by Charmaine Pereira
In A Feminist Theory of Violence, Françoise Vergès examines several broad questions concerning feminist theorising about violence. She aims “to contribute to the reflection on violence as a structural element of patriarchy and capitalism, rather than specifically male” (4). Vergès proceeds by eschewing an analysis of “patriarchy through the female victim/male perpetrator prism” (4), instead proposing “a critique of dependency on the police and the judicialization of social issues—in other words, of the spontaneous recourse to the criminal justice system to protect so-called ‘vulnerable’ populations” (4). Vergès argues that the analysis of gender and sexual violence cannot be partitioned from an analysis of the neoliberal conditions that produce such violence: “acute inequality, wealth concentrated in the hands of the very few, the ever faster destruction of living conditions, and politics of murder and devastation” (15). To separate the situation of women from a global context where violence is naturalised is to perpetuate a divide that benefits patriarchy and capitalism. In such a scenario, the question becomes one of identifying and punishing “violent men”; of naturalising the actions of the few without dismantling the structures that generate abominable violence (15).
Read the full article below or download here
08_FA2025_Vol6.1-VGP1_Review_Pereira