience mental and reproductive health problems.

4.2 Risk factors for gender-based violence against women

Although poverty, low educational level, youth, and job pressures or unemployment are all commonly assumed to be risk factors associated with men perpetrating physical/sexual IPV against women, these are not confirmed by multiple logistic statistics. Table  6 presents the factors that increase the likelihood of a male perpetrating physical IPV against women. These are generational transmission of domestic violence and male domination, a man’s involvement in other types of violence, alcohol abuse, multiple sexual partners and quarrels between partners.

A comparison of Tables  6 and  7 shows that both the likelihood of men perpetrating physical and sexual IPV against women, and the likelihood of men raping partner and non-partner women were increased by three common risk factors: trauma during childhood, involvement in other types of violence, and having multiple sexual partners. Specifically, having experienced sexual violence during childhood and having low support for gender equality were found to be associated with men inflicting sexual violence.

5 Conclusion

Gender-based violence perpetrated by men is constructed within the social-ecological system, which is composed of four concentric circles. The innermost circle is the individual, and for this circle research identifies several risk factors including childhood trauma, involvement in other types of violence, alcohol abuse, multiple sexual partners and low support for gender equality. In the second circle consisting of relationships, male domination within the family, couples quarreling, generational transmission of ideas about unequal gender relationships and the commission of male violence against both females and children are found to be risk factors. The third circle consists of community, and risk factors in this circle are correlated to community responses to IPV and sexual assault against women, and people’s consciousness of and attitude towards the laws and regulations governing IPV and VAW. The outermost circle consists of social norms and the political and economic environments, and researchers find out that in China, social values, social policy, and laws and regulations are permeated with ideas of rigid hegemonic masculinity, and serve to perpetuate gender-based violence, especially IPV against women (Wang et al. 2013 ; Deng and Shi 2018 ).

Based on our findings, we have the following core recommendations: (1) The whole society including governments, mass media, communities and schools should recognize rigid hegemonic masculinity and work to eliminate this type of masculinity which perpetuates gender-based violence, especially IPV against women, encouraging instead non-violent masculinities based on gender equality. (2) The laws and regulations to stop IPV against women should be strengthened and stronger implementation and evaluation are needed to ensure that men are unable to commit violence against women with impunity. (3) Governmental agencies and NGOs should provide professional services for abused women, engage men in programs of violence prevention and strive to eliminate childhood trauma for boys and girls.

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Acknowledgements

The research is funded by China Office of United Nation Population Fund, technically supported by Partners for Prevention, an Asia–Pacific programme jointly established by United Nations Development Programme, United Nation Population Fund, UN women and UN Volunteers, and conducted by the Anti-Domestic Violence Network of China and the Beijing Forestry University.

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Wang, X., Fang, G. & Li, H. Gender-based violence and hegemonic masculinity in China: an analysis based on the quantitative research. China popul. dev. stud. 3 , 84–97 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42379-019-00030-9

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s42379-019-00030-9

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Homoprejudiced violence among Chinese men who have sex with men: a cross-sectional analysis in Guangzhou, China

• Dan Wu 1 , 2 ,
• Eileen Yang 2 , 3 ,
• Wenting Huang 2 , 4 ,
• Weiming Tang 2 , 5 , 6 ,
• Huifang Xu 7 ,
• Chuncheng Liu 8 ,
• Stefan Baral 9 ,
• Suzanne Day 3 &
• Joseph D. Tucker 1 , 2 , 5  

BMC Public Health volume  20 , Article number:  400 ( 2020 ) Cite this article

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Homoprejudiced violence, defined as physical, verbal, psychological and cyber aggression against others because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation, is an important public health issue. Most homoprejudiced violence research has been conducted in high-income countries. This study examined homoprejudiced violence among men who have sex with men (MSM) in Guangzhou, China.

MSM in a large Chinese city, Guangzhou, completed an online survey. Data about experiencing and initiating homoprejudiced violence was collected. Multivariable logistic regression analyses, controlling for age, residence, occupation, heterosexual marriage, education and income, were carried out to explore associated factors.

A total of 777 responses were analyzed and most (64.9%) men were under the age of 30. Three-hundred-ninety-nine (51.4%) men experienced homoprejudiced violence and 205 (25.9%) men perpetrated homoprejudiced violence against others. Men who identified as heterosexual were less (AOR = 0.6, 95% CI: 0.4–0.9) likely to experience homoprejudiced violence compared to men who identified as gay. Men who experienced homoprejudiced violence were more likely to initiate homoprejudiced violence (AOR = 2.44, 95% CI: 1.6–3.5). Men who disclosed their sexual orientation to other people were more likely to experience homoprejudiced violence (AOR = 1.8, 95% CI:1.3–2.5).

Conclusions

These findings suggest the importance of further research and the implementation of interventions focused on preventing and mitigating the effects of homoprejudiced violence among MSM in China.

Peer Review reports

Homoprejudiced violence is a major public health issue [ 1 ]. Homoprejudiced violence is defined as physical, verbal, psychological, and cyber aggression against an individual, group or community based on their actual or perceived sexual orientation [ 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 ]. Homoprejudiced violence can be directed at people who identify as sexual minorities or those who are perceived as being a sexual minority.

The United Nations (UN) has recognized homoprejudiced violence as an important public health problem [ 4 ]. Homoprejudiced violence can result in physical and psychological harm, decreased productivity, and increased risk of addictions (e.g., substance and alcohol use) [ 4 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 ]. However, homoprejudiced violence is often under-reported because victims are afraid of disclosing their sexual orientation [ 10 ] and there are limited resources for survivors [ 9 , 11 ].

There is less research on homoprejudice in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) [ 12 , 13 ], including China [ 4 ]. One Chinese study found that 40.7% of sexual minorities experienced name calling, 34.8% were verbally abused, 22.4% were isolated in school, and 6.0% received physical violence threats [ 6 ]. Furthermore, existing evidence is focused more broadly on sexual minorities as a whole [ 9 ]. Previous research on LGBT youth in the United States reported that gay men are at higher risk of ostracization and receiving homoprejudiced remarks compared to lesbian and bisexual subgroups [ 14 , 15 ]. However, little is known about the experiences of homoprejudiced violence among gay men or other men who have sex with men (MSM). Discrimination and homoprejudiced violence are known to influence sexual orientation disclosure [ 7 , 10 , 16 ] and uptake of HIV and other sexual health services [ 17 ]. A study in the United States reported that homoprejudiced violence victimization during youth was associated with more condomless sex and higher risk of HIV during adulthood [ 18 ].

Homoprejudiced violence initiated by gay men has not been well studied [ 9 ]. Many people who do not conform to gender and sexual norms are stigmatized, especially among men [ 14 ]. Masculinity is a primary component of socially desirable gender expression for men, and according to Connell’s theory of hegemonic masculinity, aggression is a feature of masculinity [ 19 , 20 ]. As a result, both heterosexual men and closeted gay men may act in an aggressive way towards gay people to demonstrate their masculinity and differentiate themselves from gay men. Some gay men are afraid of receiving homoprejudiced violence and in order to hide their sexual orientation, show aggressive behaviors against LGBT groups to reinforce their masculinity [ 6 , 9 ]. Understanding homoprejudiced violence may help to improve resources and develop interventions. The purpose of this study was to examine the frequency and correlates of homoprejudiced violence among MSM in Guangzhou, China.

Material and methods

Online survey.

In partnership with a local community-based organization (CBO) and the Guangzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), we conducted a cross-sectional online questionnaire survey with 777 MSM in Guangzhou, China in September 2018. The survey was distributed online to MSM through CBO and CDC social media accounts. Eligibility criteria included the following: being biologically male at birth; being 16 years old or above; reported ever having oral or anal sex with men; residing in Guangzhou in the past six months. All survey data were anonymous and confidential, and online consent was obtained prior to the survey. Each man who participated received either 7.5 USD (50 Chinese Yuan) or a free HIV self-test kit as an incentive to participate.

Survey instruments

We collected information about participants’ sociodemographic characteristics including age, residence permit, occupation, heterosexual marital status (never married, engaged or married, and divorced/separated/widowed), annual income, highest education obtained (high school or less, some college, university, and postgraduate), gender identity (male, female, transgender, and unsure), sexual orientation (gay, bisexual, heterosexual, and unsure) and sexual orientation disclosure to people other than their partner(s) (yes/no).

Homoprejudiced violence questionnaire

Twelve homoprejudiced violence survey items were designed based on previous literature [ 5 , 21 , 22 ]. We selected 12 items to cover four domains – physical assault, verbal aggression, psychological abuse, and cyber violence (Supplementary file 1 ). We translated and adapted the 12 items in order for them to be relevant to Chinese men. These 12 items asked whether a participant had ever experienced any of the following due to their sexual orientation: being gossiped about, being name called, being deliberately alienated or isolated, being threatened, being maliciously called gay, being spat on, having personal belongings damaged, being deprived of economic resources or personal belongings by someone (including family members), having personal freedom restricted by someone (including family members), being physically harmed (such as being slapped, beaten or kicked), being harmed on social media (such as WeChat and Weibo, the Chinese substitutes of WhatsApp and Twitter), and being harmed through phone calls or messages. The items were field tested with 10 participants and minor amendments were made for better clarity.

All 12 items used three responses: “yes”, “no” and “do not want to tell”. A new summative variable was generated by adding up the responses (“yes” were coded as 1, “no” or “do not want to tell” were coded as 0) of the 12 items to assess the overall prevalence. The summed value 0 was recoded as 0 (no prior experiences of homoprejudiced violence), and the summed values 1 to 12 were recoded as 1 (prior experiences of homoprejudiced violence of any type) (outcome 1). Additionally, one follow-up item asked whether participants had ever committed any of the 12 violent behaviors aforementioned against others due to their sexual orientation (yes, no, do not want to tell) (outcome 2). The Cronbach alpha value of the 12-item homoprejudiced violence questionnaire was 0.89.

