INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE: PERCEPTION AND REPRESENTATION OF VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IN GUANAJUATO. A QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

Intimate partner violence and domestic violence refer to the violation of women’s rights, often provoked by socio-cultural norms based on a patriarchal matrix. In Mexican society, in particular, gender-based violence affects the physical and psychological well-being of Mexican women. Moreover, the social representations of women who suffer violence and the lack of an effective legislative framework often reproduce the legitimation of gender-based violence, enhancing negative stereotypes and prejudices. In this scenario, the voice of the women who suffer violence in intimate relationships is silenced. In particular, in public and academic debates the impact and consequences of violence against women are reported through quantitative data, obscuring the subjective dimension of each story. This contribution reviews empirical literature on violence against women through a fieldwork on intimate partner violence, realized in the region of Guanajuato. The instrument of this analysis is based on a qualitative method, which allows the creation of a dialog, emphasizing the dimension of signification in an introspective way. Subsequently, the research focuses on the analysis of social representations regarding violence against women. In particular, it explores the collective imaginary of police officers who safeguard citizens’ rights in primary interventions. In fact, primary and secondary prevention strategies rely on the knowledge acquired by all professionals who are responsible for preventing and eliminating gender-based violence. Considering that negative stereotypes keep reproducing the image that women who suffer violence “ask for it” and “deserve it”, this contribution aims to analyze the prevalence and incidence of such stereotyped perceptions, reporting on the consequences and implications of these attitudes.