Associations between Feminine Gender Norms and Cyber Dating Abuse in Female Adults.

Beatriz Villora,Raúl Navarro,Santiago Yubero

doi:10.3390/bs9040035

Beatriz Villora, Raúl Navarro + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/bs9040035

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Abstract

Gender norms and the co-occurrence of perpetration and victimization behaviors have been examined as key factors of female dating violence in offline contexts. However, these relationships have not been analyzed in digital environments. This is why the present study had a twofold objective: (1) exploring the co-occurrence nature of cyber dating abuse by examining to what extent victimization and perpetration overlap; (2) examining the associations between conformity to feminine gender norms and cyber dating abuse among female adults who are perpetrators or victims. The sample study included 1041 female university students (mean age = 20.51) from central Spain. The results indicated that 35.8% of the sample reported being a victim and a perpetrator of cyber dating abuse at the same time. Indeed, the hierarchical regression analyses revealed a close association between perpetration and victimization behaviors in both the direct and control forms of abuse examined. Our analyses did not reveal any significant associations between conformity to female gender norms and perpetration or victimization for any cyber dating abuse form examined. Our results are discussed in the light of previous research and after considering limitations, practical implications and future research directions.

Highlights

Adolescence is a time when youths begin to explore their sexuality and engage in romantic relationships
We found that 35.8% of women indicated being victims/perpetrators of cyber dating abuse as opposed to the 8% who reported being only victims and 13.6% being only perpetrators
The regression analysis indicated a moderate to strong association between perpetration and victimization due to cyber dating abuse. These findings support previous research into perpetration and victimization co-occurring in both offline and online forms of abuse [17,25,60,61], which indicates that this abuse type tends to have an overlapping nature

Summary

Introduction

Adolescence is a time when youths begin to explore their sexuality and engage in romantic relationships. In a national study including 14,956 students in grades 9–12, 68.3% stated having been in a relationship in the last year [1]. More importance is attached to romantic relationships with time when they become more stable [2]. Romantic relationships are a common aspect of healthy development [3]. Young adults aged 20–24 years are at higher dating violence risk, and this period coincides with university life [4]. An international study conducted with university students from 32 nations revealed that approximately one third of the surveyed females and males were victims of their partner’s abuse in the previous 12 months [5]

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