Data analysis

Descriptive analysis was used to describe sample characteristics, including sociodemographic backgrounds and frequencies of violence experiences. The two outcomes were dichotomized (with “no” and “do not want to tell” grouped together) in regression analyses. We conducted univariate and multivariable binary logistic regressions to examine sociodemographic factors associated with homoprejudiced violence. We reported odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Data were analyzed using SPSS, version 25.

We invited 2691 MSM to participate in the survey and 917 completed the questionnaire (response rate = 34%). Overall, 140 of these 917 MSM did not meet inclusion criteria and were excluded from the analysis. Data from 777 men were included in the analysis. Table  1 shows sociodemographic characteristics of the sample. Over half of survey respondents were under the age of 30 (495, 64.9%) and self-identified as gay (447, 57.5%). Most men lived in urban areas (639, 82.2%). A large proportion of men were not students (718, 92.4%), and about half had obtained university-level education or above (440, 56.7%). Around 40% (313) of men earned an annual income between US$8682–13,024, and nearly three-quarters had never been engaged or married to a woman (574, 73.9%). Most men had disclosed their sexual orientation to people other than their partners (571, 73.5%). A total of 399 (51.4%) men reported experiences of homoprejudiced violence, while 205 (25.9%) men initiated homoprejudiced violence (Fig.  1 ). Frequencies of each violence item are reported in Table  2 . One hundred and six men (13.4%) experienced physical violence. One hundred and eighty-three men (23.1%) experienced name calling. Two hundred men (25.2%) experienced social isolation. One hundred and thirteen men (14.2%) experienced deprivation of economic resources or personal belongings and 128 (16.1%) reported cyber violence on social media.

Infographic of homoprejudiced violence in Guangzhou, China. Source of data: The authors created this infographic based on the study findings by using a free graphic design website Canva ( https://www.canva.com/ )

After controlling for demographic variables including age, residence status, occupation, marital status, education level, and annual income, multivariable logistic regression analyses showed that men who identified as heterosexual were less (AOR = 0.6, 95% CI: 0.4–0.9) likely to experience homoprejudiced violence compared to men who identified as gay.Men who were unsure about their sexual orientation were more likely (AOR = 2.6, 95% CI: 1.2–5.5) to have experienced homoprejudiced violence compared to gay men (Table  3 ). Men who disclosed their sexual orientation were,more likely (AOR = 1.8, 95% CI: 1.3–2.5) to experience homoprejudiced violence compared to other men (Table 3 ).

Men younger than 30 years old were more likely to have initiated homoprejudiced violence against others compared to older men (AOR = 2.4, 95% CI: 1.5–3.8) (Table 3 ). Urban men were also more likely to have initiated homoprejudiced violence compared to rural men (AOR = 2.9, 95% CI: 1.6–5.2). Men who were engaged or married to women were more likely (AOR = 5.7, 95% CI: 3.6–9.1) to have initiated homoprejudiced violence than those who had never been married. Men who were separated, divorced, or widowed were more likely (AOR = 9.2, 95% CI: 4.8–17.6) to have initiated homoprejudiced violence compared to other men. People who identified as women or transgender/unsure were found to be 3.0 times (AOR = 3.0, 95% CI: 1.5–6.2) and 2.2 times (AOR = 2.2, 95% CI: 1.2–4.2) more likely to have been a perpetrator, respectively. Respondents who ever experienced homoprejudiced violence before were 2.4 times (AOR = 2.4, 95% CI: 1.6–3.5) more likely to have initiated homoprejudiced violence against others.

Homoprejudiced violence among sexual minorities is an important public health issue in many LMICs. Our study contributes to the literature by examining homoprejudiced violence among MSM in China, including MSM-initiated homoprejudiced violence .

We found that approximately half of men had ever experienced some form of homoprejudiced violence. This is lower than the prevalence of homoprejudiced violence observed in the UK [ 9 ] and US [ 11 , 23 ]. Less homoprejudiced violence in Guangzhou may be related to lower levels of disclosing sexual orientation [ 24 ]. This finding is consistent with studies showing that more visible LGBT people may suffer from higher levels of violence [ 25 , 26 ]. Interventions to reduce discrimination against sexual minorities are needed in China.

Many MSM in our sample who experienced homoprejudiced violence then went on to initiate homoprejudiced violence against other MSM. This finding is consistent with a study from the United States [ 27 ]. MSM may use violence as an approach to conceal their sexual orientation if they have been a victim of homoprejudiced violence [ 9 ]. Other potential factors may include poor sexual education and fear of social stigma. Poor awareness of homoprejudiced violence might also play a role. Understanding the context of homoprejudiced violence is key to successfully creating an environment where all MSM feel safe.

The data presented here have implications for research and policy. There are few epidemiological studies focusing on homoprejudiced violence among MSM in LMICs. Our study provides evidence on the prevalence and correlates of homoprejudiced violence. In terms of designing interventions, some subsets of MSM may be at greater risk for homoprejudiced violence. Our study suggests that younger, urban, and openly gay men are more likely to initiate homoprejudiced violence against others. Given young gay men are more often engaged in community-based sexual health programs, there may be missed opportunities for engaging community-based organizations to develop anti-violence interventions.

Our findings should be interpreted in the context of several limitations. First, we conducted the survey with MSM who subscribed to the social media account of a community-based organization that provided sexual health services in a developed city in China. Our participants had higher education and income than the average Guangzhou resident. Our study results should not be extrapolated to the wider community of MSM in China. Second, we combined participants’ responses of “no” and “don’t want to tell” to homoprejudiced violence as one category. This may result in a conservative or underestimate of the actual prevalence of homoprejudiced violence experiences due to unwillingness to share. Third, the study focused on homoprejudiced violence, but not broader experiences of homoprejudice. It is likely that non-violent experiences of homoprejudice among MSM are even more prevalent (e.g. social exclusion). Fourth, we recruited MSM who ever had anal or oral sex with a man in the study but did not include those who were gay men but had never engaged in sex with a man, limiting our understanding of the experiences of homoprejudiced violence to a subset of sexually active MSM. Lastly, an online cross-sectional questionnaire survey has limited depth to fully understand men’s thoughts about their own experiences. Qualitative research is warranted to better understand the issue.

Homoprejudiced violence is an important public health problem. We found high a prevalence of homoprejudiced violence victimization and perpetration among Chinese MSM. Interventions are necessary to prevent homoprejudiced violence among Chinese MSM and create an environment where MSM feel safe.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Abbreviations

• Men who have sex with men

Low- and middle-income countries

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This work received funding support from Academy of Medical Sciences and the Newton Fund (Grant number NIF\R1\181020), National Institutes of Health (NIAID 1R01AI114310–01), UNC-South China STD Research Training Center (FIC 1D43TW009532–01), UNC Center for AIDS Research (NIAID 5P30AI050410), the North Carolina Translational & Clinical Sciences Institute (1UL1TR001111), and SMU Research Initiation Project (QD2017N030, C1034448). The funders played no role in study design, data collection, analysis and interpretation of data, or in the writing of the article.

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D.W. conceived the idea and designed the study. W.H., W.T., and H.X. coordinated and collected data. W.H. cleaned the data. D.W. and E.Y. analyzed the data. D.W., E.Y., and J.D. wrote the paper. W.H., W.T., C.L., S.B., S.D., and H.X. provided constructive comments and edited the paper. All authors reviewed and approved the final version of the paper.

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Homoprejudiced violence questionnaire.

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Wu, D., Yang, E., Huang, W. et al. Homoprejudiced violence among Chinese men who have sex with men: a cross-sectional analysis in Guangzhou, China. BMC Public Health 20 , 400 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-020-08540-9

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Probing Causes of Violence Against Women in China

• 24 June 2011

HUNAN PROVINCE, China — A lively workshop session on gender equality started with brainstorming of commonly used Chinese idioms describing a good man.

He should have a back like a tiger and a waist like a bear.

He does not shed tears until his heart is broken.

He stands firm amid adversities.

On the subject of a good woman, more hands shot up.

She should behave in a sweet and helpless way.

She should be caring and affectionate.

She should be a good wife and loving mother.

Of the more than 40 men and women who attended the interviewers' training last spring, half were university students from all over China, and half of them were recruited locally from various professions. Most of them are in their 20s, joined by a few older retirees. The training -- which included an innovative use of new technology qualified them to undertake innovative field data collection on men, gender equality and violence against women.

The fieldwork is part of the research on masculinities – the qualities generally ascribed to  men – and their connections to violence against women.

Generating new perspectives on masculinities

Equipped with knowledge of complicated issues surrounding violence and gender norms, the interviewers will seek views from both men and women in this Hunan Province city. China is one of seven countries included in a research project on gender-based violence in the Asia Pacific region. Led by Partners for Prevention, a regional programme supported by UNDP, UNFPA, UN Women and UN Volunteers, the research will generate new analysis on masculinities and violence in the region and is expected to improve measures to prevent and respond to violence against women.

“The research is the most strict one in terms of the ethics standard, and the most comprehensive one with lots of hard-to-ask questions,” said Professor Wang Xiangxian, one of the key Chinese researchers dedicated to this project. For both men and women, the questionnaire includes probing some of the most private aspects of their lives, including sexual relations, violence, intimate relationships and drug use. The greatest challenge the research team faces is how to ask these questions in the most appropriate way and to get honest answers without betraying the privacy of the interviewees.  

