Separationer och mäns våld mot kvinnor

Abstract

The thesis addresses the complex relation between the ending of intimate heterosexual relationships and men’s violence against women. Men’s violence against women can be a reason for women to take the initiative in ending the relationship as well as an obstacle to actually going through with the process of separation. Men’s violence is understood as a meaningful activity used to obtain, reproduce, or generally increase the man’s power and control in an intimate heterosexual relationship. Unlike some psychological understandings of violence, here violence is not understood as a consequence of lack of control, or lack of knowledge of the consequences of violence. Instead I put forward the idea that violence could be understood as rational acts in terms of the advantages they offer to those who use them. Using violence is not without risks for men: there are many potential negative consequences, such as separation or divorce or more uncommonly, interventions or even punishments from the judicial system. However, violence can give men authority to restrict women’s behaviour to that deemed appropriate by the men, and to make women accept an asymmetrical distribution of rights, obligations and work between men and women.