Intimate Violence and Sexual Violence in Chinese Societies with Jia Xue

WAPPP Fellow Jia Xue, PhD Candidate in Social Welfare at the University of Pennsylvania, presented her work on domestic violence, social media, and mental health in the Chinese context.  

To begin, she described two cases of domestic violence in China: in the first, a Chinese woman, married at 26, was severely beaten by her husband. She called the police at least eight times, but they refused to intervene on the grounds that domestic violence was a “family matter.” The woman ultimately died in 2008 after ten months of marriage because of the abuse. In the other, an American woman married a Chinese man who was a famous English teacher. When her husband began abusing her, she also reported to the police who said that they could not assist her. She decided to post pictures of her injuries on Weibo, often described as China’s Twitter. Within an hour, her post had been retweeted 10,000 times and had received 4,000 comments. With the help of activists on social media, she launched a landmark case against her husband and received compensation for the abuse.

While these two cases differ on many grounds, the use of social media to speak out against abuse caught Jia’s eye. Weibo was established in 2010 and grew quickly, so that by the time the American woman chose to speak out in 2011, there was an established social media community to bring public scrutiny to her case. Social media, according to Jia, has changed the public from consumers of information to producers of information, telling the government and the media what they think should be on the policy agenda.

The growth of social media in China has been astronomical. More than half of all internet users are Chinese, and almost 90% of the Chinese population owns a mobile phone. Weibo is the leading Chinese social network and boasts more than 600 million users.

While many terms are used to describe domestic violence in the United States – including intimate partner violence, violence against women, and gender-based violence – domestic violence is the sole term used in China, and refers specifically to physical harm perpetrated by current family members. Domestic violence in the Chinese context does not include violence by former partners or among same-sex couples. While there is no national representative survey of domestic violence in China, the All-China Women’s Federation estimates that one-third of married women have experienced domestic violence in their lifetime.

Jia pointed out a twenty-year lag between the U.S. and China in terms of domestic violence legislation. The U.S. first passed the Violence Against Women Act in 1994. The Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 raised awareness about the issue of domestic violence, but the first provincial regulation against it was not released until 2000, in Hunan. In 2001, domestic violence was mentioned for the first time in a national-level law. Finally, after many years of advocacy, a national domestic violence law was passed in 2015, to be implemented in March 2016.

Jia’s research is at the intersection of violence and social media, using computational, big-data approaches to examine domestic violence. One of her current projects is to explore (re)tweeting behavior of domestic violence topics on Twitter. Using topic modeling to summarize and categorize tweets, it became clear that organizational Twitter accounts discuss domestic violence in the context of advocacy, while individual Twitter accounts are more likely to discuss high-profile individual cases, like those about sports or movie stars. 

In a separate study, she examined the correlation between use of traditional or contemporary media and prevalence rates of domestic violence. Survey respondents who were more likely to read books experienced fewer incidents of violence, while those who had higher levels of internet use reported more domestic violence. Jia hypothesized that more time spent online reduces communication between couples, which leads to marital tension, though the reverse could be true: in relationships with a higher incidence of violence, individuals may spend more time on the internet to be away from their spouse. The seminar audience also pointed out that there could be a generational effect: older survey respondents may be less likely to use the internet and less likely to categorize certain behaviors as domestic violence. Alternatively, there could be salience bias in this sample: survey respondents who spend more time online and consume more international news may have learned more about the issue of domestic violence and have a different view of the issue than those who consume more traditional media sources.

Jia described one final study on using social media to explore the impact of domestic violence on mental health in China. One limitation of existing studies is that domestic violence is unpredictable; it is difficult to measure mental health before and after an incident of domestic violence. With Weibo, researchers have a corpus of posts from individuals over a long period of time and can isolate messages before and after a given incident to examine the impacts of domestic violence on depression, suicidal ideation, and life satisfaction.  Jia and her colleagues amassed data from 1.6 million users, a total of 5 billion posts. The researchers selected posts based on nine types of domestic violence keywords and then manually screened posts to ensure that the poster was describing a personal incident. Ultimately, 644 posts were identified as real domestic violence cases. The next step was for the researchers to identify whether the post described the poster’s first experience of domestic violence, including if the post clearly stated that this was the first experience (approximately 70% of posts) or that the poster had never experienced domestic violence before (15%). Ultimately, the researchers ended up with 232 unique Weibo posts. Finally, the researchers selected a group of 232 Weibo users with no domestic violence experience and matched them to the existing pool based on gender and location.

