Counting woman abuse: a cautionary tale of two surveys

Abstract

This paper describes how the findings of two nationally representative Canadian surveys on woman abuse were taken up by both academics and the media. It puts the surveys in the context of debates about feminist epistemology and measurement. This context does now, however, fully account for the ways in which the findings were mobilized for apparently different purposes. Using a governmentality perspective, the paper illustrates the parallels between the way in which anti‐violence policies and the surveys have constituted the problem of woman abuse in ways that facilitate a particular form of governing gender. The paper argues that the wider shift to neo‐liberal forms of governance must be considered by feminists who count woman abuse in order to avoid contributing to this shift. The paper concludes with ways to undertake survey research on woman abuse.

Keywords:

• violence against women
• survey research
• governmentality

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Amanda Nelund for her research and editorial assistance on this paper. I also owe great thanks to two anonymous reviewers as well as the editors of this special edition, Christina Hughes and Rachel Cohen, for their helpful feedback on an earlier draft.