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Tag: Gender Based Violence

  • Compliant Women, Constitutive Violence: Rethinking the VAWIP Counterfactual

    Compliant Women, Constitutive Violence: Rethinking the VAWIP Counterfactual

    How has literature broadened our understanding of violence against women in politics? Kuteleva (2026) tracks how research has expanded from physical violence to encompass symbolic harm and everyday phychological abuse.

    Kuteleva (2026) highlights that literatue on violence againsts women in politics (VAWIP) has provided vital insights into how gender drives political exclusion. Foundational research by Krook and Restrepo Sanín (2016; 2020) first framed VAWIP as a type of hate crime and systemic backlash against women involving in political roles. Krook (2022) later built upon this foundation to address symbolic and semiotic damage, broadening the scope beyond physical agression to show representational tactics are used to delegitimize female politicians. Furthermore, an edited collection by Bjarnegård and Zetterberg (2023) pushes the concept even wider, demonstrating that gender-based political violence unfolds across a wide spectrum of contexts along a continuum connecting psychological and physical harm, rather that being restricted to formal election cycles or legislative halls.

    Learn more about this article here:

    Kuteleva, A. (2026). Compliant Women, Constitutive Violence: Rethinking the VAWIP Counterfactual. Politics & Gender, 22(3), 873–878. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1743923X26101020

  • Violence Against Feminist Advocates: Political Violence and Anti-Gender Politics

    Violence Against Feminist Advocates: Political Violence and Anti-Gender Politics

    How does political violence target women’s activism? Reboiro-Río and Rodó-Zárate (2026) examine how violence against women in politics and activist spaces functions as a tool to discipline, silence and push women out of public life.

    The research focused on violence against women in politics (VAWIP) alongside studies on women activist has made vital contributions by defining violence as gender-based issue aimed at women for participating in politics. Through these frameworks, violence serves to punish, silence, or remove women from political and public participation altogether.

    In parallel with these insights, an expanding body of scholarship examines anti-gender politics as an organized, transnational political project, focusing closely on the key actors involved, their surrounding discourses, and their strategic methods.

    Learn more about this article here:

    Reboiro-Río, U., & Rodó-Zárate, M. (2026). Violence Against Feminist Advocates: Political Violence and Anti-Gender Politics. Politics & Gender, 22(3), 859–867. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1743923X26101044

  • The Routledge International Handbook of Gender-Based Violence Research

    The Routledge International Handbook of Gender-Based Violence Research

    Borda-Niño-Wildman (2025) provides a comprehensive handbook to guide scholars, educators, and policymakers through GBV research. The volumne offers practical tools and critical reflections needed across every phase of study, from initial conceptualization and fieldwork through to final dissemination and real-world impact. Drawing on contributions from leading scholars and practitioners, the text examines how researchers formulate, design and carry out projects within shifting knowledge landscapes by focusing on the interconnected epistemological, methodological, and ethical dimensions of gender-based violence inquiry. Taking into consideration global fieldwork experiences, it highlights both the urgent questions investigators face nd the creative strategies they deploy across this complex field.

    The handbook covers a broad spectrum of conceptual, empirical and practical topics. These include applying intersectional lenses to neurodiversity and academic power dynamics, examining gender-based violence within conceptual debates about gender itself, and treating GBV as both an analytical framework and an observable reality. Contributors also evaluate the opprotunities and obstacles of conducting feminist research, the epistemological violence involved in studying abuse against transgender-identified individuals, and GBV within university setting swhere researchers frequently navigate the triple roles of researching, teaching, and providing pastoral support.

    Methodological discussions address feminist research ethics, research designs capable of examining silence, the dilemas of including perpetrators in studies, and the use of digital media to investigate violence across expanding online environments. Furthemore, the volume explores the capacity and limits of quantitative data to uncover historically overlooked forms of abuse, the implications of conductiong cross-national surveys linked to policy and advocacy, an dinnovative arst-based research methods. Finally, the collection addresses intersectional fieldworks, explores advocacy dilemmas within third-sector organizations, and shows how social theory serves as a transformative tool for analysis and practice.

    Learn more about this book here:

    Borda-Niño-Wildman, C. (2025). The Routledge International Handbook of Gender-Based Violence Research (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781032632063

  • 2025 report on gender equality in the EU

    2025 report on gender equality in the EU

    How has the European Commission progressed in protecting women and dismantling gender bias? The European Commission (2025) reviews recent equality milestones, highlighting major legislative breakthroughs alongside widespread violence and persistent stereotypes.

    The year 2024 represented an important turning point for EU gender policy with the adoption of the first-ever Directive on combating violence against women and domestic violence, alonside two Directives strengthening equality bodies. This legislation introduces EU-level definitions for specific crimes (notably cyberviolence) while implementing and reinforcing the EU’s 2023 ratification of the Istanbul Convention. These protections address an urgent reality documented by joint survey from Eurostat, the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights, and the European Institute for Gender Equality: one in three women in the EU has experienced physical or sexual violence in adulthood, one in six has faced sexual violence including rape, and one in five has experienced domestic violence.

    Public attitudes reflect an equally complex landscape. While Eurobarometer surveys show that three-quarters of respondents recognize that gender equality benefits men and broader society, stereotypical views endure. Approximately one-quarter of respondents still consider it unattractive for women to express strong opinions in public, and data reveals growing polarization between young men and young women, with young men more likely to endorse traditional sterotypes. Furthemore, while the EU reached a score of 71 out of 100 on the 2024 Gender Equality Index (an improve,ent of 7.9 points since 2010) the current rate of progeess indicates that achieving full gender equality will take approximately 60 years. In response, the report evaluates measures taken between March 2024 and February 2025 across the core pillars of the Gender Equality Strategy: ending gender-based violence, challenging stereotypes, securing equal participation in the economy, and achieving parity in leadership.

    Learn more about this report here:

    European Commission (Ed.). (2025). 2025 report on gender equality in the EU. Publications Office. https://doi.org/10.2838/5262357

  • Violence against Women and Reactions to Gender Equality in Politics

    Violence against Women and Reactions to Gender Equality in Politics

    What makes violence against women a systemic social practice? Biroli (2018) explains that it functions as a broad pattern where women live with the awareness that they may face harm simply because they are women.

    Citing Young (1990), Biroli notes that women learn this systemic violence exists in the background of daily life, meaning they could experience it at any time merely for belonging to that group. This reality covers direct physical attacks alongside humiliation, harassment, intimidation, and stigmatization. While this violence targets women because of their gender, Biroli highlights Collins (2015) to show that their experiences are also shaped differently across intersecting factors like race, class, sexuality, generation, and nationality.

    Learn more about this article here:

    Biroli, F. (2018). Violence against Women and Reactions to Gender Equality in Politics. Politics & Gender, 14(4), 681–685. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1743923X18000600