Using technology to make hard-to-ask questions easier

The trendy Apple portable iTouch provides an innovative solution. All the questions are programmed in a special application that can be installed in an ITouch that will serve as a personal digital assistant for the interviewer. Instead of holding printed questionnaires in hand and going through each question face-to-face with the interviewee, the interviewer will guide the  subject to answer the questions directly on the iTouch. The questions are even recorded so that those  who can’t read will hear the questions with headsets and key in their answers. The use of the PDAs aims to avoid embarrassment, to allow self-reporting of violent acts such as physical abuse and rape, and to ensure maximum protection of privacy.

The field work will last for over a month in  the UNFPA-supported pilot site. Already the project has made some important breakthroughs, ranging from village level awareness-raising to the issuing of city-level legislation on violence against women. The findings from the research will bring valuable insights to all stakeholders involved to formulate effective actions to prevent and respond to violence against women by taking into account of both men and women. The results will also be shared with Chinese experts involved in the process of drafting the Anti-Domestic Violence Law of China

                                                                                                        --- Gao Cuiling, UNFPA China

Seeking Help for 'Private Matters' in China

LIU YANG CITY, China —" I feel happy with my life now. I believe it is going to be better," says 32-year-old Xiao Hui, who no longer fears the shadow of domestic violence.

Xiao Hui and her husband were schoolmates. After leaving high school, they both went to work in Guangdong Province as migrant workers for a few years, and they fell in love. They returned to Duzheng Village to get married.

With the arrival of their daughter seven years ago, Xiao Hui stayed at home while her husband worked with construction companies nearby. With one more person to feed, the couple began to quarrel about money. One day, her husband returned Xiao Hui’s complaints by forcefully shoving her to the bedside. "He treated me with no respect. He hurt me as much as if he had beaten me," said Xiao Hui.>

Xiao Hui did not just worry and cry after the incident. She remembered seeing the anti-domestic violence posters and performances near the village and she mustered up the courage to ask Ms. Zu of the Women’s Committee whether her ‘private matter’ would qualify for some sort of formal intervention. To her surprise, Ms. Zu organized a mediation session with the couple and their parents. "My husband was told if he did not stop, he would have to face the consequences," Xiao Hui recalled.

Xiao Hui thought the mediation really worked. "My husband would have started beating me if he did not get the formal warning," Xiao Hui believes.

Duzheng Village is one of the seven local villages in Liuyang that have organized intensive community activities to encourage villagers to speak out and seek support whether violence occurs in or out of their houses. It is part of a UNFPA-supported pilot initiative aiming at setting up a multi-sectoral model on violence against women. "Our volunteers spread messages on violence when entertaining big crowds of people, even at weddings and funerals," said Ms. Zu. Every household got a letter on domestic violence and there were displays in the village on where to get support when violence happens.

According to the Violence against Women: Facts and Figure 2010 compiled by UNFPA China and a Chinese NGO Andi-Domestic Violence Network, "one of the greatest challenges to addressing this is that women usually seek help from informal networks such as family, and neighbours, or never tell anyone of the violence". In China, where the culture of "washing your dirty linen at home" is extremely strong, the village campaign on violence makes it possible for many women like Xiao Hui to speak up and seek help for what is usually seen as ‘private matters.’

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• http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6935-9781 M Salazar 1 ,
• N Daoud 2 ,
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• Margaret Scanlon 4 ,
• C Vives-Cases 5 , 6
• 1 Department of Global Public Health, GloSH research group , Karolinska Institutet , Stockholm , Sweden
• 2 Department of Public Health, Faculty of Health Sciences , Ben-Gurion University of the Negev , Beer-Sheva , Israel
• 3 School of Applied Social Studies , University College Cork , Cork , Ireland
• 4 Institute for Social Science in the 21st Century (ISS21) , University College Cork , Cork , Ireland
• 5 Department of Community Nursing, Preventive Medicine and Public Health and History of Science , University of Alicante , Alicante , Spain
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• Correspondence to Dr M Salazar; mariano.salazar{at}ki.se

Introduction Despite public policies and legislative changes aiming to curtail men’s violence against women (VAW) around the world, women continue to be exposed to VAW throughout their life. One in three women in Europe has reported physical or sexual abuse. Men who display unequitable masculinities are more likely to be perpetrators. VAW is increasingly appearing at younger ages. The aims of the project are fourfold: (1) to explore and position the discourses that young people (men and women, 18–24 years) in Sweden, Spain, Ireland and Israel use in their understanding of masculinities, (2) to explore how these discourses influence young people’s attitudes, behaviours and responses to VAW, (3) to explore individual and societal factors supporting and promoting anti-VAW masculinities discourses and (4) to develop actions and guidelines to support and promote anti-VAW masculinities in these settings.

Methods and analysis A participatory explorative mixed-method study will be used. In Phase 1, qualitative methods will be used to identify the discourses that young people and stakeholders use to conceptualise masculinities, VAW and the actions that are needed to support and promote antiviolence masculinities. In Phase 2, concept mapping will be used to quantify the coherence, relative importance and perceived relationship between the different actions to support and promote anti-VAW masculinities. Phase 3 is a knowledge creation and translation phase, based on findings from Phases 1 and 2, where actions and guidelines to promote and support anti-VAW masculinities will be developed.

Ethics and dissemination Ethical clearance has been obtained from ethics review boards in each country. Results will be disseminated through peer-reviewed publications, presentations at international conferences, policy briefs, social media and through the project online hub. With its multicountry approach, our project results seek to inform policies and interventions aimed at promoting discourses which challenge hegemonic masculinities.

• public health
• qualitative research
• statistics & research methods

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https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2020-038797

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Strengths and limitations of this study

Our mixed-method exploratory (MM) design allow us to combine the strengths of both qualitative and quantitative research to obtain a holistic picture of antiviolence masculinities in four countries.

The participatory design of this project engages young people and community stakeholders.

The methodology is based around a series of interconnected phases, each building on the previous one; qualitative data are used as a basic for the quantitative concept mapping study.

The exploratory longitudinal MM design is time consuming and expensive compared with cross-sectional studies.

The statistical generalisation of the quantitative findings is limited.

Introduction

The United Nations defines violence against women (VAW) as ‘any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life’. 1 Despite public policies and legislative changes aiming to curtail men’s VAW around the world, women continue to be exposed to violence throughout their life course.

According to the 2015 European Union survey on VAW, 2 one in three women in Europe has reported physical or sexual abuse from the age of 15 years. 2 Rates vary between countries; the lifetime prevalence of physical/sexual violence ranges from 46% in Sweden to 22% and 26% in Spain and Ireland, respectively. Meanwhile, in Israel, a recent nationwide study that included a stratified sample of perinatal women found that close to 40% of women attending maternal and child health services had been exposed to different forms of intimate partner violence (IPV) at some point in their lives, with the prevalence of IPV higher among Arab women (67%) than among Jewish women (27%). 3

Masculinities and VAW: what do we know?

Connell 4 proposes that there are different types of masculinities, which are related to each other in diverse ways (relations of hegemony, subordination, complicity and marginalisation). Among those, hegemonic masculinities are the constellations of actions that protect and reinforce the dominant position of men in a society. 4 They represent the ideals of what it is to be a man in a given society. While they vary across settings, they often depict men as heterosexual, strong, as household heads, economic providers, entitled to sex and above all and dominant over women. 4

Population-based studies in South Africa 5 and multicountry studies in Latin America 6 and Asia 7 have consistently found that men who display hegemonic masculinities are more likely to perpetrate different forms of VAW. A multicountry study in Asia found that men who reported adherence to traditional forms of masculinities (ie, low equality) were two times more likely to have committed sexual or physical abuse towards women (AIRR 2·22,95% CI 1.28 to 3.84). 7

However, masculinities can manifest themselves in many ways, and not always harmfully. In our previous qualitative studies in Latin America, for example, we found that young men enact different masculinities that express diverse discursive positions on gender equity and VAW. 8–10 The discursive positions range from a challenging discourse that problematises gender inequality, men’s lack of responsibility for VAW and sexual abuse and women’s subordination to discourses that reject men’s responsibility and curtail women’s agency. Most promisingly, we have identified what we might refer to as anti-VAW masculinities existing among young men. These young men are more likely to reject risk behaviours traditionally associated with masculinity, to defend women’s rights, to reject men’s VAW and to actively be involved in actions preventing or curtailing VAW. 8–10 These ideas have consequences for our understandings of masculinities in relation to VAW. These are ideas that we intend to explore further in this study, in European and Israeli contexts.

Gender, power, masculinity and its relationship to VAW

VAW does not occur in isolation as it is strongly influenced by gender and the way masculinities are enacted. Gender can be defined as the evolving, socially constructed and time-bound set of power, economic, emotional and symbolic relations by which men and women interact with each other. 11 The concept of power is central in the study of VAW and gender. While there are many definitions, 12 in this protocol power is defined as the ability to dominate others. 12

Gender relations are often unequal, and the gender order is often viewed as a norm system in which men have a dominant position over women. This power is largely exercised by controlling (often through violence) women’s lives and bodies. 11 Therefore, it is clear that understanding masculinities is crucial if VAW is to be reduced.

Masculinities are constructed, reconstructed and sustained in multiple arenas in a society. For young people, these arenas include the educational system. 13 From a symbolic perspective, the dichotomisation and conceptualisation of gender in terms of binary categories is reinforced by having separate restrooms, dividing boys and girls in sports activities, creating competition between genders and so on. Male pupils often establish hierarchies based on aggression, dominance, competition and sexuality that are reflections of the traditional gender order (ie, nerds vs the athletes, gay vs straights, etc). 13 These traditional gender hierarchies between young men (and young women) are often tolerated if not supported.

However, gender relations are not static as they are constantly evolving. They are frequently challenged by men and women rejecting the gender order and its relationships of subordination and marginalisation. 4 Howson 14 has proposed that protest masculinities and femininities exist, and are represented by men and women who challenge traditional gender relations. In Europe, Elliot has described a form of protest masculinity called caring masculinity. 15 Caring masculinities reject men’s domination over women and embrace positive values such as caring for others, interdependence and emotional expression.

