Covered by legality

A lot has been said lately about family violence, in which women and children are the privileged target and men are not punished.  Beatings, abuse, psychological violence, often more painful than the physical, transform into something common in family relationships.

There is an even more intimate level, in which violence can transform into the only form of communication: sexual.

Many legally constituted couples are based on the model of macho-virile-powerful, woman-submissive-dependant.  In those relationships, rights and obligations are out of balance, the rights belong exclusively to men and women are left in the role of unconditional submission, whose goal is to please the husband.

Machismo is found in the culmination of the sexual partner’s supremacy, which is expressed less clearly and with more limits in other social levels.

Man is the only one capable of showing his sexual desires, and that is where even his image of virile macho is found. Women, on the other hand, are censored in their expressions of desire, having to hide them and respond passively to their husband’s requests.  In this unequal frame, man has the right to satisfy his sexual impulses beyond his partner’s desires.  Man not only uses his physical force, but also economic pressure for achieving what he wants from his partner.

Many sexual relations, even when they are inside the marriage, constitute true rapes.  Women don’t get to choose the moment or the conditions of the sexual relation.  She is exposed not only to uncomfortable relations, but also to abuse and the risks of sexually transmitted diseases, since men are often allowed to have various sexual partners outside the marriage.

Gender violence: social responses to a current problem.

Violent men: the role of men in gender violence.

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