For the four weeks prior to and after the first-time incident of domestic violence, the researchers used natural language processing and behavioral features to create a prediction model of users’ levels of depression, suicidal ideation, and life satisfaction.  The two matched groups did not show any significant differences in mental health before the domestic violence incidents, and the non-victim group did not show any significant changes in mental health over the eight-week period.  For Weibo users who experience intimate partner violence, 40% were more depressed after the incident, but there were no significant impacts on suicidal ideation or life satisfaction. Posters who experienced abuse from their parents demonstrated lower life satisfaction after the first-time event. Those who were exposed to domestic violence but were not themselves the victim had a higher rate of suicidal ideation and lower life satisfaction.

There are certain limitations of this study: researchers have to rely on profile information, and there may be a selection bias for posters who are willing to describe their experience on social media. However, this study was able to show short-term mental health impacts after incidents of domestic violence using innovative methods. These research findings may spur additional research or policy interventions for prevention. 

Steps Anyone Can Take to Help Stop Interpersonal Violence (Psychology Today)

Re-posted from Psychology Today, published on March 9, 2012 by Paula J. Caplan, Ph.D., WAPPP Associate

Today's essay is about a disturbing subject, but I write it to suggest some things that everyone can do. Women's History Month is a good time to look at the still painful, complicated problem of what used to be called "wife battering" and is now called the genderless "domestic violence" (DV). Although some people have claimed that there is no sex difference in the perpetrating of domestic violence, women are less likely to initiate such violence and more likely to be injured.

What continues to make DV still more a danger for women than for men is the combination of the average woman's shorter stature, lower body weight, physical strength, and salary than those of the average man (the lower salary making women less financially independent and thus finding it more difficult simply to leave abusers), as well as the fact that women are more likely than men to have primary childcare responsibilities.

DV has been shown to be different from other types of violence, in that the former results in what experts call "unique psychological harm" as well. To be mugged in the park by a stranger is a horrible experience but does not involve either the betrayal of trust when the perpetrator is a family member (never mind, as sometimes, the primary breadwinner for the family) or the excruciating conflicts experienced by the victim about whether, and how, to get out of the relationship, especially but not solely when the couple has children. Many years ago, I wrote The Myth of Women's Masochism partly because I was appalled to hear people assert that battered women who stay with their batterers do so because they enjoy the suffering.

That DV remains so common is troubling, but here are two hopeful ways to help reduce it:

(1) Daniel Manne, formerly a practicing attorney with a J.D. who is also a recent LL.M graduate of Harvard Law School and currently a Fellow in the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard Kennedy School, has studied sex equity and policies about violence against women. His LL.M. thesis revealed the inadequacy of the state's response to violence against women in the United States, and he points out that Congressional testimony regarding the creation of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) included "clear evidence that domestic violence has a profound effect on the women as a general class in America. An assault committed by a male partner in the privacy of a household has consequences far in excess of a comparable mugging. Domestic violence effectively silences abused women, compromising their autonomy and robbing them of control and the promise of safety within their own homes. Having no safe haven, women live in fear—both individually, and in a more diffuse way, throughout the community as a whole."

Before those who do not believe that sexism exists any more cry out their protests, I will say that some women do not have that fear, because some women have, happily, not been touched by DV in their own lives. Sometimes, until it happens to you or someone you know, the reality and the effects of DV just don't seem real.

Manne argues that, "The imminent threat or risk of living in violence itself constitutes a harm and a significant barrier to freedom. For, even when they are not themselves the direct victims of domestic violence, women are socially constructed as an apt locus for abuse. In other words, they are the ones who get beaten—as they are all too well aware. This is not to say that men are never victims; but such violence is too unusual to be systemic, and constitutes an exception to the rule."

In light of this understanding of the problem, reports Manne, the VAWA contained a provision that allowed victims of sex/gender-motivated violence to sue their batterers (or rapists) in federal court for damages. He says, "The logic of the provision was that violence against women was a form of discrimination and, therefore, the victim was entitled to compensation. In order to succeed, however, the victim was required to demonstrate that the act of violence was motivated by an animus towards women. This provision of VAWA was struck down by the Supreme Court in United States v. Morrison (2000)."

Despite this setback, Manne says that domestic violence should be considered a matter of civil rights. He says that, "It is not at all clear that most violence against women is motivated by animus towards women generally," but even if it were, "the policy tools used to combat discrimination are not a good fit in the domestic violence context. A civil suit for damages is the farthest thing from a victim's mind when trying to flee a violent household. If we are going to adopt efficacious policy, we need to recognize domestic violence for what it really is: a civil rights violation. When it comes to the issue of gender equality, no issue can be more important than the foundational concern of bodily integrity. Important as these issues are, it remains a luxury to worry about the second-shift problem or the wage-gap when many women cannot feel safe in their own homes. All civil rights are contingent upon physical security. When one sex faces widespread physical intimidation and control, we have a civil rights problem."

