The Gender Safety Gap: Examining the Impact of Victimization History, Perceived Risk, and Personal Control

T. K. Logan, Robert Walker

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

40 Citations (SciVal)

Abstract

Previous research has documented that, in general, women are more concerned about their personal safety and take more safety precautions than men. However, this study looks beyond gender by examining the association of three overall factors including victimization history, perceived risk of future victimization, and personal control with worry about safety, safety responses, and bystander intervention intentions for 270 men and 821 women. There were four main findings from this study including the following: (a) The two most consistently associated factors with worry about safety, safety responses, and bystander intervention intentions were higher perceived risk of violent victimization and safety efficacy; (b) recent victimization, rather than victimization history, played an important role in safety responses particularly for women; (c) different patterns of factors are associated with different safety responses demonstrating the importance of examining a wide variety of safety responses; and (d) the pattern of factors associated with worry about safety and safety responses do differ by gender but also had some important similarities. Implications for future research and prevention as well as safety planning interventions are discussed.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)603-631
Number of pages29
JournalJournal of Interpersonal Violence
Volume36
Issue number1-2
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 2021

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 SAGE Publications.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The authors thank the Department of Behavioral Science at the University of Kentucky for funding this research.

FundersFunder number
University of Kentucky

    Keywords

    • domestic violence
    • fear of crime
    • safety planning
    • sexual assault
    • violence exposure

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Clinical Psychology
    • Applied Psychology

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