The controversy over gender differences in exposure to domestic violence (DV) seems to be a never-ending story. Researchers on one side of the debate argue that men and women are equally victimized (gender symmetry), while researches on the other side of the debate argue that women are victimized to larger extent, and with greater severity (gender asymmetry). Evidence for gender symmetry is based mainly on quantitative data from a plentitude of surveys measuring gender differences in perpetration and exposure to intimate partner violence. The asymmetry perspective, on the other hand, emphasizes investigation of contextual factors (e.g. the impact and meaning of violence) but have been based on studies that to a lesser extent include both men and women. Hence, there are conceptual and methodological differences between studies that find gender symmetry and those that propose gender asymmetry.

We will present a survey performed to measure the prevalence of exposure to DV among men and women in the municipality of Gävle, Sweden. The presentation will highlight the significance of coercive control, temporal aspects, and impact of violence in measurement and understanding of gender differences in exposure to DV. Results from the survey suggest that women had been more exposed than men to all types of violence measured (psychological, sexual, physical, economical-material, latent violence and negligence), that female exposure were more often repeated, and lead to more severe consequences than did male exposure to DV. We also found that having children with the perpetrator, which was more common among women, was a stronger predictor of negative consequences than any single type of violence. We will also present results concerning children of DV victims and experiences of help seeking and reporting violence.