How could we limit our study on the effects of sexism in violence against women?

Question

What could be the best problem statement? oure group is planning to do a research on how sexism affects violence against women but our professor told us that we should limit our scope. Help... we thought of being particular to a certain kind of violence (i.e., pornography, domestic crime, rape) but she said it is still too broad..

Answer 1

As in all studies there are always "primary" causes and effects, then secondary and so on down the list.

We know that your subject has many causes, including those that you mention.

I presume that your professor is asking you for the primary cause. ie, what may be considered the "root" cause.

I have no idea if this is her goal, but I personally think that it goes further back in time than all that we are witnessing today.

I say that for this reason. Before a child is old enough to be influenced by anything available in the media, that child is first influenced by the parents relation and actions toward each other.

"Violence toward women" can then be defined, primarily, by the father's violence in the family. From there, it is perpetuated, and even enforced by those things you mention.

Answer 2

It sounds like your professor wants you to be more specific, which usually is helped by having a discrete hypothesis. First, figure out what you think is the problem or exactly what you want to study, then you can figure out exactly how to limit the study to answer the question you have. You can then specifically define sexism, define violence, and study the exact areas of interest (as you mentioned for violence, but also for male sexism (presumably), of a certain age? and leading to a certain problem?). I hope this helps.