Does Intimate Partner Violence Decline as Women’s Empowerment Becomes Normative? Perspectives of Bangladeshi Women

Studies addressing the relationship between women's empowerment and intimate partner violence (IPV) have yielded conflicting findings. Some suggest that women’s economic and social empowerment is associated with an increased risk of intimate partner violence (IPV), arguably because men use often IPV to enforce their dominance and reassert inegalitarian gender norms when patriarchal norms are challenged; other studies suggest the converse. It is important to understand why these findings are contradictory to create a more sound basis for designing both women's empowerment interventions and anti-violence interventions. The aim of this study is to clarify the relationship between women's empowerment and IPV in a setting where gender roles are rapidly changing and IPV rates are high. We examine some of the ways…