Marital violence: stating the problems of women victims of oppression under a gender view

Abstract

This study is intended to enlarge the understanding of marital violence. The research investigated what marital violence does mean to women victims of this kind of violence. The results of the qualitative material in this research were achieved through interviews with women in situation of reported violence in the Women Police Station in João Pessoa-PB in 2006, whose speeches were analyzed under the perspective of Fiorin8 The analysis of the speeches showed that marital violence is a manifestation of the power asimmetry present in the relation of the genders; the recognition by women of  men´s power over them evidenced by fear and subordination in the marital relationship where violence occurs and that such control represents a kind of tutelage built and legitimized by the patriarchal and male chauvinist culture which is necessary in the positivist idealism of the dominant ideology to manage the excessive passion which is part of the female nature.