Protest masculinities can also arise from men’s involvement with groups challenging men’s VAW. 16 Developing anti-VAW masculinities is a process that takes time. 8–10 It involves not only being non-violent oneself, but being agents of change by questioning and deterring VAW whenever it is enacted in a society. 16 The outcomes of this process are influenced by the intensity of men’s participation in these groups, the ideologies underpinning the group’s work and societal factors supporting or hindering change. 15

Flood 16 has highlighted that developing anti-VAW masculinities does not imply that men will also question the other privileges that patriarchy bestows to men (ie, greater decision-making power and authority, lack of involvement in household duties, etc). One example of this is benevolent sexism. 17 Benevolent sexism is a paternalistic approach that views women as weak, vulnerable and without agency. This approach fosters men’s protective stance over women; however, it also rationalises women’s subordinated position in a society. 17

It is widely recognised that traditional hegemonic forms of masculinities must be challenged and addressed if any reduction on VAW is to be achieved. 18 The European Commission Advisory Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men has also highlighted the relevance of identifying and supporting new forms of masculinities in tackling gender inequality. 19

In Europe, a significant amount of research has been conducted on hegemonic masculinity and its connection with violence towards other men, 20–22 IPV/honour-related violence, 23 fatherhood, ill health and increased young men’s risky sexual behaviours 23 among others. These studies have provided important insights into the relationship between hegemonic masculinities, ill health and different types of violence. However, none have specifically focused on young people, on interrogating the existence of masculinities that specifically challenge VAW, and how these anti-VAW masculinities can be supported.

Our research focuses on young people since different forms of VAW, including IPV, are increasingly appearing at earlier ages. According to WHO data 24 young men who are violent towards women have a higher risk of continuing being violent with their future partners. In addition, toxic partner relations can begin and endure if VAW is normalised at this age. Thus, VAW prevention should start early in life if sustained progress on preventing VAW is to be achieved. We believe that identifying young people’s discursive positions on VAW, as well as the factors supporting and promoting anti-VAW masculinity discourses, are key steps in designing and implementing gender-sensitive, evidence-based policies aimed at reducing VAW. Through its methodology, participatory process and dissemination strategies, this research will seek to contribute to public and policy debate and actions around anti-VAW masculine identities in addressing VAW.

The aim of this project is to explore the discourses that young people in Sweden, Spain, Ireland and Israel use in their understanding of masculinities and to explore how these discourses influence young people’s attitudes, behaviours and responses to VAW. Furthermore, we will explore individual and societal factors supporting and promoting anti-VAW masculinity discourses within and across these countries and develop actions and guidelines to support and promote anti-VAW masculinities in these settings.

Methods and analysis

Overall project design.

This research will be conducted in Sweden, Spain, Israel and Ireland. These countries were selected because the collaborating institutions are located there. We will conduct a participatory, mixed-method (MM) study using an exploratory sequential design. 25 In the first phase, data will be gathered using semistructured interviews and focus groups discussions (FGDs) in order to identify the discourses that young people and stakeholders use to conceptualise masculinities and VAW, as well as actions needed to support and promote anti-VAW masculinities. In Phase 2, we will use concept mapping (CM) to quantify the coherence, relative importance and perceived relationship between the different actions to support and promote anti-VAW masculinities identified in Phase 1. Phase 3 is knowledge creation and translation phase where we will disseminate our findings and design guidelines, in conjunction with stakeholders and young people, to promote and support anti-VAW masculinities.

The project started on January 1st, 2019. Phase 1: The first 6 months of the project were focused on developing the project logistics and data collection instrument. Data collection for Phase 1 started on August 1st, 2019 and ended on February 29th, 2020. Phase 2: Planning for logistics and developing the data collection instrument started on March 1st, 2020 and ended on August 30th, 2020. Data collection for Phase 2 will be conducted from September 1st, 2020 to January 30th, 2021. Data analysis from both phases will be conducted from February 1st 2021 to August 30, 2021. Phase 3 started on September 1st, 2020 and will end on March 30th, 2022.

Qualitative study with young men and women

(1) To explore and position the discourses that young people use in their understanding of masculinities, (2) to explore how these discourses influence young people’s attitudes, behaviours and responses to VAW and (3) to explore individual and societal factors supporting and promoting anti-VAW masculinity discourses in the study settings.

Participant selection

Participants will be young people aged 18–24 years. Purposeful sampling 26 of young people will be undertaken based on the primary criteria of age, gender and whether or not the young person is involved in activism or an organisation working to prevent VAW. Within the sample in each country, we will seek to obtain an equal representation of men and women, of different ages within the 18–24 age bracket, and also seek to capture representation based on diverse socioeconomic backgrounds and educational levels. Due to ethical reasons, we will not ask our participants for their sexual orientation or gender identity. However, young people are welcomed to participate regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

The sampling strategy described above will allow us to compare the similarities and differences between different groups of young people based on age, gender and whether they are engaged or not in anti-VAW activism. Participants will be recruited through advertisements and flyers posted in educational institutions (high schools, universities, etc.), social media (Facebook, Instagram, etc.), non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and state institutions working with young people.

Data collection

In-depth interviews and FGDs will be used to gather the data. In-depth interviews will allow us to explore individual experiences and FGDs will allow us to identify community norms and values related to our research questions. A semistructured discussion guide with open-ended questions will be used to collect the data. This will be developed based on a literature review, our previous experience in the field and discussions with the country-level advisory groups of both stakeholders and young people established for the project.

The topics to be explored in the interviews and FGDs include perceptions about masculinities, femininities, different forms of VAW (emotional, physical, sexual, controlling behaviour and online violence) and suggestions about how to promote and support anti-VAW masculinities. Short vignettes describing everyday situations where VAW is enacted will be used to encourage discussion.

Data will be collected until saturation of the information is reached. Around 15–20 in-depth interviews will be conducted per country. Four FGDs, two with young people from the general population and two with young people affiliated with organisations working to prevent VAW, will be also conducted per country. FGDs will be stratified by gender. Non-binary and gender queer people will be welcomed to be part of the FGD they feel more comfortable with. Data will be audio recorded and transcribed verbatim.

Situational analysis 27 will be used to analyse the data. We have chosen this method because it allows us to identify how discourses on masculinity and VAW differ and overlap within and across settings. Discourses can be defined as ‘a broadly discernible cluster of terms, descriptions and figures of speech often assembled around metaphors or vivid images’. 28 They are important because they reflect how people understand different topics and act on them.

Situational analysis starts by inductively coding the text and constantly comparing the data to group the codes into categories of meaning. The constant comparison will allow us to identify how the categories merge into discourses and what axes of variation (ie, responsibility for VAW) are present in the data. The data will be represented using a positional map articulating the different positions taken or not in the masculinity discourses around different axes of variation. 27

Qualitative study with stakeholders

To identify individual and societal factors and strategies to support and promote anti-VAW masculinity discourses within and across the study settings.

Participant selection and data collection

Participants will be community (NGOs and youth organisations) and government stakeholders (ministries of social work, health, education, gender equality, etc) working in the prevention of VAW with young people. Participants will be identified through a combination of snowball sampling 26 and a web search of institutions fitting the required profile.

In-depth interviews will be used to collect the data. A semistructured discussion guide will be developed based on a literature review and discussions with the national advisory groups. Topics to be explored include: (1) general information about the organisation (aims, target groups, activities, etc), (2) how VAW is conceptualised in their work and/or programmes and (3) suggestions for strategies to promote and support antiviolence masculinities in their setting. Around 10–15 in-depth interviews will be conducted in each country. Data will be audio recorded and transcribed verbatim.

Qualitative content analysis will be used to analyse the data. 29 The transcripts will be coded inductively looking at the manifest and latent content of the text. Codes will be categorised into a group of content that shares a commonality (categories). Later themes representing the overall meaning running through categories will be identified.

Phase 2: CM

To quantify the coherence, patterns of priorities and perceived relationship between the different actions for supporting and promoting anti-VAW masculinities identified in Phase 1.

CM is an MM approach that enables groups of actors to visualise their ideas around an issue of mutual interest and develop common frameworks through a structured participatory process. The steps are: (1) generation of ideas, (2) structuring of ideas through sorting and rating and (3) development of conceptual maps, and finally a collective interpretation of the maps. 30

Data collection and analysis

Results of the interviews and FGDs identified in Phase 1 will be the starting point (brainstorming phase) for our CM study. The research team will then gather all the proposed actions for supporting and promoting anti-VAW masculinities and create a consolidated list containing between 50 and 100 individual statements or actions. 30 A questionnaire containing the refined list will be sent by e-mail again to the study participants for sorting and rating. For the sorting, participants will be asked to group together actions in different groups based on their own judgments. For rating, the participants will be asked to rate each action in terms of both importance and current presence in their communities (a Likert Scale will be used).

GroupWisdom CM software (Concept System Incorporated, 2019) will be used to collect the data, and for analysis. The analysis will be conducted in different steps. Once all participants have sorted the strategies, multidimensional scaling (MDS) 30 31 will be applied to the sorting data. MDS assigns coordinates to each strategy locating them with a point in a bidimensional map to create a point map. The closer the points are to each other in the map, the more likely that the strategies represented by the points have been sorted together. Hierarchical cluster analysis is then performed to divide all strategies into clusters creating a cluster map. 30 After this, the rating data are averaged for each strategy and cluster and displayed on top of the point and cluster maps, respectively. This is done to obtain a visual representation of the relative importance of the strategies within and between clusters. It also provides a visual representation of the relative importance of each cluster to each other.

