Is domestic violence a gender issue? Views from a British city

Domestic violence involves the abuse, whether emotional, physical, sexual and/or economic, of one or more family (or ex-family) members by another family member within the home or wider domestic context. It is typically associated with increasing entrapment, injury, medical complaints, psycho-social problems and (sometimes) unsuccessful help-seeking. Research evidence demonstrates that domestic abuse is prolific, prolonged, impacts physically, emotionally and economically upon women and children in particular, over the long-term including well after they are ‘safe’ from the perpetrator. Furthermore, such abuse is widespread and happens all over the world. The findings reported here are from an observational population survey conducted in one British city to assess awareness of domestic violence. While there appears to be a broadly held and well-informed definition of what actions constitute domestic violence and why it occurs, there are striking differences in perspective concerning public awareness of the frequency of domestic violence and knowledge of its importance as a safety issue indicating that it is still not seen generally as a serious social problem. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.