This mixed-method study aims to elucidate the relevance of gender in women???s intimate partner
violence through an ecologically-informed analysis of individual differences in attachment and
personality and social contexts. Findings suggest that the Conflict Tactics Scales led to inflated
estimates of women???s violence through the misidentification of play as violence and through the
categorization of a range of behaviors, called mock-violence, that fall along a continuum from
playful to short of meaningfully violent. Study findings also support the position that gender
fundamentally shapes the contexts, meanings, and interpretations of women???s aggressive
behaviors and is thus central to any analysis of intimate partner violence. Together, these
findings lend support to arguments for re-visiting fundamental issues of problem definition and
measurement
