The gendered ecology of violent victimization and the stress process

Abstract

We draw on the stress process model to investigate how local gender dynamics related to patriarchal violence and socioeconomic resources shape the link between violent victimization and youth mental health. Using multilevel longitudinal data on 1,632 youth we tested whether respondents exhibited fewer psychological distress symptoms following violent victimization when they resided in neighborhoods characterized by less subjective or objective gender stratification. We find that neighborhood-level gender disparities in socioeconomic resources modify the detrimental impact of victimization on girls' and boys' internalizing symptoms. We elaborate on these conditional influences and conclude with a discussion of how our findings advance scholarship on the role of gender and space in the stress process.