This paper explores the ways in which the problem of domestic violence/intimate partner violence has been constructed as a social issue by analyzing the 2010 Domestic Violence Survey of Korea conducted by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family. Th...
This paper explores the ways in which the problem of domestic violence/intimate partner violence has been constructed as a social issue by analyzing the 2010 Domestic Violence Survey of Korea conducted by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family. Through the perspective of gender-integrated theory, this paper criticizes the discourses produced and naturualized by the survey: first, the survey identifies domestic violence/intimate partner violence as a matter of individual's misconduct, second, it conceptualizes domestic violence/intimate parter violence as mutual one despite the fact of the imbalance of initiation, third, the survey individualizes the motives and consequences of domestic violence/intimate partner violence, finally, it decontextualizes discriminated or gender-blind state intervention by problematizing individual law-enforcement officers or agents. In order to address those issues, this paper suggests as follows: first, the survey should clarify its position in the research arena of intimate partner violence by pointing out that the claims of gender symmetry and gender asymmetry are consequences of different goals, objects, and perspectives. second, it should contetxtualize the motives, consequences, and experiences of intimate partner violence, and finally, the survey should investigate the ways in winch patriarchal attitudes and biases of the criminal justice system contribute to producing, supporting, and reinforcing domestic violence and intimate partner violence.