Violence against women : the first French national survey

• The sexist atmosphere of large cities
• At work: from job competition to abusive customers
• Domestic violence: abuse often accurs at home
• About 50, 000 women aged 20 to 59 are raped each years

Is it possible to put figures on acts of violence, defined as the fact of inflicting physical and psychological abuse on a person? For many people, violence is a daily experience — the result of a relationship based on power or domination, most of the time in the context of the person’s private or personal life. Often, the facts are concealed or denied by the victims themselves. Yet, in order to establish the incidence of such abuse, these violent acts must be told, and in order to be told, they must be first given a name: such a task requires an appropriate methodology.