Raquel Guzman

This paper reviews peripheral feminism reflections upon the need to move beyond classic gender violence studies' epistemological assumptions. Gender-based-analysis (GBA) conceptualization represented a considerable advance in recognising patriarchy as a structural system of domination and its relevance in studying processes of violence against women. Nonetheless this approach exhibit limitations as we try to investigate further beyond simple analytical dichotomies so often deployed when discussing gender violence. Consequently we highlight the importance of relating gender to other Intersectional inequality axis such as social class, age, sexual identities different from the heteronormativity, functional diversity, ethnic group/race, or citizenship. An encompassing analytical perspective allows for a multidimensional framework more suitable for the study of such a complex phenomenon as is violence against women. In this manner we are able to visualize and analyse experiences that are usually marginalised and excluded from hegemonic definitions of gender violence.

R E S U M E N | Los marcos feministas han centrado la desigualdad de género como factor explicativo fundamental de la violencia masculina contra las mujeres en la pareja. En este trabajo se analizan las aportaciones que se elaboran desde la investigación social. Los enfoques que se estudian consideran las características personales de víctimas y agresores (enfoque individual), las relaciones de poder en la pareja (enfoque diádico) y los factores estructurales y simbólicos (enfoque macrosocial). Explorando sus respectivas aportaciones, éstas denotan aproximaciones parciales no adecuadas a la complejidad multidimensional del problema. Las principales conclusiones reconocen que, para una mejor comprensión del problema de la violencia masculina contra las mujeres asociada a las desigualdades de género, se requiere un desarrollo de marcos analíticos multinivel e interrelacionales como el interseccional. A B S T R AC T | Feminist frameworks have focused on gender inequality as the fundamental explanatory factor of male violence against women in union. This paper extends the analysis to contributions produced through social research. The approaches studied consider the personal characteristics of victims and aggressors (individual focus), the male-female power relationship within the couple (dyadic focus), and structural and symbolic factors (macro-social focus). An exploration of the respective contributions of these different perspectives shows that they offer only partial, inadequate approaches, given the multidimensional complexity of the problem. The main conclusions recognize that it is necessary to develop multi-level and inter-relational analytical frameworks such as the intersectional paradigm, in order to achieve a better understanding of the connection between gender inequality and male violence against women.