Citation

Fitzgerald AJ, Barrett BJ, Stevenson R, Cheung CH. Violence Against Women 2019; ePub(ePub): 1077801218824993.

Affiliation

University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/1077801218824993

PMID

30714886

Abstract

This study tests the theoretically informed assumption that intimate partner violence (IPV) and animal abuse so frequently co-occur because animal maltreatment is instrumentalized by abusers to harm human victims. Using data from a survey of abused women in Canadian shelters, we find that threats to harm "pets," emotional animal abuse, and animal neglect are clearly perceived by these survivors as being intentionally perpetrated by their abuser and motivated by a desire to upset and control them; the findings related to physical animal abuse are not as straightforward. Building on these findings, we propose a more nuanced theorizing of the coexistence of animal maltreatment and IPV.

Language: en

Keywords

animal abuse; intimate partner violence; power and control