After the maps are created, we will conduct two specific analyses: (1) a ‘pattern match’ that compares average cluster ratings between two groups of informants (ie, men and women, young people and stakeholders, etc) and (2) a ‘Go-Zone’, defined as ‘a bivariate plot of the strategies values for the two rating variables used (ie, importance and feasibility) divided into quadrants above and below the mean of each rating variable’. 30 The upper-right quadrant shows a ‘Go-Zone’ area of strategies that are above average on both rating variables in a cluster. The lower-right quadrant shows actions that have been rated above average in one variable but not the in the other and so on. This analysis will allow us to identify what strategies in each cluster need to be prioritised and/or improved on to achieve, promote and support anti-VAW masculinities.

Patient and public involvement

No patients will be involved in this study. The public will be involved as follows: at the outset of the project, two advisory groups will be established in each country, one made up of young people, and the other of stakeholders working in the arena of VAW. The advisory groups will provide input on the project design, on specific research instruments, including the interview topic guides, and on emergent findings. They will meet at pertinent points in the project (eg, in designing the interview guide, after the end of Phase 1 to discuss emergent findings, in providing feedback on the CM statements, and also interpreting findings from the CM. Please see Phase 3 for a detailed description.

Phase 3: knowledge creation and translation

The Knowledge-to-Action Framework 32 is a knowledge translation model that includes ‘the synthesis, dissemination, exchange and ethically sound application of knowledge to improve health’. Due to funding limitations, in this proposal, we focus on the collection of primary research (knowledge inquiry), guidelines generation (knowledge distillation) and peer-reviewed and grey literature publications (knowledge dissemination). 32

In this section, we will describe our knowledge distillation activities. These use a participatory approach where we engage with different stakeholders by involving them in the research process so that their issues and concerns are understood, considered and reflected in the project outcomes. 33

Specifically, in Phase 3, and in order to engage stakeholders and young people in making sense of the findings, including the CM exercise, we will organise separate workshops with young people, community (NGOs and youth organisations) and government stakeholders (ministries of social work, health, education, gender equality, etc) who participated in Phases 1 or 2 in each country. We will also invite our advisory groups to be part of this process.

The purpose of the workshops will be to: (a) present and validate our main findings and (b) present our first draft of guidelines and materials to promote anti-VAW masculinities and challenge attitudes that tolerate VAW. We will then ask each group of stakeholders to: (1) comment on the clarity and validity of our research findings and (2) review the proposed guidelines looking at the acceptability and validity of the actions described, practical factors that may hamper their implementation, any unforeseen negative effect of the suggested strategies, costs and the current format of the content.

The feedback provided by the stakeholders will be recorded in writing and discussed within the research team. After this, we will create a document where we address all the stakeholders’ comments, acknowledge any change done to the guidelines and provide justification for adopting or not the suggested changes. A final guideline document per country will be created and disseminated. Consequently, these resources will not only reflect the findings of our research, but also build on the knowledge and expertise of key stakeholders and young people.

Through stakeholders’ ongoing engagement in the CM exercise and development of materials in Phase 3, we would hope to build a European network of organisations and academics concerned with addressing antiviolence masculinities, which will share approaches and interventions beyond the timescale of this project.

Ethics and dissemination

Ethical clearance and informed consent.

The study was approved by the Stockholm Regional Ethical Board in Sweden (reference number 2019–02640), the human subjects research committee of Ben Gurion University in Israel (reference number 1735-1), the University College Cork Social Research Ethics Committee in Ireland (reference number 2019-053) and the ethical committee of the University of Alicante in Spain (reference number UA-2019-04-15).

WHO ethical guidelines for conducting research on VAW will be followed. Only participants aged 18–24 years will be invited to participate, which means that they can give autonomous consent. Participation will be voluntary, and the participants will be able to withdraw from the study at any time. Written informed consent from the study participants will be obtained prior to enrolment.

Data protection and privacy

Confidentiality will be protected at all times according to the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (2016/679). The qualitative data collection will be conducted by the researchers in each country who have extensive experience gathering qualitative data. In-depth interviews and FGDs will be conducted in private rooms to avoid outside disturbance and ensure confidentiality. Consent will be obtained before recording the qualitative data. Quantitative data (CM phase) will be collected by means of a questionnaire.

Participants will be informed that, even though researchers are taking all precautionary measures to maintain confidentiality, complete confidentiality and anonymity cannot be guaranteed in FGDs. The researchers will remind the informants to respect the integrity of the other participants and not repeat what is said during the FGD to others. Data will be stored on university-supported secure servers. All databases will be disassociated from the participants’ personal identity data before analysis.

Risk assessment

The likelihood that research participants will experience harm (psychological, social, legal, economic or environmental) is low. We will not ask participants about their own experiences of violence in close relationships, either in the interviews or FGDs, but rather about their perceptions and understandings of VAW based on specific vignettes. However, some may experience discomfort when talking about different forms of VAW or when talking about different forms of masculinities or they might spontaneously share their own experiences with VAW, which may cause distress. If this disclosure happens, and the participants appear distressed, the researcher will ask the participants if they wish to stop the interview. The researcher will also provide the participants with a list of health and support services that may be contacted in the event of distress, should they wish to speak to someone about their experience. Participants will be informed that if they are at all uncomfortable answering any questions, or do not wish to proceed, the interview can be cancelled.

If a participant experiences discomfort during a FGD, the FGD will be stopped, and he/she will be asked if he/she wants to continue or not. Again, the participant will be offered information about appropriate support services if required.

Our dissemination strategy will target several audiences, including the academic community, policy makers, key stakeholder organisations, practitioners, educators and young people. Wherever possible, data will be made available through Open Access. Our study results will be disseminated through peer-reviewed publications, presentations at international conferences, policy briefs, social media and through the project online hub. Data will be available from the main author on request.

As discussed above, we will use a participatory, MM study combining qualitative and quantitative data in order to identify the discourses that young people and stakeholders use to conceptualise masculinities and VAW and actions needed to support and promote anti-VAW masculinities. Based on this knowledge and in cooperation with stakeholders in each country, we will develop guidelines to promote and support anti-VAW masculinities in each setting.

Masculinities are the product of gender norms and attitudes, societal structures and welfare and political systems, which coalesce within nations, but also processes that happen transnationally across borders, including new social movements; information and communications technology has been recognised as a facilitator to such transnational masculinities. Thus, a transnational perspective is vital if differences in the prevalence rates of VAW in Europe and Israel are to be understood and challenged. Adopting a transnational perspective will facilitate an exploration of how these countries’ diverse sociocultural contexts—including laws, policies and welfare systems—shape young people’s understandings of masculinities and VAW within and across national borders.

Studies describing the emergence of anti-VAW masculinities from violence prevention programmes have been conducted in South Africa, 34 and Australia 35 among other countries. These papers have provided key insights into masculinities and VAW prevention. Our current study aims to add to this knowledge by comparing how anti-VAW masculinity discourses differ and overlap across four culturally different high-income countries. In addition, our CM study will provide key data to inform the development of policies to promote and support anti-VAW masculinities in the four countries involved in this research.

• United Nations
• FRA – European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights
• Sergienko R ,
• Shoham-Vardi I
• Sikweyiya Y ,
• Morrell R , et al
• Contreras JM ,
• Heilman B , et al
• Roselli T , et al
• Salazar M ,
• Salazar Torres VM ,
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• Torres MS ,
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• European Commission
• Andersson K
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• Marcos Marcos J ,
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• Krumholz HM ,
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• Colvin C , et al

Contributors MS, ND, CE, MSc and CV-C conceived the study protocol and all authors participated in its design. MS prepared a first draft of this manuscript. All authors made substantial contributions to the manuscript. All authors gave final approval for the version to be published and take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content. All authors agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Funding This work was supported by GENDER NET Plus Co-Fund (reference number 2018-00968).

Disclaimer The funders will have no role in study design, data collection, analyses, publishing or manuscript writing.

Competing interests None declared.

Patient and public involvement Patients and/or the public were involved in the design, or conduct, or reporting, or dissemination plans of this research. Refer to the Methods section for further details.

Patient consent for publication Not required.

Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

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Tangshan and Xuzhou: Fury and questions over China's treatment of women

• Published 24 June 2022

It was a busy Friday night at a barbecue restaurant in the Chinese city of Tangshan. A group of women were having dinner together when one of them was approached by a male diner.

Recoiling from his touch, she said "go away". In return, he clubbed her in the head, throwing her to the ground.

His friends then joined him, using chairs and bottles to hit the women, some of whom were then dragged outside and kicked in the head.

It was just the latest example of violence against women that's outraged the Chinese public - in January, news of a woman found chained in a shack sparked similar distress.

Both cases have triggered unprecedented levels of online criticism as well as rare acts of activism. They've also raised questions, particularly among young women, about misogyny and male power.

"It's profoundly disrupted how Chinese people view their own society and specifically, the gender norms and stereotypes underpinning it," said Pichamon Yeophantong, a China researcher at the University of New South Wales.

Endemic violence

Women being assaulted in public by their partners "is disturbingly common online", says Kerry Allen, the BBC's Chinese media monitoring analyst.

"I see footage almost every day of either covertly filmed domestic violence or attacks that have been picked up via surveillance footage."

A 2013 UN study involving 1,000 men in a county in central China found that more than half admitted to physical or sexual violence against their partner - a similar number also said they would use violence to defend their honour.

The UN report attributed gender-based violence to deeply-rooted gender norms in China - a country where domestic violence was only made a criminal offence in 2016.

In Chinese society, "toughness, sexual prowess… and use of force in some occasions" remain ideals of masculinity, it said.

But observers say there is also a reluctance to intervene in what is still widely seen as a private matter between a couple.

Ms Allen said that when living in the country a decade ago she witnessed several attacks in broad daylight where "groups of bystanders [were] simply watching on".

That's what happened in Tangshan, although the victim didn't know the attacker. It was the same in Xuzhou too, where a woman had been chained by her neck in a hut outside her home.

