'Home game': domestic abuse and football

Increased reports of domestic violence and abuse (DVA) following football matches have been documented, within both quantitative studies and the media, leading to questions about the policy and practice responses required. However, qualitative research facilitating understanding of the apparent link between football and DVA is lacking. Drawing upon research with key stakeholders across England and Scotland, this paper provides a rare insight into their understanding of the contested and complex relationship between football and DVA, including the role of contributory and confounding factors such as alcohol, match expectations, masculinity, entitlement and permissions. It is argued that while football may provide a potential platform for challenging DVA, focusing on football (or other specific factors or events) as causative risks re-incidentalising DVA and detaching it from feminist frameworks that have established DVA as a sustained behaviour grounded in gendered inequalities. This paper concludes by considering the broader conceptual implications of these findings for future research, policy and practice

Same old story? Children and young people’s continued normalisation of men’s violence against women

Globally, nationally and locally men's violence against women is an endemic social problem and an enduring human rights issue within all societies and cultures. Challenging attitudes that condone violence both at the individual and community level is a key priority in its prevention. This paper brings together findings from two separate studies based on children's and young people's understandings of men's violence against women. Both studies were located in Glasgow, Scotland, and used qualitative methods to explore children's and young people's views of men's violence against women. The two studies, conducted nearly ten years apart, involved children aged 11 and 12 and young people aged 15 to 18. Despite the differences in age and the interval between them, there are remarkable similarities identified within both studies centring around children and young people's normalisation of men's violence against women. This paper presents a discussion of three of the key themes identified from these studies: the construction of men's violence; gender roles and the naturalisation of difference; and the normalisation of men's violence. In both studies the techniques of normalisation were employed by the participants to minimise both the seriousness of the violence and the significance of it to the victims. The findings clearly illustrate the widespread justification of gendered violence by both boys and girls. Thus, while the development and implementation of domestic violence/abuse education programmes need to take into account gender differences, targeting only boys' attitudes fails to acknowledge an important component in reducing domestic violence/abuse: the internalisation of patriarchal norms by girls and women

Young people's attitudes about violence

Men’s violence against women is a global social problem and an enduring human rights issue. Feminist research and activism has maintained that to challenge and prevent men’s violence against women, changing attitudes and behaviour are key. This briefing outlines a project that examined the views of Scottish 11 and 12 year olds about violence

Domestic violence and abuse, coronavirus, and the media narrative

Following lockdowns in countries around the world, reports emerged of a ‘surge’ or ‘spikes’ in the number of domestic violence and abuse cases. It is critical to contextualise this: more men are not starting to be abusive or violent; rather, the patterns of abuse are becoming more frequent. Spiking and surging make us think in terms of more one-off incidents but it is more likely that the pattern of abuse that is already there is increasing in terms of frequency and type because both parties remain together at all times. Amid such a crisis, it is imperative that we continue to see the dynamics of domestic violence and abuse as both a pattern of abusive behaviours and a product of gendered social and cultural norms, rather than a reaction to a specific factor or event, such as COVID-19

Violence Against Women: Effective Interventions and Practices with Perpetrators – A literature Review

First paragraph: This report presents a review of literature on effective interventions and practices to deal with perpetrators of violence against women. The key focus is with those interventions and practices which are aimed at reducing re-offending, rather than primary prevention and or public education work. The review was commissioned by the Scottish Government in order to inform development of Scotland's strategy for preventing the causes and consequences of violence against women

Domestic Abuse and Gender Inequality: An overview of the current debate

Domestic abuse is a global phenomenon which adversely affects individuals who experience it and creates social and financial burdens for the societies in which it occurs. While abuse can be perpetrated by women against male partners and occurs in same sex relationships, domestic abuse is overwhelmingly perpetrated by men against female partners. As a result, the United Nations has identified domestic abuse as a form of gender based violence that is predominantly experienced by women and perpetrated by men (United Nations, 1992). Domestic abuse is both a cause and consequence of gender inequality. This briefing will provide an overview of a gendered analysis of domestic abuse, outline the evidence which supports this and the debate which challenges it

Evaluation of a brief pilot nutrition and exercise intervention for the prevention of weight gain in general practice patients

Objective To pilot-test a brief written prescription recommending lifestyle changes delivered by general practitioners (GPs) to their patients.Design The Active Nutrition Script (ANS) included five nutrition messages and personalised exercise advice for a healthy lifestyle and/or the prevention of weight gain. GPs were asked to administer 10 scripts over 4 weeks to 10 adult patients with a body mass index (BMI) of between 23 and 30 kg m&minus; 2. Information recorded on the script consisted of patients\u27 weight, height, waist circumference, gender and date of birth, type and frequency of physical activity prescribed, and the selected nutrition messages. GPs also recorded reasons for administering the script. Interviews recorded GPs views on using the script.Setting General practices located across greater Melbourne.Subjects and results Nineteen GPs (63% female) provided a median of nine scripts over 4 weeks. Scripts were administered to 145 patients (mean age: 54 &plusmn; 13.2 years, mean BMI: 31.7 &plusmn; 6.3 kg m&minus; 2; 57% female), 52% of whom were classified as obese (BMI &gt;30 kg m&minus; 2). GPs cited &lsquo;weight reduction&rsquo; as a reason for writing the script for 78% of patients. All interviewed GPs (90%, n = 17) indicated that the messages were clear and simple to deliver.Conclusions GPs found the ANS provided clear nutrition messages that were simple to deliver. However, GPs administered the script to obese patients for weight loss rather than to prevent weight gain among the target group. This has important implications for future health promotion interventions designed for general practice.<br /

Individual common variants exert weak effects on the risk for autism spectrum disorders.

While it is apparent that rare variation can play an important role in the genetic architecture of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), the contribution of common variation to the risk of developing ASD is less clear. To produce a more comprehensive picture, we report Stage 2 of the Autism Genome Project genome-wide association study, adding 1301 ASD families and bringing the total to 2705 families analysed (Stages 1 and 2). In addition to evaluating the association of individual single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), we also sought evidence that common variants, en masse, might affect the risk. Despite genotyping over a million SNPs covering the genome, no single SNP shows significant association with ASD or selected phenotypes at a genome-wide level. The SNP that achieves the smallest P-value from secondary analyses is rs1718101. It falls in CNTNAP2, a gene previously implicated in susceptibility for ASD. This SNP also shows modest association with age of word/phrase acquisition in ASD subjects, of interest because features of language development are also associated with other variation in CNTNAP2. In contrast, allele scores derived from the transmission of common alleles to Stage 1 cases significantly predict case status in the independent Stage 2 sample. Despite being significant, the variance explained by these allele scores was small (Vm&lt; 1%). Based on results from individual SNPs and their en masse effect on risk, as inferred from the allele score results, it is reasonable to conclude that common variants affect the risk for ASD but their individual effects are modest