Violences conjugales, genre et criminalisation: Synthèse des débats Américains

Abstract

The article reviews American literature on domestic or intimate partner violence (IPV). Several major surveys have been conducted in the US by researchers with different theoretical positions (e.g., family violence versus violence against women); the survey findings have elicited much debate. This review of the literature offers a detailed summary of those debates - on gender symmetry, whether violence is bidirectional, how to define IPV, its etiology, legal responses to it - with the aim of helping to construct the research object called "intimate partner violence." The disapproval and condemnation elicited by such violence is also an object of analysis.