Her husband had claimed she was locked up because her mental illness made her a threat to others. But a police investigation confirmed suspicion that she had been trafficked as a bride in the 1990s.

The footage only surfaced and went viral after a vlogger came across her while touring the village - the fact that it took so long for her to be discovered deeply shocked people.

"She is a person, not an object. After having eight children over 20 years, she is only to be found today? None of the government departments involved are innocent," one user wrote on social media platform Weibo.

Demands for change

Many Chinese women were surprised with the extent of violence shown in the Tangshan and Xuzhou cases, particularly given China's low crime rates and high levels of surveillance.

"Speaking to the younger generation - university students, in particular - I've heard many of them express genuine shock that such violence against women still exists, if not condoned, in modern Chinese society," Dr Yeophantong said.

With the bubble burst, many are interrogating gender dynamics for the first time, she added.

Calls for social change appear to be most prominent among Chinese millennials who are active on social media and keenly aware of global movements like #MeToo.

Some of the most popular posts on Weibo about the two cases voice concerns about how women are treated in a society that still largely promotes patriarchal Confucian ideas.

"We need to... acknowledge that there are still forces in our environment that support, encourage, and drive men to engage in gender-based violence against women," read one essay.

• The 'punchline queen' who offended Chinese men
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Many have also expressed discontent over how authorities have responded to these cases, accusing those in power of downplaying the role of gender.

In the Tangshan incident, the initial police and media response appeared to focus on the attackers' links to local gangs and their criminal history.

One report said the woman had only been approached for "conversation". But on Weibo many users objected, saying it was sexual harassment.

Outrage over the chained woman also prompted rare acts of public protest.

In separate incidents, two women drove across the country to try to rescue her. Unmasked demonstrators photographed themselves with signs and posted the pictures online. One bookshop set up a display of feminist literature.

Is this a turning point?

"Women are angry now and speaking up. But I'm not optimistic that this will lead to fundamental changes," said Yaqiu Wang, a China researcher with Human Rights Watch.

In the face of immense public pressure, authorities responded to both cases by launching investigations and taskforces.

Amid outrage over the condition of the woman in Xuzhou, they promised a trafficking crackdown by stepping up checks on local marriage licences. After the restaurant attack, they increased night patrols in Tangshan, and dismissed a local police chief. Alleged perpetrators in both cases have been arrested.

But Guo Jing, a domestic violence case worker in China, said it's typical for authorities to treat gender-based crimes as one-off incidents, solved by catching and punishing the accused.

"These incidents are not viewed from the structural point of view; there is no long-term perspective nor institutional solutions," she told BBC Chinese.

In March, some party members at the National People's Congress suggested strengthening laws protecting women, and increasing punishments for human trafficking.

But these have yet to materialise, and the Chinese Communist Party leadership has not signalled any changes.

Meanwhile, censorship has increased.

In the wake of the Tangshan attack, Weibo removed accounts that "incited gender confrontation" . Older threads about the chained woman - which often included discussions about sexism - have also been wiped.

Ms Wang said it's near impossible to sustain grassroots activism given how China has been erasing its civil rights groups in recent years.

Observers are concerned that the crackdown has also hit women's rights activism: vocal feminists have been arrested and high-profile MeToo court battles dismissed .

The recent case involving tennis player Peng Shuai has also prompted fears that sexual assault accusers are being silenced.

"The forces that used to exist that pressured the government to do better on gender issues have been eliminated," Ms Wang said.

"All these bode ill for women's rights in China."

Gender-based violence by men 'shocking': survey

Updated: 2013-05-10 01:45, by he dan (china daily).

Concepts about masculinity can contribute to abusive behavior

An international survey on gender-based violence that interviewed more than 2,000 Chinese found that half of male respondents confessed they have physically or sexually abused women, including their wives or girlfriends.

James Lang, program coordinator of Partners for Prevention, a regional joint program by four United Nations agencies including the UN Population Fund, said "some preliminary findings are shocking".

"Violence is a complex phenomenon. Much of the research has been focused on women, but when we try to come up with solutions to reduce violence, we have to include men. That's the whole motivation behind the study," he said.

Lang made the remarks at a UN symposium on Gender-based Violence and Research on Thursday in Beijing.

The findings are part of a multi-country comparison study that has interviewed more than 10,000 men and 2,000 women between the ages of 18 and 49 from six Asia-Pacific countries - Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Sri Lanka.

The regional survey showed that one in two men reported using physical or sexual violence against an intimate partner, one in four reported having raped a woman and one in 25 admitted to having participated in gang rape.

When asked about why the six countries were selected, Lang said the comparison studies try to reflect geographic and cultural diversity, but the willingness of regional governments for data collection work on the sensitive topic is another reason.

He added that the study will be completed and published in July.

The gender-based violence study in China released on Thursday showed that 52 percent of ever-partnered male respondents have committed an act of intimate partner violence.

The survey interviewed about 1,000 men and 1,100 women in a county in South China, according to Wang Xiangxian, an associate professor of sociology from Tianjin Normal University who participated in the research.

The county was not identified to protect the confidentiality of participating respondents, she said, adding that about 90 percent of the interviewees were married or divorced when the interview was conducted in 2011.

The domestic survey revealed that about one-fifth of ever-partnered male respondents said they had forced their partners to have sex, Wang said.

The study in China also showed that women are more at risk of rape from a partner than a non-partner. Among women who had been raped, three in five had been raped by a partner.

Intimate partnership violence has a serious impact on women's physical, mental and reproductive health, it said. For instance, among women who had been physically abused by their partners, 40 percent had been injured, resulting in their taking leave from work or having to stay in bed.

The domestic study also tried to find out what shaped men's violent behavior, and it found that the respondents' attitude toward masculinity can be a deep-rooted reason.

Nearly all men and women polled agreed that women should be equal with men. More than 90 percent of respondents said they were opposed to men perpetrating violence against their partners.

However, the survey also reflected wide tolerance of men's privileges.

Some 72 percent of men and 61 percent of women polled said they believe men should have a bigger voice than women in major decisions.

About 73 percent of men and 55 percent women respondents agreed that men should be tough.

Half of men and one-fifth of women supported the idea that men can use violence to defend their reputation.

More than half of respondents felt that men need sex more than women.

"The widely accepted norms about masculinity are a major driving force for the prevalence of violence against women," said Wang, the sociologist.

"It's pointless to talk about the abstract idea of gender equality if we don't eliminate the prejudice that is accepted by individuals, communities and even the whole society," she said.

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Trouble in Paradigm: "Gender Transformative" Programming in Violence Prevention

Affiliations.

• 1 University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
• 2 UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
• PMID: 31640536
• DOI: 10.1177/1077801219872551

The World Health Organization encourages a "gender transformative" paradigm for preventing violence against women and girls. Gender transformative interventions engage men and boys to reflect critically on-and then to challenge and change-gender-inequitable attitudes and behaviors. To interpret the mixed findings of research evaluating such programs, we review the "social norms" model that informs the paradigm. We bolster the paradigmatic conceptualization of social norms through insights about how exposure to trauma shapes gendered patterns of victimization and perpetration, about gendered violence from research on homophobic bullying, and about transforming local regimes of gender accountability.

Keywords: gender-based violence; masculinities; prevention; public health; violence against women.

Publication types

• Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
• Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
• Bullying / psychology
• Crime Victims / psychology
• Gender-Based Violence / prevention & control*
• Gender-Based Violence / psychology

Grants and funding

• R24 HD080194/HD/NICHD NIH HHS/United States

Gender-Based Violence (Violence Against Women and Girls)

Photo: Simone D. McCourtie / World Bank

Gender-based violence (GBV) or violence against women and girls (VAWG), is a global pandemic that affects 1 in 3 women in their lifetime.

The numbers are staggering:

• 35% of women worldwide have experienced either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence.
• Globally, 7% of women have been sexually assaulted by someone other than a partner.
• Globally, as many as 38% of murders of women are committed by an intimate partner.
• 200 million women have experienced female genital mutilation/cutting.

This issue is not only devastating for survivors of violence and their families, but also entails significant social and economic costs. In some countries, violence against women is estimated to cost countries up to 3.7% of their GDP – more than double what most governments spend on education.

Failure to address this issue also entails a significant cost for the future.  Numerous studies have shown that children growing up with violence are more likely to become survivors themselves or perpetrators of violence in the future.

One characteristic of gender-based violence is that it knows no social or economic boundaries and affects women and girls of all socio-economic backgrounds: this issue needs to be addressed in both developing and developed countries.

Decreasing violence against women and girls requires a community-based, multi-pronged approach, and sustained engagement with multiple stakeholders. The most effective initiatives address underlying risk factors for violence, including social norms regarding gender roles and the acceptability of violence.

The World Bank is committed to addressing gender-based violence through investment, research and learning, and collaboration with stakeholders around the world.

Since 2003, the World Bank has engaged with countries and partners to support projects and knowledge products aimed at preventing and addressing GBV. The Bank supports over $300 million in development projects aimed at addressing GBV in World Bank Group (WBG)-financed operations, both through standalone projects and through the integration of GBV components in sector-specific projects in areas such as transport, education, social protection, and forced displacement.  Recognizing the significance of the challenge, addressing GBV in operations has been highlighted as a World Bank priority, with key commitments articulated under both IDA 17 and 18, as well as within the World Bank Group Gender Strategy .

The World Bank conducts analytical work —including rigorous impact evaluation—with partners on gender-based violence to generate lessons on effective prevention and response interventions at the community and national levels.

The World Bank regularly  convenes a wide range of development stakeholders  to share knowledge and build evidence on what works to address violence against women and girls.

Over the last few years, the World Bank has ramped up its efforts to address more effectively GBV risks in its operations , including learning from other institutions.

