“If He Beats You, It Means He Loves You”? Strategies for Deproblematizing Domestic Violence in the Russian Media

Abstract

Over the past 10 years, there have been furious public debates on domestic violence in Russia. In 2017, beatings against close relatives were decriminalized, and the law on domestic violence was never adopted, although it was repeatedly introduced into the State Duma. The purpose of this article is to analyze the counter-rhetorical strategies used by participants in the discussion who deny the existence or importance of the problem of violence between intimate partners. Based on the analysis of more than 1.4 thousand publications on the problem of domestic violence in nine leading print media in Russia from 2010 to 2020, we identify and describe six deproblematization strategies according to the classification proposed by P. Ibarra and J. Kitsuse. In addition, we add the seventh strategy that does not fall into the classification, which emphasizes material compensation for violence. We analyze the role of the emphasis on patriarchal values in each identified strategy and conclude their possible connection with public opinion on this issue.

Acknowledgements. The publication was prepared by research group “Socio-legal Studies” within the framework of the Academic Fund Program at HSE University in 2021 (grant No. 21-04-029). The authors express their gratitude to Regina Resheteeva for joint work on the first stage of this project.