Two decades after the law against gender-based violence that was promoted by the then president of the government, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, a debate that seemed to have been largely overcome is re-opening: does gender-based violence exist? Is domestic violence (legal expression) the same as gender violence? Questions put on the table after the denial of the first question by the ultra-right formation Vox and which the PP, in accordance with the pacts reached in certain institutions, supports, which contributes to expanding the doubt. But the answers are clear. Yes, male violence exists and no, gender violence is not the same as domestic violence.
But what is gender violence? Aggression motivated by “cultural references that lead to the understanding that men can control and dominate women through their impositions and even aggression with the aim of correcting or punishing behavior of the women they consider not suitable for their role, in accordance with the interpretation and application by these men of sexist cultural references”, explains Miguel Lorente, forensic scientist and collaborator of the Observatory of Gender and Domestic Violence of the General Council of the Judiciary.
In fact, the gender perspective is an “indispensable” legal concept, and this is shown by both internal laws and international agreements that Spain has ratified, such as the European Social Charter or the Istanbul Convention, recalls the Women’s Association female judges
And the domestic? Lorente answers: it is the one that takes place within cohabitation relationships as a result of conflicts or problems arising from family dynamics, such as inheritance problems, economic problems, use of shared spaces or properties… It does not have an androcentric cultural construction nor its aim is to dominate or subjugate anyone. This means that any member of the family can act as an aggressor or be a victim of this violence, since the reason is not the roles assigned to the different identities, but the behavior of each person who intervenes in the family conflict.
Gender-based violence is a reality supported by the numerous reports and judgments of the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court and the other courts, as well as, and especially, the Observatory of Gender and Domestic Violence of the CGPJ, which for years has been studying all two types of aggression, with a clear result: yes, there is sexist violence and it is not comparable to domestic violence either in terms of motivations or dimensions. The percentage of murders due to gender violence on the total number of deaths in the sphere of the couple is 94.2% in 2022. And in 2021? In total, 50 women killed by their ex-partners (last detailed report available), that is, one every seven days; and as for the men killed at the hands of their wives there were six, one every two months.
The latest data collected by the INE leave no doubt. In 2022, 33,209 women were victims of gender violence against 8,151 of domestic violence. Of the latter, 3,202 are men and almost 5,000 are women (60.7%). In the latter case, the majority of assaults are from children to parents, 37% (3,208); 26.7% from parents to children (2,316), and 26% from one sibling to another. And 154 attacks on grandparents have been reported. In all types of violence, convicted aggressors receive the penalties according to the law (36,161 men in 2022 in the case of gender violence; 7,022, in domestic violence).
The scale of the two violences is obvious. So much so that even the magistrate of the Supreme Court, Vicente Magro (former PP senator), does not hesitate to describe male violence as “gender terrorism”. Lorente believes that this debate only aims to make invisible a reality in favor of a masculinity that has been reactivated in recent years. “Denying the existence of gender-based violence is done in countries such as Afghanistan, but to do so in the context of the EU and the Council of Europe implies a profound ignorance of international legal developments in matters of gender and rights humans achieved on this side of the world”, points out Gloria Poyatos, president of the Spanish Association of Women Judges.
