Public Secrets – The Perception of the Domestic Violence Against Women and Hungarian Opinions About It

Up until now most of the Hungarian studies on domestic and intimate (ex-)partner violence against women (IPVAW) failed to formulate research questions on the attitudes in the wider public on violence against women. In this paper our aim is to fill this gap by exploring the Hungarian subdatabase (N=1040) of a Eurobarometer survey conducted in 2010. Although many researchers bring evidence that the Hungarian society shares quite traditional attitudes on gender equality and gender roles, when it comes to IPVAW, Hungarian respondents seem to be ambivalent. 8 out of 10 say that IPVAW is very or fairly widespread and 44 percent consider all forms of violence to be serious (physical, sexual, and psychological violence, restrictions of free move and threat of violence). Personal knowledge of a perpetrator doesn’t influence the attitudes towards IPVAW significantly, while knowing a victim does but only in the case of female respondents: those having a family member, friend or colleague who’s a victim are more likely to oppose IPVAW. We argue that this climate in public opinion was one of the factors behind the recent legal changes around IPV in Hungary.

Released: Replika 85–86, 13–33.