Non-Traditional Wives With Traditional Husbands: Gender Ideology and Husband-to-Wife Physical Violence in Chinese Society
Published online on March 03, 2016
Abstract
Feminist scholars have argued that husband gender traditionalism is one of the root causes of spousal violence against women. Using couple-level data from Hong Kong (N = 871 couples), this article argues that a second mechanism—couple gender value mismatch—also explains husband-to-wife physical assault. Our findings show that a husband’s gender traditionalism is positively associated with husband-to-wife physical assault only when the husband is coupled with a wife who has non-traditional gender attitudes. Similarly, egalitarian gender attitudes in wives are positively associated with husband-to-wife physical assault only when a non-traditional wife is coupled with a traditional husband.