To those who would argue that not every woman is intimidated to the point of deprivation of her civil rights and that some men also are, Manne replies, "The Supreme Court has held that disparate impact [on women in contrast to men] alone is not sufficient to support most civil rights claims, but severe 'adverse impact' can be sufficient. Not every member of a class needs necessarily to feel the impact or bias to support a civil rights claim."

Manne says further that "Domestic violence that is man against women means something different than woman against man in exactly the same way that White on Black crime in the South in the Jim Crow era was different than Black on White crime. Citing Catherine MacKinnon's work, we need to accept that there is an existing hierarchy of social privilege and violence" and that this "can have broader civil rights implications."

If you share Manne's view, one thing you can do is to tell others about this argument, including victims of domestic violence, because helping people understand these matters can go some way toward empowering the victims, whether solely in their own minds and hearts, whether it helps them explain their situations and feelings to others about whom they care, or whether it moves them to seek legal redress.

Manne writes, "Thus my argument is that private acts of violence committed in the most personal of settings have a wide-spread and devastating impact on an entire class of citizens. Every year between 1,500 and 3,000 women are killed by their intimate partners.... Even if you do everything right to protect yourself, he can still get you. Recognizing both the severity and the breath of the problem makes it all the more clear that new policy is required. This new policy needs to be premised on the understanding that the real tragedy of intra-family violence is not the bruises and broken bones, but the broken psyches and violated rights. It is therefore not appropriate to treat the violence simply as a criminal justice matter. The criminal justice system is, by its very nature, reactive. What we need is a pro-active, preventative model for addressing domestic violence. This new model should allow for routine check-ups on families with a history of violence, mandatory counseling for offenders, economic assistance for women fleeing violence, GPS monitoring of high-risk reoffenders, and other simple but important tools to prevent repeat abuse... It is time for America to bring out the big guns to combat a problem of this magnitude: the tools designed to fight civil rights violations."

Another kind of major initiative, which every individual and every group can join, is the recently-created National Partnership to End Interpersonal Violence (http://www.uncg.edu/psy/npeiv/), which is helping to promote a Stop the Abuse! campaign (http://www.uncg.edu/psy/npeiv/summary.pdf ) aimed to end every kind of violence between people. Its organizers hope that, by raising awareness of the seriousness of all kinds of interpersonal violence as, for instance, Mothers Against Drunk Driving transformed the ways that people think about drunk driving and what should be done about it, they will have a major impact on these various forms of abuse.

How Are Women Doing? The World Bank Weighs in on Gender & Development - WAPPP Seminar Series

The Men: Sudhir Shetty, Sector Manager, Poverty Reduction and Economic Management, The World Bank; and Jishnu Das, Senior Economist in the Development Research Group, The World Bank

The Talk: World Development Report: Gender Equality and Development

The Question: Are women better or worst off than they've been in previous decades?

Not all inequalities are created equal.

At least, that's what researchers at the World Bank have concluded with the release of this year's Gender Development Gap report.

Sudhir Shetty and Jishnu Das, two economists who worked on the report, were on hand at WAPPP to present the latest findings to the Women's Leadership Board at WAPPP on how women have progressed around the world in the past few decades.

The results are positive, but reveal that there's still a long way to go.

While some areas such as education have improved dramatically, researchers says, inequality stubbornly persists in areas such as maternal mortality, HIV/AIDS infection, the wage gap, and domestic violence.

The reason, say Shetty and Das, is a complex interaction between markets, households and formal institutions that must all work together in order to ensure women are supported by every aspect of society.

For instance, curbing female mortality necessitates deep political will on the part of the government to reform its institutions. "I have never been to a district hospital in India where a doctor is not drunk after 8 o'clock," says Das. "The institutions are just not working, and these are the problems that effect female mortality."

The researchers say that there are ways to tackle these challenges. To reduce female mortality, for instance, countries must concentrate on improving clean water and sanitation so that infant girls stand a better chance of survival. A look at the historical data in the US and Europe revealed telling data to the team: as access to clean water improved at the turn of the 20th century, so too did the survival of baby girls.

Some challenges like domestic abuse, however, require a far more complex approach. Political will must drive an agenda that prioritizes the well-being of women and their children; economic opportunities such as access to land, better infrastructure, and greater emphasis on child care can all contribute to a shifting climate that empowers women within their households and in society. Buy-in from men is also a critical aspect in reducing domestic violence; as Shetty says: "This report is about gender -- not just women."

*Photo Image Courtesy of World Bank
Effie-Michelle Metallidis is a guest student blogger for the Women and Public Policy Program and Master in Public Policy first-year student at Harvard Kennedy School.