Addressing GBV is a significant, long-term development challenge. Recognizing the scale of the challenge, the World Bank’s operational and analytical work has expanded substantially in recent years.   The Bank’s engagement is building on global partnerships, learning, and best practices to test and advance effective approaches both to prevent GBV—including interventions to address the social norms and behaviors that underpin violence—and to scale up and improve response when violence occurs.  

World Bank-supported initiatives are important steps on a rapidly evolving journey to bring successful interventions to scale, build government and local capacity, and to contribute to the knowledge base of what works and what doesn’t through continuous monitoring and evaluation.

Addressing the complex development challenge of gender-based violence requires significant learning and knowledge sharing through partnerships and long-term programs. The World Bank is committed to working with countries and partners to prevent and address GBV in its projects. 

Knowledge sharing and learning

Violence against Women and Girls: Lessons from South Asia is the first report of its kind to gather all available data and information on GBV in the region. In partnership with research institutions and other development organizations, the World Bank has also compiled a comprehensive review of the global evidence for effective interventions to prevent or reduce violence against women and girls. These lessons are now informing our work in several sectors, and are captured in sector-specific resources in the VAWG Resource Guide: www.vawgresourceguide.org .

The World Bank’s  Global Platform on Addressing GBV in Fragile and Conflict-Affected Settings  facilitated South-South knowledge sharing through workshops and yearly learning tours, building evidence on what works to prevent GBV, and providing quality services to women, men, and child survivors.  The Platform included a $13 million cross-regional and cross-practice initiative, establishing pilot projects in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Nepal, Papua New Guinea, and Georgia, focused on GBV prevention and mitigation, as well as knowledge and learning activities.

The World Bank regularly convenes a wide range of development stakeholders to address violence against women and girls. For example, former WBG President Jim Yong Kim committed to an annual  Development Marketplace  competition, together with the Sexual Violence Research Initiative (SVRI) , to encourage researchers from around the world to build the evidence base of what works to prevent GBV. In April 2019, the World Bank awarded $1.1 million to 11 research teams from nine countries as a result of the fourth annual competition.

Addressing GBV in World Bank Group-financed operations

The World Bank supports both standalone GBV operations, as well as the integration of GBV interventions into development projects across key sectors.

Standalone GBV operations include:

• In August 2018, the World Bank committed $100 million to help prevent GBV in the DRC . The Gender-Based Violence Prevention and Response Project will reach 795,000 direct beneficiaries over the course of four years. The project will provide help to survivors of GBV, and aim to shift social norms by promoting gender equality and behavioral change through strong partnerships with civil society organizations. 
• In the  Great Lakes Emergency Sexual and Gender Based Violence & Women's Health Project , the World Bank approved $107 million in financial grants to Burundi, the DRC, and Rwanda  to provide integrated health and counseling services, legal aid, and economic opportunities to survivors of – or those affected by – sexual and gender-based violence. In DRC alone, 40,000 people, including 29,000 women, have received these services and support.
• The World Bank is also piloting innovative uses of social media to change behaviors . For example, in the South Asia region, the pilot program WEvolve  used social media  to empower young women and men to challenge and break through prevailing norms that underpin gender violence.

Learning from the Uganda Transport Sector Development Project and following the Global GBV Task Force’s recommendations , the World Bank has developed and launched a rigorous approach to addressing GBV risks in infrastructure operations:

• Guided by the GBV Good Practice Note launched in October 2018, the Bank is applying new standards in GBV risk identification, mitigation and response to all new operations in sustainable development and infrastructure sectors.
• These standards are also being integrated into active operations; GBV risk management approaches are being applied to a selection of operations identified high risk in fiscal year (FY) 2019.
• In the East Asia and Pacific region , GBV prevention and response interventions – including a code of conduct on sexual exploitation and abuse – are embedded within the Vanuatu Aviation Investment Project .
• The Liberia Southeastern Corridor Road Asset Management Project , where sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) awareness will be raised, among other strategies, as part of a pilot project to employ women in the use of heavy machinery. 
• The Bolivia Santa Cruz Road Corridor Project uses a three-pronged approach to address potential GBV, including a Code of Conduct for their workers; a Grievance Redress Mechanism (GRM) that includes a specific mandate to address any kinds gender-based violence; and concrete measures to empower women and to bolster their economic resilience by helping them learn new skills, improve the production and commercialization of traditional arts and crafts, and access more investment opportunities.
• The Mozambique Integrated Feeder Road Development Project identified SEA as a substantial risk during project preparation and takes a preemptive approach: a Code of Conduct; support to – and guidance for – the survivors in case any instances of SEA were to occur within the context of the project – establishing a “survivor-centered approach” that creates multiple entry points for anyone experiencing SEA to seek the help they need; and these measures are taken in close coordination with local community organizations, and an international NGO Jhpiego, which has extensive experience working in Mozambique.

Strengthening institutional efforts to address GBV  

In October 2016, the World Bank launched the  Global Gender-Based Violence Task Force  to strengthen the institution’s efforts to prevent and respond to risks of GBV, and particularly sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) that may arise in World Bank-supported projects. It builds on existing work by the World Bank and other actors to tackle violence against women and girls through strengthened approaches to identifying and assessing key risks, and developing key mitigations measures to prevent and respond to sexual exploitation and abuse and other forms of GBV. 

In line with its commitments under IDA 18 , the World Bank developed an Action Plan for Implementation of the Task Force’s recommendations , consolidating key actions across institutional priorities linked to enhancing social risk management, strengthening operational systems to enhance accountability, and building staff and client capacity to address risks of GBV through training and guidance materials.

As part of implementation of the GBV Task Force recommendations, the World Bank has developed a GBV risk assessment tool and rigorous methodology to assess contextual and project-related risks. The tool is used by any project containing civil works.

The World Bank has developed a Good Practice Note (GPN) with recommendations to assist staff in identifying risks of GBV, particularly sexual exploitation and abuse and sexual harassment that can emerge in investment projects with major civil works contracts. Building on World Bank experience and good international industry practices, the note also advises staff on how to best manage such risks. A similar toolkit and resource note for Borrowers is under development, and the Bank is in the process of adapting the GPN for key sectors in human development.

The GPN provides good practice for staff on addressing GBV risks and impacts in the context of the Environmental and Social Framework (ESF) launched on October 1, 2018, including the following ESF standards, as well as the safeguards policies that pre-date the ESF: 

• ESS 1: Assessment and Management of Environmental and Social Risks and Impacts;
• ESS 2: Labor and Working Conditions;
• ESS 4: Community Health and Safety; and
• ESS 10: Stakeholder Engagement and Information Disclosure.

In addition to the Good Practice Note and GBV Risk Assessment Screening Tool, which enable improved GBV risk identification and management, the Bank has made important changes in its operational processes, including the integration of SEA/GBV provisions into its safeguard and procurement requirements as part of evolving Environmental, Social, Health and Safety (ESHS) standards, elaboration of GBV reporting and response measures in the Environmental and Social Incident Reporting Tool, and development of guidance on addressing GBV cases in our grievance redress mechanisms.

In line with recommendations by the Task Force to disseminate lessons learned from past projects, and to sensitize staff on the importance of addressing risks of GBV and SEA, the World Bank has developed of trainings for Bank staff to raise awareness of GBV risks and to familiarize staff with new GBV measures and requirements.  These trainings are further complemented by ongoing learning events and intensive sessions of GBV risk management.

Last Updated: Sep 25, 2019

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Anthony Albanese announces $925 million funding to combat gender-based violence — as it happened

National cabinet has met to combat gender-based violence after weeks of rallies. 

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced programs to help women escaping violence, as well as several measures to combat toxic male extremist views online. 

Take a look back on today's blog.

• 12h ago 12 hours ago Wed 1 May 2024 at 3:35am What about male victims of domestic violence?
• 14h ago 14 hours ago Wed 1 May 2024 at 2:07am Unpacking the government's plan to tackle online male extremist views
• 14h ago 14 hours ago Wed 1 May 2024 at 1:32am Watch: The PM announce new measures to combat domestic violence

Live updates

Family and domestic violence support services:.

By Liana Walker

• The Survivor Hub  
• Full Stop Australia : 1800 385 578
• 1800 Respect National Helpline : 1800 737 732
• DV Connect Women's Line :   1800 811 811
• 13 YARN   13 92 76
• Kids Helpline :   1800 55 1800
• Headspace : 1800 650 890
• Lifeline   (24-hour Crisis Line): 13 11 14

That's all for today

Thanks for joining us following a national cabinet to discuss the government's response to gender-based violence.

We've heard the Prime Minister announce $925 million over the next five years to go towards providing people with financial assistance to flee violent relationships.

He also announced a trial of age verification services online to block children from accessing content such as pornography and legislation to ban the creation and sharing of deepfake pornography.

Later tonight at 5pm (AEST) ABC Radio Melbourne will host a live forum   exploring real solutions to the national crisis of violence against women.

Panel members will include:

• Jacinta Allan, Premier of Victoria
• The Honourable William Alstergren AO, Chief Justice of the Family Court of Australia
• Shane Patton, Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police
• Dr Christine Craik, Survivor of family violence and an accredited family violence social worker

You can listen by tuning into   ABC Radio Melbourne or downloading the ABC listen app.

Until then, you can catch up on today's developments below, or   download the   ABC News app   and   subscribe to our range of news alerts   for the latest news.

Drugs and alcohol's role in family violence overlooked

Why hasn't anyone mentioned alcohol & drugs being at the forefront of DV matters? - Barbara

Thanks for the comment Barbara.   Drugs and alcohol certainly play a role in domestic and family violence.

The Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education (FARE) CEO Caterina Giorgi says this issue has been overlooked at today's National Cabinet with the government making no commitments that address the role alcohol plays in fueling men’s violence against women and children.

"I’m incredibly disappointed that action on alcohol was not included as an outcome of the National Cabinet meeting today," she says.

