What’s Gendered about Gender-Based Violence? An Empirically Grounded Theoretical Exploration from Tanzania
Type
Journal articlePeer reviewed
acceptedVersion

View/ Open
Date
2014-08Author
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Violence is often considered gendered on the basis that it is violence against women. This assumption is evident both in “gender-based violence” interventions in Africa and in the argument that gender is irrelevant if violence is also perpetrated against men. This article examines the relation of partner violence not to biological sex, but to gender as conceptualized in feminist theory. It theorizes the role of gender as an analytical category in dominant social meanings of “wifebeating” in Tanzania by analyzing arguments for and against wife-beating expressed in 27 focus group discussions in the Arumeru and Kigoma-Vijijini districts. The normative ideal of a “good beating” emerges from these data as one that is supported by dominant social norms and cyclically intertwined with “doing gender.” The author shows how the good beating supports, and is in turn supported by, norms that hold people accountable to their sex category. These hegemonic gender norms prescribe the performance of masculinity and femininity, power relations of inequality, and concrete material exploitation of women’s agricultural and domestic labor. The study has implications for policy and practice in interventions against violence, and suggests untapped potential in theoretically informed feminist research for understanding local power relations in the Global South.
Publisher
SAGESubject
Domestic violenceIntimate Partner ViolenceGender ViolenceGender-Based ViolenceDoing GenderFeminist TheoryGender TheoryViolence against womenConflict Tactics SurveyHegemonic masculinityEmphasized femininityGender normsCollections
Copyright 2014 by The Author
Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
-
Paralegal Services and the Fight Against Gender-Based Violence and Other Gendered Injustices in Tanzania, The Case of Women's Legal Aid Centre (WLAC)
Kigodi, Henry Michael (The University of Bergen, 2013-05-30)Gender-based violence (GBV) is a key dimension which has brought attention across gender stakeholders in Tanzania regarding its prevalence. It is a phenomenon which we face every day from household levels to national levels. ...Master thesis -
The Good Beating: Social norms supporting men’s partner violence in Tanzania
Jakobsen, Hilde (The University of Bergen, 2015-05-19)This thesis is a qualitative investigation into the discourses that support wife-beating in Tanzania. Tanzania is recognised as a particularly peaceful country in the region. Nevertheless, one in two Tanzanians say a man ...Doctoral thesis -
Managing the threat of violence in Guatemala: Violence as part of women's everyday lives
Nielsen, Anja Karin (The University of Bergen, 2014-07-30)In this thesis I explore the prevalence of violence against women in Guatemala. Violence is considered a part of everyday life because it has become normalized. By normal" I refer to both the frequency of the act and its ...Master thesis