Assessing the Impact of Gender Inequality on Female Homicide Victimization Across U.S. Cities

Abstract

To expand our understanding of gender inequality and violent crime, this study provides an assessment of the relationship between gender inequality and lethal violence against women. The authors use a cross-sectional design with racially disaggregated census data for 158 large U.S. cities in 1990 to assess the degree to which women's absolute status and their status relative to men affect their risk of homicide victimization. Overall, the findings suggest that although certain measures of women's absolute and relative socioeconomic status are related to female homicide victimization rates, when race-specific measures are used, the effects hold only for White women.During the past three decades, researchers have produced a substantial number of studies examining the link between inequality and homicide (for reviews, see Land, McCall, & Cohen, 1990;Vieraitis, 2000). Although this body of literature has considered the relationships between homicide and income inequality, racial inequality, and to a lesser extent, gender inequality, studies have overlooked the intersection of race, class, and gender. To extend our understanding of homicide and inequality, this study assesses the relationship between gender inequality and female homicide victimization for both White and Black women.The empirical research is extremely limited with regard to gender inequality and female homicide victimization. A review of the literature reveals only seven studies that focus on homicide, none of which examine the impact of race on these relationships. The 35

Female Status and Infant and Child Homicide Victimization in Rural and Urban Counties in the U.S.

“…While there is no doubt a confluence of structural factors that affect homicide, research has shown that the status of females has important implications for a variety of types of homicide [4,36,50,51,54]. Homicide [8] studies employing gender stratification as the explanatory framework are typically concerned with the victimization of women.…”

Revisiting Patriarchy: Its Conceptualization and Operationalization in Criminology

“…There are a few exceptions to this approach in some recent work. These studies have attempted to use multiple indicators of patriarchy (DeWees and Parker 2003;Heimer 2000;Parker and Reckdenwald 2008;Steffensmeier and Haynie 2000;Vieraitis et al 2007;Vieraitis and Williams 2002;Whaley and Messner 2002;Straus 1984, 1990), however, these studies still fall short of a thorough operationalization of patriarchy because again they focus primarily on economic measures. As Vieraitis et al (2007, p. 61) note ''Although all feminist theories argue that macro-level variables such as absolute deprivation and structural inequality are important, there is currently no consensus on the direction these relationships should take.''…”

Measuring Structural Gender Equality in Mexico: A State Level Analysis

“…Most of the published research that deals with aspects of gender inequality tends to focus on a single dimension of gender inequality and employs either a single measure operationalizations of the construct (see review by Bradley and Khor 1993) or a set of variables that tap such social dimensions as educational status, employment, poverty or political participation (Brewer and Smith 1995;DeWees and Parker 2003;Vieraitis and Williams 2002;Young et al 1994). Few attempts have been made to develop a measure for assessing gender inequality in different spheres simultaneously.…”

“…The macrosystem sources of gender inequality directly affect both aggregate rates of violence and an individual woman's risk of becoming the victim of partner violence (Dobash and Dobash 1979;Smith 1990;Straus 1994;Yllo and Straus 1990). It also influences her risk of suffering health problems, especially those related to sexual health including AIDS (Lawson 1999), of experiencing poverty, unemployment and unhealthy employment conditions (Rice 2001), homicides (Baron and Straus 1988;DeWees and Parker 2003;Titterington 2006;Vieraitis and Williams 2002), rape and sexual violence (Austin and Kim 2000;Yodanis 2004), and more.…”