Women, domestic violence and child protection

Domestic violence (DV) is an issue of global concern and has become a priority matter in many national and international policies (Devries et al. 2013; Home Office 2016; Council of Australian Governments [COAG] 2009).While it is acknowledged that both men and women can be violent and that DV is not limited to an intimate partner relationship, the national and international research evidence continues to identify DV as a gendered issue that is primarily male-to-female perpetrated (Devries et al. 2013; Garcia-Moreno and Watts 2011). The gendered nature of this problem becomes even more obvious at the controlling and severe end of DV, with women and children being the ones most vulnerable to suffering injuries, living in fear and being killed by a male perpetrator (Campbell et al. 2009; Johnson 2008; Stark 2007). Despite an often vocal men’s rights and gender symmetry movement trying to argue that women are equally as abusive as men (Kimmel 2002), first and second wave feminist advocacy has induced states to respond increasingly to DV as a gendered problem and a matter of public concern (Coker 2001; Sack 2004).