Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Bystander Reaction to Women Fighting
T2 - Developing a Theory of Intervention
AU - Lowe, Robert D.
AU - Levine, Mark
AU - Best, Rachel M.
AU - Heim, Derek
PY - 2012/6/1
Y1 - 2012/6/1
N2 - This article explores accounts of bystanders to female-on-female public violence. Group interviews with participants in the night-time economy are carried out. Whereas men tend to respond to the discussion topic of female-on-female violence with laughter, this laughter reveals ambivalence and discomfort as much as amusement. Men seem to negotiate the tension between the expectation that they should intervene in emergencies and a catalogue of costs that attend intervention. Female bystanders appear to have a different set of concerns. They talk about feelings of shame at the interpersonal and the group level. Women cite the public spectacle, and the opportunity for men to demean or sexualize women, as reasons for intervention. The article concludes with some recommendations about the importance of exploring female violence in its own terms, beginning with a series of identified moral and social dilemmas incurred within possible third-party intervention.
AB - This article explores accounts of bystanders to female-on-female public violence. Group interviews with participants in the night-time economy are carried out. Whereas men tend to respond to the discussion topic of female-on-female violence with laughter, this laughter reveals ambivalence and discomfort as much as amusement. Men seem to negotiate the tension between the expectation that they should intervene in emergencies and a catalogue of costs that attend intervention. Female bystanders appear to have a different set of concerns. They talk about feelings of shame at the interpersonal and the group level. Women cite the public spectacle, and the opportunity for men to demean or sexualize women, as reasons for intervention. The article concludes with some recommendations about the importance of exploring female violence in its own terms, beginning with a series of identified moral and social dilemmas incurred within possible third-party intervention.
KW - bystander intervention
KW - gender
KW - laughter
KW - public violence
KW - shame
U2 - 10.1177/0886260511430393
DO - 10.1177/0886260511430393
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 22258073
AN - SCOPUS:84861384075
VL - 27
SP - 1802
EP - 1826
JO - Journal of Interpersonal Violence
JF - Journal of Interpersonal Violence
SN - 0886-2605
IS - 9
ER -