A RETROSPECTIVE INVESTIGATION OF GENDER INEQUALITY AND FEMALE HOMICIDE VICTIMIZATION

Victoria B. Titterington

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Intimate Partner and Family Violence Crime Patterns and Interventions Homicide, Infanticide, and Child Abuse

Abstract

For the period 1981 to 1993 women represented 21 to 26 percent of homicide victims in the United States annually (Smith and Kuchta 1993 Smith , M. Dwayne and Ellen S. Kuchta . 1993 . “Trends in Violent Crime Against Women, 1973–89.” Social Science Quarterly 74 : 28 – 45 . [CSA] [Google Scholar]). During this same time period sex-specific homicide rates have been among the forms of disaggregation researchers have used to test the utility of traditional correlates of homicide in predicting rates across various population subgroups and units of analysis. Based upon earlier research of the effects of gender inequality upon rates of lethal violence against women, and by applying a feminist theoretical perspective, it is hypothesized that the effect of general social structural characteristics of cities upon women's risk of homicide is mediated by levels of gender inequality. Specifically, this study examines the effects of gender, socioeconomic, legislative, political and extra-legal inequality upon female homicide victimization among 217 U.S. central cities for the period of 1989–1991. Using structural equation modeling results indicate that, among traditional social structural factors, economic deprivation, population size, divorce rate, and the sex ratio all have significant, positive effects on female homicide rates. However, in subsequent models testing the mediating effects of measures of gender inequality on the association between social structural variables and female homicide rates the divorce rate is the only social structural factor that continues to have a significant, positive effect upon homicide rates. Among the four measures of gender inequality, and in support of an ameliorative feminist argument, socioeconomic inequality has a significant, positive influence on rates of female homicide victimizaton. There is also a significant, negative effect of gender legislative inequality upon these rates. That is, the more laws or acts favorable to women, the lower their rates of homicide victimization. Implications of these findings are discussed.

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References

1979Social Change and Crime Rate Trends: A Routine Activity Approach 2010Social Change and Crime Rate Trends: A Routine Activity Approach (1979)1938Social Structure and Anomie 2017Social Structure and Anomie 1976Toward an Anthropology of Women.1983Crime and justice: An annual review of research 1982The Cost of Inequality: Metropolitan Structure and Violent Crime 1997Culture of Honor: The Psychology of Violence in the South.

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2016Theories of femicide and their significance for social research 2019Structural and social determinants of inequities in violence risk: A review of indicators 2011The Relationship Between Gender Equality and Rates of Inter- and Intra-Sexual Lethal Violence: An Exploration of Functional Form 2018High Mate Value Men Become More Accepting of Intimate Partner Abuse When Primed With Gender Equality 2008Female homicidal strangulation in urban South Africa 2018The effect of macrosocial policies on violence against women: a multilevel study in 28 European countries

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