"We can no longer ignore the role that alcohol plays in increasing the risk and severity of violence against women and children."

According to FARE research between 23 per cent and 65 per cent of police reported family violence incidents involve alcohol.

"States and territories can act on this now. They can update their liquor laws to prioritise keeping women and children safe. They can introduce common sense measures on online sale and delivery," Ms Giorgi says.

"We will continue to call on governments to ensure that women and children who have shared their experience of alcohol as a driver of violence are heard."

What about male victims of domestic violence?

What about men who are subjected to DV. It is not just talked about. - Feargal

We have a few of you asking what is being done for male victims of domestic and family violence.

Here's what political reporter Georgia Roberts has to say:  

The Leaving Violence Program is for victim-survivors, which includes men, but women are disproportionately affected by violence so much so that we don't always have reliable statistics for the number of men affected by domestic violence. According to ABS data from 2021-22, 17% of women and 5.5% of men experienced partner violence. And larger body of evidence suggests that deaths from intimate partners occur at much higher rates to women than men. I refer you to this data from the Australian Government.   However we do know that people in the LGBTQIA+ community and Indigenous women are underrepresented in the reported numbers of people who are affected by violence and even in the recorded homicide numbers that are counted, that group of queer people would definitely include men, transgender and non-binary people. That is not to say men can't be in violent relationships and need to access the payment, it's just that women make up most of the victim-survivors.

DV Commissioner wants to see a 'dramatic commitment' from government

By Wing Kuang

  Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commissioner Micaela Cronin, has told RN Breakfast she wants to see national cabinet walk out with a resolve "that will stay a priority over time."

"One of the things I'm deeply concerned about is we are seeing a generation of young people who are growing up with pornography and violent hate speech against women being thrust at them on the internet.

"I think we need protections in place for that," said Commissioner Cronin.

"I think we also need to be supporting young men about what healthy relationships look like, what healthy masculinity looks like, so I think there's work to be done in [prevention] and education early on."

What combats violence against women? Here’s what a frontline service says

By Annie Guest

Luke Baker is the first man employed by women's health service, Women's Health Grampians, to work with men to reduce violence against women.

"We know that the science tells us that there's a certain [number] of men who only listen to other men when we talk about these topics," Mr Baker told the AM program.

"We are seeking to work with communities to prevent the problem before it occurs."

He is now running a men's initiative to help men in rural communities to understand and call out gender inequality, sexism and prevent violence against women.

The nine-hour program kicked off its first session last week, originally expected to have 10 participants. Instead, it attracted 80 people joining the session.

"Through that education, we talk about the drivers at violence…the recipe almost where violence is more likely to thrive," said Baker.

"So, things like sexist jokes, putting women down, being disparaging, what we might have thought in the past was that was a bit harmless, we know how powerful that is. Men in that cohort are more likely to give themselves permission to be violent against their intimate partner."

The Men's Initiative targets influential community leaders who can spread the word, including sporting and other social clubs, business and government agencies.

And then, at the end of those educative pieces, the men engage in a community activity that would set about trying to alleviate violence in their community.

But already, the future of this new men's program is uncertain, with funding beyond June yet to be confirmed.

Your feedback

NOT ENOUGH, and how can we make sure that the funds got to who needs them when it is so hard to even find support when you are always being watched. - A Survivor of Violence

We've received a lot of comments from the audience this afternoon and a common theme we're seeing is people writing in saying the funding and online harm plan doesn't take it far enough.

The reason abused people don't leave is not ONLY because they can't. It can be the impact of abuse and coercive control that a person needs TIME and information to support their decision making capacity and options available to them. Abused persons should not be expected to be ready to leave when they first contact a service. Abused and entrapped people, women, need services that can PARTNER with them where they are at, LISTEN to them. SUPPORT their agency and decision making and to stop PUSHING them into decisions that they are not ready to make. This money is great, but it continues to place responsibility for safety ON VICTIMS which perpetuates the culture that condones men's violence against women. DO BETTER. LISTEN. - Sarah May

That’s all well and great for DV… but violence against women goes beyond that. Violence against women isn't limited to DV. Ask the female uni students raped in campus accommodation, the women raped while exercising, the women abused at work etc. How about we value, rage and and address the systemic abuse of all work. Then again given the acceptance of gender bias even in healthcare (minimal rebates for essential women’s health testing and treatment) it’s no surprise. - Nicole

As someone who works in the justice system and encounters domestic violence regularly through it, 99.95% of men who commit gendered violence aren't doing it because they've been radicalised by "extremist material" online. The Justice system is weak, sentencing provisions are soft, and the higher courts enforce this status quo. This seems like an announcement to say the government is doing something without doing anything. - J

Government commits to nearly $1bn in funding to support of victim-survivors

By political reporter Georgia Roberts

Following a national cabinet meeting, federal, state and territory governments have vowed to stay on the crisis of violence against women by providing $925.2 million to establish the Leaving Violence program.

The prime minister says national cabinet recognised the issue of violence against women was a crisis.

You can continue reading about the funding   that will   be provided for victim-survivors with the link below.

What is in the Leaving Violence Program?

Also announced today was an investment of $925.2 million over five years to permanently establish the Leaving Violence Program.

The program aims to help those fleeing violence:

• Receive financial support of up to $5000
•   Safety assessments
•   and referrals to support pathways

This comes on top of a previously announced   $2.3 billion in measures to help address violence against women.

On top of this, the government has:

• Expanded eligibility for parenting payment single  
• Legislated ten days paid family and domestic violence leave
• Increased rent assistance  
• Invested in crisis accommodation and affordable housing for women and children escaping violence.

The Leaving Violence Program will be funded in the upcoming May Budget to support the aims of the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022-32.

Unpacking the government's plan to tackle online male extremist views

Let's go back to the plan to tackle online harm.

As the Prime Minister said as part of the announcement today, the government will be working to combat male extremist views online.

In a detailed release from the Prime Minister's office it says this will be a pilot program, funded in the May budget.

So what does that look like?  

• The pilot will identify available age assurance products to protect children from online harm, and test their efficacy, including in relation to privacy and security.
• There will also be new legislation will ban the creation and non-consensual distribution of deepfake pornography.  
• In addition, a new phase of the successful Stop it at the Start campaign will launch in mid-June and run until May next year, while will include a counter-influencing campaign in online spaces where violent and misogynistic content thrives.
• The government will also undertake classification reforms which will examine options to reduce exposure to violent pornography, informed by engagement with experts and best available evidence about harms.
• And finally, the government will also bring forward legislation in early August to outlaw the release of private information online with an intent to cause harm (known as doxxing), and overhaul the Privacy Act to give all Australians, particularly women who are experiencing domestic and family violence,   greater control and transparency over their personal information.

Watch: Communications Minister announces $6.5m to protect kids online

By Caitlin Rawling

Watch: Social Services Minister on what the $925m Leaving Violence program will provide

The prime minister has finished speaking.

He announced the federal government will spend more than $925 million over the next five years to provide people with financial assistance to help them flee violent relationships.

People will be able to access payments worth $5000 to help them escape abusive situations, with the funding to be contained in next fortnight's budget.

He further announced a trial of age verification services online to block children from accessing content such as pornography.

Legislation will also be developed to ban the creation and sharing of deepfake pornography.

PM won't be satisfied until domestic violence is eliminated

A reporter asks if the prime minister is satisfied on the outcome of today's national cabinet.

"Can we be satisfied when a woman is losing her life on average every four days? Of course not. Of course not. "I will tell you when I will be satisfied, I will be satisfied when we eliminate this as an issue, when we're not talking about this an issue, where women are not feeling as though they have to mobilise in rallies. "I will be satisfied when a parent says the same thing to their daughter that they say to their son when they go out at night, not, how are you getting home from the train station, how are you getting home from the bus stop, not stay safe. "I will be satisfied when we have gender equality over all of those issues, that is my objective, a major objective of this government is gender equity. We are progressing on a range of areas. This is a difficult issue, but I don't think any of us should be satisfied until we're not talking about these issues."

How reasonable is it to accept access to content will be reduced?

Communications Minister Michelle Rowland says the classification scheme is "out of date" but she is "confident" it can be adapted.

"It is a cooperative scheme that is between states and territories and it requires the commitment of all of those parties to move this forward and to ensure that the guidelines that determine what material is classified and how, actually goes forward in a constructive and coordinated way," she says.

PM says men benefit from respectful relationships

The prime minister says dysfunctional relationships damage the whole of our society.

"One of the things about this, is that women and children are the victims here, but men as well, benefit from respectful relationships,"he says.

"Dysfunctional relationships just damage the whole of our society.

"This is about lifting us all up, the whole society, and one way that we can do that is to address those intergenerational issues."

We have another question on bail

A reporter asks how difficult would it be to get uniformity across all of the states on electronic monitoring and bail laws?

The prime minister says the premiers and chief ministers have all committed to best practice and to examine what works.

He says they will work in a coordinated way to look at how they can deal with issues like bail laws.

Watch: The PM announce new measures to combat domestic violence

What about bail laws and electronic monitoring.

The prime minister says each of the states and territories in their reports spoke about electronic monitoring along with a range of issues in the justice system.

"That's the work we'll continue," he says.

"There is a police minister's meeting this Friday. The attorneys-general's standing meeting will discuss these issues as well and come back in the next quarter.

"One of the things that was clear as well is that jurisdictions were keen to learn off each other, to learn of best practice. What has worked? Where something has worked, let's replicate it. Where things aren't working, let's change it."

How difficult is it to police content online?

A reporter asks how difficult it will be to monitor the content targeted, given the challenges of taking down images of Wakeley Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel's stabbing.

The prime minister says:

"We will be seeking cooperation wherever we can, but we need to take action and the online players need to understand exactly what the consequences are of a free-for-all online."