Testing a socioecologic – gender-informed theoretical model for addressing sex-symmetry in partner violence

Much attention has been given to the observation that women and men report similar level of partner aggression. Anderson (2005) argues that such sex-symmetry in partner violence needs to be addressed by rethinking definitions of gender. Further, application of gender-informed approaches will change the hypotheses to be tested and possibly intervention development. In a cross-sectional study of 1,866 randomly selected community college students, we tested the individualist, interactionist, and structuralist approaches to defining gender proposed by Anderson (2005). From the individualist approach, we hypothesized and found that men would have higher rates of using physical aggression against a partner (p=0.007); most aggression for both genders was, however, mutual. Applying the interactionist approach, men and women were hypothesized to use aggression in different contexts. We observed that men were more likely to report last using aggression during sex while women were more likely use aggression during relationship conflict. Lastly when applying the structuralist approach, the consequences of violence were hypothesized to be greater for women than men. We observed that among victims, CTS scores were higher (p<0.0001) for men than women yet women (9.6%) were more likely than men (6.2%) to report being injured by a partner, to see abuse as problem, to disclose abuse and seek help, and to have higher symptoms scores for anxiety, depression and dissociation. These data provide evidence to refute sex symmetry in partner violence. These data can guide intervention development to more fully address the contextual and social meaning of gender in relationship conflict.