Gender Violence

Gender violence, though longstanding and almost ubiquitous, has become visible as a social issue only recently. It presents a classical anthropological problem in the relation between human universals and cultural diversities in practices and values. There have been extensive debates about how to name gender violence and how to estimate and enumerate its prevalence in both domestic and public locales. Women and girls are overwhelmingly the victims and men the perpetrators, but men and boys are, more rarely, victims and violence also occurs between intimates in samesex and transgender partnerships. Anthropologists have been vitally involved as researchers and activists, documenting, analyzing and proffering recommendations to mitigate gender violence. This has included both detailed ethnographic studies in particular countries and communities and also ethnographies of how gender violence has been approached as part of the vernacularization of the ideals of human rights.